London. A glorified mass of tube stations stitched together with memories and might-have-beens.
There's the one with the first kiss.
Then there's the one where the guy you were seeing ended his night early in another part of London just to walk round the block and back, holding your hand.
The one with the last kiss.
That one with the awkward joint tube ride after your first-ever first date, ending in no kiss at all.
The one where we didn't even say goodbye.
All of these stops on the journey of life with one or both of you always wanting to get off; brief interludes of fleeting connection that steal away across the city sometimes never to converge again.
Tube stations, however, are also functional. They are functional, ubiquitous, and hard to avoid, memories or no memories; TfL, and life in general, gives no fucks.
If your heart hurts, get off at the next stop where absolutely no-one will be able to assist you due to staff cuts, and that aspect of your personality that seems to reveal itself after a certain amount of time and make you completely unloveable from hereon in. You know the one.
There's lots of London you re-walk time and again in different shoes. First time's a charm, while second time you gently tiptoe over cracked memories and forgotten laughter as you subconsciously make a note to wait a while longer before a third.
For a big city it has a habit of feeling very small. Right place, wrong time as you find yourself casually strolling past people from the past and wondering why, or how, you both could have possibly come to be there, at that exact same moment.
But then that's the burning question. These people we meet, these interchanges in life; why, and how do they happen? Maybe they're lessons, maybe they're lovers, or maybe it's all completely out of our hands. Or, maybe we're all just thrown together by sheer coincidence and the size of the population and it's all just one big scramble for profundity and meaning.
Comforting.
In all this though, one thing is certain: London, exactly like time, waits for no man, and I'm increasingly convinced, that neither should we.

Read More

Contemplation

Salted air ruffles dusk-red hair.
Amber headlights grow large
and sweep away
across the gentle crash of
dappling moonlight.
On the periphery like dots, houses twinkle
while distant gulls mimic distant pub chatter and smooth pebbles grate under the weight of shifting water.
Cold fingers clutch a warm phone
at the bottom of a deep pocket.
In the distance the horizon shimmers, and the vast silver-black rolls on

Read More

Acknowledging Sadness

I love London in the rain.
Not that I have much choice right now, with this excess of love that needs using up somewhere. It might as well go on the city that's made me.
I like the shiny surfaces. Lights reflected, nighttime projected, and the overwhelming sense of washing something clean.
I like the way it permeates. You feel cold, you feel, well, icky. You feel aggrieved, you feel resentful, but make no mistake, you feel.
Rain is noticed. Its presence is announced and it does not come quiet. Hunched shoulders, screwed up faces, and the retreating of toes from the ends of shoes that you once would have sworn were waterproof.
I like the way rain makes you hurry towards safety. No matter where you're going, you speed ahead, safe in the knowledge that the space you'll soon occupy will be drier, and better, and imbued with a new-found sense of joy, no matter how simplistic.
I love this city, because at least with a city you always know it will be unrequited and neither of you pretend otherwise.

Read More

Day 2 - "This has made my day."

"This has made my day!"
"Like, I'm not even kidding, the rest of the hours might as well take the rest of it off and just chalk themselves up to tomorrow. Today has officially peaked."

He grinned at her in amazement. Camel coat studded with grey and black fluff from that enormous scarf draped loosely around her shoulders, dirty blonde hair not quite grown out enough to stay behind her ears; the strands hastily and ultimately fruitlessly pushed away with a habitual nonchalance at rapidly successive intervals.

A video of a dog riding a tiny bike.
That was all.
You'd think there was free money involved, but no.

That something so simple could elicit such a genuine, heartfelt and arguably even excessive joy was one of the many things he loved about her.
I mean liked about her.
As a friend.

Shit.

The expectant look from under rapidly descending hair suggested a question had been left unanswered. Fuck any question that wasn't "Why aren't we kissing?" quite frankly, but he got the feeling that that particular declaration would elicit nothing even close to dog levels of joy and, quite frankly, he didn't want to spoil what had been a lovely afternoon.

