Writing

The Golden Hour

~ Purpleanais ~ 3 Comments

I really enjoyed Sam’s post – follow the link to visit his blog 🙂

Up All Night

It was bright and sunny in February. I loaded up camera and tripod in the front basket of my „15’000 standard Japanese commuter bicycle, the kind everyone rides to the stations in the morning, and dropped down the steep roads north of Tama River, then hit the elevated tarmac by the side of the waterway, and headed east.

It was late afternoon by now, as I’d let myself be delayed at home, by nothing other than my own procrastination. I had a sense that delay might turn out to be a good thing though, depending on how far down the path I was when the sun started dipping low in the beautiful, clear blue sky.

All I knew was that I was cycling in the direction of Tokyo Bay, and Haneda Airport, and, on the other side of the river, Kawasaki and its vast, waterside industrial zone.

And I was


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How Important is it to be well-read?

~ Purpleanais ~ 3 Comments

This is a really fab blog by Tom about being well-read – I adored it! Go read & like the original post, folks 🙂

Idle blogs of an idle fellow

My mother is probably the wisest person I’ve ever known. She’s not schooled, she’s not well read. But she has a philosophy of life that makes well-read people seem like morons. –  Gene Simmons

How well-read you are has been a standard measure of intelligence, social kudos and pulling power since the written word was invented. In fact, it’s hard to resist conjecture that it was invented simply to impress other people. And this lingers, despite a digital age of commuters watching TV box sets on public transport, or publicly declaring how moronic they are by playing pointlessly additive games such as the ubiquitous Candy Crush. These activities are for unplugging the mind, not engaging it. Of course in some circles to have concluded the Eggsteroids level in Angry Birds is greatly admired, but it isn’t quite the same as being well-read. Not yet.

Being well-read is a


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How important is Writing Blog Posts to Novel Writing…?

~ Purpleanais ~ 3 Comments

Please go and like the original post, thank you 🙂

Idle blogs of an idle fellow

“It is named the “Web” for good reason.”
― David Foster Wallace

I can’t believe I’ve now been desperately thinking of things to blog about for four years. When I started I had little idea what blogging was really about, and now I truly have no idea. I think blogs exist mainly so you can get annoyed, and then say rather pointedly to yourself that you’re going to bloody blog about it, because there’s clearly a readership out there for articles on drivers’ inability to park without taking up two bays. Of course unless you do blog about it within 2 minutes you’ll have forgotten all about it and probably driven off anyway. Blogs are the modern equivalent of writing to the Times.

It’s like all those notes in your phone that were Pullitzer prize winning novels, but now read more like a free-associating dead-head in 1960s San Francisco mumbling


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No rhyme, no reason

~ Purpleanais ~ 36 Comments

Bikini body in the sun, half-cocked gun, a summer weapon, a sassy siren sensing and inviting desire, it was a wave rushing towards me, I was riding the crest, eyes closed beneath my shades, heat spreading between my legs, 

but suddenly it all changed, no rhyme, no reason, what the actual fuck was going on, my crazy brain switched moods randomly, I’ve always been my own worst enemy – it was

a senseless dream starting with a less than vague promise of sex and ending with

Van Gogh penniless and in despair trying to drown himself in the deep sunflower fields—which had long haunted him—their colours and shapes having intensified his misery.

What does it all mean? 

I woke up tangled in my sheets—

I had too much to dream 

last night

What IS it about Fashion these days..?

~ Purpleanais ~ Leave a comment

PLease go and like the original post – thank you

Idle blogs of an idle fellow

Ooh fashion
We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town
Beep-beep, beep-beep

David Bowie. Fashion.

What do our clothes say about us? I don’t mean when they’re crushed together in the laundry basket wondering who’s next to be washed, and cursing the current favourite top that barely lands before being whisked off to be cleaned – although I can see that as the next Pixar movie. No, I mean what do they announce about ourselves to the world that might otherwise stay silent. I don’t just mean band tee-shirts that marked some final tour in 1978, the one that’s not had the good times rinsed out since.

You can complete character profiles based upon little more than the type of sandwich someone habitually eats, so clothes are a dead giveaway. That there’s more hashtags for yoga pants than there is for yoga itself tells you all you need


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The Importance of Writing Strong Opening Scenes.

~ Purpleanais ~ Leave a comment

Please go and like the original post – thank you.

