Day Thirty

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(And so, I hope, to a fitting conclusion to this project. Thanks to Sarah Salway for letting me use the same format as on her blog. This has been fun and not really a challenge at all. Finding the stimulus was the only real work here, thirty different pictures and the difference was the thing. Being stimulated to write was the easy part.)

(151)A SON’S DEATH

I don’t know how it has come to this. I don’t think she knows either. For better or worse and this is surely the worst. And now a parting of the ways – behind us a boy lies in the ground. Just a boy, and losing him we lost our way.

(152)THE END

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, when things end. Pain, for example. And long journeys that have dragged on. And bitter cold spells when the thaw comes. Maybe Marcel saw it coming and expecting it made it easier to bear. He looked peaceful enough, like he could be only sleeping.

(153)THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

I wanted this to be appropriate but also bright. Like the explosive burst at the end of a firework or the close of cartoons with ‘that’s all folks’, zany music leaving you looking forward to coming back for more of the same. Not this. Not the dirge that this is.

(154)WHEN THE SUN DIES

‘Will it ever end?’ Margueritte said. She meant the earth, the sun, the stars. She was talking science and years beyond measure. She’d read something and it was a worry in her head. Something about the limits of our universe. ‘And if it does, then what’s it all been for?’

(155)THE CLOSE OF THE PROJECT

Ok. It’s been fun. A rollercoaster ride, every day a different view. Yes, that’s it. Harder some days than others, but never really hard. Not once he’d started. A short burst of energy and not draining but its opposite. Now it’s the end and he could do it all over.

Day Twenty-nine

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(And so I complete the challenge today when I reach 150 with my 50-word SNAPS... a whole day before the end of the month. I will of course do one more set of SNAPS tomorrow to round off the challenge and then a rest from this... even though it has been the greatest fun.)

(146)CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT FOOD AND GOSSIP

There’s a park at the heart of the city. Trees scraping the sky and stretches of green laid out like carpet. And benches to sit on where pigeons gather in hopeful crowds expecting gifts. Marge and June meet their daily, cups of seed and all the news of the day.

(147)FOR SARAH

This one’s for Sarah. She likes benches, you see. All sorts and all places. Collects pictures of them and hangs those pictures where others can look at them. She writes about them, too, all the stories of people meeting and not meeting in public places where birds are and trees.

(148)A HUSBAND’S GIFT

There’s a brass plaque on the back. Rub it a while and it turns from dark to gold so the engraved message can be read by more than the blind. It says her name, some dates and how her husband brought her here sometimes just to see and be seen.

(149)BELONGING

Every day for years now. So many that the place is theirs. Like it’s booked and everyone knows and visitors directed away from the place with smiles and apologies and there are other benches for them. No, this bench is for Frank and for Mavis. Not lovers but in love.

(150)LATE

She said six. Benedict checks his diary. Yes. Six is what she said. What he wrote. He checks the location and it is right, too. He looks at his watch and then holds it up to his ear to hear the whispered confirmation that time is passing. Ursula said six!

Day Twenty-eight

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(And I am nearly there and it's Saturday and I wake and before sleep has quite left me I sit me down and I pull up a picture and it doesn't matter what picture and I dream myself into the start of a new day and I set those dreams into small words and I lay them down before you... step lightly for you step on my dreams! Ha!)

(141)THE ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER

Merrigo doesn’t go far. Except in his head. Sits in an armchair turning a globe in his hand and his finger points to this place or that and he dreams – of deserts, seas, buildings that lean, gardens all hanging with flowers: places that were or are or never could be.

(142)HERE AND NOW

All the world. In her hands. And Petra spins it between her fingers, catching the light just so. Anywhere she could choose. Anywhere. But she chooses here. And she chooses now. Just where he is. As near as ever near can be and she touches his face as he sleeps.

(143)POSTCARDS

He gets postcards. All written in the one hand. From places far flung. Strange stamps in the corner, stranger pictures on the front. And they are from someone called Judith, and she calls him Holofernes when his name is Fred, and she sends him love and it shakes his world.

(144)THE ACT OF MURDER

‘All the world’s a stage.’ That’s what he wrote. And something about men and women being merely players and playing many parts. He stands above her body, blood on his hands and he weeps. This is more real, he thinks, and he searches for the words for what he’s done.

(145)ANGEL DREAMS

All the wide world to choose from and he chooses here: a dark hole in the wall of a nameless city. And Ezekiel sleeps, his breath his only warmth, his wings curled over him, the feathers shedding, falling in ones and twos. Ah, but in Ezekiel’s soft head what dreams!

Day Twenty-seven

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(136)A BELIEF IN INFIDELITY

‘If you believe in fairies, clap your hands.’ That’s how it was once: a hundred children all clapping and wishing, and it must be. If only that’s how it worked, he thought. It was the bus. ‘Running late,’ Bernadette said, flushed. He noticed buttons fastened up wrong on her dress.

(137)TO DOUBT

‘I have to trust you,’ Finnbarr said. ‘Otherwise there’s no point. To this or anything. I have to believe you when you say it was the bus and your dress buttoned up wrong is just the haste with which you dressed this morning and not something else. But I can’t.’

(138)A BELIEF IN WHAT SHE SAID

She shrugged and said it was up to him. Her conscience was clear, she said. He could check if he liked. But it’d be better if he just trusted that what she said was true. ‘You have to believe me when I say it was the bus.’ He wanted to.

(139)A BELIEF IN LIES

Will believing it make it so? Like fairies and the whole audience clapping and wishing and a small trick with lights and Tinkerbell back to bright life. Will it be like that, if he believes? And something better in this world. And can a lie be as bright, he wonders.

(140)MORE THAN JUST A SLOGAN

He has a thing on his wall. A small plaque, one word on it: ‘believe’. And a badge for his lapel with the same one word. And a t-shirt, and written on the back of his hand, stitched on the hidden hem of his shirt. But believing's not so easy.

Day Twenty-six

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(131)LISTEN TO THE WISE-MAN

Katuna’d never seen so many fish, all kick and fight gone from them, a silver surrender. Like a gift from the gods, he thought, and it would take him a year to pull as much from the river. But the village wise-man shook his head and pronounced the river sick.

