Boredom and creativity

So, between finishing uni (A 2:1, huzzah!), finding a job and actually starting said job, I have a great deal of free time, which I generally dislike. It does not take me long to find myself bored, especially with a lot of my friends either working or away, and although I have plans to cycle lots and learn the trumpet, neither of those are things that can yet take a good portion of my day.

One thing that I would like to be doing is writing. I particularly enjoy writing stories, but seem to have some difficulty getting ideas out on paper in a reasonable expanded format. Imagine being in the 1950s and thinking 'I should write a story with laserswords and spaceships' or 'what if every car could transform into a robot?'

So, for the many of you who I'm sure are interested, here are some ideas that I have that I would like to write about but have yet to develop into a story.

1. A sailing thing. I love the idea of the whole 18th century pirates thing, and the idea that small groups of pirates could worry merchants sailors while still being largely good. A small pirate band could operate from a cave and prey on large ships as they come into a heavily fortified port. There would probably be a heist in there somewhere.

2. The massive space thing. I sort of have this idea about a massive story about planets and invaders and how four books would pan out, but I feel that it is a little too big for my inexperienced writing skills. It may have to wiat until later on, despite me being about 40 pages into a 3rd attempt.

3. Pip's tale. A story about a boy who saves a slave and they run away together that I wrote in my college days but was rather terrible. I've redrafted it twice and it remains pretentious and possibly exploitative. However, I had a bit of a resurgence of passion for it last night and who knows, I may give it a go.

4. A story about Spring Heeled Jack. I love the idea of the character, in some guises a sort of Victorian Batman and I love the sort of sci-fi, victorian steampunk idea. Think sherlock holmes with more gadgets. It would probably involve a sinister school and a gang of theives, but I need to think a lot more about characters before I go in to it.

5. Another school story. I wrote a nice feelgood story about two boys who hate each other and then become friends that has been sent to a few publishers to no avail, and it would be nice to do another. IT was probably the thing that i enjoyed writing more than anything else I've done, and it would be nice to do that again. I just need a story first...

So there you go, a few ideas. Who knows, I may have something more later on

Opinions

Here is something that you should know. I am fairly good in a debate but not so much in an argument. That is, I can argue my point if I know something to be true but not if I merely think it to be true.

Here is something else: I am an upbeat, optimistic person, at least I think that I am so please don't argue the point because I will probably loose. Generally, in an 'is it rubbish?' debate, I am on the side of 'It's probably fine'. I do not have much time for people who are quick to find fault or like to complain about things, particularly when the targets of such comments are large groups or organisations of high responsibility such as the government or heads of establishments. Because of this, I become a little worried when I am discussing a genuine problem that I have and others disagree with me.

It was in such a position as this that I found myself tonight. One issue that I feel rather annoyed about is the move from Exmouth to Plymouth that my college, and therefore I had to take last year. As far as I am concerned, it really sucks. We have lost one heck of a lot in the move, not least Exmouth itself and the people there. Yet there are people who are genuinely happy about being in Plymouth. I can see why people like it but better than Exmouth? Surely not.

Exmouth was everything that I could have hoped for in a second home. Plymouth for me represents everything I would avoid and with a poorer provision at university to boot. It is for this reason that I worry that the University of Plymouth is turning me into a cynic, and I really hate cynicism.

The best concert ever!

Picture the scene:

The band have just finished a fairly slow song. The lead man puts down his ukulele and the lights go out. In the near darkness we can see him pick up his violin. He starts playing a steady note. Slowly it builds, an extra bit here, a flourish there. In a short while it has a beat to it and the lights start flashing in time.

By now the audience can see what is coming. A ripple of excitement passes through them as a the riff they all know begins. It's one man on the stage but it counds like four, the violin, the bass, the precussion, the singing, it's all him and now the lights are on him. The crowd go wild.

Last week I went to see Seth Lakeman play live and it was amazing, and what I just described was but one song of many.

Awesome!

Settlers

Settlers of catan! THe great game. And you can download it here:

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/

oh yeah...

..and Dr Who? Awesome!

the day the music died

You know what?

I reckon my generation in the first who can truly say that music was better when we were kids.

There was a feeling of sadness with the advent or rock and roll. OK, so it wasm't the lovely Mr Sinatra, but it's still music, and the lyrics are OK.

In the 70s, Abba came in. People said the beatles were better and perhaps they were, but Abba could sing, and they could write songs which had catchy tunes.

When I was growing up, yes the music was for the money, yes it was written by someone else, but again, the singers could sing, the writers could write. Where did that go?

I am un. stop. a. ble and I will chop I will slice I will dazzle them with my wit. That's where. There seem to be few types of song these days. Firstly, there are those which are mabye a bit political or perhaps slightly witty. They write some words, they think of a simple tune, crowbar them together, package it and sell it to the masses who think it's good because the lady on the radio says it is. It's lazy. Why do people fall for it? Then there are those which mention sex a couple of times. They don't need a tune or decent words. Just say 'lets have sex' over a brum and bass backing and people will love it.

And where does it lead? It's a stab at quick easy money. None of these songs will be seroiusly remembered in 15 years time. A 2020 shrek comeback film won't feature songs by Justin Timberlake or Bloc Party. It will have the monkees and elvis. People who wrote songs well, and for the love of music. Not for a couple of bucks and a kiss form a stranger.

At least that's my hope.

Playscemes and stuff

I'm currently writing this sitting in the control room in the gateway waiting for the wedding for my friends Matt and Claire to begin. I was kind of thrust into the deep end when he asked me to do the visuals for his wedding as I have never done it for a service before. Youth groups yes, but youthgroups are easy. Kids are far less demanding, if you muck it up then a friday night has a slight hitch. If I muck it up today it's a much bigger deal.

Well anyway.

The last two weeks I have been working in Westfield school helping to run a playsceme for 8 - 16 year olds, although in actuality, the oldest was only 13. Really cool though. We've played games, sport, made things, it was good fun, if a little draining at times, and I got paid for it as well.

And You know, sometimes you can be in a situation and not know why you're there. As in,. this really dosen't seem like a big part of God's Great Plan. And you get to the end and nothing seems to have happened. Then you go out for the final team meal and the whole week seems worthwhile, if only you didn't have to go through the fortnight of working beforehand. The relationships the Lydia and I built up during our time at 'Active Westfield' enabled us to have the most amazing conversation, the kind of which I don't think I've had all year. We were able to share our faith in an open and powerful way, and looking back at it, we know that God was with us all the way through it.

And right now, I have a wedding to visualise.