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Jimmy4559 has stumbled: The Truth About Lies: Becketts voice
- July 23rd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Beckett's voice
Like George Orwell before him, Samuel Beckett had a strong aversion to being filmed or even having his voice recorded. Although he was nothing less than magnanimous in his own cantankerous way with his first biographer, Deirdre Bair, he did draw the
- July 22nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Novel-looking word clouds
One of the sites I frequent is Baroque in Hackney. Our Katy has just got a new book of poems out called Me and the Dead and she thought it might be a good idea to reduce it to a word cloud. Now call me a copycat if you will but I couldn't resist the
- July 20th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
A genre-defying blog
Reality is above all else a variable and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before. —Margaret HalseyThe hard
- July 16th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Under Control
A few weeks ago, and a year late, I posted a review of Mark McNay's debut novel, Fresh, and I had no problem recommending the book. So you can imagine my delight when an advance copy of his second novel, Under Control, dropped though my letterbox a f
- July 13th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Aggie and Shuggie 4
Maggie: Ma! C'mere, Ma.Aggie: Whit is it? Ah'm tryin t fix yer faither's tea.Maggie: Huv ye seen these new reviews af Unca Jim's book?Aggie: Does yer da know yer usin his comptuta?Maggie: Ah wis daen skulwork.Aggie
- July 10th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
In the beginning was the sound… (part two)
Music is the very essence of what things are. – Eli Siegel ('Speech of Moon in the Heart of Ceylon')Words and music (or Bob and Joe as they prefer to be called)In 1961 Samuel Beckett wrote a number of radio plays that incorporate music: Words and M
- July 6th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
In the beginning was the sound… (part one)
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music. — Ezra PoundThe relationship between words and music is an interesting one. Beckett referred to his writing as "sounds" and
- July 2nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Do you break, jam or snip?
There are no simplistic rules for poets: if there were, any duffer could write poetry. Paul CelanWhen I first started writing poetry – much of which was duff – I would structure my poetry in any way that felt right. It was quite arbitrary really
- June 28th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Movie meme
I don't often drift off topic. It was always my aim to keep this as a literary blog but when I read Ken Armstrong's recent post about movies I found myself compelled to compile my own list. Movies have always been an enormous influence on me as a wri
- June 27th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Andrew Philip: A Sampler
A woman who lives longer than her husband is called a widow, a man without his wife a widower. A child without parents is an orphan. But what do you call the father and mother of a child who has died? – P F ThoméseI've finally got myself a decent
- June 24th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Self Publishers Anonymous
In 1912 the English writer Adeline Stephen married the writer Leonard Woolf to whom she stayed married until 1941 when she committed suicide. The couple's marriage was actually a happy affair despite the fact she suffered badly from manic depression;
- June 22nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Aggie and Shuggie 3
AGGIE: Shuggie!SHUGGIE: (snore)AGGIE: SHUGGIE!SHUGGIE: Whithefu?AGGIE: Have ye seen Rachel Fox's bloag t'day?SHUGGIE: Naw, Ah don't read her stuff. She rambles an Ah've enough wi wan wumman ramblin oan at me aw day long
- June 19th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Big brothers and blind poets
Seeing has always, to perhaps an extreme extent, been my sense of choice… I couldn't ever see or read enough. – Candia McWilliamBig Brother is back. Yay. I wonder what the ratio is these days between those who associate 'Big Brother' with the rea
- June 15th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
More about the song
I don't own many books of contemporary poetry. It is a rare book that catches my eye and generally after flicking though a couple of pages I know if it's going to be my cup of tea. Once when I was in a pokey wee used book store in Edinburgh I chanced
- June 13th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has bookmarked: The Truth About Lies
- June 12th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Aggie and Shuggie 2
AGGIE: Whit's qualia when it's at hame?SHUGGIE: Qualia?AGGIE: Aye.SHUGGIE: Is that no a wee burd, like a pigeon?AGGIE: Nah, that's a quail, ye daft bat.SHUGGIE: So where're ye readin aboot qualias?AGGIE: Oan Kay Sexton's bloag.SHUGGIE: Never heard af
- June 10th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has added
jaygayatri to their friends list. - June 8th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Aggie and Shuggie
AGGIE: Shuggie!SHUGGIE: Whit?AGGIE: Have ye seen oor Jim's bloag?SHUGGIE: Why?AGGIE: It's no there.SHUGGIE: Whidja mean, "No there?"AGGIE: Ah'm tellin ye, it's no there.SHUGGIE: Shove o'er. Let me look.AGGIE: See!SHUGGIE: Wait till Ah find ma glasses
- June 4th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Portrait of the writer as a drunken skunk (part two)
The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. - Roald DahlIn part one we looked at some of the romantic notions attached to writing and drink. In this part we'll consider what drink actually does to you.I suppose the
- June 2nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has joined the neighborhood: My Writing Life
My Writing Life
A place where I'll share everything I've learned about writing, getting an agent and publishing along my path of getting my novel published. Tips, techniques, strategies, joys and tears. - June 1st, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Portrait of the writer as a drunken skunk (part one)
The Chinese say that the liver is the source of anger. Alcoholics and addicts medicate their anger. – Gil Grissom, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation , Season 4The following films all contain characters who are writers.The Lost Weekend (1945); Bell, Bo
- May 31st, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has bookmarked: Down for everyone or just me?
