Shadows on the Art Gallery

It was a lovely sunny day yesterday and I was delighted to see these shadows of the lamps on the columns at the entrance to the Art Gallery on the Mound in Edinburgh.

more shadows over on Crafty Green Poet

For Shadow Shot Sunday

Bolts of Silk

Bolts of Silk, the poetry journal I've edited for the past eight years, will close to submissions on 17 April 2014. The last poem will be posted the day swifts return to Edinburgh for the summer.

Thanks to all the poets and readers who've helped to make Bolts of Silk a lovely poetry journal to edit over the past eight years. I've enjoyed editing it, but it's just time to call it a day, now.

The site will stay up as an archive and there's a lot of wonderful poetry there, so I hope some of you will continue to stop by and browse in the future.

The Missing Picture - film review

Director Rithy Panh was 13 when the Khmer Rouge deported his family from Phnom Penh. Now in his fifties, and having made a series of documentaries about his homeland, he turned to a more personal project with The Missing Picture.

Finding that hardly any documentary evidence remained from the times of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, he decided to make a film using clay figurines to tell his story and that of his family. The figurines re-enact the hardships Panh and his family endured in the fields where they were forced to work with very little food or medical attention in a collective farm where no-one had any personal belongings other than a spoon and clothes that were compulsorily dyed black. The Khmer Rouge punished (and often executed) people for crimes as simple as picking mangoes to counteract the ever pervasive hunger. Many people starved to death, or died of preventible diseases.

The result is a film that is striking in its imagination and devastating in its emotional impact, though it can be acknowledged that it is unremittingly grim. Even the scenes showing happier times in Phnom Penh, before the Khmer Rouge, only underline the horror of the Killing Fields rather than adding any lightness. Which is less an actual criticism than an acknowledgement that this is not an easy film to watch.

Some commentators have said that the figurines, although very effective in conveying the powerlessness and silence of the Cambodian people during this time period, also dilute the emotional impact of the story. I didn't find this, I found that somehow they increased the feeling of shocked horror at everything that was happening.

The Missing Picture is showing at Edinburgh Filmhouse until Thursday 20 February.

1,000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More by Bryan Cohen

Bryan Cohen's prompt based books are useful and inspiring resources for writers. This one is no different.

1,000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More shares prompts to help you create characters, with chapters including 'Characters Inside and Outside the Law' and 'Non-human Characters'.

In the introduction to the book, Cohen claims that 'the real trick of telling stories is to create a set of memorable characters' and it's certainly hard to argue with that. The ay to use the book is to browse it until you find the character type you want and then try the prompts. Alternatively, you can use it as a more general resource and just try out all the characters!

The prompts are quite detailed so that you have quite a lot of information to use as you create your characters, examples include:

She looked through the crosshairs of the sniper rifle and everything was set up perfectly. She had a pang of loneliness for a second. It was difficult sometimes, traveling around the world alone. Killing and then disappearing without a trace. Her parents never asked her where she'd gotten the money for their swanky retirement home, then again, she didn't stick around long enough to hear the answer. She could have told them she kills bad people for a living, but of course, that would be a lie. What does the future look like for this master assassin?

***
Your family is what you'd call accepting but conservative. When your aunt came out to everyone during the holiday season, it caused a major shockwave. After all, your parents started a church that tended to exclude homosexuals from joining, but they also felt that it would be a sin to exclude family from their lives. Whenever she brings her partner to family functions, explaining the situation to the kids is always a tenuous and hilarious situation. Your aunt has always been the one to turn to in a situation that your right-wing parents just wouldn't understand. While she tends to talk more often than she listens, it seems like most of the things she says have major value. When did she decide to come out and what is her day-to-day life like with her partner?

***
During most of his life he hadn't been able to pursue his passions due to a job with long hours and a family with many mouths to feed. Now that his children and grandchildren could take care of themselves, he decided to take up acting in his twilight years. His local community theater was often lacking when it came to elderly actors, and they welcomed him with open arms. Before he knew it, he felt more alive than he had in decades, and that was before the positive reviews in the paper. He always knew he had it in him and was glad to discover his talent before it was over. What are some of the roles he played and what made him such an adept actor?

***
While she had a feeling that she wasn't going anywhere while she did it, it just plain felt good to run on that wheel. It was something about the wind going through her fur that exhilarated her. She knew that her owners would laugh at her when she started going full speed but there was nothing in the world that made her feel better. Afterwards, she would always down nearly half her water bottle and her owners would marvel at her thirst. She tired herself out so much from the run, she usually went right to sleep. What is it about her running that gives her such an emotional boost and what would she do if her roommate was on the wheel for too long?

***

Once again, Cohen has come up with an inspiring resource for anyone who needs characters for their stories and novels! (Though there is a serious omission in the lack of a prompt for a pet rabbit).

Thanks Story Cartel for my free download of this book. 

Bryan shares more ideas on his Build Creative Writing Ideas website and you can follow him on Twitter @bryancohenbooks.