"You should get a hat."

"What?" The scarf slipped from her shoulder, exposing her neck with an almost clichéd shiver.

"If you're cold," he felt his hands move to catch the falling material, and quickly grasped the lining of his pockets instead, "you should get a hat. It would stop you being cold and keep your hair out of your eyes: cosy and efficient."

"How did you know my Tinder bio?" The flash from both baby blues and pearly whites plunged straight to the pit of his stomach.

"Ha. I'm uh, I'm not sure efficient isn't some kind of a back-handed compliment. Maybe that's why you're not getting any matches?"

The flush in his face pulsing right to the tips of his ears, her eyes eventually darted to something way off behind him.

"Maybe. Or maybe, I'm just looking in all the wrong places? I mean, they do say you should surround yourself with the things you love and everything else will follow, right?"

He swallowed.

"Right?"

It clicked.

"Pets at Home. You're talking about Pets at Home, aren't you."

"Maybe... I mean, they're baby rabbits, but that's almost as good as baby dogs."

"You are a complete and utter-"

But his feet were already heading in the direction of the pet store, pulled by the physical embodiment of a joy so infectious he couldn't help but laugh.

"LOOK at them! Why would you look for love anywhere else!?"

He smiled.

"You're right,"

He watched as she leaned closer over the pen, hair all-but cascading in front of her face as she pushed it repeatedly back across her cheek, delightedly making noises that he was sure no self-respecting rabbit would ever recognise or respond to.

"This has made my day."

Read More

Day 1 - Blank Space

It's that ear-rush of silence.
A blinking cursor betrayed by a heavy, laboured e. lip. sis.
The inked equivalent of an ineffectual, trailing "...and, so, yeah."
It's flat and stark, as far as the eye can see.
Face down, cheek to the expanse.
A goldfish mouth of words that escape without forming.
Distracted isn't the word. Distraction requires a distracting thought. This is a lost train of thought run aground. Standing room only; no survivors.
At least a (writer's) block makes a noise when you strike it; an empty screen still hums.
The silent, blank-paper stare shows no remorse.
Then again, if those looks are killing unjustly, then why don't you have something to say?

Read More

Day 35: Dear Me

Dear Me,
Right, deep breath.
This isn't going to be easy, and you've been putting it off for nearly a week, but it's ok, you've got this.
Promise.
So, firstly, it's not OK. Not really. Not at all in fact. About a week ago, you received one of the two calls that every child dreads, the one that boils down to your Mum being in hospital and it not looking good.
It's not looked good since.
It's not looked good since you sat sobbing on that last train from Paddington, the first train you could get on, wracked with fear and despair and an overwhelming sense of the world being dragged from under you.
It's not looked good since you were first ushered in to that cubicle in A&E, through the ambulance entrance normally not even open to the public, or since the heartbreaking but strangely calming conversation with the organ donor doctor.
It's not looked good since you re-entered that room in ICU, at 6:30am, coming on 24 hours awake, ill-prepared for the next 6 hours of watching the life slowly drain from your own mother's body. But then, I don't think anyone could ever be prepared for that, not really, and neither do you, not really.
You've been scared of writing this, I know. Scared of what it would do, what it would mean, and scared of what it might do to those going to read it who have been going through this too.
But in truth, it has happened, and it is awful, and heartbreaking and devastating, and all those other gut-wrenching adjectives and it is precisely these reasons why you should write about it.
It is because of this writing challenge that your Mum was able to read how much she meant to you, still means to you, a few short weeks ago, on Mothers' Day no less, and to know in no uncertain terms how much you loved and still love her, and how grateful you are to have been blessed with having her as your Mum.
It still hasn't sunk in and it won't for a long time, perhaps it never truly will, but for now, there is a small comfort in knowing that you were able to express those things to her, in your own time and on your own terms, as a qualifier to all those other things you uttered sat by that bed, grasping her hand with all your might, tears streaming down your face.
At the end of the day, that's precisely who this is not about: you. This is about your Mum who raised you, and loved you, and was fiercely proud of your writing and creativity and who would have wanted you to carry on.
So, that's what you must do now, and keep choosing to do every day, in every sense, because she was and still is your Mum, and that is how you were raised.