(132)DYNAMITE FISHING

‘Like shooting fish in a barrel,’ Jess laughed. ‘Easy as that. Easier. Just light the fuse, count to ten, then toss it into the water. Fingers in your ears and your head ducked. The air all sudden shock and shook. Another slow count of ten’ll bring them to the surface.’

(133)THE DEAD RIVER

The smell was the first we had of it. So strong it made children retch and dogs dropped their tails turning their heads this way and that with a fearful look in their eyes. Then, cresting the hill, we could see. The whole river turned silver and still and rotting.

(134)CHIP-SHOP FISH

‘Dinnae like fish,’ Tam said. ‘Except chip-shop fish, done in a beer batter, fried tae a crisp in deep oil. Chips oan the side and peas that is called ‘mushy’. Everythin’ wrapped in newspaper and us sittin’ on the end o’ the pier, tastin’ the sea in oor every breath.’

(135)HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE

Once I caught seven. In the one afternoon. All silver and kicking and making a splash in a yellow plastic bucket. I threw them back at the end of the day. All except one that my dad would later buy off me for the price of a pack of cigarettes.

Day Twenty-five

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(126)HIGHER THAN SEEING IS

1710 steps to the top. Breathless steps and his legs so heavy Anton can’t make it, not quite. But from where he stands, which is high, he can see all of Paris. All the world it feels like – except he doesn’t see his wife, Melissa, leaving the bed of Roger.

(127)CITY OF LOVERS

She’d been to Paris before. ‘City of Lovers’ they call it, and she’d been with Carl. Two weeks and they barely left the hotel bedroom by day, and drank themselves into sleep and something like sex by night. She does not tell Leonardo about Carl and being in Paris before.

(128)THE BOOKSHOP BELL

There’s a bookshop he knows and from its doorway you can see the tower. Small enough it could fit in your pocket, that’s what it looks like, a pretty bookmark for the book in his hand: Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’. The shop bell rings as he enters.

(129)NEXT TIME

Ernest had brought it back for her. Wrapped in socks and damp bath towels and tucked into his suitcase. A snowglobe for her collection and the Eiffel Tower swirling in shaken snow. ‘City of lovers,’ Louisa said, pouting, and he smiled and promised next time to take her with him.

(130)NEWSREEL

His name was Franz Reichelt. He smiled, shook the hands of well-wishers, laughed at girls with tears on their cheeks, doffed his flat cap at his betters and waved before jumping. The whole event’s recorded on old newsreel: a parachute should have opened but he fell hard like a stone.

Day Twenty-four

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(121)SHARING THE HURT

Someone stole Hettie’s cup. The one she loved. The only one. That’s what she said. Not borrowed or forgot to return it. They stole it. And she narrowed her eyes and her lips tightened to a shut purse and she wished the world ill. And we all suffered Hettie’s loss.

(122)BACK FROM HIS HOLIDAYS

There’s something George looks forward to. Back from the sun and the sea and the sand, and all those days folding into one another, and no thought of work for a week; but coming back and George looks forward to a decent cup of tea and from his own cup.

(123)FIRST THING

‘I’m not myself,’ Brandon said. ‘Not in the morning. Not right away. Not until I’ve had my first cup. And it must be Tetley’s: four minutes in the pot before pouring, a little skimmed milk in first, two sugars.’ Till then, his words were all jagged and hard and thrown.

(124)NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING WOMAN

I thought Carmel’d like it. The curtains still closed and the light of day soft-filtered into the room and the radio turned low and set to her favourite channel. And I made her a cup of tea. In her favourite cup and just the way she likes it. But no!

(125)BRENDA’S MISTAKE

There’s a cup Albert prefers. Has grown to love. He thinks the tea tastes different in that cup, even though the rim is chipped, the pattern eaten away by the dishwasher and too harsh a detergent. Brenda doesn’t know. She buys him a new cup, gets rid of the old.

Day Twenty-three

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(116)WHEN I AM HOME

I know what Dalton’s about. I know where he’s gone and for why. A kiss-brief welcome and then he’s no longer there. That’s the way of him. Not being rude in that. It’s just that Dalton has a job to do: the bees must be told that I am home.

(117)FIRST SPRING BEE

Annabelle catches the first spring bee, in a jam jar, and waits for sleep to come. Then, by moonlight and the cool of night, she takes the bee, as gentle as gentle can, between pinch of finger and thumb, slips it in her purse – a charm against spending till summer.

(118)WITHOUT BEES

Whole hives just empty and the homeless bees cast on the wind and not ever finding their dancing way back. Bee whispers. And wasn’t it Einstein who said, in an alternative existence perhaps, that if the blessed bees were all gone then mankind would surely not live past four years.

(119)NOT WASPS

They fascinate me. All that summer-day industry. And nectar gathered in the early morn, drip by drip, from the suck-kiss-lips of flowers. And for so long there was no sweeter thing for a man’s bread than honey, or for his tea. And bees have not the stinging resentment of wasps.

(120)IDEAS

Ideas in my head. Like the buzz-words of bees. All fizz and spark and wishing to be released. Busy they want to be. On the page. Not a bee-line they make, but a meandering scribble that will be a story or a poem or nothing – dead bees on my windowsill.

Day Twenty-two

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(In contrast to yesterday's post!!)

(111)THE PROMISE OF ICE-CREAM

Toby at the beach: the sun stings his shoulders, the back of his neck. Mam says he should put his shirt on but he doesn’t. Green-scuttle crabs dance at the bottom of his bucket – no, he can’t take them home, and only the promise of ice-cream to lure him away.

(112)JUST BEING

Lying there. The sun on his face, his eyes closed and it feels good. Not just the weekend off and it’s still only Saturday but Kat, the weather girl, said it will be the same tomorrow as it is today. Just lying there, not doing anything, not thinking, just being.

(113)SEEING MAM AND DAD DIFFERENT

I’d never seen our mam like that before. Hardly no clothes on, and she was sitting still, not fussing over things needing done, the sun making her skin nettle-rash-pink. Dad the same, and laughing, and playing with us in the sand. And mam sent me into the sea to pee.

