blogging – University & Unicorns

1 September 2023

Believe In Better

For as defeated and melancholy I was feeling yesterday, I just wanted to be kind to myself and allow myself to “ride it out.” Let the storm pass. Hope for a better tomorrow. Because it does happen!

It did happen. Today is better. Still not 100% and it would take the slightest thing of something to topple me over again. There are things that if I dwell on them will bring me down. Jim. The Minds fandom. The state and future of my blog (the Priptona one). How mentally prepared (or otherwise) I am for the recommencement of uni next month. My partner’s mental health (always a VERY big cloud hanging over things, if I am being incredibly open and frank). Finances (or lack thereof).

But…I’ve had a shower today and I’ve washed my hair. I know there are many people that won’t get that. People that don’t understand the kind of effort that can take sometimes. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get very angry with myself. A lot of the time, in fact. I was angry with myself yesterday. I wasn’t comfortable with posting what I posted on my blog yesterday. I sounded like I was just wallowing in self-pity. At the same time and as much as I tried to push myself, I tried being kind. Allow myself the time to hope that the bad would pass.

Some of the feeling also is dictated by having someone else living in my home. A person that makes me feel like a tenant in my own home. I am very mindful of accommodating them and working my day around theirs. They are moving out in a couple of weeks and I am looking forward to being “liberated” and being able to return to doing things in my house when I want to. From when I begin my study day to when I go to the toilet in the middle of the night. All of that! All of that has weighed on my mind for 21 months. Silly little accommodations, you know?

For instance…I’ll settle into bed around 11pm. I’ll listen to The Arches and a couple of podcasts, then be ready to settle to sleep around midnight. My brain and body are ALWAYS insistent that I need one last trip to the loo. But I’ll try not to go. I’ll ignore it. But that invariably means I’ll awake again a couple of hours later with a more urgent need to go, which I’ll also try and ignore. I feel like I am having the most interrupted sleep. These days, once I do get up and go to the loo in the wee hours I find it very hard to get back to sleep.

I’m just looking forward to getting up and going as and when I need to without having to consider someone else. I’m looking forward to a better sleep pattern once again. Maybe it won’t happen? Maybe I’m in a menopausal phase and that’s what’s disrupting my sleep pattern? I feel as though I will be less stressed anyway and that will help me.

My study days will begin earlier too. I will most likely begin my days between 9-9.30am, whereas currently I feel compelled to wait until after 10am (when my lodger’s work day begins). I know that doesn’t sound like much – but when you’re a morning thinker and you have ideas and things pop into your head and you want to get going with your day – thoughts pinging in left, right and centre but you feel like it would be rude to just get up and go and start your day, then yes – it makes a BIG difference.

I tried again with the Too Good To Go app and have a couple of new surprise bags to collect today. My Other Half will collect one (taking advantage of the free “old gits” travel she gets on the bus network) this afternoon and I’ll get the other one early this evening. I was able to secure a collection with the George Street Oaka, which is much more handy and easier to get to. A train to Queen Street, a quarter mile walk up George Street and I’m right there. I can collect and get the next train home. It can all be done within the space of an hour. Hurray! And this time I am prepared. Showered and ready to go in later today.

Finally, I realise that I haven’t even shared much from the time away in Blackpool last week. Although elements of it were stressful, in particular the journey back home to Glasgow, we did have some fun while we were away and really enjoyed aspects of the trip. I’d like to share select photos of the time away.

Thanks for listening. I know it’s not easy to read bad stuff and I am guilty as anyone else in trying to give off this air that I am fine and dandy all the time and life’s a peach every single day but the cold, hard truth is…it isn’t. It gets the better of me. I can get very low and dark and I have spent a long time trying to shield people from that.

I have a love/hate relationship with that “it’s okay not to be okay” phraseology, because although it is inherently true…I myself do NOT feel ‘okay’ with not feeling okay – if you get me?

Having said that – today is better.

*Panoramic views of Blackpool North pier and the tower*

Ziggy’s Cafe Bar in Blackpool. The owner let us in while he was cleaning so we could take photos of the decor. He’s been open for seven years. Some of the memorabilia was donated to him by cafe patrons and Bowie fans.

*Various photos of Blackpool, Fleetwood and sights in between.*

31 August 2023

Some Days

Some days I struggle to overcome it. I start the day with all the best of intentions. I get up at a decent hour and don’t necessarily feel ‘bad’ when the day begins. This morning, for example. I woke up just after 7am and was ready to get out of bed by the time the alarm went off at 7.30am. I felt okay. The weather was forecast to be good. If not sunny all day long then at least dry with no rain due. It is now 3pm and although it has been a little overcast at times it has remained dry.

