Music, Wine, Rhyme

Today, for the first time in way too long, I sat down with some musician friends to make a song. God I’ve missed it.

We writers tend to go into our dark, little holes to bang out our words … wait for our muse … draw doodles in the margins of the page … or whatever, depending on the mood. Point being, we’re alone.

It’s for this reason I hound coffee shops, looking for a window table nestled gently between the view onto the street and that of the patrons. I’m still alone with my work, but it’s tempered by evidence of life. Thoughts of self-flagellation tend to be dampened down somewhat. A good thing in and of itself.

In Cooking

In cooking butter is love. It’s hard to add too much. Meal after meal it is always a welcome addition. But beware. When meals become months, and months become years – as beautiful as love can be – there is danger. Too much butter hardens the heart. Love invites change. Substitute a good olive oil.

Indie Writer 5 – Curple Pow ©

Seth Godin wrote a book on marketing called Purple Cow – advising all businesses to stand out from the crowd or face the consequences. Good stuff. I recommend it.

Now Seth is a good lad ‘n all, writing and blogging on his list of tricks (good for him) – but he’s no indie writer. So I’m here to give it to you straight. Get a bit of this up ya …

The Curple Pow ©

Indie Writer 4 – The High Ground

We fellas have a tendency to look for metaphors in places like the battlefield, the boxing ring, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather … like that. It’s a testicle thing, I guess. (Ladies, give me a little space on this one.)

I don’t want you to get the feeling that the indie writer’s life is like going to war, it’s just that … it’s exactly like that.

Indie Writer 3 – Protect this!

I quite liked the last blog with the extract from “The Copy-it-Right Manifesto”. So here’s a bit more for your theoretical musings …

The Saviour Is Come

All hail the deliverer, our small and silent hero, our single light blinking in a field of darkness. All hail the one who goes by the name of pixel; aka the electronic business machine, aka the mainframe, aka the personal computer, aka the portable computer, aka the digital age …

Indie Writer 2 – Talk the Talk

Before you can walk it you gotta talk it – so there are some things you’ll just have to know.

The following is the preamble from a piece that may one day see the light of day on my site: “The Copy-it-Right Manifesto”.

The reader was and always will be the one with the power. To power to like or dislike, accept, reject, buy, deny. In short, the power to choose. I hold this truth to be self-evident.

Indie Writer 1 – Humble Beginnings

How does one become an indie writer? Oh, that part is easy as anything – you DON’T land a publishing deal.

Well any old fool can do that. Including me.

Story 3 : To story or not to story.

I don’t believe in right and wrong – at least not in creative endeavour. A much more useful concept is cause and effect.

Let me illustrate.

Story 2 : Why the hell is it?

We are hard wired story telling machines.

We’d like to change this – but we can’t.

Experiment with this one: next time someone asks you how your day was, tell them EVERY detail. Every movement, every posture, every thought, EVERY SINGLE THING.

Story 1 : What the hell is it?

So much has been written on the subject of story, and it seems so little actually said. The simplest definition is also the most profound. Though going on to explain this definition could fill volumes.

So … what is it?

Story = beginning + middle + end.

Full stop.