Read More

Day 34: What's The Point Of Twitter?

When I was first given this topic on day -2 of this writing challenge I will admit to briefly considering the true, but admittedly rather generic platitudes I could envisage throwing its way: 'Twitter is about community, and togetherness.' etc, etc.

Today, those inverted commas crumbled.

Today I was privileged enough to be in the room at Channel 4 as a group of incredible young people entered in to an impassioned dialogue with MPs and senior Channel 4 staff about what would change #IfWeRanThings.

Privileged enough to not only be in the room, but to be on Twitter capturing, pushing and furthering the conversation happening both among attendees and those outside the room: a frenzied stream of opinion, observation, sheer expectant energy and a whole load of selfies. People not in the room, at their day jobs, at school, somewhere across the country, the other side of the proverbial closed door, engaging with, informing and even just witnessing the conversation, in all its nuanced, fast-paced and damn important glory.

Pretty cool, right?

Today, in that room, the point was made that social media is power, and that young people are so incredibly powerful. Twitter, social media, is a tool for mobilising, uniting, sharing, a tool for seeking, and connecting, and amassing a movement on a global scale in a way that generations before us simply couldn't, in ways they simply didn't have access to. The instant connection, the spread of a message, the force of conviction and the promotion to power in every which sense, right from the traditional to the newly-conventional: we are the most powerful generation there has ever been.

Twitter is part of my job, but it's more than that: there are up to 5 accounts linked to my phone at any one time including my own personal one and I make no secret of the fact that community management and the power of social media for good is something that can often be relied upon to get me out of bed of a morning. (I have a life, honest)

A tweet is an expression of a moment.

I have witnessed first-hand the power of being called out to directly, albeit as a branded identity, in a moment of solitary anguish, and conversely being essentially CC'ed in on celebrations of youth, and of life, and know the vital power of being able to engage with each of those moments, across the whole spectrum, and ensuring that in those moments, those young people feel heard.

Twitter is not a broadcast channel, and to treat it as such belittles both it and its users. All 288 million of us.

Twitter is designed for dialogue, be you brand, band, or bank, and every time you start that conversation there are 288 million people listening, 288 million potential connections.

That may sound daunting, but to me, that says 288 million possibilities.

Yes, Twitter may seem without a point at times, but, when what you see on the platform is entirely curated by you, to that I would counter that you're just not following the right people, and with 288 million possibilities, you really are spoiled for choice. And if you're not following me, @abigailchantal, then quite frankly, on your own head be it.

After all, Twitter is power.

Read More

Day 33: Elephants

Eyes lock

A moment's pause, a hitch of breath.
A thud down through the pit of your stomach

Suddenly aware of your tongue, your lips, the moisture in your mouth, the tension of muscles as you slowly swallow for no reason.

A sigh.

Of contentment, of relief: a burden lifting.
No distraction, no gimmicks, just, being.

Recognition.
That gradual, familiar warmth of just, knowing.
See yourself in their reflection, recognise your best mirrored back through increasingly familiar eyes,
Quiet, giddy excitement punctuating the unspoken

The elephant in the room.








Inspired by this from Nick Helm.

Read More

Day 32: Dear Future Husband

Dear Future Husband,

Hi :)

Alright, so, nice one Abi, a smiley face potentially not the best first impression, but I'm nervous OK: a life sentence is a pretty big deal, and I was just trying to be polite.

I have so many questions, least of all who you are, where you are, and how we might come to meet, but I guess at this point you may not be able to answer any or all of those either, so like me, they can wait.

I wasn't sure how I was going to organise these thoughts, (yeah, that'll be a recurring theme, and not just in my writing) but there's one thing I think bears addressing straight off here: expectation.