Last night I booked a collection on the Too Good To Go app for food at Oaka on New City Road. I have been wanting to try them out for a couple of weeks. I got very excited last night when finally I was able to reserve a surprise bag to collect this evening.

This morning I even booked an extra collection. A surprise bag from Starbucks in the Buchanan Galleries.

I had put off taking a shower this morning. I wanted to try and do some writing – I managed about 280 words of writing – potentially for a writing competition. It wasn’t really much. I should be happy I did something! Even if it was a meagre 280 words. It’s two hundred and eighty more words than I have managed to write within the past two weeks. At least when it comes to fictional prose.

As the morning raced away and then lunchtime followed, I wanted to get some reading done as well. I started my continuation of Jean Rhys’s Quartet but I was distracted and only read two pages.

A little earlier, looking up the info of where the Starbucks cafe was located inside the Buchanan Galleries, I noticed that you could cancel a reservation up to two hours before collection. I contemplated it but decided against it. Once I was showered, I’d feel more eager to go in and collect my foodstuffs.

Except I was growing increasingly lacklustre and disinterested in taking a shower. Some days, demotivation is all-consuming. My personal black clouds grew ever larger and darker. I just didn’t want to face that shower. But I couldn’t wander out without one! The thought of my unwashed hair being seen repulsed me. I thought about wearing a hat just to hide it.

I looked again at where the Oaka diner was on New City Road. A section of NCR is right near Cowcaddens subway station. I got momentarily excited at the idea of it being easier to get to than I had anticipated. It was near Chinatown, right? I could look at the Chinese supermarket there. Erm…no. New City Road continued over the other side of the M8 closer to St George’s Cross. This then meant that if I wasn’t going to walk, I’d have to take the train to Queen Street (hence I reserved the Starbucks bag) and catch the subway to St George’s Cross.

This morning, when in better spirits I had even contemplated walking to the diner. I looked at the time. It was 2.30pm. By the time I had showered – if I was to shower there and then…well. Oh, and there was Starbucks first, which if I walked meant I would need to walk further into the city first, then back again to Oaka. No, I don’t want to shower. I can’t be arsed.

I was trying to read. I wanted to write something. I looked at my pictures of Jim on my wall. “You are sssooo beautiful. So very beautiful. Just look at you. I miss you so very much.” I cried. Just stay home. Cancel the orders. Don’t bother having a shower. Then you can read.

Let’s try again tomorrow. It might be better.

22 August 2023

Libraries And Learning

I feel I need to write a little more here. It seems it should be a natural progression that while my Priptona Weird blog is on its downwards trajectory that the University & Unicorns blog should be on the ascent – at least in terms of the frequency of my posts and interactions with said blogs, right?

I’ve certainly been more focused on the aspect of my creative writing and uni study than I have with music and more to the point, Simple Minds music.

*A sign of things to come (a street traversed heading to the university library. It was missing an R though…)*

Certain other struggles abound. I find my mood fluctuating wildly at present. Mostly I feel incredibly insular and I rarely seek the company of others. I have always been pretty comfortable in my own company which makes it very weird that I should find myself permanently craving the attention of one person in particular and I don’t seem to be able to shut this desire off. That I just don’t have enough self-esteem or self-belief to banish that desire and get away from it. I get eternally angry with myself for not being able to let this desire go because I KNOW how unhealthy it is and I know that this person really couldn’t give a flying fig about me….and yet. And yet.

I just needed to air that thing here.

I haven’t been writing any fictional prose over the past 10 days. I’ve entered two writing comps and want to enter a few more before my new uni module starts. I had intentions of writing for much longer entries for a couple of writing comps – ones with entries that required a minimum of 2000 words written but I haven’t started on any of them. I’m not going to pressure myself. The fact that I have actually entered comps is good and I definitely will be entering a few more before uni starts back up.

As well as making sure I am continuing to write I am making sure that I am reading as well.

Last Monday (14 August), I took myself to Possilpark library (my most local branch of Glasgow libraries to my home) with an application form that I had picked up a few days before from the Hillhead branch that I had since filled out – and got myself a library card – AT LAST. Because Covid had struck barely three months after we moved to Glasgow (and also bearing in mind I was in Sydney for a month around Christmas of 2019), we hadn’t had the chance to get signed up to the library when the first lockdown happened. We did get temporary access to the library’s online resources but then the branches were closed for extended periods of time, etc, etc. When restrictions finally lifted and life went slowly back to normal, I was in the middle of study and had other things going on and I just didn’t find the time to get membership to Glasgow libraries sorted. Until now.

