Fox on a Boat

Monument au Général Koenig Paris is an impatient city, full of cars that seem to know exactly how to drive, where and when, in the confusing maze of lights and turns and strange bus lanes. There is no space for learners, no space for the tourist or the novice. A moment's hesitation at a turn, at a light, at a stop, and the line of cars formed in a half second behind you will loudly make their frustration known. A cacophony of klaxons. I saw Paris, briefly, on a cold December morning. I'd boarded a coach at Victoria station in London at 21h, which, after certain unexplained issues, left over an hour late, snaking its way through congested London streets under the English drizzle. I fell into a light-ish sleep, the state in between being awake and asleep - not quite aware, but still alert. Dover. We inched our way through the port for close to an hour. I was overcome by waves of nausea. The ferry was late due to bad weather. I got out of the coach. The wind was harsh, b...

Hello again, everyone. I am back from my unexpected French travels, having arrived this week. So far, so good - I managed to catch up to the first two episodes of Sherlock, which I had been waiting for with great impatience. I didn't dislike them, but I feel a little strange about them. There was a certain aspect to them in the first two series that is missing in the third one. I did enjoy the episodes, though - with Benedict Cumberbatch's face present in nearly every scene, I'll never be truly dissatisfied.. My favourite line so far probably has to be "He's clueing for looks". Today was a very successful Sunday. I made brunch for the family, then set off to Canary Wharf to check out the ice sculptures created for the London Ice Sculpting Festival . After a (real Belgian) hot chocolate, it was time for my mother and me to try some sculpting of our own.. Our session went by quickly - we had less than twenty minutes, but we were very h...

Tonight, I present to you the first in what I hope will be a series of posts - short story night! Inspired by this blog , I've been thinking about putting my stories on the blog. Hopefully this will help me to write more. Now, I'm rather new to the short story business, so please be gentle! The goal is to improve and become good at short fiction. I will probably write stories from about 500-1000 words. This one has 425 words. So, without further ado, here is my first attempt! The lake was his favourite place. There was an island in a middle, completely covered by a tree. He used to swim there and sit on the highest branch he could climb to, contemplating the world from above. This morning there was a cold wind, and his mum had not wanted him to go, but he had insisted until she gave in. He had to be there today, to meet Nate. Nate was new and had no other friends but him. He was Nate's only friend, so he had to go and meet him. He made some ham sandwiches and headed to t...

Thursday may be the new Friday, but Sunday remains plain old Sunday. I suppose I have a bit of a problem with Sundays. They feel a bit like visiting older relatives when you are a child, when you're bored and the day drags on and there are only a few biscuits to snack on.. Yes some of my childhood was like that. I was very keen on tea-time ( le quatre heures ), and hence I hated the days I couldn't get one, and, on top of that, had nothing to do. I usually ended up reading a book I had already read many times before. Sundays kind of feel like that to me. I want something to happen, I want to do things, but I usually sit around doing nothing and feeling bad about it, whilst the clock ticks forward and the feeling mounts. Isn't it weird how after about 1 pm, the day feels finished? Then, some Sundays, things happen, and it feels like visiting old relatives, but your cousins are there too, and you get up to all sorts of tricks and feel sad to leave. This is why I am not a...

A storm - but not in the hills I haven't been spending much time on poetry outside of my university course in the past few months. Two days ago, however, I was searching articles on jstor , for my essay, when a title jumped out at me. It was about a poet named Henrikas Radauskas. I had never heard of him, so did a quick research. And quick it was - there isn't that much information about him in English, apart from the usual stuff about personal life, and books published. Henrikas Radauskas was born in Poland, but his family moved back to Lithuania after WWI. I found a web page with some of his poems translated into English. I read a few of them, and straight away felt an interest. It's rather strange, the way the poetry journey goes sometimes. I've often had trouble with English poets, trying to become interested, trying to understand.. It's not always easy. But here I was, reading translated poems by a Polish/Lithuanian writer, and I wanted to read more. ...

I was 'tagged' by this blog . Normally you answer the questions at the end, then make up new ones, but I won't be tagging anyone - I just really liked these questions. However feel free to use these questions on your own blog. Spine Poem by me 1. What in your opinion do you think YA (or fiction in general) needs more of? Right, to be honest, I probably don't read enough YA to know what's missing, but I'd say fiction in general could do with more.. honest harsh realities? Something like that. People with problems - not to make the book exciting or give it a plot, but to show the truth of it. Mental illnesses that aren't linked with murders, kidnappings, violence.. There are already books with those topics, but I don't think it would hurt to have more depressive, bipolar, socially anxious main characters. But it would have to be done properly. 2. What is something you would absolutely love to see a book about? (Be specific if po...

CC image  courtesy of  ilouque  This week I have yet again been confronted with a question about my abilities: am I just not 'meant' to write fiction? Is it somehow just not possible for me? This has been a recurring question in my life, though perhaps only for the past six years or so - it could possibly be longer but I'm not entirely sure my memory of my pre-teen years are reliable. I can say with great certainty that I did not always feel that way - I remember writing one of my favourite stories when I was 11, and being proud of it for a very long time. Now it seems to have become some sort of fight, with fiction constantly winning, and me constantly asking for a rematch. So what does the fact that I can't give up say about me, my writing abilities? I'm not too sure, to be honest. Perhaps I should accept defeat. I do not have this problem with non-fiction, and even poetry (which I struggled with for a while, feeling as though I'd never 'get it')...