I'll get it all down on paper. Someday.


Thursday 26 May 2011

Smile At Your Pancreas.

If the AlyMondo Review was a baby, it would still have it's puny fingernails dug deep into the lips it once called home.

It's had a bit of a stop/start conception which seems to have filtered through into the irregularity of my posting, and that's something which I have decided needs to change. After it's recent makeover I had planned on using this blog as an online journal of sorts concerned primarily with the day-to-day writing of my first major work of genius as well as any other writings and ramblings I may be working on.

It does, however, seem quite fitting that posting has until now been fairly haphazard. It reflects quite nicely how I've been working on Necrophenia so far: a page here, a witty piece of dialogue there and the odd aternoon writing interesting panel descriptions. Which is why I am now stating here, for free, that within seven weeks I will have a first draft complete. This leaves me with four whole weeks to whip the full script of eight episode/chapter/issues into something I can be proud to hand over on hand-in day, but also into some sort of marketable piece of work.

As it stands: 70 days until hand-in.
issue one - first draft complete.
issue two - 1/2way.

artwork - no leads yet.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Illicit Ink and Nothing Else.

A lot has happened since my last blog post. I always said that I didn't want the AlyMondo Review to be a diary blog, or the kind of blog that served only to be a soapbox for yours truly to put forward his oh-so-important thoughts and feelings on world events and breaking news...

So I won't be mentioning the Royal wedding, I won't tell you about the end of the second trimester of my Masters course and I wouldn't even dare begin to put forward my thoughts and theories and the death of the world's Most Wanted. And no, although you may be expecting it, I won't get into who I think River Song is or what's up with the Regenerating Girl.

Instead I'm simply going to post a piece I recently performed in public. My first ever public reading went down at Illicit Ink's latest and greatest evening of spoken word in Edinburgh's Cabaret Voltaire Speakeasy.



The Other Side of the Fence

There was a hole on the hill. A little dug out piece of turf that was just the right size to park yourself in if the weather was fine, like an armchair where you could eat your sandwiches surrounded by daisies. It was also, I was told, the entrance to the world of the sprites. To get to it you had to go through the gap in the fence at the back corner of the playground by where the others used to play football. I’d try to sneak out ahead of the rest of the children to make sure no one could follow and get to the hole on hill before me. Not that they ever would. They were more concerned about fighting their way into the queue in the dining hall, or finding a space in the comfy corner of the changing rooms or heading home to see their mothers where they’d get their lunches freshly and lovingly prepared. I was the only one concerned with trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive creatures that allegedly lived amongst the surrounding shrubbery.
I was always happy in the hole on the hill if the weather was fine. I had no interest in sports or talking about girls, or talking about boys for that matter. I didn’t have pocket money to spend at the ice cream van that used to park just up the road from the school’s entrance. I’d make do with a sandwich, a packet of own-brand crisps and a chocolate biscuit and not have to sit in silence with the others.

I sat each day for an hour simply waiting to see if the rumours were true. I had no desire to capture the sprites in jars. I had no dog to feed them to. I didn’t want to photograph them or disturb their way of life in the slightest. I would have been happy just to notice a shimmer of light or a flutter of wings, but every time I sat in the hole in the hill I sat there alone. Well almost.

For a time I had a friend. A man who would spend his lunchtimes on his own too. I don’t remember if he ever told me his name, or what he really looked like but he would stand in the field swinging a golf club, hitting balls back and forth across the park. Every now and then he’d hit the ball so high up into the air that I’d lose it in the glair of the sun. Other times he’d only hit the ball a short distance and it would bounce across the grass in my direction. Wanting to be helpful, I’d get out of my hole on the hill, leave the fairy folk behind for only minute and go and retrieve it for him.
The first couple of days I did this, I didn’t talk to him. He’d call me over but I’d stay far back and only toss the balls back in his direction. But eventually I started chatting to him. He said that when he was my age he used to spend his lunchtimes alone too. And that since moving to his new house, and not having a job to go to he still did. I was not to worry, he said, and that some people don’t always understand you but that that was okay.
I only got to spend a week or so collecting golf balls for him. He said that he spent some evenings in the field playing golf too and that he’d be more than happy for me to come down on those evenings. I asked but I was not allowed.
Soon after that we were told about not going out of the school boundaries at lunchtime; whether it was to go to the ice cream van or for any other reason. If we were heading home for lunch we had to go straight there and back and only if our mums had let the school know that that is what we were going to do. They fixed the gap in the fence at the back corner of the playground where the others played football, and I had to eat my lunch with the rest of the class in the comfy corner of the changing rooms.

I’m used to it now. Being on my own. We all have different interests, different habits… different urges. The school’s not there anymore. It was knocked down and rebuilt only a couple of years ago and I can only assume that the sprites that I never got to see have moved on too. The fence is now a wall and is higher than it used to be, the car park has changed and the last time I was there I didn’t recognise any of the teacher’s faces. I only went down there just in case. In case there was another lost child looking for a friend to spend their lunchtime with but because of the wall I couldn’t get in.


Check out more on the delicious Illicit Ink here.