For all I know, future husband, you do not exist. (Is a rhetorical letter a thing?) For all I know, marriage, monogamy and the standard, socially accepted template existence is not in my future and that's OK. A little daunting perhaps, but OK.

This idea that we are all mere halves of a whole, killing time before we cobble together our existence with the boy next door or Dave from accounts seems pretty, well, limiting. I suggested further up this letter that I'm waiting for you to appear, future husband, but that's not strictly true, and as questionable as my track record is with men, I would like to think you're the kind of person who would more than encourage the whole not-waiting thing.

For a while though, I was. For a while I was a person who couldn't quite see her worth as a whole entity, a person dragging her heels and telling herself that things would be better, things would be OK and that life would be so much more, when you, or a pretender to your throne came along.

I'll admit that the idea that having a partner (and thus being deemed worthy of love by someone) was a crucial box to be ticked, held me back for a while, but it occurs to me that while the prospect of sharing a life and of building memories and traditions with someone sounds pretty fucking great, if nothing has come before that, if you've both sat around and told yourself no to the world and all its opportunities and experiences, then, future husband, what the hell is there going to be to talk about?

It occurs to me that in all this the other unhelpful thing is this judgement from others based on the idea that your worth is decided by anyone other than yourself. When people question your lack of a relationship, compare you to peers who've fast-tracked to wedded bliss and family, tell you 'your time will come.'

Well thanks, well-meaning bystander, but what if it doesn't? Let's say I'm staring down the barrel of 60-odd years of no one-person to come home to, no big day, no honeymoon, no fairytale "I do." Am I a lost cause because of it? A wasted life? Of course not. Someone not in a relationship, or a marriage, or any kind of partnership is fulfilled, enriched, passionate, and content, just as the family with 2.4 children, maybe even more so, but there's clearly something about society's restrictive narrative that prompts us to pity, to console, to go out of our way to view the situation negatively.

There may well be negative feelings associated with not being in a relationship, but no more so than the ones that can come with long-term partners and family life.

To live is human, not to live either alone, or in tandem. There is no qualifier.

I've got better at not caring though. I could tell you future husband that I simply don't care what other people think now, but that would be a lie, and well, that's not the best thing to base a marriage on, now, is it?
Learning to trust your own judgement, listen to your own reasoning, isn't something that came naturally me, and it still doesn't. Every day I make a choice, and a conscious effort to uphold it, and as with everything, the repeated action in time becomes habit. Maybe by the time we meet I will care even less.

Dear future husband, I hope you are a reader. Not least because a love of books and the written word is a sure sign of a beautiful, intriguing, attractive mind, but also because as your future wife, it's my duty to let you in on a little secret.

As your future wife, there will be times we disagree, times we shout and fight, and times when I inadvertently tail off mid-sentence, or brush away a question.
This is not a test; a hand of cards dealt around a dimly-lit table with the stakes set high at A Happy Ending. Nor is it a game to play, to taunt you or rile you, but instead a part of me that I am simply declaring, right here, right now, cards on the table, long before we have even met.

You see, as a writer, not everything in my head makes it out through my mouth. Often, writing acts as a voice for the thoughts, feelings and questions that, perhaps ironically, I cannot always find the words for, at least not out loud. Often, my subconscious plays out here too, things I am perhaps unaware of or hadn't really realised, or even considered about myself, scattered across seemingly unrelated subjects, like the occasional glowing ember among the ashes of a dying fire.

So dear, future husband I hope you are a reader, because my writing can tell you more about me than I ever could, for better or for worse, and while there won't be a test, my writing is very much a part of me, and the secrets you may inadvertently unearth could well be some of the secrets to our happiness.
That may sound selfish, and indulgent, but future husband, hopefully you don't misunderstand me. Perhaps you, too, are a writer, and I can glean that same kind of unspoken understanding from you, but if not, know that however it is you choose to express things, I'll be listening.

