Manic Creativity?

Ah! That explains a lot. Research confirms connection between creativity and certain mental conditions, according to the BBC

Seriously though, it figures. I met this guy once, a guest at a writers' group  – nice guy. He was a bit socially awkward, but we got on really well. After a while, he told me he was a diagnosed schizophrenic but he was okay because the drugs were working. I was cool with that, but it did worry me a bit when I realised that in many ways I had more in common with the guy than I have with a lot of 'normal' people I know. And he clearly identified with, and felt comfortable in the presence of, creative people.

Made me think a bit about what being  'normal' means, if anything.

And then there was that TV programme a while back fronted by Stephen Fry; Tony Slattery was featured in it. I can't remember what it was called. It was about manic depression… no, that's not what they call it nowadays, is it? Bipolar disorder, that's it. Often goes hand in hand with depression, and with creativity apparently. The programme emphasized observed parallels between bipolar disorder and creativity. At one point, Stephen asked Tony (indicating a hypothetical 'button') if by pressing the button he could be free of the 'disorder', would he push it. Without hesitation, Tony said he would not. Clearly the creative benefit / high outweighed the negative / low.

So, summing up: to be creative you've got to be slightly potty, eh?

Guess I really am a little bit creative after all?

Look. Go steady with the tea and biscuits, okay? No dossing behind the links section... And do turn out the lights when you leave. Thanks.

Funny Old Business: the Circulation of Jokes

Did anybody watch Ashes to Ashes (BBC1) on Friday? The Roy Hudd character (a sleazy stand up comedian, hopefully not based on yours truly) was in Geno's restaurant and delivered a joke that might well have struck a familiar note with some of you in its awful punfullness: Yes, it was 'my' innuendo joke. Though quite how it ended up (uh! oh!) there is anybody's guess.

To the best of my knowledge and belief (as far as any writer can be sure of these things) that was an Oscar original. It dates back more than twenty years to the days when my wife, Freda, (then a district nurse) first arrived in my life and many of our friends were (indeed, still are) associated with medical professions. Another of similar vintage that springs to mind was: 'Until I met Freda I didn't have an enema in the world'... get the idea? (Look, I didn't say they were good jokes, okay?).

I can't prove the origins that far back – yet – but I have found the first written version that I'm aware of, from a 2005 Watford Writers' newsletter (I was editor - bad business - don't ask). Due to an excess of apathy in the submission department, I took to filling in the final column with the witterings of two of my imaginary friends (Sad? Oh, yeah, that's me).

So I've dug out the relevant newsletter, and there - sure enough - is the innuendo joke. How does it go? I thought you'd never ask: 'I have this friend who's a nurse. She's not very bright. She thinks innuendo is Italian for suppository.'

Okay, okay... I was just leaving.

Oh, before I do go. I don't suppose I shall ever get acknowledgment for the innuendo joke, but I have had one minor success. A very silly story published in Everyday Weirdness. If you're really bored, you can find it here.

As usual, help yourself to tea an bickkies. But do turn out the light when you leave.

The Oscar's Oscars 2010 Hi-Five Roll of Honour

The inaugural Oscar's Oscars recipients have been notified, in suitable cutting edge style via the magic of Twitter. Details of the tar-studded awards ceremony were reported in an earlier post. Nothing now remains but to record those awards and accolades in a less transient medium. Here:

Early recipients (the ad hoc cohort) and accolades:

   •    Vanessa Gebbie - For metaphoric mechanics and literary lubrication.
    •    Paul Conneally - For being Journo with the Buzz.
    •    Flash Fiction Online - For excellent literary taste and content ;) .
    •    Mrs Darcy v the Aliens - For Georgian tension with tentacles.
    •    GUD Magazine  - For a truly eye-opening cover.
    •    Captain Isambard Smith  - For being Pym's Number One (The John Pym, that is).
    •    Greg McQueen - For his heroic Hundred Stories for Haiti.
    •    Alex Brown  - Just for fun.

Inaugural recipients (the annual cohort) and accolades:

    •    Katie Fforde - For 'Love Letters'  - and being a very nice person.
    •    Guardian Books - For literary guidance in depth.
    •    Verulam Writers' Circle - For good friends taken as read.
    •    TransWorld's Simon Taylor - For Three Very Patient Minutes 20/02/2010.
    •    Sandra Norval - For wildlife, badgers and Libertine (WIP).
    •    Stephen Fry - For erudition and the ridiculous in sublime combination - and playing the Wilde card.