*It feels very surreal to have this. Hate my photo. My head is shaped like a bell(end), but hey ho. Lol. I never wanted to win a beauty prize.*

So now, not only am I FINALLY a cardholder of Glasgow libraries and have an ASTONISHING 32 branches across Glasgow at my choosing to visit (with Possilpark, Springburn, Milton, Woodside, Maryhill, the GoMA, The Mitchell and Hillhead branches all within my most immediate proximity for visitation and use) – over the past week I applied to have access to the University of Glasgow library under the UK universities SCONUL scheme. SCONUL access allows students from one particular university to gain access to the libraries of other universities around the country. So, I as an Open University student applied for SCONUL access. With that access granted, I was then able to apply to the University of Glasgow for access to their library – all TWELVE FLOORS of it. I was granted a card, which I collected from the library yesterday. I then spent a few hours investigating the library space. Checking out the various floors, the books on offer, the study spaces and…the views of Glasgow therein. OMG – the views from the upper levels of the library! There is almost a 360* view of the Glasgow skyline from there. And a lot of the study spaces face the window, so…you have that amazing panorama spread out in front of you. Okay, you might have your head buried in books for the most part while you’re studying – but when you need to take a breather, there is Glasgow right out there in front of you.

I began my exploration on Level 9. That’s where the English and English bibliography books were. I had no sense of scale from the floor plan of the library. It seemed as if it was going to not be a very big space with not that many books but OH MY WORD! There are THOUSANDS of books in there. I mean, the majority of books on the shelves are from authors and writers considered to be “in the canon”, with several copies of books of their work. Some of them are very, very old! I used up a good hour just on this floor, scouring the rows and rows of books.

From there I went down to Level 6 – this is where the Russian and East European books were meant to be but I got lost trying to find where they were, despite looking at the floor plan. I just could not find where they were. I decided to try again another time. Or to wait until I can book a guided tour of the library (they do guided tours twice a day at 11am and 2.15pm).

Next I went up to Level 12 as there is a viewing platform up there and I wanted to look at the views of Glasgow. When I got up there though, it seemed as if access was via appointment only which seemed odd – but I think it was the archival section of the library that was only accessible by appointment only and the viewing platform was accessible around the other side – I just didn’t know how to get there. Bugger! I’ll try again another time.

Down to Level 3 next and to the “high demand” area and group study areas – as well as the cafe. The cafe had just closed, so my plan to get myself a coffee and take a breather was scuppered. The “high demand” section is CRAZY! These books are deemed to be in such … high demand … that you can only loan them for 24 hours and some of them for as little as FOUR HOURS! Can you imagine? Being able to borrow a book for only 4 hours?!

Lastly, I decided I’d check out Level 4 – which I thought rather strangely, for a university, has junior fiction and non-fiction sections as well as the music section. Well, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked down one of the music book shelves and there were archival folders stuffed with copies of Sounds magazine dating back from 1981! I nearly died of excitement stumbling upon this pot of gold! I turn the corner to walk down the next row of shelves and there’s only bloody NME and Melody Maker mags archived as well! Neither of them date quite as far back as the Sounds archive but still. I was stunned! I even found a little bit in one of them that seemed very appropriate and timely. Little did I think I’d be stumbling across Jim at the University of Glasgow library…in a manner of speaking.

*The Sounds archive and the man himself in the pages of a copy*

Did I borrow a book? No. I was a little too intimidated by it all yesterday. Overall it was quite the jaw-dropping experience and I will DEFINITELY be frequenting the uni’s library as often as I can.

Before heading to the UofG’s library, I popped into Hillhead library. I had a book to return that I had borrowed from the Possilpark branch that I had just finished reading. I know! I read the book in just TWO sessions! I KNOW! It was only 160 pages long – but yes! Hark at me and my “speedy reading”. Lol

I promised myself I wouldn’t borrow too many books – even though you can borrow up to 12 books at any time with Glasgow libraries, we all know I don’t read that fast! I couldn’t help myself though and came away with 4 books. Two books by Jean Rhys. I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea so much that when I saw two of her novels on the shelf, I had to borrow them. The other two I was taken with their titles initially – for very differing reasons. But then they both reeled me in with their synopses. The photo below shows the titles. How could I walk past a title like The Pheasant Plucker – I mean, come on! Lol

So now I have much reading to do!

*The views of Glasgow from various floors of the university library*

13 August 2023

Winched To Safety (aka Special View)

I haven’t worked on it for several months. It got pushed aside once I started working on The Gudmut for my uni assignment. It had been a potential frontrunner but the The Gudmut just grew legs and ran.

I chose to add the photo of myself at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to this post as it was exactly the beach that I had envisaged all the years I’d been conjuring up a particular image of a beach when listening to the Simple Minds song “Special View”. I always saw young lovers meeting up at a beachfront by a wave-breaker and so Winched To Safety was my attempt to write out a scene involving these two young lovers I saw in my mind’s eye when listening to the song.