I've previously reviewed two of Bryan's other books, you can read the reviews by following the links below:

Strange Fire

Did I mouth the words of the songs
as we danced drunkenly dazed 
by your fireplace? 
Tell me I didn’t 
So I don’t need to say 
I didn’t mean the words of the songs 
I mouthed as we danced drunkenly, 
dazed by your fire as I was. 

Did you sing along? 
Out of habit or feeling? 
What is the music revealing? 

I sit here and sing the words of the songs 
I may or may not have been singing 
with you or to you. 

Every word is for you.



Previously published in Poetry Scotland

Stone Voices by Neal Ascherson

Subtitled The search for Scotland, this is a voyage into the historical Scottish psyche. The stones of the title refer to the geology of Scotland, the ancient standing stones erected by ancient Scots and most of all to the Stone of Destiny, used for centuries in the coronation of the monarchs of Scotland then the monarchs of England. In 1996 the Stone was returned to Scotland in a symbolic gesture.

Stone Voices outlines the history of Scottish cultural identity from ancient times to 2002 when the book was written. Rather too much is written about the Bus Tour for Devolution which the author participated in during the 1997 Referendum campaign. Otherwise this is a fascinating and insightful exploration of Scotland, her geology, archeology, myths, legends, history, cultural attitudes and relationship with the world. Ascherson covers both internal relationships such as the divide between Highland and Lowland Scotland and external relationships including the extensive and successful Scottish settlements in Poland during the early seventeenth century.

Recommended reading as we draw ever closer to a new referendum on the future of Scotland.

Stone Voices by Neal Ascherson published by Hill and Wang (Macmillan). 

And if you're really keen on being well informed on the forthcoming referendum, you may wish to read the White Paper on Scottish Independence.

Ten Commandments for the Thriving Writer by Karen Banes

This short e-book by Karen Banes is full of useful advice for anyone wanting to pursue a freelancing writing career or just interested in widening the audience for their writing.

The advice is wide ranging and includes how to brainstorm ideas, how to build and organise a body of work, how to add value by publishing different pieces based on the same basic idea, how to network and collaborate with other writers and advice on self publishing and marketing and maximising your income.

The advice is concise, sensible and easy to follow. Much of it may not be new to writers who have a fair amount of experience, but it's always worth giving yourself a refresher course in essential techniques for improving your freelance writing career. And at only 35 pages, this book won't take very long to read, while the selected relevant links scattered through the test mean that you have the chance to follow up on your favourite topics.

Thanks Story Cartel for my free e-book version of Ten Commandements for the Thriving Writer by Karen Banes.

Christmas Market

We visited the Edinburgh German Christmas Market today and enjoyed apple strudel with cherries and a mug of mulled wine with kirsch and watched the rain come down.

1000 creative writing prompts

1000 Creative Writing Prompts: Volume 2: More Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More by Bryan Cohen.

This gem of a book is packed full of creative prompts designed specifically to make you think and create blog posts, articles or stories, to explore issues, stimulate conversations or to share in creative writing classes.

The prompts are arranged in thematic chapters: Time and Place; People and Creatures; The Body and the Brain; Concepts; Money; Love and Entertainment and Mixed Bag. This is a useful way of organising your browsing through the book.

As i said at the beginning of the review, these are thought provoking prompts, designed to explore ideas rather than technique. Examples include:

When historians talk about the present day, what nickname do you think they'd give it and why? Would that nickname effectively convey the world you lived in? Why or why not? 

**
During the oil crisis in 1973 and 1974, 20 percent of gas stations had no fuel at all to provide consumers. How would your day-to-day life be different if you and your family simply couldn't get gas? What changes might you have to make during such a crisis and why?

Each prompt can probably be used to good effect many times over, so this book is a great resource for any writer.

Thanks Story Cartel for my free download of this book.

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare

I realised Ismail Kadare was a great writer when I read his novel Broken April, which tells the story of blood feuds in the mountains of Albania. I've been waiting for him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature ever since.

The Fall of the Stone City is set in Gjirokastër, Albania, birthplace of both Kadare himself and the Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha.  The story starts in September 1943 as Nazi troops prepare to bombard the city. However, something stops them and it turns out that the Nazi colonel remembers he has an old friend from University living in Gjirokastër, Big Dr Gurameto, one of two surgeons in the city (the other who is also called Dr Gurameto). A reunion dinner ensues which leads to the doctor being considered a traitor, but then the hostages are released, soi perhaps he's a hero?

The story continues through the city's changing political fortunes. It's a city that has been invaded by foreign powers many times and is used to this, the residents carry on as though nothing has happened even as leaders come and go.

This is a enigmatic and intriguing novel that illuminates a key period in Albanian history, while asking questions about the nature of truth, power and loyalty, lightened by a dark humour. Any reading of it probably benefits from some knowledge of Albanian history, customs and folklore and some knowledge of Kadare's other novels.

Thanks to Jim Murdoch, who sent me a spare copy of this novel and who wrote a much longer review of it last year!

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare, published by Canongate. 

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.