Idle blogs of an idle fellow

‘Start as you mean to go on, and keep on doing it.’ Scott Wildblood, Proprietor, and lead Assister at the Life Assistance Agency, whom is better known for starting before anyone else is awake and drumming his fingers until they do.

The importance of a killer opening scene to a novel in a world of podcasts, hapless dating, angry fruit games and watching idiotic American sitcoms during your commute is more important than ever. Whatever happened to staring out the window, or reading a book? Well, perhaps the opening chapter wasn’t good enough.

For this writer the opening scene to his new novel has been somewhat elusive. I’ve written so many first chapters that I’m now hoping simply joining them up might result in a completed novel, providing the Life Assistance Agency with the conclusion that it deserves.  However, I’ve recently had a good idea for one, and


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Tragedy

~ Purpleanais ~ 24 Comments

It might be a chance meeting, somewhere totally random, at a time when my thoughts are turned towards the mundane—why didn’t I bring an umbrella? It’s going to rain—or more lofty matters, probably the former though I have no way of knowing what my mind will be occupied with. I am unprepared, though in my dreams I’ll have lived this moment a hundred times or more. I’ll see you across the street maybe, first doubting what my eyes are telling me but my racing heart will know long before my mind has ascertained the truth. 

Call your name or walk on?

A few seconds to make a choice, too little time to decide. 

I walk on, away…and it takes a little while for a pain so sudden and so great, so fresh it might all have happened yesterday, to fill my chest and spread, making me stumble and try to catch my breath. 

I stop, hesitate and call your name, first in a whisper, then louder, because I cannot let you disappear, again. You see me and there’s no wavering for you, you know what to do, you come to me as if this moment was always meant to be. My body is stiff when you hug me, it’s been years since you last held me, years filled with many things, some of them happy but a life nevertheless underlined with a particular kind of misery. What, next? A pub? Probably. Very little talk to start with. I take you in, a bit more grey in your hair, more lines etched on your face, you look pretty much as I imagined you must do, every time I allowed myself to think of you. I don’t know if I’ll find the words, alcohol might help or hinder but maybe no words will be needed, perhaps the touch of my fingers will be enough for you to understand I have always loved you, even as I ran from you, even as I kept away, all these years when we were separated but together all the same, you and I held by a small, powerful unwinding thread—forever isn’t just found in fairy tales. 

Which will it be? One way or the other, a tragedy. 

Red

~ Purpleanais

Red like the pathetically fragile organ you tried so hard to protect,

Without success

as somebody squashed it like a miserable bug,

but

if you’re going to run away with fanciful ideas,

store them somewhere safe, as squirrels do with nuts

before throwing the key down a bottomless well,

then

quite frankly, you must accept

you deserve everything you get

Some Idle thoughts on: Memory

~ Purpleanais ~ 2 Comments

On ‘Memory’ – please go and like the original post, thank you

Idle blogs of an idle fellow

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”  John Banville, The Sea.

Once again idle blogs are idling like a classic Bugatti; ticking over, but not forgotten. And it was forgetting what day it was yesterday, unless it was the day before, that caused me to think abut memory and it’s elusiveness. We struggle to recall so much of our lives, yet every stroke, blow and fall is recorded in the unconscious as easily as wooden tables trace and recall the words of biros and knife cuts.

Memory is what makes us who we are and has been a  focus of medical studies throughout history. In the first century, Pliny the Elder described a man who fell off a roof and afterward could not remember his mother, neighbours, and friends. It is unclear if Pliny pushed him or not in the name of science, nor if it was actually


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Daughter

~ Purpleanais ~ 26 Comments

Slowly the sun goes down

Splashing dying embers

In her mane

Of untamed hair

With regret he pulls down the shades

To keep the scented summer

Fragrant with life

Outside

A subdued light

Tinged with tiny pools of dark

Invades

Her domain

Sleep softens her features further

He – the faithful sentinel watching over

his delicate flower –

Can’t help but fret

His chest feels tight

Aware the world

Will reach out with eager fingers

She will know hurt

He will contemplate murder

But for now the princess,

Just turned seven

Dreams still intact, untouched

Rests peacefully

He kisses her sweet cheek

Pulls back the covers

One last look, lingering, tender

For now she’s safe

Her innocence preserved

*Photograph found on Pinterest, try as I might I couldn’t find anyone to credit for it*

P.S. for whatever reason, WordPress is not letting me reply to older comments so I apologise to anyone who’s left thoughts on previous posts – I didn’t mean to ignore you, honest!