So…here goes nothing! As I say, I’ve not worked on it since late April or early May so there’s probably aspects of it I’d change now if I read it before posting it but I wanted to keep it as it was when I left, if for no other reason than to log just how much my writing has changed within the space of a few months. (P.S. You may need to be a Glaswegian or au fait with your Scots vernacular to get the pun intended with the title of the story.)

Winched To Safety

Caught in a reverie she is only vaguely conscious of the sound of the waves lapping at the shore edge. Little gurgling gulps that clap at the already wet and compacted sand. There is a crisp chill to the air. She sits upon the concrete windbreaker that stretches along the beach for hundreds of yards. She told him she’d meet him here at this part of the wall near where it juts out and has a row of bench seats for the sand-weary beachgoers to sit on. Some people that come here just like to walk the promenade and take in the view and never actually walk along the shore or pitch up on the sand. Fewer still take a swim in the ocean. That’s for the gallus and gleakits. Alicia is not one of them. She is among the majority that enjoys the view and the sea air but never sits on the sand. She rarely takes off her shoes and walks along the shoreline. It needs to be particularly warm weather for that to happen and today is not one of those days. Besides, she’s waiting for John and he won’t know where to meet her if she is walking along the shoreline or the promenade.

Taking a second to lift her head from being sunk down and almost buried between her clavicles, she spots him walking towards her. He’s looking out to sea as he strides along. He called her this morning and asked her to meet him at the beach at five o’clock. He had work until four and needed an hour to get from work to here. He sounded tense when he called. It was one of those ‘can we talk?’ calls. Why do people do that? Make a call in which they ask ‘can we talk?’, only to arrange a time for a meeting in which this talk will take place? Why not just say it there and then? Why make such a mystery of it? God, people are bloody weird, Alicia concluded. John was just her kind of weird though. Sort of exotic to her. Not exactly a man’s man. He didnae do the usual guy things. She liked the way he could be both gallus and shoogly at the same time. There was a strange kind of beauty in the way he carried himself. She thought he was stunning and every time she saw him her heart melted away just a little bit mair. It would melt even mair if he smiled his uneven smile at her. It was not his teeth that were crooked. It was the shape of his mouth. The way his lips curled slightly upwards at the sides so that even if his face appeared otherwise expressionless, his mouth always belied a smile of some kind.
As he neared closer Alicia could see he wasn’t smiling but his mouthed always smiled in spite of itself. Her stomach churned into a somersault. Her insides tensed as he reached her. Why did he look so gloomy? He took a seat beside her.

“Hey.”
“What’s up? I’ve been fretting about this ‘can we talk’ all day.”
“Oh, ah didnae mean to make you worry. It’s nothing really. Well, ah hope it’s nothing.”
“Okay. So, what is it?”
“Kenny said he saw you with Dougie the other day. He said you looked ‘cosy’. He reckons you were winching him.”

From her bowed-head position in which she had barely been acknowledging John or her surroundings, she twists her head to face him and stares in furrowed incredulity.

“Whit you aon aboot? With Dougie? Why would I? And not even with Dougie but with anyone for that matter?”
“Ah dunno. That’s whit he told me. He swatched you and Dougie winching.”
“And…you believe him?”
“Naw. That’s why ah’m asking.”
“Well, if you’re asking then you must believe him.”
“So, you deny it?”
“Of course ah deny it! It never happened! Ah mean…mon! It’s DOUGIE. He’s a pal and all and ah like him but DEFINITELY naw like THAT! Why would you even HINK I’d get with him?”
“People talk.”
“Whit ‘people’? Whit is this, John? Is this your way of breaking up with me? ‘It’s not me, it’s you’. Is that it?”
“No. Ah widnae do that. Ah dinnae wanna break up with you. Ah…ah…Ah’m sorry, okay. Ah messed up.”
“Aye. You did. A dunno whit Kenny hinks he saw but he didnae swatch me winching Dougie bloody Maguire. IAh’d never do that to you. Ever. Not to you. Not to any guy ah was with. Jeez-o!”
“Ah’m sorry.”

John takes Alicia’s left hand. She tries to resist at first but then relaxes and allows him to take hold. He wraps it into both of his and gently begins stroking the back of her hand with his left hand. Alicia returns to her sunken-head position, outcasting all external distractions and stimuli. It takes a while for her to simmer down. She begins to calm from the feeling of her hand nestling in John’s and from his stroking. Her racing heart is slowly returning to normal. He really doesn’t know, does he? He has absolutely no idea how much she loves him. She fears he doesn’t care but given what has been said maybe he does? No, that’s just jealousy. That’s not love, surely?

