Expectation is a tricky thing. We generate it ourselves, but we don’t have a lot of control over it. We merely light the fuse. Our subconscious does the rest. It fans the flames and spreads the fire. It makes us crave what lies ahead. Before we know it, we’ve taken something we’re interested in and turned it into something so much bigger. Something that feels bizarrely pivotal to our happiness. Sadly, this process doesn’t always work out well for us or the thing we’re waiting for.
Read MoreI’ve been writing stories, in one form or another, since I was about six or seven. It’s hard to be sure exactly when I started. It’s all become a bit of a blur thanks to, well, getting old. I know I was definitely small enough that older relatives thought it was adorable. I guess it was at the age where it’s socially acceptable to patronise a child for trying to do something you associate with grown-ups.
Read MoreMy apologies, it’s going to be a fast big of blogging this week. Which is annoying, as there’s a really a lot I should be talking about. I could talk about going to my first night of live readings on Monday and the wonderfully odd index of authors I met there. Let alone something strange I picked up about the mechanics of live storytelling and recital. I could talk about the fact I’ve been off work all week and I’ve spent a lot of that time wrestling with final rewrite of my second novel. Which, for the record, can either be going really well or really badly depending on which way the wind’s blowing.
Read MoreHere at The Blank Page, we like to try and keep our offerings to a fairly high standard. Sadly, this is yet another week which found your erstwhile blogger stuck in the middle of some self-inflicted existential crisis. He’s got a lot on his mind at the moment, so he’s locked himself in the bathroom with a bottle of a rum, a bread and butter pudding and some old Spawn comics. We figured it’s probably best to leave him there until he drinks himself out cold. Don’t worry, it won’t take long. He’s not getting any younger.
Read MoreWell, this is troubling. I sat down with plenty of ideas for the weekly blog, but none of them are working. Every single one of them died after a paragraph or two in. Some were too lightweight to be worth your time. Others were just too dark and brooding to be read by anyone outside my own head. One in particular was too angry to live.
Read MoreNo matter who you are, the odds are pretty good that a teacher left a mark on you. Of course, for my parents’ generation that could mean something very different. Their teachers didn’t just use chalk and blackboards to educate them. Oh no, they employed some very different instruments.
Not that we’re here to discuss the failings of our parents’ teachers. Nope, we’re here to talk about a few things, which would really annoy one of my old teachers. She certainly left a mark on me.
For the record, I’ve been struggling to express this idea since it hit me. This felt like a good place to thrash it out. Show my workings. I think that, whilst sometimes we will buy what we need, there is a more interesting relationship between us and buying what we want. I think, in some cases, what we’re actually chasing after is already in our head.
Read MoreNext's week blog comes damn near seven days early and it's come with anger in its heart and disbelief on its sleeve. Be warned, there are spoilers beyond this point. There are also some opinions, some facts and a dash of vitriol. Enjoy!
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