Author Archives: yourstruly

NaNoWriMo

Posted in Wibbling by

Posted on November 1, 2012

I have just signed up for National Novel Writing Month, taking place all the month of November, in the hope of giving myself the kick up the arse I’ve sorely been needing.

Already it is tempting to envisage my failure, but I am trying to counteract that with the optimistic idea that I can see it as part of a joint effort, or even a collaboration in the act of writing.

The story you may be able to see on the scribbling page of the site is probably as much of a tangible story-line that I’ve been able to create. I have a just-barely-tangible idea of what I would *like* to see on the page, but I’m really not sure where to take it: here, there or indeed anywhere.

I want to tell a historical but human story, but the *story* evades me. I’m sure it’s somewhere in the old weary noggin, but hopefully NaNoWriMo will help me to unearth the story and bring it onto the page.

Hopefully some more stuff will come out of me too.

A Walk In The Glen

Posted in General musings, The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on October 12, 2012

Since the folks took ownership of a lochside inn, there has been far more opportunity to explore the surrounding areas, one in particular which stands out in the memory.

A walk in Puck’s Glen is something akin to taking a stroll through the pages of a fairytale

A brief outline of the experience:

A little bridge which leads to an uphill climb into a wooded area; sunlight streaking through thickening trees; moss and fern type foliage cropping up here and there; streams trickling down the mountainside which can be heard going in every direction.

A few photos for the purposes of giving something of an impression:

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(Spot Charlie in this one)

Absolutely worthwhile if temporary escape from the “routine”…

Coming And Going And Staying

Posted in General musings by

Posted on September 24, 2012

Things have continued to move rather slowly since I lasted posted here. But for virtually everyone else in my social circle, it has been quite the rollercoaster ride of late.

Both my sister and parents have upped sticks and escaped to the countryside, the former to a village on the outskirts of town life, and the latter to an idyllic lochside inn. Other acquaintances have either already taken the plunge, or are at least talking about it, and it is something which worries the fringes of my brain ever more often.

With the rising cost of everything, and urban areas getting more overcrowded by the day, my inner hermit is not only emerging, but actively demanding more attention. However it is not entirely certain what should be done.

While it would, on paper, be excellent to abandon “real life”, it is all too easy to forget the unforseen reality of such an impulse. The trouble is that real life, all too often, tends to follow you wherever you go and to stick quite faithfully by your side. So do hordes of other people with the same idea but more on that another time.

Also things in general are sufficiently stable, for the time being, to warrant being careful about changing too much too soon.

Perhaps the real concern here is one of succumbing to complacency, or stagnating in life. I would just like to be sure that I’m making the most out of life but most of the time I’m not even sure what I want to be doing.

Hopefully as the days darken, it will have the inverse effect of shedding some light on the next move to make, if indeed any.

Been Away For A While

Posted in General musings by

Posted on September 8, 2012

… mostly because I’ve not had much to report recently. But in the interest of keeping up to date with my site…

I’m going to a wedding today, along with the fiance, with whom this will be my first full-day wedding, and because of a charity cycling event tomorrow (Pedal for Scotland), it will be a relatively sober one. I’m particularly bad at these types of events, or any type of socialising en masse, but it will be good to see everyone, and to actually meet the bride!

Also there’s the fact that I’m nowhere near adequately prepared for this cycling trip, but I’m determined to do at least one such challenge, and as they go, this is meant to be one of the more beginner friendly. We’ll see.

Since my plans for postgraduate study went down the drain, I’ve been applying for pretty much everywhere else. Luckily I’ve gotten a couple more gigs in content writing, bad news is that my creative writing is still on the wane. It’s quite difficult when you’re trying.

Healthwise, things could be better for myself and my fiance, but hopefully with an adjustment here and there, things will improve for us pretty soon.

On that note, I’ll sign off once again. Hopefully by next time I’ll have more in the way of photography, but it’ll probably not all be mine :S

On Joining A Meetup Group. And Climbing A Mountain.

Posted in General musings, The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on August 1, 2012

Since last writing, I’ve been *trying* to write, amongst other things suddenly available to me but requiring quite a bit of motivation. The one thing of note which I’ve done recently is climb Goat Fell, the highest peak in the isle of Arran.

My fiance had already done it once, and recommended my doing it too. I was somewhat apprehensive; not just of the actual bit involving mountain climbing but that our last expedition (the camping) ended up being a disastrous anecdote that we *may* be able to laugh about some day.

But if there’s something an able-bodied person with time to spare should do at least once in their life, it’s climb a mountain.

