Ah, I see that I have already been linked to Rethink - no time to tidy up after all. Oh well, maybe it is best to tidy up after the party - I mean after all the Internet traffic has been and gone - or maybe there is no need, and I shall leave the blog as it is. Just be aware, newcomers, that you might have to go back to the start of this blog to get an idea of what I am about.
Thank you for reading.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Ticking along (like a clock, not a bomb)
I have been flicking about a few blogs recently, all very interesting in their own ways. Mostly on writing websites. It strikes me that nobody will have anytime to read anybody else's work if we all carry on writing at this pace. It certainly eats up more of my time than I have to spare.
Anyway, in my last entry here I wrote about Sathnam Sanghera's memoir, 'The Boy with the Topknot' and how great I thought it was. I have been motivated to blog again today because I just read a review on Amazon which said several rather negative things about it, although there were a lot more positive reviews to counteract that.
I am sure that Sanghera, as a journalist, is immune to the slings and arrows, but I did feel it is rather unfair to get at him for writing about his family. After all, he is writing about his life, and of course it will be tied up with the lives of others. A great deal of what makes our lives interesting is our interactions with others and our responses to their ideas and behaviour.
I wrote a memoir many years ago, then decided not to publish because a certain member of my family got very upset about it (that person had nothing to fear and would have found that out if they had just asked to read the manuscript instead of going off at the deep end about the fact that I had written a book). But I am aware that I am spoken about by my family, and my friends, every day in various contexts, and I would not expect to be able to silence them, even though I can't control what they are saying. Although I hope that they are mostly good things. And Sathnam is clearly devoted to his family, and doesn't seem to be 'using' them in any negative way. I think his book will definitely further the understanding of schizophrenia - which, I guess, is why it got the 'Mind' prize. Which will benefit his father and sister in the long term much more than a tactful or embarrassed silence on the subject would have done.
So. Ticking along (like a clock, not a bomb). I rather like that line. Might use it in a poem.
I have a whole day to write, becauase my other half agreed to take the children out so that I could get on with it. I had a slow start, for which I blame the world wide web. But I started to relax into it, and have tidied up sheaves of poetry, neatly filed lots of ideas for stories and novels, had lunch and even written a bit.
A while ago, Rethink expressed an interest in this blog, so my next move will be to chase that up. As it stands at the moment, you would have to read all the back blogs to make sense of who I am (for example I haven't yet mentioned in this blog that I have schizophrenia, because it is not on my mind at all today. Well, it wasn't until I wrote that). Anyway, I am going to look into whatever it is that makes blogs more readable, which I guess is to provide lots of links to other things and maybe some pictuers. And then make the whole thing shorter, because nobody has time to read anybody else's stuff properly on the Net. Which takes me tidily back to where I began. Adieu for now.
Anyway, in my last entry here I wrote about Sathnam Sanghera's memoir, 'The Boy with the Topknot' and how great I thought it was. I have been motivated to blog again today because I just read a review on Amazon which said several rather negative things about it, although there were a lot more positive reviews to counteract that.
I am sure that Sanghera, as a journalist, is immune to the slings and arrows, but I did feel it is rather unfair to get at him for writing about his family. After all, he is writing about his life, and of course it will be tied up with the lives of others. A great deal of what makes our lives interesting is our interactions with others and our responses to their ideas and behaviour.
I wrote a memoir many years ago, then decided not to publish because a certain member of my family got very upset about it (that person had nothing to fear and would have found that out if they had just asked to read the manuscript instead of going off at the deep end about the fact that I had written a book). But I am aware that I am spoken about by my family, and my friends, every day in various contexts, and I would not expect to be able to silence them, even though I can't control what they are saying. Although I hope that they are mostly good things. And Sathnam is clearly devoted to his family, and doesn't seem to be 'using' them in any negative way. I think his book will definitely further the understanding of schizophrenia - which, I guess, is why it got the 'Mind' prize. Which will benefit his father and sister in the long term much more than a tactful or embarrassed silence on the subject would have done.
So. Ticking along (like a clock, not a bomb). I rather like that line. Might use it in a poem.
I have a whole day to write, becauase my other half agreed to take the children out so that I could get on with it. I had a slow start, for which I blame the world wide web. But I started to relax into it, and have tidied up sheaves of poetry, neatly filed lots of ideas for stories and novels, had lunch and even written a bit.
A while ago, Rethink expressed an interest in this blog, so my next move will be to chase that up. As it stands at the moment, you would have to read all the back blogs to make sense of who I am (for example I haven't yet mentioned in this blog that I have schizophrenia, because it is not on my mind at all today. Well, it wasn't until I wrote that). Anyway, I am going to look into whatever it is that makes blogs more readable, which I guess is to provide lots of links to other things and maybe some pictuers. And then make the whole thing shorter, because nobody has time to read anybody else's stuff properly on the Net. Which takes me tidily back to where I began. Adieu for now.
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