- May 28th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Fair Play, A Novel
When does a collection of short stories become a novel? Many authors have taken characters from novels and incorporated them into short stories, often as minor characters. Holden Caulfield crops up in a couple of Salinger's for example and we also ge
- May 27th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has added
ripplemusic to their friends list. - May 25th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible
Okay, Jim so where's your usual incisive and witty blog gone? Good question. Normal service will be resumed shortly. In the meantime I've had the first honest-to-goodness review of my novel and I'd like to share it with all of you. It's by a guy call
- May 22nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Part of the not-so-global community
I'm afraid you'll have to click on the link to Jasmin's Heart to find today's post. It's been moved temporarily.The site is run by one Jasko Caus, a well travelled artist and the author of two books of poetry, who hails from Bihać a town in the nort
- May 20th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has bookmarked: stmungosmirrorball.co.uk - Home
- May 18th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Thou shalt not write poems about poems
Don't write poems about poems. I've heard this or read this more than once. It's frowned on in the same way as writing a novel about a novelist writing a novel is frowned on. I'll be honest, I don't get either of them. I like to read poems about poem
- May 15th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has joined the neighborhood: Sharp Words
Sharp Words
Reading and writing and words - general guff about all of these. -
Jimmy4559 has added
sharpwords to their friends list. -
Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
A flea in a sandstorm
In my novel Living with the Truth, there is a scene when Truth passes comment on Jonathan's relationship to Charity:“You have seven days a week, so you could attend an R.S.P.C.A. meeting on Monday, Greenpeace on a Tuesday, C.N.D. on Wednesday, dist
- May 14th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new broadcast: Book release: Living with the Truth
- May 13th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has updated their friends list.
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Jimmy4559 has joined the neighborhood: Writing to Survive
Writing to Survive
Transforming the painful past and the mundane present into a coherent story, one post at a time. - May 12th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
You probably think this blog is about you (part four)
Part OnePart TwoPart ThreeWho in their right mind sits down to write a novel? I certainly never did. Not the first one in any case. I read blogs all the time of young people struggling with that first book, determined that they're going to drag that
- May 10th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
You probably think this blog is about you (part three)
Part OnePart TwoBeckett’s posthumously published first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, is a blatantly autobiographical work set in Dublin, Ireland. The story of Beckett’s first antihero, Belacqua Shuah, whom the publisher (Calder Books) c
- May 8th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
You probably think this blog is about you (part two)
Part OneWriting is a very personal thing. I write to work things out. I write a sentence, maybe a paragraph, and I look at it and say to myself: "Does that make any sense? Am I saying what I mean here?" I've just done that here. I know each and every
- May 4th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
You probably think this blog is about you (part one)
In the opening paragraph from the preface to what became the first volume of his 'autobiography', Unreliable Memoirs, Clive James has this to say:Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel. On the periphe
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Jimmy4559 has joined the neighborhood: Five Rings
Five Rings
A high fantasy novel WIP and a journal of the creative writing process. - May 2nd, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has joined the neighborhood: Paulo Coelho's blog
Paulo Coelho's blog
Paulo Coelho's Official Blog -
Jimmy4559 has added
PauloCoelho to their friends list. - May 1st, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Are you a writer or a typist?
"That's not writing, that's typing." – Truman Capote dismissing Jack Kerouac's workI have had asthma attacks all my life. I've them it since I was a kid only we called them bronchospasms back then because that's what the doctor said I was having a
- April 28th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has bookmarked: The Truth About Lies
- April 27th, 2008
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Jimmy4559 has posted a new entry on: The Truth About Lies
Just the facts, ma'am
Just the facts, ma'am. – Sgt Joe Friday, DragnetIf there was a single thing that persuaded me to buy this book it was the quote by Andrei Codrescu that appears on the front cover: "Petrovich is Beckett's organ." It's a wonderful quote, trying to b
