Arvon

On Saturday I spent more than 9 hours travelling from the depths of Shropshire back to Ipswich. I got stuck with Richard in Birmingham New Street for like, two hours, my phone ran out of battery, I ended up at Ely station, realising only after about twenty minutes that there wasn't another train to Ipswich for more than an hour and a half. I stumbled into the phone booth, called home and got my Dad to pick me up by sobbing (I totally hadn't meant to cry, I'm such a loser). The journey was hell, and once I was by myself it was just boring boring boring. But you know what? It was worth every second, and would have been worth many more.

I was travelling back from an Arvon course, which had been incredible. Somehow, it was my third - I've been on two others, all three through (somehow) winning fyp a number of times. I don't know if I'll ever get to go on any more - I mean, hopefully I will, but I can't really afford any and it wouldn't be the same anyway. The fyp ones are always so incredible because everyone's about your age and you're thrown together and they turn out to be awesome so you end up with great friends that happen to be into poetry. Sigh. Obviously I was incredibly lucky to win as many times as I did - 3 - so I've had way more than my fair share of being an idiot at the Hurst, but still, I'm sad that that was my last time.

I think I was going to regail stories about the course here, actually, but I don't really know what to say. I don't think it'd be all that interesting to people that weren't there, although I do urge all of you to play Adverbs the next time you're at a party. It's magic. Try 'sadistically' or 'morbidly' if you really want to have a good time...

Anyway this blog post is a bit nothing but I largely wanted to let you all know that I am alive, if not well then passable and that last week was one of the best weeks of my life (along with the other two courses, naturally). A proper, thoughtful blog post coming soon - promise!

Block

I haven't been writing much recently. At first I thought it was because of exams, but then my exams finished and... I still haven't been writing much. And I don't just mean poetry - I mean blog posts, as well, although I managed to write a list for Sugar & Noise. Lists aren't really all that inspiring, though (I do like them).

I don't know if I really agree with the concept of writers' block or whatever, it seems such a pretentious thing, claimed by people that like posing more than actually writing. In a way I think it must exist, though, although with me it's not so much that I couldn't write as that I just had no ideas at all. At all. The only thing I've sort of wondered about writing about is weather and the environment, which is nice but not something that can be handled lightly or too heavily. I wrote a slightly flippant poem that's sort of about it (but not really) and I'm hoping to do something else... but it's just so vast!

I'm really currently trying to write something for Christopher Tower. Why? Well, partly because I quite like working from prompts sometimes, and also because the prize is massive and something that I could really do with for university. This prompt is infuriating me, though; it's Change. What can you do for that? Surely it covers everything?! It's as if it's too broad. I had the same problem with Flight last year, although at least I managed something for it in the end, something that managed to be one of the final 40 according to a letter I got from the people afterwards. In 2006 I was one of the three runners up, though, and I got a prize and I got to go to the awards and everything. The theme was A Building, which I remember a lot of people moaning about or saying was too narrow. I thought it was pretty good, though, as there's less to do, less choice. I guess it's just now I'm faced with an almost blank template I just have no idea where to even start. But after posting this I'm going to watch Torchwood for 50 minutes, then hammer away at wordpad until I have at least the start of something. I've been languishing in a slightly pathetic way for a bit too long.