A few bits and bobs to link to today:

•For a chance to win a signed copy of Kill-Grief, leave a comment at Farm Lane Books (closing date 12 August).

•After futile-ly resisting for a long time I have joined Twitter. Whether this is a good idea or not, I don’t know, as I always join things like this and then find that I have absolutely nothing interesting to say, but anyway, please follow me so I don’t look like the Billy-no-mates that I really am...

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My head is now feeling less bruised. Thank god these migraines don't occur that frequently anymore and are far less severe than they used to be. A few years ago I'd have been out of comission for days. (This is all down to not eating chocolate or cheese or red wine.)

Following the funeral of the last remaining First World War survivor yesterday (see previous post for the link) I've been musing on being The Last, and also on how much that war influenced my writing. I think it was while studying Owen and Sassoon and the like (under the wonderful Mr Wilson) for GCSE that I first got an actual itch to write, as well as an interest to read more. It was the first time I think I was close to understanding what writing (about real things ie the war, racism in To Kill a Mockingbird etc) could make you feel and understand (things/the world/people) better, as well as understanding better how literature fits into the rest of life. And it's strange also to think that the previous English teacher had all but put me off my favourite subject (he told me I'd amount to nothing, which isn't strictly true). Thank the universe for the brilliant Mr Wilson.

Important lessons. And lessons that have stayed with me. You know, last night, I went back to the poetry collection we used for that part of the GCSE course, and went over some of my old faves, and was surprised at how I've clearly taken (borrowed/been influenced) by their structure. The chattiness and realism and BANG! ending of The Chances is definitely something I strive for in many of my stories.

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I’ve adopted the role of outsider most of my life. You’ll find me circling perimeters, hugging walls at parties (actually, worse – avoiding parties altogether), hovering helicopter-like over conversations, hating small-talk. From these vantage points I get to see the big picture, the overview. Which can be very handy when writing a novel. The downside is that I often miss out on the details.

On a writing workshop, they set us a task: Your character is at the supermarket, filling up her trolley with goods. What’s in there? And oh no, you can’t get away with ‘hair products’ or ‘vegetables’. You must lovingly describe the detail of each – the make, the quantity, any little extras along the way:

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It’s a humbling experience for a writer to discover words written by people in extremis. People without recourse to what we take for granted – pen, paper, food, freedom – who nonetheless are compelled to write, even when the act of doing so is a punishable offence which must be kept hidden at all costs.

Until recently I was in the habit of complaining quietly to myself when the light wasn’t right in my office, or if my favourite brand of notebook wasn’t immediately to hand. ‘How can I write under these conditions?’ was doubtless prompted by an unconscious desire to avoid work on that particular day. Then I discovered a series of diaries written by men and women interned by occupying forces during the Second World War, a period of time when my grandparents and mother were prisoners of the Japanese, suffering captivity for nearly four years.

Finding this writing was a revelation, not least because it demonstrated that the imperative to write is not the reserve of writers but can strike anyone with an urgent sense that they have a story to tell, words which must be heard and should not be forgotten.



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This day is ending wonderfully with the first of three of my flash stories and one poem that are going to be published in Metazen,"an online fic­tion zine that pub­lishes short fic­tion and poetry by var­i­ous authors. Metazen is a fly­trap for metafic­tion, exis­ten­tial­ism and absur­dism. It har­bors all kinds of filth such as neu­rotic char­ac­ters, obscure philoso­phies, love for inan­i­mate objects and quests toward enlightenment". Sounds like my kind of place!

My flash is called Unnaming, here's a small taste:

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I tidied my room this week, 9 bags of clutter, 9 of them to make my room a nicer place to write, to make it lighter, brighter and a haven for creativity. I wrote my other blog to, the one about the world, the one where I make jokes, the one where I be the offensive funny guy. Then I promoted myself, via facebook, adding groups and dropping lines about my blog, the one where I'm the funy offensive guy. Then I moved on, to thinking about podcasting, I got a little bit of work done, but not a lot.

'You're a student Keith, you don't need to worry about 'real work' yet' That's all I hear.