Future husband, apologies that this is a bit of a long one, I mean, especially if you're not a reader, (Be honest, did you even make it this far? And yes, I realise that this is a redundant question if not) but in the words of the girl in Mean Girls who doesn't even go here, I just have a lot of feelings. If you're not appreciative of that reference, wait, who am I kidding, we wouldn't be married if you weren't at least vaguely appreciative of that reference, forget I even said anything.

So I'll sign this off now. Don't feel obliged to respond, but hey, it might be nice...

Until we meet, have fun, and here's to our future adventures, wherever, whenever, and if ever they may be.

Ax

Read More

Day 31: Fate and Fairytale

It's funny when you look back on the choices and circumstances that have led you to a certain point or place and consider the exact chain of events that have resulted in your now day-to-day.
I read a quotation recently that proffered the idea that "There's nowhere you should be other than where you are right now."
Bollocks.
That to me suggests that acceptance is optimal and while that is of course true up to a point, the right amount of restlessness and seeking of a particular kind of enlightenment is both healthy and productive.
The interesting sequences of events for me are those that seem to stray in to the realm of oddly fortuitous serendipity. Those almost inexplicable choices that mysteriously align and seem to lead you down a certain path or towards a certain outcome and eventually cause you to stop and consider the possibility that some kind of 'higher power' or perhaps reasoning might have played a part in where you find yourself.
That feeling of "imagine if I hadn't" that seems to accompany the overwhelming sense that things are almost exactly as they should be, thanks to a series of (un)fortunate events and some sort of cosmic alignment.
I think there's a certain comfort in the idea that every now and again we can take a back seat of sorts and revel in the idea that 'no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should' (Desiderata <3) but while we may well only be a passenger of sorts, it is still up to us to be present and to react in our own best interests and ultimately help fashion our own endings, fate or no fate, fairytale or otherwise.

Read More

Day 30: Man buns

The man bun.

A seemingly simple thing. A sweep of hair, a grasp of hands, a twist of the wrist: done.
The archetypal feminine re-purposed to serve the strongest of jawlines, cheekbones and shoulders.

There's just something about them.

I mean, they're almost too majestic for words.

I would love to espouse upon their particular beauty, straddling that ever-decreasing rigid distinction between masculine and feminine: an effortlessly suave and glorious beacon of the ideologically-advanced.

Well, in theory at least.

I would love to espouse, really I would, but I feel that in many respects the man bun speaks for itself, and when it does such a good job it seems only fair to just, well, let it.

See?

Majestic.

Read More

Day 29: Sabotage & Sleep

This is getting boring now.
It's what 3, 4 days in a row where I've found myself this close to the deadline, this much in need of sleep, this desperate for words, just any words.
This isn't creativity, this is sabotage.
Live to work, work to live, there's a fine line between passion and pressure and I'm yet to walk it.
So with 3 minutes to go I've managed to write a tweet about not being able to write, but not actually written anything else in this big, blank box.
I'm wired and distracted and in no way unhappy, just somehow not quite right.
Think I need to stop. (Wait a minute, fill my cup put some liquor in it)

But seriously, I think I need to get out of my head for a bit and back to what it was that I was trying to figure out when I started this whole thing: my creativity and capacity for expression.

I can keep cobbling together these half-efforts which, curiously, feel like they take far more effort than any more substantial 'real' posts, but maybe that's it, maybe I'm stalling for time with these rambling excuses for posts and putting off the kind of writing that may actually stand up to scrutiny.

Or maybe I'm just knackered.

I'll sleep on it and let you know.