(114)OUR DAD THE FLIRT

Auntie Nan was with us. She’s younger than our mam. And our dad kept making jokes. About her figure and the tuppence worth of cloth that was her swimsuit, only she didn’t swim. And our dad kept looking at Auntie Nan, strange like – didn’t feel right without our mam there.

(115)BLESSED

Her name was Cee. Short for Celia, though I was sworn to secrecy on that. And she chose me. Out of them all. She said did I mind. And I said I didn’t, and she lay on her front, unclipped her bikini top, and I stroked sun-cream onto her back.

Day Twenty-one

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(106)ALOUISHA SLEEPS

A blanket of snow. Like it is something comforting. Like you could pull it over you and  snuggle up and sleep. And on the long walk home that’s what happened. The cold got to Alouisha. All she wanted to do was sleep, so she lay down and felt strangely warm.

(107)JOSH HEARS IT ON THE CAR RADIO

It was forecast. Blind blizzards and wind driven snow. The police gave out warnings not to travel unless the journey was absolutely necessary, and even then not to travel. It was on the radio. Josh was stuck in his car. Four days thinking it was the cold end of things.

(108)SNOW WORRIES

It was like an extra holiday for the kids. Sledges and igloos and outsize snowmen. I was worried about the cupboards and if we’d have enough to get us through. The roads were shut and the village shop was empty and they said there was more snow on the way.

(109)NEW

White as white ever was. So white it was like being blind. And the snow falling in thick feathery flakes and the wind whipping it into aerial ballet, like a shaken snow globe and everything spinning. And the world made new again and clean as if we could start over.

(110)ALOUISHA DOES NOT WAKE

They found her when the snow thawed and the white cleared from the hills and colour came back to the world. She was curled up under a tree. Like she was asleep. Like you could wake her by calling her name or touching her shoulder. Peaceful is what she looked.

Day Twenty

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(101)MEGAN IN THE AIR

Not one or two but thousands. So many they covered her like clothes, the breath from their wings like small kisses. Megan laughed, her arms wide, and there on the top of the hill I witnessed a miracle: so many butterflies moving as one and she took to the air.

(102)A FLUTTERING HEART

‘They migrate in fluttering flocks,’ Duncan said. ‘Travel hundreds of miles. And when they get there, they hang from branches, trees more butterfly than leaf; they mate then die.’ And the way Duncan told it was sad and beautiful. I put my hand under his shirt where his heart was.

(103)DEAD BUTTERFLIES

Hugh pinned them to boards covered with black velvet, their wings spread wide so their beauty could be seen and measured and recorded. ‘See how wonderful and how delicate and how bright.’ But all she saw were the heads of the pins and the still, and still, and not flying.

(104)CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

I followed one once. For several hours. The skip dancing flight of it taking me far from my own back garden and across fields and rivers. And it seemed to be a game, the flying and me following, and I laughed and sang and turned cartwheels into the blue summer.

(105)NOT A DEAD LEAF

Shirley thought it was a leaf. On the floor of her room. Something carried in on the sole of her shoe. Till she reached down to pick it up and it flitted from her grasp, its wings open, then shut, like the dance of a fairy in a bright frock.

Day Nineteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(96)AN OVERNIGHT STAY

That’s it? That’s what you brought? Just that? Just a tiny box wrapped in photocopy paper and tied with thin red ribbon? Like it is something special and all it really amounts to is a change of underwear and a foldable toothbrush. Don’t you have an overnight bag or something?

(97)NOT A PONY IN A BOX

‘The best things,’ Kelly said, ‘come in little parcels.’ I wanted a bike – that’d be the best present ever. Or a piano or a pony. I didn’t see how any of those’d fit into the small parcel he held out for me to take. ‘Is it money?’ I said hopefully.

(98)PEACE AND CUSTARD

Eloise held it in the upturned palms of her two hands, a peace offering. The way she smiled and said, ‘Here, take it,’ made me think it might be something special. When I unwrapped it I found a custard slice with my name written in pink icing on the top.

(99)A PRESENT FROM CHUCK

It was too small, too fiddly for Chuck’s thick fingers. Melanie did the wrapping and, ‘Put your finger here, on the knot,’ she said, and Chuck did and that was all he did. Even the present inside had been chosen by Melanie. ‘Is this for me?’ Melanie squealed, acting surprised.

(100)PRESENTS – LOVING THEM AND HATING THEM

Presents – Matthew hated them. Not the buying or the wrapping or the giving. Indeed, he loved to see Robyn’s face when he surprised her with something silly or sweet. But getting them, that’s what Matthew didn’t like: the having to be thrilled at the small and nothing Robyn bought him.

Day Eighteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(91)WAITING FOR EDWARD

I hoped he’d be there. That he hadn’t heard. That I could tell him before anyone else did. I crossed my fingers and begged please. A man with a dog stopped and asked if I was alright. I said I was. But it’d only be true if Edward was there.

(92)THE PAINTING

Hope sits on a rock in the middle of wide water. She wears a blindfold and plays a tune on a one-stringed lyre or harp. Beyond hope almost. And it's a painting that fittingly hangs in a dark place and seeing it I felt the desperate yearning of the painter.

(93)WHAT I HOPE FOR

Ok. If I had one wish? And I can’t wish for a hundred other wishes with that one? And it must be something real? Not being silly or flippant. Not like wishing for world peace on the catwalk of beauty pageants? Well, I’d wish for the end of suffering – mine.

(94)HOPE’S COOKIES

Hope made cookies. She said they were special. Not like ordinary biscuits. Magic, she said. Charms folded into the mixture and dusted with wishes. Bobby wouldn’t eat his right away. He kept it in a tin beside his bed, nibbling like a mouse, and oh the wishes he wished for.

(95)BEYOND HOPE

The painting next to it is a much bleaker prospect. A man clings to a storm broken rock and he wails at the lowering sky and his hair is all ragged and blown and his eyes weep tears and there is no hope in his face, for this is ‘Despair’.

Day Seventeen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(86)SEX GIVES YOU WINGS

Sandra said she could fly. Not like an angel with wings flapping, or superman punching the sky. Just her feet floating off the ground and Sandra hanging in the air all by thinking herself light as a feather or small breath. Sex made her feel like that sometimes, Sandra said.