So we did, and it was quite an experience. Excruciatingly hard work throughout, lots of scrabbling, and literal *climbing*, up a mostly rock-strewn mountainside. But somehow we made it to the top, and have the photos to prove it, though I’m rather reluctant to show them as it shows me looking quite terrible. Maybe another time

The view from the top could have been better too. It clouded over just before and just after reaching the summit, and duly cleared back up on the way back down. I’m sure the view would have been awesome. But that we did it is the main thing…

Furthermore, I’m trying to expand my social circle, and the best way I can see, at the moment, is joining one of those online meetup groups which seem to be popping up everywhere. In typical style, amongst others, I joined one for writing.

I nearly didn’t go along to the first meeting. It seems that an all too frequent recurrence in my life is approaching the herd/pack/clan when they appear to have the perfect number already without me, thanks very much, and in fact my sudden intrusion would risk disrupting this perfect social balance.

Ignoring these urges to back away, I introduced myself, sat down, and just… joined in. As if I had been a member as long as everyone else.

It could have been a lot worse. I felt that merely treating it like a university seminar class, where everyone is there to discuss the specific topic in question, significantly helped my feeling like I might in fact belong there.

I won’t go into tedious detail of writers’ group stuff, as not everyone, I’m sure, is into that kind of thing. Feedback was duly passed around everyone’s work – including mine – which it is crucial to try not to take too personally. I braced myself for the worst, and took it all in the spirit it was intended in.

I couldn’t bring myself to participate in the feedback fully, but that will be my aim for next time. I would genuinely want to help others out where I can.

If I can pass on what I learned at uni onto others (apart from winging and fluffing my way through public speaking) then that would be nice.

Culture Vulture

Posted in Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time) by

Posted on July 9, 2012

The last thing I want to become – well, not quite the last thing but something I wouldn’t be keen on – is to become a culture snob. Like, the type who thinks that there is an objective standard for the creative arts and that there is no room for argument or challenge, ie., THEY are the elite and you can only hope to be a poor imitation of the values which they pertain to embody.

Yet a sense of culture enhances the sense of standards and values and can be, well, very valuable in being a thoughtful and discerning global citizen. I guess, in a way, this is a somewhat long-winded way of introducing my personal quest to keep my brain alive in the immediate post-graduation stretch of time still lying before me. I’m going for a carpe diem (seize the day) approach, an equivalent of spinning a globe and seeing what country you land on.

Today I went, rather out of my way, to an art gallery in another city for the sole purpose of viewing and appreciating one artist; one Edvard Munch, creator of the iconic painting “The Scream”, amongst many other symbolist and impressionist works which indeed portray a rather wider spectrum of emotion.

I was all set to open my mind to an area of art previously overlooked by myself, but fell almost immediately at the first hurdle. That, alas, was the presence of Other People.

I guess I was hoping, on a late Monday morning, I would have the place pretty much to myself (ignoring the slight embarrassment of knocking around a gallery instead of working on a weekday in the first place…), or at the very least, enough room and space between myself and Other People to be able to mull over this diminutive collection in relative peace.

But I found myself honing the technique of “speed-appreciating” – admiring something quickly, a split-second of reflection then moving swiftly on. Granted this was not my preferred method of art-appreciation, but it was never long before one or more people huddled round a picture so tightly that you are at risk of invading their personal space in order to get a look in. I’m quite miffed that the closest I got to the original copy of “The Scream” was peering over the shoulder of a rather tall person. It was almost enough to make me want to act out the painting…

But the art itself was… eye-opening. It has awakened an interest in Nordic and Scandinavian culture which was already lurking under the surface, but didn’t quite know what to focus on. The work was, for want of a better word, relatable. Works like “The Dance of Life” contrasted with darker images such as “The Lonely Ones”, and other depictions of anxiety and isolation, which Munch in fact experienced much of during his lifetime. The particular employment of strokes and shading gave a personality to each painting, and it definitely made me want to look into it some more. Overall, very brief but quite interesting.

Finally; no I would not like you, upon my buying a ticket, to immediately attempt to “upgrade” me to a family season ticket, given that it’s just me here for the day, and I would to be asked to make a donation to be added onto the ticket priceI do not appreciate the built-in guilt trip this request contains and I will make a donation, but in my own way and in my own time.

It’s almost enough to put me off the whole “culture” thing, which is a shame.

 

In Absentia

Posted in General musings by

Posted on June 27, 2012

I have been away from this site for a while, having had nothing much new to report as happening recently.

Although I am about to graduate with an honours degree, I have suffered a considerable knock to my confidence in myself as an academic person, having received a dismal mark for my dissertation. This most likely went some way to lowering my overall grade point average, and despite assurances that I shouldn’t care as long as I have my degree (which of course is true) I can’t help but feel as if one of the few avenues of career direction has been considerably narrowed down.

On the other hand, I’m quite relieved to leave behind a part of my life which has involved constant mental struggle and the basing of my thoughts, ideas and self-esteem entirely on the mark of my latest essay. Although in many ways a true calling in my life, my time at university has been a dramatically life-altering experience.

Many of the best and worst times of my life were contained within this period of time, and I had pinned so much hope on my ability to get there in the first place that, when it did go wrong, it was a living nightmare.