Read More

Day 28: and counting

So I've just got in from coming inexplicably and hilariously 4th in a St Patrick's Day-themed pub quiz, in honour of my housemate's birthday.
(The quiz was St Patrick's Day themed in honour of St Patrick and his day though, just to be clear)
This is a really bad habit that I've gotten myself in to, finding myself at the last half hour of every day scrabbling around for words and trying to extract some kind of profundity from them.
As much as I can keep telling myself I'm writing, and achieving, and fulfilling my obligation to myself, and that that's ok, at some point soon I won't, and I feel like I'm testing myself to my very limits of what's possible within the specifications of this challenge, with no real or clear indication as to why, or what it is I'm learning from it.
I'm getting really good at cobbling together half-formed, not-fully-executed pieces that serve a fraction of the purpose for which I set myself this challenge, but outside that?
I'll tell myself I'm too busy, but in reality, I'm too something else. What exactly, I'm not sure, but I feel like I'm acting out against myself in some sort of strange internal power play. I mean, I'm writing, but not to any kind of standard, really, because I don't really appear to be letting myself.
So that's me, again.
Teenagers are supposed to go through phases like this, but at 28 days surely my writing should be better: I should know better?
Apparently not, but still, I will keep writing, keep enforcing to myself the fact that it's not simply a case of driving myself to the edge and giving up, but of edging my way back and allowing myself to create and achieve what it was I started out to do: write for 40 days straight.
28 and counting.

Read More

Day 27: Learning to be unremarkable

So I've done that thing whereby I've come home intending to go to bed early and fend off anymore illness and promptly fallen asleep without having written anything, only to wake up at 20 to 12 bereft of words, the owner of one considerably befuddled head.
It's now 23:48 and I'm not sure what I can squeeze out of these last 12 minutes that will be in any way worthwhile reading.
I feel this is a recurring theme of this challenge, but I think learning to be unremarkable is just as important-a-step. If I were to only write when consumed by an overly dramatic wash of inspiration, I would be, well, right back where I was before this challenge started: a writer who doesn't write.
We all live our lives with constant expectation of high achievement, whatever that may mean to you, but in reality it's all those mid-points, those not-quites, those near-misses that, statistically speaking inform who we are and what we become.
So, dear reader, this is yet another day of me being unremarkable. I've not failed, but I've not excelled, and by the law of averages, the more days there are like today, the more days there will be of that writerly Nirvana of white-hot inspiration and the right bloody words.
Today is another case of not enough words, in something not even resembling the right order, but there's always tomorrow, and the day after that, and that's fine, because I'm playing the long game.
But first, sleep.

Read More

Day 26: Mums

Mums.

A mother is a funny thing.
We have all had one at one point or another.
Some more than one, some still none to speak of.
Like Mother like Daughter, Mum's the word, and Mother knows best.
I love my Mum, and for her sins my Mum loves me, but this isn't always the case, not for everyone.
It's a huge and unique and significant relationship that sometimes just isn't, just doesn't, just can't, or just won't.
And that's ok too.
See Mums are wonderful things, but sometimes the absence of one breeds even more wonderful things. As daughters, as sons, as children, we build upwards from the roots of our Mums, but when that rooting is unearthed or dislodged in the storm we can still flourish, still blossom and bear fruit, either because or in spite of all that has gone before us.
I know how lucky I am to know my Mother, to have her in my life, and to still be able to retreat home for that most restorative of things, a proper cwtch from Mum, at any time.
I count my blessings that I have a Mum from whom I have learned, and continue to learn, so much about the kind of woman I want to be, and the kind of person I choose to be every day, and a Mum whose strength and dignity in the face of adversity is more inspiring to me than I can ever hope to express, and than she may ever fully know.
So yes, a mother is a funny thing, but today of all days I recognise how privileged and grateful I am to have mine, and the love I have for her is mirrored in the bittersweet joy, reflection and just plain sadness that today yields for so many, because a mother's love is enough to share, and I just simply wasn't raised to be selfish.