(87)DREAMS OF FLYING

It’s supposed to be something to do with sex when you dream about flying. That’s what I told Lawrie and she punched my arm and said I was making it up. Think about it, I said: that feeling of being at one with everything, and the breath taken from you.

(88)CRAZY THINKING

I’d not have believed it if you’da told me. Don’t expects you to believe me. I’s just telling you what I saw: Crazy Tammy, she lifted offa the ground, arms spread wide like she was flying, an’ she was. I swears it. An angel with dirty toes an’ crooked teeth.

(89)THE PHOTOGRAPH

There’s a picture to prove it. In black and white. Lucinda’s feet not touching the ground, her arms stroking the air and everything all dark and spark. ‘Course it could just be that she jumped before the click of the camera. But I don’t think that was what it was.

(90)IT’S POSSIBLE

Anything’s possible. Especially now the laws of physics have been stood on their head and things can move faster than Einstein ever thought and even time travel’s possible, in theory at least. And if you think you can then you can: feet not touching the ground for the longest time.

Day Sixteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(81)LOST ADAM

Adam sleeps on a bench in the park. He doesn’t look like Adam, but he is. Under the dirt and the newspapers and the not shaved and his hair all this way and that. Used to be a bed he slept in and that bed was mine. I miss Adam.

(82)COMA

Elspeth could sleep anywhere anytime. On the edge of a knife her mother used to say and it wasn’t far from truth. It was a sickness is what it was; nobody knew. And like sleeping beauty she lies in a hospital bed waiting for a prince to kiss her awake.

(83)MY HUSBAND ONCE

I watch him as he sleeps. There in the park, birdsong murmurs in his ears and his knotted skin like wood when it is old. And he sleeps sound, like he never does at home, like he really belongs here in the warming sun and all the world looking on.

(84)BEGGAR

They move him on from time to time. He goes without complaint. There’s shop doorways he can curl up in, park benches with his name on them, and a bed at the hostel if the weather’s bad. He relies on the kindness of strangers and dropped pennies in his hand.

(85)FRUSTRATION IN THIS WORLD

Listen! Can you hear? His dream whispers. The bottle-fed mutterings of a man deep in his drink and he mutters under his breath, his dog-breath, and if you listen you will hear: poetry of a sort, and all the frustrations of a poet’s search for meaning in this fucking world.

INSPIRARE

INSPIRARE

Inspiration, the word, comes from the latin inspirare meaning ‘to breathe in’. The idea was that the gods breathed down on you and this explained where ideas came from, the inspired artist breathed in the breath of these benevolent gods.

Of course the gods have all left the world now and we understand a little differently what inspiration is. But, as is the way of the ancients, they come a little closer to truth than might at first be acknowledged.

I once read a blog post where a woman was saying how sad she was and how her partner had suggested she write a ‘happy thought’ down on a piece of paper before going to bed, which she did. In the morning she felt a little better and hung the piece of paper on the branch of a tree outside her house. I breathed in and was inspired to write a short flash around this to further cheer this woman and I ‘gifted’ it to the woman on her blog. Her comment to me in reply and still on her blog was: “Douglas - what a beautiful flash, I am honoured to have inspired you, thank you. (Although the "Tania" obviously isn't me, you ain't heard me sing!)”

And she was right. The Tania in what I had written was not her. That’s how inspiration works. We breathe in, taking inside us all that is around us; then we breathe out again and what is expelled is changed from what went in. That’s the creative process. I was so pleased with the flash and the positive response it had brought forth that I gave it to a magazine to be published so that more of the world would see the ‘happy’ and ‘positive’ message in the flash.

Some time later the blog writer woman and I fell out and she then said that I had been a thief to have so stolen from her life in the flash I had written. From one who was honoured to one now called thief, all in the falling out. She surely can’t have it both ways: that it is not her and then it is; that she is honoured by what was written and then crying thief!

Another writer, in explanation of his own written work, frequently says he just makes things up. I have taken issue with this before. It is not only a simplistic model of creativity, it is also a little wrong. He breathes in before he breathes out. He wrote a flash about a person with a whole life mapped out in post-it notes and thought he was just making something up. He had seen the film ‘Memento’ and no doubt various adverts that had walls of post-it notes in them, or noticeboards outside churches and in the windows of newsagents with post-its or small handwritten notices on them. Maybe there were other things in the air he breathed, too. But sure as eggs is eggs, he did not create his flash in a vacuum where there is nothing breathed in!

Once you understand this basic fact about inspiration (and about creativity) then the whole world of ideas in fiction becomes muddled. We see too plainly that ideas are the very air that artists breathe in and so the whole matter of the ownership of ideas becomes a web that even lawyers cannot really untangle.

I read a book of short stories once. I was not overly impressed (others were), but one story had a clever structure to it, told in reverse chronology. It was not a new thing. I had seen an episode of the tv show ‘ER’ that had employed the same reverse chronology and in very much the same way. I had myself, a year previously, made notes for a love story that I wanted to tell in reverse. I breathed in. Separately, I was also interested in a love story that involved one of the parties having synaesthesia (I thought it would give rise to some lyrical prose by the synaesthetic lover) and I made notes to that effect. My youngest son then told me one day that people struck by lightning sometimes experienced synaesthesia due to the damage done to their brains. I breathed in. When I eventually breathed out I had written a story called ‘Monday’s Smell of Burnt Toast’, a reverse chronology story of a man struck by lightning and suffering synaethesia and memory loss and not remembering that he had been about to throw his marriage away for another woman; now he was trapped by his synaethesia and his memory loss, trapped in a loveless marriage. My story owed an obvious debt to the reverse chronology story I had read in the unimpressive collection and I was not ashamed of that and did not try to hide it. After all, this was how creativity worked as I understood it. I had not copied this person’s story, not a single line of mine was hers. I had merely breathed in and breathed out. What could be wrong with that? It’s what all writers and artists do, and if they are being honest or self aware then they will know this and admit that it is true.