John looks away and out to shore, his inner thoughts a mangle of words swirling around inside his head. Oh, man. I’ve blown it. I really like Alicia. Actually, the hing is, I hink I love her. Naw. I mean I actually DO love her. She’ll think it’s pish if I tell her the noo. Why did I listen to that gleakit? What would Kenny know anyway? He’s a bam.

He looks down, gazing at Alicia’s hand in his, then looks up wanting to see her face. She’s looking down at her lap. Loosening his grip on her hand he motions to get up off the wall.
“Ah’m gonna go.”
Grabbing on to his right hand as he starts to pull away, Alicia pleads, “Wait! Please! Can we take a donder along the promenade? I have something to say. Ah just needed a minute.”
“Sure.”

They walk a little way along the promenade. All the time Alicia has been trying to conjure up the courage to say what she wants to say to him. The breeze has picked up since she arrived and it carries the saltiness of the sea in its strength. As she wets her lips to speak, the saltiness reaches her mouth and brings with it a brief attack of nausea. Her nerves almost get the better of her. Nothing can be gained by remaining silent. Still holding John’s right hand in her left, she slows her pace and leans upon the windbreaker. He stands beside her. She turns to stand in front of him.
“The first time ah keeked you, ah knew. You were so different to any guy I’d met before. The way you can be so… Gallus but shy. The way you are with your pals. The way you smile at strangers, even the jakies and the bams. The way you treat your maw and da. Everything. Your hair, your face, your eyes. I feel boak saying it but I pure love everything about you. The way your ears stick out. The way you laugh. You cackle like a wee hyena. You melt my heart. I adore you. And I would never, EVER kiss someone else while I’m with you. I’d never want to. You’re everything. The whole package. I love you.”

He smiles that proper smile. Broad and brilliant.
“Ah thought I fucked this up. Ah dinnae know why ah paid any notice of Kenny, the shite wee bawbag. Ah wanted to say it after. Ah wanted to tell you that ah love you but ah thought you’d hink it was me just saying it for the hell of it. That you’d be too fumin’ to care or think ah was being real. You’re braw, you are, Alicia. Ah love you n aww.”

They lean into each other. Sweeping strands of hair away with gentle fingers, John looks into Alicia’s eyes. She’s got eyes the colour of Bucky bottles. Bucky gives him the boak, but he loves her eyes. Their lips meet. Now the salt tastes good, Alicia’s inner voice whispers to her.

She remembers the first time they met and the first time they kissed. Now that was a winch! Not an accused winch. Not a winch that didn’t actually happen but a real one. She’s sure that the thing she loves most about John is his lips. Those ones that permanently curl into that fixed smile of his. John ‘luscious lips’ Lachlan. That’s what he’d been from that day on.

“Ah was never going to stay angry with you. Kenny’s a bolt and ah cannae believe that you actually took anything he said for real. I was fumin’, aye. But if you didnae care, why would you be jealous? That’s what I was hinking anyway,” Alicia said once they stopped winching.

“Can I come back to your bit?” he asks her.
“Aye. You might even get a lumber…mabbies.” Now it’s her time to smile.

3 August 2023

An Update On The Uni Downtime

I have to say that I’ve taken a real dive in mood recently. The only thing that has given me any real positivity of late has been my A112 module results for uni.

I have entered my first piece of creative writing prose into a competition but despite what the rules/guideline for entry states, I’ve had no acknowledgement of my entry so I am just slightly concerned that my email has gone into their spam folder and will never be seen. Yay!

I have another piece I’ve been working on for entry into a short story comp the writer’s magazine I’m subscribed to runs. I still need to iron it out. The deadline for that is on the 15th.

Yesterday I started on another one to enter into the Oxford Flash Fiction prize, but I am worried that what I have written for it is waaaaaaay too dark. I don’t want to say any more about it or give any detail on the story as it has to be unpublished work that is entered.

So, yes, despite my low mood I have tried to keep myself focused on my writing and getting some stories developed, etc. It’s hard not to write darkly when you’re down.

I guess the Simple Minds tour news hasn’t helped the situation but I am not admitting that to anyone else but myself (and whoever reads this – definitely not my OH or certain close friends read any of my blog stuff…and that’s okay. It lends a certain freedom to what I feel I can say here, if I need to air things) and I am trying not to dwell on it because there is no changing the situation.

I was meant to go to a gig on Tuesday night but I felt so low and so dark I just couldn’t motivate myself to go out. Actually, I was in a state of panic thinking about going so I decided it was best not to as I was just trying to fight a nervousness that wouldn’t calm down – until I made the decision not to go. I then spent the rest of the night really down on myself for not having the strength to pull myself out of such an awful state of panic.

