When in writing mode...

Friends, you are here, good.

So, this little adventuring creative has now been in Amsterdam for almost 4 weeks. Still trying to find somewhere to live, but otherwise having a great time. Adapting to new cultures is an interesting thing, I have been surprised by how quickly I have taken things in. When you are listening to different languages from your mother tongue on a regular basis you can't help but start to pick up little bits and bobs. I expect I will write about language quite a bit in this blog since it is a subject that fascinates me (even though I am English and therefor genetically predisposed to be terrible at learning other languages).

In writing mode anything can happen...even this!

But this blog is not about language, it is about writing. I have previously stated in this blog that I am a writer, an unpublished outside of the internet (ahh, thank you self publishing enabled interweb of love) and a couple of letters in magazines many years ago. I did write for my college magazine, and had a play put on when I took a year off before dropping out of a university writing course. I have written several film scripts (all un-filmed), sketch comedy skits (all un-recorded) and even a couple of musicals (all un-performed, un-polished and un-funded). I have also attempted novels (rubbish ones) but really my main writing skill is lyrics.

With credentials like that, you can be well assured that I have very little knowledge about what I am about to write about as if I were some kind of wise truth teller on the subject. I am not. I personally think this makes my opinion of some worth, as it is taken from experience.

I am currently in writing mode. It's this special place you take yourself when you are channeling creativity. Some people build these spaces for themselves in strange places. I am quite happy in a variety of locations now (not true in the past) and I happily sit here tapping this blog out with my laptop on my lap (literally), sitting on our mattress on the floor. Beauty is sat next to me looking for flats and listening to Gogol Bordello on her laptop. Oh technology, how easy things are made for us. It would have been hard to write like this in the past, ink stains bedsheets very quickly. Also, on a laptop (or desktop for that matter) it is so easy to edit. With a typewriter if you muck up a bit then the whole thing is effectively ruined. Not so with the laptop and the magical spell check. I love spellchecking, without it even I wouldn't know what I had written. (spellcheck does sometimes have trouble with the words I feed it, and on several occasions I have been forced to change for another word as I can't work out how to even get the word close enough to the right spelling for the almighty spell checker to be able to correct it!)

This is some of my art, just to make the page a little bit
more interesting to look at

My current writing assignments (given to me by myself of course, freelance, for free) are a new set of lyrics to make another album for my in the... series, and this blog. Other then that I might write out the address of somewhere I need to go, or the occasional shopping list or note on my hand. Most of this writing takes place on my laptop (except the last few things mentioned) and my eyes always end up feeling like they are trying to retreat into my skull to escape the constant glare of the screen. I don't blame them.

Deep in writing mode so many things can happen (hopefully though, writing will occur). For the inspiration to actually make something that might be at least a little bit new in structure or thought one requires stimulus. You can't write about nothing (although I appear to be doing a good job of that so far right here). For my current set of lyrics I have decided to write about things that interest me. For my last set (in the shed) I was leaving my job and preparing to move to Amsterdam, that had a big effect on the songs I ended up writing, there are themes of skin shedding, change, adventure, hateful office work, wants and desires and happiness. These were often directly linked to me so a lot of first person lyrics pepper the record (e.g Blank Hole Memory, Do it With You). For this next one I am currently writing, the themes are quite different so far, given that I am not living where I wanted to be and doing what I wanted to be doing, I can now cast my eyes out at the world and give some lyrical comment.

To give you a little sneak peek of the things that have tweaked my creative interests in the last week, here are the titles of a couple of the finished lyric sets : "Circles in the Crops", "Quiz Master" and "The Facebook Stalkers Guide to Love". I look forward to sharing them with you in song form :)

So, to get into writing mode you need something you want to write about.

Peace and infinite love

Andy