So, what is plagiarism then? Words have dictionary meanings and ‘baggage’. The dictionary says at its simplest that plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work as your own. In the using of someone else’s actual words it might seem that this is obviously plagiarism. In simply adding your name to someone else’s work, then this is clearly plagiarism. In the world of academia to use someone else’s research and ideas as if they were your own without acknowledgement of the source, then this is called plagiarism. But what of the world of literature where ideas are so much a part of the cross-fertilisation of creativity and in the very air we breathe? Does not every ‘Dracula’ book owe a debt to Bram Stoker’s original at least, (including the whole ‘Twilight’ series!)? Is this plagiarism? Does not ‘Harry Potter’ owe so much to ‘Billy Bunter’ and ‘The Four Marys’ and all those boarding school kids books that have been ‘in the air’ for so long? Is this plagiarism?

The ‘baggage’ that goes with the word plagiarism is a heavy load. It cuts into the fingers and draws blood, pulls bones from sockets and stretches tendons till they snap. People who use the word should, therefore, be very careful to use it correctly. I have challenged some of those people to define what plagiarism is – as they have used it. Not one has come here to do so. Not one has attempted to define it on their own blog. I have tried to say what it is not here on my blog. I have tried to look at the matter with a common sense approach. I accept that inspiration in art is something ‘breathed in’ and then ‘breathed out’ again and that influence cannot be escaped. So I say again here, who can tell me what plagiarism is when we are talking literature or art? And if it is just something all artists do (have to do) then why does the ‘baggage’ of the word weigh so heavy?

(By the by, this whole post arose or was inspired by hearing Jonah Lehrer on Youtube explaining that the word ‘inpiration’ comes from the latin word meaning ‘breathed upon’. However, when I looked up the latin root of the word ‘inspiration’ I found that it was ‘inspirare’ which means ‘to breathe in’ or ‘to breathe deeply’.)

Day Fifteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(As promised, today I have thrown out ten snaps instead of the normal five... all just for the fun of doing it.)

(71)BARNABY’S LIES

Barnaby could walk on water. And float off the ground. And see into the future, like looking over a fence. All just a matter of believing you can. That’s what he said. But what about love, I said. That was a trickier question – there were different lies Barnaby said then.

(72)A LIAR’S PLEA

Sure I lied. Everyone does. Sometimes they do. Small things that they forgive themselves for and call them white as if lies can be pure and good. I lied. I told her I’d love her forever. I thought it was true when I said it. Doesn’t that count for something?

(73)THE LIES FANTASTIC

I once climbed to the top of the Eiffel tower and not using the steps. And the empire state building not using the stairs. And swam under the channel without taking a breath. And touched the moon standing on tip toes, and kissed Emily Brent in the dark behind Tesco’s.

(74)ALL LIES

Don’t believe everything you read. Not in books, not anymore. Not written in clouds in the sky or blood on the walls. Don’t believe newspaper headlines, or letters written with love and smelling of violets, or notes passed under the desk. They can and will be lies one day soon.

(75)NOT SERENDIPITY OR FATE

It was by chance that we met. That’s what I thought. Like fate had stepped in to lend a hand and we bumped into each other, our heads spinning and our hands reaching to break the other’s fall. No accident but an orchestrated collision, our love founded on a lie.

(76)INFIDELITY

The earth is flat. That was true once. And the moon made of cheese and stars can fall out of the sky. All just lies now. I saw you coming from his bed, creeping like a thief creeps, and you said, when I asked, that you were visiting your mother.

(77)THE LIAR’S BOOK

A whole book of lies. And I wonder if you’re in there with your talk of dogs telling you to sing, and birds teaching you how to fly, fish how to swim. And how you can hear the beat of a moth’s wing and the missed beat of a lover’s heart.

(78)THE ANGLER’S LIE

'It was this big,' he said, his arms stretched to their widest limit, and he was talking about the fish that he’d almost caught. 'Big as the boat near as damnit. And it would have sunk me if the line hadn’t snapped.' All fisherman’s tales are the same lie.

(79)THE POWER OF THE LIE

A splinter from the holy cross. See the blood on the wood. Or rust from a nail. And the whole story is there, behind glass, pilgrims journeying from miles around to see it, to kneel before it, to pray. A lie when it is believed has more strength than truth.

(80)THE LIAR’S MARKET

I am a seller of lies. Look. See. The lies are so pretty, like jewels, all glint and sparkle. And you want those lies, want them strung on threads of silver to hang about your neck, the whole world marvelling at what you are, and all of it a lie.

CREATIVITY FOR BEGINNERS

(A short interlude from my 'April Challenge'.)

A lot of people think they know the rules regarding creativity. There's a lot of 'thou shalt nots' spill from their mouths or pens. One of these rules I have fallen foul of: thou shalt not use ideas in your own writing that someone else has already employed in a piece of creative writing. I am not a bad person. Indeed, many think me a really good person. I go out of my way to help others. I work hard and care about the people I work with. I am sensitive and considerate of others and people come to me for help knowing that I am unselfish in that regard. I have always been thought of in this way - as good. Aside from a single speeding offence many years ago and a more recent parking ticket (the machine was broken and I left a polite and apologetic note in the window explaining, but I still had to pay!), I have never fallen foul of the law. I help people cross the road; carry bags for those struggling; help women with pushchairs down steps. The word hate is never in my vocabulary (unless we're talking the taste of blue cheese). Yes, so just your everyday good. So imagine my disbelief when through being creative I am turned into a villain and all because I had the affront to use some ideas that 'belonged' to others.

At the time I thought maybe I had done something wrong and so I pondered long and hard over the matter. I examined the problem intellectually. Seriously. I read up on the subject as much as I could. But in the end I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong in the way some people thought of ideas and that these very loud people were blind to how creativity worked in even their own cases.

Writers are products of their times and their cultures and the experiences they have. Their ideas belong not to them but to the world they live in, at least they do when they release them into the world. The existence of these ideas owe a debt to what has come before and will in turn have influence on the thinking of others and maybe even on the creativity of others. That's how it all works. I kept saying this but aside from a few articles (referenced much earlier in this blog) there was little science to support it - just common sense thinking. Neuroscience had yet to examine the whole question of creativity and how it works. I felt then that it was only a matter of time and that all I had to do was wait to find something that explained it all in a way that showed I was no villain (I had already had the matter investigated legally and was cleared of any badness... but we are talking morals here).

Lo! It might just be here. What I have been waiting for. A book being published this week by American scholar Jonah Lehrer called 'Imagine: How Creativity Works' and it just might make us creative types more aware of what happens when we go through the process of creating and tell us how other people's ideas steal into our thinking and creating rather than the other way around.

