Aliens and Editing

Art in Liverpool http://www.artinliverpool.com/blog/blogarch/literature/ and Nerve Magazine http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/word_is.htm both carry write-ups of the recent Word Is They Say (WITS) literary festival in Liverpool, which I took part in.

One of the funniest films I've watched in a long time is Jake West's Evil Aliens, produced by Tim Dennison. The blurb on the back of the DVD box says, "Michelle Fox (Emily Booth) takes a film crew to deepest, darkest Wales to investigate claims of alien abduction. The television crew don't believe a word of the story until the real stars arrive. They're aliens and they're not friendly."

What follows is a hilarious spoof splatter/gore film - hardly my usual preferred choice of genre, but this truly was so funny. Suffice to say that I'll never see a combine harvester again without remembering this film. Recommended!

In contrast, one of the most boring films I've seen in my entire life was Bringing Up Baby starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The non-stop onslaught of frenetic, semi-hysterical babble was enough to induce a headache. The plot was so unlikely that the film ceased to be a comedy and devolved instead into mere idiocy.

As I type this, the fence to one side of our front garden is being replaced. During the recent storm, the entire fence was ripped off its posts. The poor men are now having to contend with the 2" to 3" long, sharp thorns of my berberis hedge, which I planted to deter two-legged visitors. The workmen have assured me the hedge works well - ahem!

I've been busy with my writing, as usual. I'm currently transferring all my editings and tweakings which have been written on the paper MS to CD, giving a final polish at the same time. This will be the version of Tamsin which I'll be sending to prospective publishers and agents. The word-count, this time around, has differed in only tiny quantities as I've changed the odd word here and there. Beyond this, I risk falling into the trap of tweaking forever, in search of a perfection which doesn't exist. So far, I've done up to chapter 6, so there's quite a long way to go yet - but as most publishers only want to see the first three chapters initially, it's now time to begin aiming energy at the next stage.

Comments

A Cure for Aging?

"All that we profess to do is but this, - to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventatives to the effort of time. This is not magic; it is the art of medicine rightly understood. In our order we hold most noble -, first, that knowledge which elevates the intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body. But the mere art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more noble secret which I will only hint to thee at present, by which heat or calorific, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its perpectual renovator...." Zanoni, book IV, chapter II, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published in 1842. Oroboros keyring - Spooky Cute Designs The idea of being able to achieve an immortal life is probably as old as human life itself. Folklore and myt...

Remembering Richie Tattoo Artist's Studio

Richard in the street entrance to his tattoo studio in Liverpool. The vertical sign next to Richard is now in the Liverpool Tattoo Museum. Yesterday, my sister Evelyn, Richard and myself stood outside Richard's old tattoo studio and looked up at the few remaining signs, whose paint has now mostly flacked away to reveal bare wood. On the studio's window are stick-on letters which read, "Art", where once it boldly announced his presence as the city's only "Tattoo Artist". I can remember him buying that simple plastic lettering from an old-fashioned printer's shop. This was in 1993, not long after he'd opened the studio and before he could afford better signs. After he'd patiently stuck them onto the glass we realised that from the outside the sign read "Artist Tattoo", so we had to carefully peel the letters off the window and have another go, laughing over having made such an obvious error yet worried in case we spoiled the letteri...

Falling Trees and Blue Portraits

Birkenhead Park Visitor Centre, 7th April 2019, by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. My ongoing series of sketches in the park continues unabated, as is evident. On a few recent sketches I've added some simple washes of watercolour to bring another dimension to the scenes. I've long grown accustomed to sketching in public, and the few people who've passed any comment have always been encouraging. I've even unintentionally captured a tiny bit of park history:- I drew this lovely arching tree in February this year, and since then its own weight has pulled its roots out from the ground. Probably due to safety concerns, it has been brutally cut back so it's now little more than a stump, and the horizontal section, with all its vertical branches, has been removed. Hopefully the tree will survive this harsh treatment. "How can walkies please, when every step's a wheeze?" by Adele Cosgrove-Bray. Portrait by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; chalk and charcoal...

Search This Blog