''You're talented, you're good, you know you are, I know you are.'

But I still have ambition don't I? I'm a student, I don't need to worry about these things yet, work, getting paid for writing, the real life. The thing is, you have to start sometime, and why not now? It's tough though, if you're a student, nobody wants to hire you, not for your gain or there's. No one is going to give me experience until I've finished being a student are they? Or are they? I don't know. I'll keep writing though, when I'm not so tired, when my clutter is gone, when I can think of something short. Something that can take a day, maybe 2 to finish. A short radio sketch maybe, but then; who'll take that, from a student.

I did get one man wanting me to read my work on his radio station, or pre-record should I say but I don't have a microfone, not yet anyway. There wasn't any in the clutter, there was ahowever a giant octopus water pistol, a wooden wheelbarrow, a temporary bus stop (that one I kept), a wrestling title belt, 24 pairs of shoes, and text books back from school. Stuff I didn't know existed, old cider cans, and one high heel, what happened in this room? I can't remember, but it looks like it was fun, and I think that's the main part, the moustache that's tattooed along my index shows that something must happen everytime I leave for a night out, or a day trip, something of significance, something to remember; to take photos of and to be cherised. The priceless things, I'm 21, and to you this mark on my finger is a laugh, a conversation starter, to me it's a symbol that life is worth living, and to live it is to wake up with a smile, and to wake up with a smile is to write with out censorship, to write freely, to be the person you need to be when writing, to be yourself.

The problem is that it's been raining for ages, and I don't like geting wet.

Let's not dwell on the heat, which is all-consuming, distracting... oops, there I am dwelling. No, it is just here, it is only heat. Enough.

The niceness of the day is summed up by both a lovely new review on my Amazon UK page and by the astonishing fact that I sent three flash stories and a poem to a lit zine yesterday and they'd like to publish all of them! Well, very nice. Will post the links as they happen.

Third nicety is the discovery that the great and wondrous Margaret Atwood is coming to speak in Bristol, our soon-to-be new hometown, so tickets have been booked for that, how thrilling. Very very few of those sorts of names come through Jerusalem, be they writers, artists, musicians, and there is always a big hoo-ha when they do. I am looking forward to being in a place where these kinds of events happen more than once every few years. Where I might actually participate in something, too. Not with Ms A of course, although I have been invited to the 11th Conference on the Short Story in Toronto next June (can I plan that far in advance??) and she is scheduled to be there too, with some other wonderful names, so, well, there you are.

I haven't done any writing today, but writing-related things. ...

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Do you keep a writing journal? Or are you more a ‘morning pages’ sort of person? For anyone who doesn’t know, morning pages were the brainchild of Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. The idea is that you take time every day – preferably first thing in the morning – to write anything that comes into your mind. You do it in longhand and don’t show anyone what you’ve written. This way you allow your brain to spout any old nonsense it feels like and in the process [the thinking goes] it frees up your creativity.
My mornings are more about wrestling boys into school uniforms and stopping them from killing each other over the Weetos than sitting at my window and writing in my beautiful leather journal [if I even had such a thing]. Plus, I can barely handwrite a shopping list these days. But I like the principle.

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I'm really pleased to be able to interview another writer I admire a great deal here on the blog. This time it's the brilliant Niki Aguirre, author of the equally brilliant 29 Ways to Drown.


So. Niki Aguirre, what is 29 Ways to Drown?

29 Ways is my first collection of stories published in late 2007 by Flipped Eye Publishing. It took me roughly a year and a half to complete. I started writing some of the stories while I was doing my MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck.



What was the first story you had published?

I was seven when I wrote my first book - a stapled mess of construction paper on which I scribbled poems, stories and stick people drawings. I made it for my grandfather who was in hospital. I think it was called something like 'Why God doesn't want you in heaven.' He thought it was the most hilarious thing ever and showed it to all his nurses and visitors. I only wish the book was meant to be funny. I was so traumastised, I didn’t publish anything again until university. My poetry workshop took me seriously and never laughed at my poems. Come to think of it, those guys never laughed at anything.


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