My copy arrives mid-week. I will report on the findings when I have processed them.

Day Fourteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' and what it is see HERE)

(Someone e-mailed me to say they had been reading my 'April Challenge' snaps and they wondered what my process was for writing them. Well, I find a picture that has a few sparks in it for me. Then I sit, without preparation or time for contemplation, and I let the words spill out. Five snaps written in quick succession and fiddled with only a little to fit the wordcount. Sometimes what you produce is worth very little. A bit cliched or nothing much to it. Other times there's a real kernel of something worthwhile. I just throw up what comes out without editing for quality. Whole process from finding the picture to posting the pieces takes less than an hour - getting it presented right on the blog takes almost as long as the writing!)

(66)LETTING CHRISTIE DOWN

Christie said to tie a knot in my hankie. In the corner. And as I was tying it I was to say over and over what it was I had to remember. That way I’d not forget, Christie said. I understood, and, though I did what she said, I’ve forgotten.

(67)HIS SHIRT-TAIL MEMORY

Kent hadn’t a hankie so she tied it in his shirt-tail. A small tight knot that he must never undo. ‘It’s forever,’ she said. ‘That’s what we got. Something special, see?’ And it was special what they’d done then, so Kent keeps the knot in his shirt to always remember.

(68)HE MEANT WELL

Rick was always doing that. Writing numbers down on pieces of card, tying knots in string or in cloth. ‘That’s so I’ll not forget,’ he said, and he meant it when he said it. Trouble is Rick has the memory of a gnat and things fall out of his head.

(69)MILTON DON’T REMEMBER TO HOLD HIS TONGUE

‘See, I do remember,’ Milton said. ‘I remembered the time and the place, right?’ He checked his watch and it was true. ‘Didn’t need no knotted handkerchief either. You just gotta trust me some. Not all men are the same, Lindy.’

‘Did you bring the key?’ Lindy said.

Milton sighed.

(70)KEEPING THE MEMORY

Ancient tribes had one guy picked out and it was his job to keep the memory of the tribe and all he had was knots in string or cloth to nudge his memory. And there were days, feast days and celebration, and that guy'd stand tall telling them their story.

(Tomorrow, to mark the half way point, I shall write ten snaps to the visual prompt... all just for the fun of doing it.)

Day Thirteen

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(In case you don't see it, this is a picture of Edinburgh on a very grey day. It is not like that today or often. And I know this April Challenge is predicated on fun so I apologise in advance for the 'misery' below.)

(61)THERE’S NO ROMANCE IN A MISTY DAY

A grey wet mist hangs over the city today. The streets drip and everywhere the stone is like silver that has lost its shine. Bobby walks into the mist or out of it. He feels alone in this place he calls home. His feet make no music where he walks.

(62)MISERY

Misery loves its own company. That’s what Amelia told him. He wasn’t sure what she meant. They’d been drinking and words sometimes came out of their mouths with no meaning. She slipped her hand in his and they stepped out, only to find that the sky had fallen on them.

(63)THE BATTLECRY OF WEATHERMEN

There’s no such thing as bad weather. That’s what they say. Just bad clothing. It was someone famous who said it first and now it is the battlecry of weathermen on wet days. Try Edinburgh when its grey and the streets all dripping and smeared and voices and song smothered.

(64)GIVE EDINBURGH BACK TO THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE

It’s Edinburgh, isn’t it? The High Street. At the bottom looking up. And behind the mist the castle hides, somewhere. And there used to be singing here and players juggling balls and women in pretty dresses talking in different tongues. And today it is grey and empty and ours again.

(65)ALL SNAP AND NO CRACKLE OR POP

He hates these short soundbites of writing. There's no story in 'em, he says. Just a captured middle-moment, no beginning and no end. He wants more for his fifty words. Wants Proust and Dostoevsky and Dickens. It's a grey day when a man cannot read poetry for its own sake.

(And, by the by, readers should remember that the title is not part of the fifty word count and so can be used to give a little extra context to what is written or a little more bang!)

Day Twelve

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' and what it is see HERE)

(56)WAITING FOR KITTY

They were in the field again. Cavorting like loons and the moon lighting up the whole show. And though I laughed, wanting to cartwheel after them, I was also sad. For didn’t Kitty say, that she’d be back only when the hares stopped their leaping and the field was bare?

(57)GOING NOWHERE

Jack has a wooden hare on his desk. Leaping, ears flying behind its head and its legs stretched out in front and behind. A mid-leap hare. Going nowhere, lust leaping. And I say to Jack that he’s just like that hare, we both are, and he doesn’t really see it.

(58)JOY IN JULIA BEING THERE

I don’t know why they leap. Maybe it’s a display for courtship or dominance. Or just for the joy of leaping, the joy of living. Seeing them, from my window, its like a dance, a moonlight ballet, and I bring Julia so she can see, too. And my heart leaps.

(59)THE COMMERCIAL ARTIST

He says it’s an obsession. Pictures on all his walls; here, there and everywhere, small sculptures in bronze and wood and clay; a thousand hares leaping in Dorian’s head, ears flapping, legs thrusting in all directions. Both graceful and clownish at the same time. He’s an artist and hares sell.

(60)WENDY IN HIS ARMS

It's a position in yoga: 'The Hare'. Wendy on her knees to show him, her body bent forward so that her forehead rests on the floor, her back arched and her arms thrust behind, hands touching the soles of her feet. Simon wants to scoop her up in his arms.

Day Eleven

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(51)JUST PASSING

'Call me,' she said. So I did. Only she didn’t answer. It was someone else. A complete stranger. ‘Just passing,’ the stranger said and, ‘I heard the ring.’ And so we got to talking and she said she liked the sound of my voice and I thought that was nice.

(52)AT HOME IN AN OLD PHONE BOX

It was a bet at first. To spend a whole day and night in a phone box. Sleeping standing up, like horses in a small space. Then one day stretched to two, and it’s been a year so far. And Carter gets calls sometimes, and it cheers him to talk.