Read More

Day 25: Still nothing

Again I've gone almost a whole day and not typed anything in this big, blank box in the back end of blogger.
Oh I've written today, yes, I wrote on the train on the way home, but by its very nature the result is a somewhat rambling stream of consciousness, so I'll spare you that.
I realise that in defaulting to these short, consolatory posts at the very last minute of each day I am actually enabling my own insecurities, and masterminding my own staying-small.
There are some incredible topics in my list, feminism, for one, past lives, humour, etc, but by scrabbling together these afterthoughts of the day fewer than 30 minutes before the deadline I can only be selling myself short, surely?
Big, meaty topics such as feminism, such as "What's the point of Twitter?" should excite me, and as things I am so passionate about in day-to-day life they do, but as topics to write about, they are in fact quite terrifying. These more serious subjects, for want of a better word, paralyse me, for fear of writing the "wrong" thing.
For the same reason that I never used to write on the front page of a notebook, messing up is one thing, but in plain view of the internet, of your friends and harshest critics alike, is an entirely different kettle of fish.
Perhaps I am subconsciously avoiding my first massively negative response and maybe even keeping myself small in the process. This idea that my time-constrained brain keeps circling, that as more anxious humans we keep ourselves small, is something I've begun to recognise a lot in different aspects of my life and I've realised it plays out literally, figuratively, and both physically and mentally, to different degrees.
But that is no way to live.
So, in the spirit of growth, let's try the alternative and start saying what needs to be said, writing that which, as a writer, cannot go unwritten.

Well, maybe tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted. X

Read More

Day 24: That Friday feeling

So it keeps happening that I find myself in the pub on a Friday night not having written anything as the clock approaches Midnight.
Again I remind myself that this challenge was never designed to impede on other experiences but rather enhance them, but at the same time I am beyond glad that this sense of duty and of not breaking this pattern is now instilled in me, and also that I have the kind of people around me who will understand as I turn my attention to my phone for 5 - 10 minutes as I fulfill said creative obligation.
For all my moaning, this forcing myself to write is proving to be the making of me, and I honestly hope that when these 40-or-so days are up that I can continue on this somewhat infectious wave of momentum because honestly, it's really damn fulfilling.
And now, back to the pub.

Read More

Day 23: "Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."

And some people, sir, do both.

It was tempting today to simply offer a quotation from the master, Terry Pratchett, as a mark of respect, but even without the impossible nature of narrowing it down to a single string of words, I can't help but feel that would be less a tribute, more a disservice to his remarkable talent and capacity for conjuring, and furthermore a slight against his immeasurable inspiration.
I've always loved Terry Pratchett's writing and it must be said that as a judgement of character, a liking for his work in others has served me well thus far.
The sarcasm, the gentle cynicism, the humour, the reality. That unfathomable ability to paint with mere words such vivid and all-encompassing pictures, scenes, thoughts and feelings that it becomes hard to imagine you are anywhere else other than in fact inside his head. Instead, this entire world is being etched on the inside of yours, like gazing up in to a vast, vivid planetarium of light and colour and the kinds of characters no actual human being could ever hope to do justice to, writing in this fantasy world, this reality of his conjuring, so marvellous, so vividly depicted, and so grounded in observations of society as a whole that often it becomes hard to imagine that those 4 elephants and that giant turtle aren't in existence somewhere in the great beyond. That place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Just yesterday I read this piece from Tim Minchin about the talent of others and those incredible, glorious sentences and phrases that as a writer elicit that most frustrating of desires, to have got there first. If I'm honest, that is what Terry Pratchett's work is to me. All of it. Even now I re-read sentences of his and while delighting in the beauty and sheer sorcery of his words, still mourn the fact that that particular alchemy of language will never be mine. That ability to so accurately and poetically depict thoughts, feelings, situations so as to elicit actual unconscious nods in a reader, those knowing smiles, smirks of confirmation, that laugh of recognition. Such is, was, his talent for spearing the human condition, capturing the fallible, imperfect beings that we all are so perfectly and so knowingly: that is what I aspire to.
The master himself wrote that "Dark sarcasm should be taught in schools," and all I can do is agree. Terry Pratchett's legacy offers up that particular blend of honesty, cynicism and charm that prepares you most adequately for the world as it really is: baffling, mystical, and when you're really lucky, as glorious as it is ridiculous.

