I mentioned in a previous post that the Belle Vue pub in High Wycombe has recently opened an art gallery. The second exhibition starts on Tuesday next week, 23rd November and runs until 28th December — open 12-11pm, free entry.
It’s called Tattoo Culture and features the work of photographer Mark Page, who is one of the UK’s most sought after erotic/fetish/alternative photographers. He sent me the photo below, titled Wild Thing, which is a much compressed version of the original artwork taken from the brochure and poster for the exhibition.
I’ll certainly try and pop into the Belle View to have a look — both from the pub/art gallery perspective and also because Kim in the novel will be into body art as well. Mark told me that the photos on display in the pub will be very mild compared with some work in this genre. Further information can be found at his website: http://www.photoswithattitude.net/ (you have to be 18 to enter the site).
Hi Mike…interesting imagery…Iit reminds me very much of my dear friend Uschi from about 15 years ago…by the way I saw the 11k words in a day tweet…who claimed they’d done that ?It must have been automatic writing because not even God Almighty could possibly write that amount of quality new material in one day! But whoever made this claim – good luck to them…
BG
If I say it was the person who is writing a novel partly set in India then you’ll know who it is. Amazingly I’ve just exchanged Tweets again with him and he said he’d not only done 11k words on Friday but had gone further and done 14.5k. I’m not sure if I could even type that much in one day if someone dictated it to me. That’s well over 10% of his novel (he’s deliberately writing about 30% more than he thinks will remain in the final draft after editing). I agree — good luck to him — it will be great to see someone get into print off the course and at that rate he’ll be the first.
My own modest efforts were 2,500 words from about 9am to 3pm on Friday — with an hour or two on Thursday night. Even then, I’m unhappy with the quality and would never show it anyone until I’d worked a lot more on it. Perhaps it’s because I’m still working towards the beginning and the rest might roll.
I’ve been reading J.G.Ballard for the MA course and been admiring his beautiful prose — not so convinced about his dialogue.
ah…I had my suspicions…I’m getting a fair bit done this weekend as you’ll see on my latest blog post . MY ROUTINE SEEMS TO BE DIFFERENT AGAIN – there is no way I can write for an entire day non stop…apart from it being physically tiring I’d get bored and would just churn out meaningless words. As it goes my routine of 4-5 hours on my best writing days split between 11am to 2 pm then 2 hours after 5pm allows 1000 words avg but good words- sometimes I manage more but I dont get hung up about it.It always takes me ages to begin the first para of a new scene and those days may amount to 300 to 500 words in the same time period. And I often snatch an evenning writing if work’s too busy in the daytime ,then do a whole weekend of my routine – which if I stick to it- produces a decent wad of new material each month in preparation for my tutorial with my writing mentor.And I get to have a life too – like going tangoing or to the pictures or dinner with friends in the evennings. I can set up in this routine anywhere in the world I happen to be so long as I am undisturbed and have a desk, paper and pen.Remember shutting oneself off from the world entirely for days on end doesnt necessarily produce the quality product in the end AND its life that informs writing so you have to be out there to experience that too. I also find by leaving off at a point just before Ive done enough keeps the story alive in my mind so when I come to sit to write next time I’m hungry for it.
This is what works for me- and – the same method(apparantly) worked for the likes of Virginia Wolf( though I stumbled upon this method quite by myself) AND feels right for my writing. I guess each to their own.
BG
…ps Not that I’m comparing myself with V.W. of course!
BG
One of the things that Virginia Woolf said was necessary for her as a writer was ‘a room of one’s own’. I guess she meant solitude necessary to concentrate — something I don’t tend to have during the weekends or in the evenings.