So I am just trying to keep creative. I try to write every day, even if it isn’t much, or it’s for the blog (the other blog) or some other non-fiction writing rather than fictional prose or short story writing for competitions. Anything that means I am typing away and getting words down on a page, or on the screen.

I’ve just gone over the halfway point of my uni break. I don’t feel like I’ve been as productive as I would have liked but I am at least writing and…I’ve entered a comp! Even if I’m worried that my entry has gone nowhere and I’ve had no confirmation that it was received.

I’ll try my best to keep the old stiff upper lip – pull the old socks up and just…get on with things.

Adios amigos.

6 July 2023

How’s That Summer Break Going?

Hello! It’s been a wee while. I was hoping that I would be posting here a little more than I have during the summer break away from uni.

I guess June was kinda crazy. Busy here and there. A few gigs and one that I couldn’t make due to Glasgow receiving a downpour of biblical proportions. I set out to go and made it as far as Buchanan Street then spent 45 minutes sheltered under a shop frontage before trying to continue on to the venue before finally and swiftly admitting defeat and heading home.

Towards the end of June I started getting my teeth into writing. I’ve taken out a subscription to a writing magazine and an online membership to their website. I’ve compiled a list of writing competitions that I am interested in entering over the next few months and have already been busying myself with researching and writing down ideas and actual fictional content and short stories.

I’m also reading as well. I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and am currently around a quarter of the way through reading Thackery’s Vanity Fair.

I am also still a consumer of podcasts and have recently been enjoying series two of Uncanny, as well as a few documentary style podcasts – one called Shiny Bob about the Edinburgh judicial system. Another titled A Very British Cult, about a life coaching ‘company’ called Lighthouse – which I’m quite bloody scared to mention here to be honest, given how they were portrayed.

Currently I am nearing the end of a podcast on the K-pop sex scandal. It’s called Burning Sun and is a series aired as part of the Intrigue podcast series on BBC Sounds. It’s really a very disturbing listen. The systemic sexual abuse of women in South Korea is absolutely abhorrent. And the fact that these outwardly looking ‘shiny, clean’ male K-pop stars behaved this criminally and disgustingly behind closed doors is beyond alarming. It’s truly frightening what lurks behind some country’s cultures – how we believe we see them and how they outwardly project themselves to be compared to how they truly are. How these kinds of behaviours can somehow be regarded as mere “cultural differences” is shocking.

If you can deal with the darkness of this podcast – for there are very stressing details on sexual assults and incidences of suicide discussed – then I recommend you listen to Burning Sun. You can find it on BBC Sounds – Link to the podcast HERE

I have another couple of weeks to wait before I get the result for my previous module and find out how well (or otherwise!) I did on my final assignment. Of course, I will let you know here (as much as I can) about it – bearing in mind that I will need to be careful just how much I can share about my mark and pass.

I’m also hoping to write here a little bit more often, in between writing work for the writing comps I’d like to enter.

For now, take care.

31 May 2023

And In My Downtime…(Downtime? What downtime?)

I’ve been meaning to catch up with you, but by gawd, I’ve been busy! Jeez-o. I feel like I’ve hardly stopped since uni officially ended on 18 May.

I went to Pollok Park and the Burrell Collection with my partner the following day (Friday, 19 May). Knackered myself by walking nearly 20,000 steps and just over 13.5km that day. I spent the weekend recovering from that. Then on Monday 22 May, I did a massive spring clean of my bedroom, which took me most of the day – stripping my bed, vacuuming the floor and walls, making the bed back up with fresh bed linen, etc, etc. Knackered myself again.

On Tuesday (Tuesday week) in the evening I went to the Mitchell Library to attend a creative writing workshop that was being run in partnership with the University of Strathclyde and conducted by one of their CW lecturers. It was titled ‘What You Need to Know about Point of View’. I thought it would be beneficial to me in the hope it would provide me with clear definitions of how point-of-view within a narrative works. It was really good and I am SO glad I went. Even more so for the fact that I didn’t pre-book as I was unsure whether to go or not or whether I should go to one of the other CW workshops that was happening later in the week. I read in the Aye Write brochure that you could buy a ticket from the Mitchell Library on the day, so I decided to just turn up and buy a ticket then. What will be, will be kind of thing. Long story short, they couldn’t work out how to issue me with a ticket without a lot of faffing about, so they decided that because they hadn’t made the process very straight forward at all, to let me attend the workshop for free. Yes! Part of my ‘should I, shouldn’t I?’ dithering was about whether I could afford to go or not, so I was quite pleased to end up being allowed to attend for free. And it was really very good and cleared up some things about point-of-view that just weren’t sticking in my brain.