(53)EMMA AND WHAT SHE SAYS SHE KNOWS

They smell of piss sometimes and they never used to. And there’s pictures of girls with few clothes on, their numbers begging you to call. And he does, just to see. She says her name is Emma and she knows what he likes but he doesn’t know how she can.

(54)HELLO

‘Hello. Is there anybody there? Someone? Anyone? Only, you picked up and so I think there must be someone. On the other end. Listening. Anyway, I said I’d call and so here I am, and if Paulette’s there than can you at least tell her? She’d like to know. Hello?’

(55)REMEMBERING RED PHONE BOXES

They were everywhere once, a red scream and hard to miss. A thick thumbed directory always there, the boxes clean and dry, safe shelter in bad weather. And I first put my hand under Davina Holland's blouse standing in a phone box, and rang Tony to tell him right away.

Day Ten

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' you can look HERE)

(46)SCHOOL DAZE

'Be like a tree,' said Miss Keeble. 'Arms stretching high, your fingers like stars. Tip-toe tall and swaying in the small wind.' Emily felt a growing stiffness in her legs and her arms creaked and cracked when she waved them and a bird was quietly nesting in her upturned hand.

(47)LOVE TO PROTEST

Tree hugger, they called him. Because that’s what he did. In protest against trees being cut down. They’re like people, he said. They live and breathe. Felling them is murder. And he gave them names and one he called Bridget and a whole night chained to her, hearing her weeping.

(48)LOVING BIG BRENDA

He was always short. Knee high to a grasshopper, his father said; precious things come in small boxes, said his mother. Blessed in other ways, said big Brenda under her breath, and she knew, for they were lovers and he climbed all over her body like she was a tree.

(49)WOODEN HEART

Hannah had a wooden heart. No, really, she did. When she was born there was something wrong and the doctor cut her open and replaced her not-working-heart with one made of wood. And the graft took and slowly through the years Hannah’s legs took root and her arms branched upwards.

(50)WHAT IT IS

Of course it's a trick. Something done to the photograph to make it look like the tree's a woman. Like in that story when the lecherous god came down and pursued a frightened girl and she, in flight, was transformed, her budding breasts hid beneath the bark of a tree.

Day Nine

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' click HERE)

(41)THE PEDANT

Couldn’t be crows, he said. Not in such numbers and circling the field. Must be rooks. They’re more social. They flock. So it must be rooks. And it sort of spoiled it for me, him saying that. I don’t know why because it’s the picture I’ve loved above all others.

(42)PEACE

Trout lay down in the tall grass. They wouldn’t find him there. He’d get peace. He lay on his back. Sky and grass was all there was and somewhere high up dragonflies fizzing and just above his head butterflies adrift. Trout stayed hid, long past the end of the game.

(43)NOT ALL FORGOTTEN

She’d a picture of ‘Wheatfield With Crows’ pinned to her wall. They made out on her bed, for the whole day they did. Like the tide going in and going out. He forgets her name but the picture he remembers and her hair yellow like straw and her eyes blue.

(44)THE ART CRITIC

It’s supposed to be prophetic. Like he was seeing his own imminent end. The dark in the sky coming down on the yellows and greens, falling like a curtain. And the crows as messengers from the grave. Personally, I don’t see it. I see only Vincent’s mad joy in life.

(45)CROWS

Said he could hear crows. Every time he stood in front of the picture. Like they were calling him. Could hear their claws scratching at the glass, beaks pecking, and the brush of their feathers, like the stiff taffeta of funeral skirts. Arturs said it aloud, hoping to be heard.

Day Eight

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(36)EINSTEIN’S TONGUE

‘Say aah. Tongue out. Yes, I see. Not good. We’ll have to take tests. Yes, a slight furring. Could be nothing. Could be something. It’s all relative, Mr Einstein. You should know that. For someone your age it’s probably fine. But on a younger man – well, it’d just be rude.’

(37)EINSTEIN’S MAM

Mam said it would stay like that. If the wind changed direction suddenly, or dropped. And my eyes would be goggle-eyes forever after and my tongue hanging out of my mouth like a dog’s. ’Course I didn’t believe her. It wasn’t scientific. But you should always listen to your mam.

(38)EINSTEIN’S LOVER

I wanted him to look distinguished. For the cameras. That’s how history should remember him. But he wouldn’t have it. Shook his hair into shock and his eyes wide and his tongue sticking out of his mouth. The picture’s everywhere, and it’s fact: I loved a fool – more fool me.

(39)EINSTEIN’S THEORY

I think he knew. That’s why the tongue and Albert playing it for laughs. I think he knew something was wrong. In the theory. A small thing, but crucial. Nothing faster than light, he said, and now they think there is. Everything turned upside down, and I think he knew.

(40)EINSTEIN’S SEX-LIFE

He was a celebrity. He could have had any woman he chose. And maybe he did. And he took a little longer with each one. Taking time to savour. Licking under her breast and the inside of her thigh and the back of her neck - tasting salt on his tongue.

Day Seven

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' click HERE)

(I'm posting Day Seven a little head of time as I don't expect to be near a computer on Day Seven. May be a little late with Day Eight for the same reason.)

(31)MAUVAIS SUJET

It’s by Ford Madox Brown. A picture in watercolour. Of his maid, a girl. She’s writing a letter, an apple raised to her kissing-mouth and her hair all tossed and tails. It’s called ‘Mauvais Sujet’. Say it, whispering and soft. And Listen. Then discover the disappointment of translation: ‘Writing Lesson’.

(32)INSPIRED

I do that sometimes. Get so carried away with the writing that I don’t know where I am. Don’t know who I am sometimes. Just the words. Not even on the page. In my head and I’m dreaming, not one part of the dream but all of it at once.

(33)ILLITERATE

She couldn’t write and she couldn’t read. Wouldn’t admit to it. Muddled her way through. Listening at library doors for the words spilling out of books and maybe those words made stories in her head. And listening, too, to the scritch-scratch of pens on paper, thinking they spoke in whispers.

(34)PET

‘An apple for the teacher,’ Amy said, and she placed it on his desk. ‘Keeps the doctor away,’ he said to himself and he didn’t know why… why the doctor away and Amy so near, standing close enough he could smell perfume – her mother’s, something floral dabbed behind Amy’s ears.

