Welcome to my blog!

At the beginning of every month I will post whatever thoughts and inspirations that have come along since the last post.

The Christmas and New Year period is always a hectic one. I associate this time of year with everything going into hyper drive. Everything is taken to the extreme. The indulgances, the guilt, the socialising, the obligations, the traditions. At the end of it all I can’t help but think to myself “Can’t we spread it out a little bit?”. And all of the generosity and good will: can this not be more abundant the year round? Do we really need an excuse, or the security of knowing that the feelings will definitely be returned?

For a few years now I have made ‘to do’ lists for the upcoming year. The list never consists of ongoing resolutions that can be broken like ‘never eat cheese out of a tube’. Instead, I set objectives and once they are done they are done. The sentiment of ‘spreading it out a bit’ always puts me in the right frame of mind. This is my year. The whole year. This is what I aim to achieve.

This forward-planning and objective-building is how I’ve learnt to go about my writing. Inspiration is never as divine as it may seem. The critical part of me used to carry an idea aimlessly and when I hit the inevitable creative block I would deconstruct it with my frustrated negativity until I no longer understood the original feeling any longer. I have now learnt that, once I have a germ of an idea that I love, it is best to examine it and explore its nuances. And then maybe the nuances’ nuances.

A work that grows organically, where each new branch is borne out of the larger collective, results in a fully fleshed out and emotionally comprehendible piece.

So my message for the New Year is to embrace possibilities and aim to achieve!

This month's favourites:
   Justin Townes Earle, Single Mothers
   Jack Kerouac, On the Road
   Elf (2003)