RIP sir, and thank you.



"I knew the two of you would get on like a house on fire. Screams, flames, people running for safety."

"Rincewind could scream* for mercy in nineteen different languages, and just scream in another forty-four. (*This is important. Inexperienced travelers might think that "Argh!" is universal, but in Betrobi it means 'highly enjoyable' and in Howondaland it means, variously, 'Your wife is a big hippo,' and 'Hello, thinks Mr.Purple Cat.' One particular tribe has a fearsome reputation for cruelty merely because prisoners appear, to them, to be shouting 'Quick! Extra boiling oil!')"

"Vimes' glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronised Observation Team."

"The camel looked along its nose at Teppic. It's expression made it clear that of all of the riders in all of the world it would least like to ride it, he was right at the top of the list. However, camels look like that at everyone. Camels have a very democratic approach to the human race. They hate every member of it, without making any distinctions for rank or creed."

"It didn't look like the kind of snow that whispers down gently in the pit of the night and in the morning turns the landscape into a glittering wonderland of uncommon and ethereal beauty. It looked like the kind of snow that intends to make the world as bloody cold as possible."

"It was quite impossible to describe.

Here is what it looked like.

It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon."

"Oh, them as makes the endings, don't get them."

Read More

Day 22: The Octopus of Pain

Today I had to make the decision to gather my things, switch off my computer and leave work early.
I was attempting that age-old trick of simply powering through and pretending that there wasn't in fact intense pressure building up somewhere behind my cheekbones, and that it wasn't pushing inwards, upwards and emanating outwards, with increasing intensity, like some kind of octopus of pain.
No sir, no octopus here.
Needless to say, I was fooling no-one, and by the time my vision started wavering, it had become abundantly clear both to me and to the colleagues who, like Weeping Angels in reverse, seemed to be edging further and further away from me with every lethargic blink and sniff, that I should just. go. home.
There's still something tellingly child-like in any response to that situation, having to decide to take that time off, being trusted to know yourself and do the right thing. When we're young, figures of authority ascertain how ill we are, decide to keep us off school, or send us home, and at some point we stop asking, or they just stop telling, and the onus is on us. It's a very vulnerable state to find yourself in when your own body seems to conspire against you, so the regression to childhood and the desire to be taken care of seems a fairly human response. (She says hopefully, wrapped up in bed, shivering pathetically, and snapchatting sickness selfies in search of sympathy like a true millennial) Also, to be fair, far from conspiring against you, your body is actively trying to fight whatever nastiness is on the attack inside you and in actual fact would be massively helped if you just stopped and took heed of what it was making you feel and stopped trying to be a hero. Just another knee-jerk childish reaction from a fallible human, I suppose.
So yes, I'm ill, and staring at a screen isn't exactly helping matters, so in anticipation of the wave of absent parental worry and sympathy coming my way from my two biggest fans I will retire to a more horizontal position to continue my own elaborate game of pass the parcel, where the prize is a slightly sickly 25 year old and the layers keep being gathered up and torn off at seemingly split-second intervals depending on body temperature.
Oh I do know how to have fun.
Just me, and this octopus of pain.

Read More

Day 21: Ever wanted to just switch off your brain?

Set yourself a challenge to write every day for 40 days, there's nothing quite like it.

A day without a writing direction, without any kind of useful inspiration, and just starting to type 8 minutes before a new day.

Make that 7.

And now 4.

I need to write something, anything, but my brain is having none of it.
In 3 minutes I will press publish on whatever sits on the screen in front of me, the cursor blinking expectantly, impatiently, the overwhelming sensation of "Is that it?"
Today, it is.

1 minute to go and I still have nothing to say, nothing to make of an entire day, except the increasing heaviness of my eyelids and the feeling of any kind of creativity quietly seeping out in to the atmosphere around me, starving these very fingertips of any kind of inspiration whatsoever.

0

Read More