it is a clear day

I would like to be walking along a beach today because the fog has gone. Everything suddenly has become clear as crystal. Isn't it good when that happens? When all the discordant pieces fall into place making sense of the world...or rather the PhD. And all it took was listening to W H Auden's 'Night Mail':

That sense of rhythm, the undulation of tone....oh and a really useful supervisory meeting. As I said in a previous posting I wasn't sure whether a supervisor should be an editor too but the meeting this morning proved that they can be both. It was a good balance between critical theory, creativity and editing. I left with threads of Foucault's Panoptican and Bakhtin's Carnivalesque forming a web of fiction that will draw any teenager in.I love it when a plan comes together (who said that?)

I got told off for a red gingham cliche so as a foil to that here is a suitably naff but self explantory song lol

endless rhythms

There is a picture called Endless Rhythms by Robert Delauney and painted in 1934. It reminds me of the gyre in the previous post, this concept of never ending and constantly evolving ideas that are self perpetuating. This is what a writer does. You get one idea which sparks another and then another fuelled by research, experience and moments - those beats in your life which leave an indelible imprint on you.
But this is where it gets to be a problem - for me anyway at the moment. My writing was flowing, I ws loving writing and happy with what was coming out (for a firstish draft) but then along comes this rhythm stick that was stuck through the spokes of my writing bicycle and now I have gone flying over the handlebars and come to a grinding halt flat on my face. The writing has stopped, the flow is a mere trickle that evaporates the moment it hits the air and I don't know how to get that feeling back. And all becuase of rhythm. I need to find it. Maybe I will, maybe there will be an epiphany and someone will tell me what it means but in the meantime I will have to hope that the Chinese New Year re-ignites my rhythm.


This is a performance of Chinese Drums for Chinese New Year and an alternative rhythm of life.

Rhythm of life....

There is a picture by Jean Michel Folon which I see as me (it portrays a man flying with a heart as a head) as someone who follows her heart rather than her head. I was introduced to this artist by someone who has created many new rhythms in my life through work, often making me open my eyes and see and hear things differently. All of which have had a direct impact on the beat of my writing and made me reconsider how I approach things. Please excuse this indulgence but I am very conscious of the beat of a heart at the moment. Tomorrow I will celebrate another year to add to the many others since my heart first started to beat and as I write the person who gave me that beat of life is fighting to keep their heart working.

But what I really want to say is that age does not stop you experiencing things for the first time whatever it may be. As a writer I know I have to be open to these experiences and welcome them. Allowing each one to add a beat to my writing. That echoing rhythm of verisimilitude that only lived out experience can bring. However, sometimes you can try too hard and you lose that natural rhythm. That is where I am now - I think. I need to step back open my eyes wide, listen hard and feel with my heart. Let the world light my way and remember to enjoy every moment that is given to me and find that rhythm.

This is pure indulgence too and it is for CLT because of the memories and laughter and it is part of the sound track to my rhythm of life