This may be all very  silly, but it has been great fun and the good wishes expressed are genuine. Thanks everybody for taking it (I hope) in the spirit of fun in which it was intended.

To be continued.

Please don't forget the light as you leave.

Have a great weekend.

Oscar's Oscars Night: OO=^v

'A Tar-studded Event' - Leading dry cleaner

'Tux Among the Trucks' - Leading lorry driver from Brussels

Stephen Fry,  Cheryl Cole, Sharon Osbourne, Julia Roberts and Simon Cowell were among scores of glittering A-list celebrities who were absent on the red carpet at last night's  prestigious Oscar's Oscars award ceremony at the luxurious and world-renowned Scratchwood Service Area. In fact the red carpet was also absent, having been repossessed on Wednesday morning by my Aunt Elsie and replaced in her hallway. This minor glitch did nothing to detract from the warmth and sincerity of the moving ceremony. It had to be a moving ceremony because the security guys claimed we were causing an obstruction, but I've worked around this problem for next year. I'll hold the ceremony on the M25 in the rush hour, which will give us much more time to socialise without fear of being moved on.

Press Release

I'm calling this a Press Release because nobody has volunteered to report on the event (or to accept the awards, for that matter) so I'm having to press the lot on whoever I can and not release my vice-like grasp until they agree to my reasonable demands.

I'm frequently asked to explain the meaning of the formula: OO=^v. Frequently... I just thought you might like to know that.

I also sense other unasked questions: 1) Why Oscar's Oscars? and, 2) Who the hell do you think you are? Well, to tackle those tacit questions in order: 1) Oscar is my name, so calling them Arthur's Oscars would be disingenuous; 2) I think I'm Oscar, but if you know otherwise, please do inform me. Thank you.

For the record... or should that be: For the CD/MP3, nowadays? Well, whatever, like so many things I've done in my life, Oscar's Oscars began as a spontaneous piece of silliness. It would have remained a piece of Friday silliness, in isolation, had it not been for a couple of acquaintances finding it amusing... If you've got children you'll have heard the plea many times, especially in connection with boys: 'No. Please don't laugh, it will only encourage him.' Yea, well. Right. Who says men never grow up? Right again. So here we are.

What's it all  about?

Nothing more than me - Oscar - giving people I like and/or admire a hi-five (there you are), and sometimes... just  sometimes, doing a leeetle bit of creeping. This is the inaugural annual ceremony, but Oscar's Oscars are also presented on an ad hoc basis, and when I feel like it, too.

Anyway, the full list of 2010's annual awards will be published, and no doubt ignored, on Friday 5th March 2010.

Please do turn out the lights when you leave, after paying for all these expensive awards I really can't afford enormous lekky bills.

Bye for now.

Positive Rejection

Success is a fleeting, insubstantial thing. At the recent, excellent,  VWC Get Writing 2010 conference, one of the speakers quoted a saying that is worth repeating here: 'A successful writer is only a failed writer who did not give up.'

Success, however,  is an impostor, like Triumph and Disaster in Kipling's If, and yet we writers still labour in search of that spectral destination, sometimes to the detriment of health and relationships.

Perhaps, then, success should be regarded not so much as a destination but a journey? Framed in those terms, as R L Stephenson wrote, it may be '...better to travel hopefully than to arrive'. Indeed, the key to success may reside in something seemingly transient and painful but in truth substantial and positive, like receiving better rejections.

On Relativity and Constipation

I suppose a writers' conference seems an unlikely place to gain empirical proof of Relativity?

It wasn't the conference as a whole, of course. Said proof was contained in one – relatively brief (nudge, nudge) – aspect of it.

For the record, that same aspect of the conference kicked an adrenaline rush like the Winter Olympic Skeleton Bob run.

The Rhinoceros in the Room

Let's agree to ignore the elephant? I mean the visual joke that involved pulling out empty trouser pockets and unzipping, yes? Erase it from the New Year's party memories, like you erased that skew-whiff .jpeg… Please tell me that you did.

Anyway, the good news is: there is a rhino in my room – at last.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I took part in a few writing competitions last year. One of these was the excellent annual Whittaker Prize Competition run by the equally excellent The Write Idea website. Bottom line is that the 'Best of' anthology is now available – amusingly entitled The Rhinoceros and His Thoughts – and, tarah!: My copy arrived yesterday.