(35)THE WRITING LESSON

He showed Melissa how to hold the pen and how much to dip it into the ink: too far, there’d be drips: not far enough, her words all scratches and little substance. But she wasn’t on words yet, Melissa said. Just loops on the paper not sitting on the lines.

(This picture is used as the front cover of Sarah Salway’s book of poetry: ‘You Don’t Need Another Self-Help Book’. You can buy it for the cover or you can buy it for the poems. Either way you won’t be disappointed. I have used it here to say thank you to Sarah for letting me use, here on my blog, her 50-word-snap-written-to-a-picture-stimulus idea. Thank you Sarah… and if I’d been really clever I would have written all that in a 50 word snap!)

Day six

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' click HERE)

(26)LOVE LIES PLEADING

She’d just the one tattoo. Where no one could see it. Where it must be discovered, by only the chosen: her lovers. Lifting Lara’s hair, kissing the back of her neck, and I saw it, just beneath the surface of her skin, like blood in a vein, one word: ‘stay’.

(27)A STING IN THE TAIL

‘But if you did what would you? What would you choose? I think it says a lot about you, or it would if you did. So think about it first. Take your time. And when you’re ready just tell me. What and where. I’ve got a bee under my pantline.’

(28)ADDICTION

It started with one. She’d been drinking and they’d done it for a bet. Just a star on her left breast and it was weird having a stranger touch her there. Then stars and butterflies and flowers, and a different tattooist each time, for that was part of the thrill.

(29)AND SHE COULDN’T

Colleen said she couldn’t. Said it was something common. Something for sailors, arms like knotted rope, and mermaids with bare breasts and blue tails on their skin, hearts with the word ‘mother’ across them. Colleen said it wasn’t for her. What she didn’t admit: she was scared of needles. Period.

(30) ELVIS DISCOVERS

Just under her hairline. Tattooed in blue ink. 'Find me,' it said. Then, just behind her ear, and it said 'Warmer'; tucked under one breast the words 'Warmer still'; and buried in her pubic curls the word 'Cold' so he knew to go back. On her heart: 'Love me tender'.

Day Five

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' click HERE)

(21)THEY SAID IT WAS FACT

They were talking about it on the bus. They said it was fact: one sneeze felt the same as one eighth of an orgasm. Caroline stripped to the skin when she got home. And naked in her kitchen she sprinkled ground pepper on the air and breathed through her nose.

(22)ANTICIPATION

He likes the moment just before. Eyes closed. A breath in - and held. Everything else waiting. To see. If this time it’d happen. It’s there. He knows it is. Waiting to catch him unawares. Then, when he thinks it isn’t going to happen, and he relaxes… then he sneezes.

(23)A DAY OF IT

Been doing it all day. One after another, each one caught in a soggier and soggier handkerchief. And she looks like shit. And her nose aches and her eyes watering and ‘fuck this’ she thinks. One eighth of an orgasm they said. And Ursula’s drained, and it won’t bloody stop.

(24)ISN’T IT MAGPIES?

‘One’s a wish,’ he says. And, ‘Two’s a kiss.’ And Harriet later wonders what a fucking hundred is, or a hundred and one. And she’s not a sight that invites kissing, not the way she looks. And isn’t it magpies anyway, all that one for this and two for that?

(25)WHAT HIS MOTHER SAID

'Better out than in,' Brian's mother said. And she meant sneezes; when his father said it he meant farts. 'And you'll give yourself a hernia trying not to, or pinching your nose'll make your eyes pop out of their sockets, or your brains shoot out of your ears. Just sneeze!

Day Four

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' click HERE)

(16)PIPS

Not like apples. Whole different shape. And a whole other way of eating ’em. Laying back, juice running down his chin, and Tucker eats the skin and the core - all but the stalk. Lulu says, ‘Shouldn’t eat the pips.’ Not if Tucker don’t want a pear tree growing inside.

(17) TERESA EATING PEARS

They taste of summer. That’s what Teresa says. She sits in the garden, cross-legged and with a tea-plate in her lap and a butter-knife in her hand. That’s how you know they’re ripe, she says. Takes only a butter-knife to cut them. Makes a show of it for me - teasing.

(18)YOU HAVE TO WATCH PEARS

Francis watches them. Checks them when he wakes. Presses them gently with his fingers. Something sexy in that, he thinks; he means sensual. He holds one to his mouth, sets his teeth to it; not really biting – just testing, anticipating a sudden ripeness. Not wanting to miss the moment.

(19)TINNED PEARS

I remember camping once. With Angie. Night – a tent and one sleeping bag. Angie brought a tin opener and I brought pears in a tin. We’d to watch the jagged edge of the lid, scooping with two fingers, slices of pear that slithered like white fish in both our mouths.

(20)GREEN PEARS

She was sick. Really sick. Folded in two almost, head over the toilet and me holding back her hair and rubbing her back and saying something and nothing… mostly sound. Unripe pears; green as she now was, hard to the bite, and Lindy’d enjoyed too much the crunch of them.

Day Three

(For more information on my 'April Challenge' see HERE)

(11)IN HER HEAD A STAR

It’s not for the money. There’s a guy on the corner with a dog and an empty cup and Christy gifts it all to him. No, not for the money but for something else: closing her eyes at the end of a song and taking the scattered applause – that’s it.

(12)SMALL PENNIES

‘Enough with your racket.’ That’s what he said. ‘Get the fuck out of here. I’ve had it.’ She’d had it, too, and so she left. Living on the hard streets now, with a guitar and a broken voice, and it’s enough she gets small pennies for tea and a bite.

(13)LIFTED

It makes a difference. Charles wants to tell her. About a father taking time dying. And his wife no longer his wife. And the numbing mindlessness of his job. And it makes a difference: hearing her each morning as he waits for the bus. Takes a later bus some days.

(14)BRAVE

I laughed the first time. You ain’t heard nothing so cracked or broken as his singing. And his guitar could scarce hold a tune. And looked like he’d a bob or two more than most, I thought, but I put a quid in his cup anyway: the brave deserve something.

(15)CURSED

Jude didn't ask her to sing. There on the street. Just under his window. Same four songs every day, over and over. And she spits curses at his back if he doesn't drop something in her hat as he passes, and spits some more if what he drops isn't silver.