On Wednesday, a voluntary work colleague of my partner’s gave us tickets to see him perform as an extra in the Theatre Royal production of An Inspector Calls. It was a great show and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Thursday I did some writing and caught up with laundry. Friday it was the Sparks gig at the Armadillo. Sunday I caught up with a friend that was on holiday in Scotland from the U.S. We met up at the Barras market and wandered around there for a while. Visited the Blitzkrieg Shop, Glickman’s and then had lunch at Mono before perusing Missing Records. It was a full day and I had walked another 10km.

Monday, I went to see The Lemon Twigs at SWG3. Then yesterday I went and got my haircut. So, today feels like PROPERLY the first day I’ve had to just take a chill pill and rest up a bit – and do a post here.

Even just going over what I’ve been doing for the past (almost) two weeks is exhausting me! Lol. Lots of sight-seeing, writing, theatre, gigs – LOADS of walking and some dancing too. It has felt absolutely non-stop. I’m giving myself a quiet one today though.

The weather has been AMAZING! So warm and dry. Yesterday it was 25 degrees in Glasgow! It’s not quite as warm and sunny today but it’s still into the 20s and ahm still roastin’!

I’ll probably get out and go for a wander tomorrow, just so the old bones and legs don’t clam up on me completely. I don’t have anything pre-planned until Hamish Hawk on 9 June (then Ian Moss the next night) but I want to keep active and make sure I do some things and make good use of the fabulous weather. But today I definitely need to allow myself to just chill and relax.

This has been the main reason for the radio silence since the break-up of uni is just…I’ve been as busy since the end of uni as I am during it! I mean, it’s great. I’m glad I have so much to do. I’m looking into being able to do some other things while on summer break. I’ve been looking into taking a trip on the Waverley ‘doon the watter’ sometime in the summer. One trip takes you all the way out for a circuit around Ailsa Craig which would be AMAZING! I’d love to do that! I’ve spoken to my partner about it, but the decision is hers. We’ll see. It won’t be until August but we’ll need to book early to secure a place.

We’ll have another night away in Newcastle in around five weeks time so that’ll be fun. Other than the odd gig here and there, my calendar is now pretty free. I’ll still keep creating and writing during the summer, that’s for sure.

Anything of worth that I write, I’ll share here. I just wanted to check-in for now and show off my new locks. I tried a new salon yesterday. They’re just five minutes away around the corner but I had been scared to try them until now. The lady who cut my hair did a grand job and I’ve already booked to have a trim in the second week of July.

One thing I’d like to do within the next week is go to the Kelvingrove and see the Mary Quant exhibition. Possibly over the weekend. If not then early next week. We’ll see…

P.S. You can read gig reviews at the Priptona Weird blog.

18 May 2023

It’s A Wrap!

My second module of study for my Diploma of Higher Education in English is complete. I handed in my final assignment for this academic year this morning and I am now on a break from study until October.

What I do from now, I have no concrete ideas on but I do know that I will continue to write and make plenty of time for myself to remain focused and creative during these months away from study.

This blog is the perfect place for me to share some of my writing endeavours, so expect the content to pick up here over the next few months while I have the downtime to pursue my own writing efforts. I look forward to sharing some of my writing efforts with you.

But for the next week or so, I will be socialising, gigging and enjoying a bit of downtime.

29 March 2023

Write Like A Writer?

Two more assignments to go before year’s out.

Do I want to be a writer? Do I really feel as though I can BE a writer? Will I ever feel comfortable with the idea of calling myself a writer?

I feel so much uncertainty with where I should go with my studies. Today I have been looking at the next module. We’ll move on to Stage 2 with the next module and that’s when the more focused point of study begins. I love writing! I enjoy it so much. I find it so rewarding. Before starting this module I had done very little fictional writing. I strongly felt it was not something that I would be very good at. I accepted my weaknesses and felt my strength lay in life-writing – that is, autobiographical and biographical writing. These past several weeks have opened up a new world to me. One that I felt was out-of-bounds for me. I convinced myself I would never be good enough to become proficient at fictional writing (I avoided using the term “to master” because I doubt I will ever “master” it). I’m still not sure I will ever do so.

I keep trying to silence the inner voices. At the very least I am trying to talk back to them and tell them they’re wrong. Those inner voices that keep saying to me, “you can’t.”

The biggest stumbling block I had was never knowing how to start writing a piece of fiction. I was daunted by the blank page. Since learning how to break the blank page curse, I find that lots of ideas come to my mind. I have even found myself dreaming of stories. I know they are dreams of stories because I’m not even in the dream. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced dreams that I have never actually been a part of. If I have then I never really thought about it in this way and never thought of it in terms that I am dreaming a story and I should do something about it or with it.

