Sleep.
Till...
Answers!
15. Twins reunited after being separated from disgusted August.
14. Bubbly from Milton Keynes.
3. Richard Neville.
Check your history books.
2. Frequently needed a scrunchie.
The Korgis - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime
My first school teacher was Mrs. Kaye. She was a grand old dame, that's the only way to describe her. Posh, but lovely. Very theatrical. She wrote her own school plays, adapting Tom Sawyer, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe into scripts that could be performed by 8-10 year olds. I guess she saw some hidden talent in me as she cast me in major roles in the first two - Huckleberry Finn and Willy Wonka... though it was quite a come-down to only appear as Mr. Beaver in the latter. I've no idea what I'd done to deserve that.
The Rare Earth - Is Your Teacher Cool?
I've probably mentioned this before, but years later, when I decided I wanted to be a DJ and a couple of people at the radio station suggested that my Yorkshire accent was a little strong, I went back to Mrs. Kaye for elocution lessons. She'd retired by then, but was happy to get me to read Keats over and over, softening my vowels and slowing my inflection. I can't think about Mrs. Kaye without remembering those summer evenings in her conservatory, picturing ripe fruit, plump hazel shells and vines that round the thatch-eves run... the words from the poem somehow transforming her home into an idyllic country cottage, when it was probably anything but.
Wide Boy Awake - Slang Teacher
Nat King Cole - The Rain In Spain
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Everyday I Write The Book
I was up in my mum's attic a few months back and I found a load of my old writing. Novels, TV scripts, comic book scripts... all things I wrote before I owned a PC, so I guess it dates back to the late 80s and early 90s. Everything I've written since getting a computer has been saved on memory sticks and external hard-drives, but back then all I had was a crappy word-processor with a tiny screen that used an early form of floppy discs to save my work. (Prior to that, I wrote on a huge, clunky old typewriter... those really were the glory days.)
Fionn Regan - The Underwood Typewriter
I've been scanning these old texts (many of which are not very good at all, though they still mean a lot to me) so that I can keep them digitally - I haven't got room for all this mouldering old paper that's been stuck up in an attic for 30+ years... but I wouldn't want to throw any of it away without preserving it somehow.
Father John Misty - I'm Writing a Novel
This process has reconfirmed for me the fact that writing has always been something I've used for Self Help (therapy!): to help me work out my feelings, deal with life experiences, try to make sense of the big mystery.
The Good Rats - Writing The Pages
Back when I spent hours and days and weeks of my teenage and twenty-something life writing all this fiction, I told myself the goal was to be published (or produced)... the mental health benefits I received by putting my words down on paper were an unwitting bonus. I didn't realise how much writing was helping me, but clearly it was - everything I wrote had my own thoughts, feelings and life experiences as its core (no matter how fantastical other elements of the plot might have been), and the sheer amount of time I spent on it speaks for itself.
Lynyrd Skynyrd - All I Can Do Is Write About It
The University of Bolton tells us...
Writing can be a self-care method for many; helping to unwind and de-stress.
Writing about difficult situations can help us release our feelings in a healthy way. In a study conducted by psychologist James Pennebaker, researchers encouraged individuals to write about their darkest emotions and thoughts regarding a terrible incident. The findings revealed that individuals who wrote about their encounters had considerably fewer physical problems, such as migraines and gastrointestinal issues than those who did not write at all.
This makes me wonder what might have happened if I hadn't spent so much of my youth writing. Would I have been significantly more depressed? Would in turn that have led to physical symptoms? Or... might I have spent more time with friends, trying to build more of a social life and immerse myself in the tribe? Would I have pinged off on a different tangent altogether?
Creative writing forces you to arrange your ideas and put them into words. This can assist you in putting things into perspective and making better judgments. Writing also assists you in becoming more conscious of your own ideas and emotions.
It's worth pointing out that while I was doing all this writing, I wasn't a complete hermit. I did have friends and a facsimile of a social life - just not as wild/busy/varied as many teens and twenty-somethings enjoy. I even stumbled into a couple of romantic relationships. I fit the writing around all that. But I definitely lived in my head - and on my pages - far more than the average bear.
However, the boffins from Bolton continue...
Some may also use creative writing as a way of connecting with others. Sharing tales and perspectives while also learning from, and supporting one another.
Stevie Nicks - Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?
Back when I spent so much of my life writing those stories, they were rarely read by anyone else. Occasionally I'd submit one as part of my English degree (the tutors weren't my biggest fans) and one or two other people might have read something I wrote.
John K. Samson - When I Write My Master's Thesis
And then there were all the agents, publishers and production companies I collected rejection letters from. But I'm not sure they count - clearly they didn't read my submissions in the correct way, otherwise I'd be talking to you while sitting on a huge pile of cash right now.
