Pictures for poems and galloping into the present day

This is Metamorphosis 2 and takes me back to the days when we were doing The Hidden Woman Project in Oxford. I always loved the poem Chuma wrote to go with it so I've just used it again for my 'How to write a poem' post in Hastings Online Times. It's called 'Eyes'.

What does that mean - I've 'used' it. 'Use' is a funny word. Makes me think that anything I 'use' will wear out. I can't take and take and take from it without it changing into something less. Like a dishcloth, for instance, or a broom. Or a bicycle. This digital picture should last forever but maybe it won't. The real picture will wear out. It already is doing. It's fading.

The post talks about using a picture as a stimulus for a poem. But although this picture is part of my past, it's also part of my present. A picture is not time limited like a story. Pictures just sit there and become part of any time that anyone is in when they look at them.

Stories are difficult. They are always set in some sort of time. So far, all my stories have been set in the past so I've had some idea of a backdrop even if it was only one small piece of backdrop. Time somewhere. But not the new story. The Aulani story starts in the past. Round about 2010 but soon it edges into our present time and that's when it gets hard. My character Aulani is walking out of the past to catch up with me here. She's left Papua New Guinea and is already in Melbourne.

I know she's going back to Port Moresby but I know, too, that she will go to Oxford and come to Hastings, Fact and fiction are going to get dangerously close.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy reading the poems I put in today's post for HOT. I love 'Hang in there' by Johhn D. Robinson. It's comforting and I'm always in need of comfort. Have a look at it.
Bookchat - How to write a poem- 1

New novel set in Papua New Guinea - about the power of belief

I’m furiously writing a new novel about a young woman called Aulani who has a strange life-story. The power of belief, both hers and that of other people, plays a big part in what happens to her. It is set mainly in Papua New Guinea (where I lived and worked for 15 years, my second home) and where many people still believe in sorcery.

I’m writing it furiously because I can’t wait to get back to my Dani stories and I still have the last two novels to write in that series (the next one also set in PNG) . So why did I decide to write this one in the middle? Haven’t got a clue, it just arrived on the page i.e. on to the lappie in a google doc, possibly inspired by people’s entrenched views on Brexit that don’t seem to shift as well as by the way Cambridge Analytica has manipulated people's beliefs via their Facebook accounts.

Entrenched views and the difficulties of changing them are prevalent worldwide but what seems evil is when powerful people manipulate the views of others for their own ends. So that’s what my new novel is about – not Brexit but the way the powerful few manipulate the crowd for their own hidden agendas. There are always victims just like Aulani, but she learns how to be tough and she manages to turn her fate around.

This is an extract from my bookchat post on Hastings Online Times for Tuesday 23 July, 2019. 'You tell the stories your way - life writing as only you know how.'

What do you think of flash fiction?

Do you read flash fiction? Do you write stories of this length?

After writing a how-to do it piece in the Guardian, David Gaffney wrote a warning:
'...writing micro-fiction is for some like holidaying in a caravan – the grill may well fold out to become an extra bed, but you wouldn't sleep in a fold-out grill for the rest of your life.'

I wrote a post about flash fiction in The Hastings Online Times but I'm still wondering about it. What do you think?

for more information have a look at:
Flash fiction - kerpow! Angela J. Phillip in Hastings Online Times
Stories in your pocket: How to write flash fiction David Gaffney in the Guardian
Image from publicdomainvectors.org adapted by Paul Way-Rider

Every piece of prose should be a poem

Every piece of prose should be a poem.

I've just reread the piece I'm writing for my bookchat post in the Hastings Online Times tomorrow and I like the way it flows. It's about flash fiction. Stops and starts with satisfying rhythms. As I change it to make it better - that's what I'm trying to do. Yes, I'm putting in a new piece of information or a new idea but I'm trying to insert them in a way that makes the piece a pleasure to read/ listen to/ or to speak out loud. Even if I don't succeed (and I never do totally succeed) at least I know what I'm aiming for. And I'm enjoying writing.

No wonder Audible is doing so well - and all those stories that work when they are read out loud. Back to the beginning, I say. That's how our stories started and actually, it's how they are represented in the brain. When we read, no matter how fast, we produce an audible signal for each word. Even deaf people do that and if we haven't got an audible signal for something then we can't include it. Can't integrate or make sense of it.

And don't get me started on rhythms. If you can get your readers to synchronise with your beat then you are together. Hearts beating as one. Literally.

I want my writing to be easy to read and to sound good. I want it to be comfortable most of the time but jolty every so often. I want it to give pleasure. I want it to linger and unfold. Probably won't get there but I'll keep trying. Every piece of prose should be a poem. Even a novel. Especially a novel. What do you think? I wonder who you are and what you're thinking while you read this.

The danger is that you can get so carried away with the sound and the rhythms that you lose the meaning. Imagine a woman sitting on her doorstep wailing a song. No words. Just sounds. Words long gone so definitely a shape of something but you can't listen forever (although she might go on singing long after you've passed by).

We're back to form vs content but ideally you shouldn't be aware of either. You should be lost with me. We should be lost together.

I still think that every piece of prose should be a poem.