A few nights ago I dreamed about a female protagonist called Jessie Orange. Yes… she had a name! Completely from nowhere because I don’t know ANYONE called Jessie Orange. Jessie is Northern Irish and she dislikes her surname because of the connotations it has. She’s an activist and a protestor – but she protests for peace and a united Ireland – but she’s not Catholic, she’s Protestant.

I woke up with such vivid visions and ideas for Jessie and I immediately wanted to go to work and do something with her story. But…I haven’t. Other than now giving the synopsis of Jessie’s story, I’ve not written a single thing about her or her story. I think Jessie was an amalgam of watching the play Cyprus Avenue at the Tron Theatre a couple of weeks back and then seeing Elaine Malcolmson at McChuills on Sunday afternoon. Exposure to Northern Irish people and themes fuelled my imagination.

I’m still very ratty when it comes to capturing those kinds of ideas and doing something proactive with them. My enthusiasm is building into having several writing projects on the go at one time. This idea scares the bejaysus out of me at the same time.

I am loving the research that I am doing writing the prose for my EMA (End of Module Assessment). I’m worried that I am enjoying the research itself more than developing the story from what I’m learning through my research. I don’t really want to discuss what I am researching in case discussing it would be deemed too revealing about my piece of prose. The piece is history-based but entirely fictional. For the assessment we HAVE to write a fictional work. I am conscious of it needing to have verisimilitude – an authenticity to it. It needs to be believable and tangible. The other aspect I am worried about is that my piece will run away with me. The prose can be no longer than 2000 words and I’m worried that I have set myself a story that will be very hard to contain or work effectively within the constraints of 2000 words. There’s a part of me that wants to be selfish and start something fresh so this piece can be given the wings to soar and allow me to expand it and have the potential to make it something of a more considerable length.

My days alternate between feeling brimmed with enthusiasm and creativity to feeling as if I am going down the wrong path entirely and that it really is just academia in general that gives me a kick. It’s learning more broadly that inspires me and perhaps I shouldn’t tie myself down to a specialist subject?

How “well read” writers need to be makes me apprehensive too. I enjoy reading. Of course I do! But I’m not a book worm. I’m not as avid a reader as I should be. I do wonder whether I should stick to English Literature to begin with and then move on to CW? I also love etymology and linguistics – the concept of words, how they came to be, how we use them, their lineage, etc. I can study this as well. But then I look at the Creative Writing module at Stage 2 and there are things I am keen to learn about (like life-writing) but I can see we’ll also be looking at poetry in greater detail and that puts the fear of god in me. Writing poetry I like, reading poetry is what I find scary. I know! I love song lyrics. It’s ridiculous of me to say that I’m scared of reading poetry. It’s the complex stuff that scares me. Clever syntax and blank verse, etc. Pam Ayers? Great! William Blake? HELP!

I’m just in a very pondering mood today and wanted to jot some things down.

I love the story I am working on for my EMA. I’m a little concerned I don’t have an exact end for it, yet. It’s very early days and the EMA isn’t due until 18 May. Before that there is another TMA to hand in which is due on 6 April – just over a week away. It’s worth the lowest overall percentage of the module mark and is just 800 words. It’s a reflective task and study plan mapping out how we are working on our EMA. I’m trying not to get too hung up on that. I’ve made a tentative start and will start pulling it into focus over the weekend and into early next week.

Lastly, my grammar worries me greatly. I am very conscious of my weak points and I am being particularly mindful of my sentences at the moment. I think about every single word I write and worry whether I am using all my words in the right context. I am 52 years old and I still feel like a 14 year old girl. I still get a basic sentence wrong all the time. I keep trying to understand and work out where I am going wrong and rectify it but a lot of the time it feels like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. That’s the final voice in my head. The one that keeps refuting all the examples of “you’re never too old.” That voice keeps saying “Yes you are! You’re far too old already. Why are you even bothering?” Trying to suppress that voice is REALLY hard!

10 February 2023

A Day In The Life – A day From My Learning Journal – 10 February 2023

All this life lark is a learning curve… so, I have decided to share today’s entry of my learning journal with you. I have been keeping a learning journal since early August last year. We had been advised to keep one from the start of our studies but I just took notes and other such study-based records and not a learning journal. Now I record how my day has gone with study almost every day (I might accidentally miss the odd day, but it doesn’t happen very often now).

Has my hand-writing improved with all this note-taking?! Has it heck! Lol. Well, maybe a tiny bit. I still make loads of mistakes, as you can see by the scribbly bits. Constant miscommunications between my brain and hand which frustrates me no end – but what’s a person to do! Anyway, have fun deciphering my writing! Lol

It’s Fri-yay!