Jerry Leger - She's the Best Writer You've Never Heard Of
(That was a joke, by the way. Even when I was an aspiring writer, I was aware that published writers often don't make a lot of money. That never stopped me, so clearly financial reward wasn't high up my list of aspirations. I just wanted to earn enough that I could keep on writing, and make it my life.)
Joe Henry - I Will Write My Book
The exception to the "Nobody reads my writing, but I keep on doing it anyway" rule that I lived by back then were the small press comics I put out. These did have a readership, and a particularly vocal one too. I had about 30, 40 regular readers from all across the country, having made a name for myself in the small pond of amateur comics and used the limited outlets available for self-promotion in the pre-internet days to the best of my abilities.
Many of these readers would provide written feedback - I use the term "fanmail" very loosely, but a few folders of glowing handwritten correspondence was among the treasures I discovered in my mum's attic. I even ran a letters page in my most successful book,The Jock, and this would often run to 5 or 6 pages of tiny-typed feedback and discussion. By contrast, when I returned to making small press comics in the new Millennium, though the internet made it far easier to promote your wares and the print quality was far superior to the grainy black and white photocopies of the 90s, I hardly received any written feedback on my work. I sold more copies, but hardly anybody had anything to say about what they'd read - even though an email would have taken far less effort than posting a handwritten letter... such is the world we live in now.
The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
Back to the University of Bolton for one final word about the mental health benefits of writing...
It can make you feel better about yourself as it allows people to see what's going on within your thoughts. You may even earn praise from friends and family after sharing anything you've produced with them. If you don't share your writing, then writing about yourself and the events in your life provides an artistic outlet to express your thoughts without fear of criticism from others. Writing about yourself allows you to ponder on who you are as a person and how much importance each human being has.
Which all sounds great, doesn't it? This writing malarkey sounds like a true panacea - the cure to all our ills! Why isn't everybody doing it?
Gilbert O'Sullivan - I'm A Writer, Not A Fighter
And this is where we have to take a step back, to last week's post, and the week before's. Remember our old friend Tiberius? Remember how worried he was about other people's opinions? Remember how we discussed "externalising his self-worth", how Tiberius received a tiny little feel-good dopamine hit every time someone smiled at him or complimented him on his work? Remember that article from the Harvard Business Review that advised Tiberius to Stop Basing Your Self-Worth on Other People’s Opinions? Well, here's a little more from that...
Externalizing our self-worth, when it works, can yield short-term benefits. We get emotionally and chemically rewarded when we succeed. Our hypothalamus produces dopamine, often referred to as the feel-good neurotransmitter. Our self-esteem gets lifted, leaving us feeling safe, secure, and superior.
But dependency on external validation and social approval has a dark alter ego that reveals itself over time because outsourcing our self-worth undermines the basic human needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
Yesterday Henry, today Bridget. (Jane has featured here before.) Two Fondas, because they rhyme with Wander. And because I couldn't find a picture of either Wanda Jackson or Elizabeth Olsen holding a camera.
Anyway, here are ten great songs to wander to...
10. Sounds like nobility is only down the road in the local municipality.
The Earl is just in town.
Justin Townes Earl - Wanderin'
(Don't even start me on the Queen making Doncaster a city but not Huddersfield. Don't even start me.)
9. Et tu, dosh?
U2, Cash?
Johnny Cash & U2 - The Wanderer
8. Shroud + Cane.
A pall and a birch.
7. Shorn in Syria.
Anagram!
Harry Nilsson - As I Wander Lonely
6. What snails use to play golf.
Slow Club - Wanderer Wandering
5. Jamaican hat trick.
The Kingston Trio - The Wanderer
4. Pink planet.
If you like your steak pink...
The Rare Earth - Born To Wander
3. Almost makes me want to Call Saul...
Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, in the best show on TV at the moment, is played by Bob Odenkirk. Which almost sounds like...
The Obernkirchen Children's Choir - The Happy Wanderer
Don't laugh. That was in the UK charts for SIX months back in 1954.
2. Sounds like half a Eurovision winner.
Celine Dion won Eurovision for Switzerland in 1988... even though she's Canadian.
1. Jeans make him paranoid.
Lee Jeans make him a Paranoid Android... like Marvin.
Lee Marvin - Wandrin' Star
The road is long, we carry onWords to live by, Lana.
Try to have fun in the meantime
Cause the wind was my mother6. Patrick Hernandez - Born To Be Alive
The highway is my brother
I was born to wander
And it's time for movin' on
I was born to wander
Turn around and I'll be gone, gone, gone
Born to a family of honest workers... then I came alongEveryone else in my family has a trade. They do good, honest, skilled work.
I was square into the holeSon, whatever you want to do with your life, I hope to encourage you. But people will always need plumbers...
There was something in my soul
What could I do... but follow the calling?
Get your motor running...This song was written by Mars Bonfire. Yes, I said Mars Bonfire.
All my life through I was born, born, born, born, born to be with you1. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