But now it is time to pick up the pieces, take note of what I have learnt – and possibly forgotten – and keep pushing on, even if I can’t see exactly where I’m going.

 

Wild Camping. And The Dreaded Midge.

Posted in The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on June 6, 2012

After the visit to the ghost town, we saddled up and hopped on the ferry to Tarbert, another seaside village, and after a last-minute change of plan brought on by the lack of public transport which we didn’t find out about till then, decided to embark upon the Kintyre Way, with a view to camping somewhere in the middle and continuing on to Arran the next day.

The trek was strenuous but made up for by the views we could see at the summit, but the romantic idea of wild camping I had in mind before the trip was almost immediately quashed by the descent of, literally, millions of midges whenever we needed to stop for the briefest amount of time.

Now midges are as inevitable a fact of life in Scotland during the summertime as rain is at, well, any time. But nothing could have prepared me for the kamikaze-like ferocity with which we were attacked by these miniscule insects; it was one of those things which, sadly, one has to experience first-hand in order to get a true impression.

We trekked as far as the daylight would allow before settling on a reasonable looking spot, and no sooner had we begun to set up camp than the midges scented our living bodies and moved in for the kill, resulting in a very speedy operation and a swift retreat into the tent; not to re-emerge till the next morning. Even then we had only enough time to spray, pack up and get the hell as far away from the midges as possible.

We made a brisk move towards the ferry, heading in towards Arran. By that point we were ready to call the whole trip a failure from the get-go and limp on home, but the lure of a nice-looking campsite in the sunshine was enough to keep us on for another night, so we duly set up camp there. This was a somewhat more pleasant experience, walking around a place which already had a special association, doing a spot of hillwalking, and taking pictures of the odd deer which would stray into the campsite.

But I still felt I had missed out on something; the joy of climbing up a mountainside and setting up temporary home surrounded by nothing but nature. Needless to say, we both survived our trip more or less in one piece, but hopefully one day, we’ll be able to get the “whole experience” of camping.

Until then, I’ll just try to write about that sort of thing as best I can.

A Coastal Ghost Town

Posted in The Sporadic Traveller by

Posted on June 6, 2012

It’s been an eventful few days, following a mostly uneventful few weeks, punctuating the newly adopted graduate life.

My fiance and I had been talking about giving wild camping a go for quite a while. Having myself never actually wild camped before (my tent-living experiences being limited to my parents’ back garden and, much later, a muddy field full of drunk loud people), the prospect of sleeping under a starry night sky (his experience) was romantic sounding enough to sell me.

I will post more about the camping later on, but first – we packed up the stuff, perhaps overpacked which I usually tend to do, and began the journey with a couple of his mates on a drive to Polphail, a long-abandoned town in a western Scottish peninsula. It was a sunny day and there was a very pretty view of the sea and the various isles in the distance, in stark contrast to this place.

Wandering around the ruins (being careful where to step with rubble, manholes and unstable roofing everywhere) was quite a gloomy experience. Houses and public buildings which were never even used or lived in, left for decades to do nothing but fall apart and decay. A relic of the past, maybe, but one which never really existed in the first place.

Graffiti indicated a recent presence, perhaps attempting to reclaim the place as a make-shift outdoor art gallery, but even then an air of pessimism ran through the overall “theme”.

We had never seen anything quite like it, and the slabs of grey, choked with overgrowing foliage, certainly had about it a touch of melancholy. Soon it was time to get out of there and commence the camping trip, as the call of nature grew more by the minute. But that in itself was to be a challenge…

School’s Out. For A While.

Posted in General musings, Literary appreciation (at the risk of sounding pretentious from time to time) by

Posted on May 19, 2012

The last exam is over and I have now officially finished with university. I thought it would feel quite a lot different  but it’s going to take a while to get rid of the nagging feeling that I should be doing something intellectual all the time. Of course I still want to keep up the “way” of writing but, for once, it will really ease the pressure on me not to have to write for approval and to forever struggle to get a grip on the academia ladder’s next rung.

I had the rather unexpected good fortune, on a night out celebrating my sister’s birthday (and my new freedom), to meet one Peter Mullan, the locally living actor turned director, who took the time to listen with admirable patience to my writing woes, and to give some rather sound advice. One thing I have always allowed to turn me off writing, or anything that I like doing, is the criticism and/or disapproval of other people – being able to reply quite dependably upon rejection can’t really be a good thing – but it’s also the case that life cannot be all about sucking up to said people. I wouldn’t feel too good about myself if I knew that’s the only reason I got to where I might end up someday.

I want to be able to say, at the risk of injecting a risky amount of cheese, “I did it my way”.

I guess it’s come to that point in life when, after all the grinding away at something with more often than not an uncertain outcome, it’s time to put that aside and start doing a bit of living day to day. Or minute to minute even.