Friday, August 08, 2008

What I'm Doing 24:

What I've been watching:
TIE ME UP. TIE ME DOWN.
...well for about fifteen minutes...Not to the Hodmandod taste, unfortunately.






What I'm listening to:
Anjet Duvekot's stunning song ANNA - a song about old woman remembering...'It is 1925 and New Orleans and she is in her favourite dress...' - from her new album BIG DREAM BOULEVARD. Duvekot is such a hugely talented singer/songwriter - I don't know why the whole world doesn't know her.

What I'm reading:
GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson (still...I am very slow).

What I'm dreaming about.
Nothing. I am writing just to please myself... and life is good.

2 Comments:

Blogger JL said...

I'm going to comment, as I'm jealous:

Being a peculiarly visual person myself, and having 'written' and/or created several so-called graphic novels (I hate this term with an almighty passion; why should a written work have a difference from a visual? A 'novel' is a novel) I have come to the conclusion that in the culture I live in, visuals telling a story equals illiteracy.

I just, hate, this.

Visuals are... in physical construction: look at the notebooks of master masons from earlier centuries: they are an amalgam of diagrams and words. They are a synthetic. In fact when I first started the synthesis of visuals and the written word it is exactly what I was going for.

It's interesting; I have never, ever claimed to be a pure artist. When asked, I describe myself as 'A draftsman', or a 'sketch artist'. I took as my example the police sketch artist of the late 19th Century and previously, the US Civil War.

Why, oh why, are visuals separated from the written word in modern, specifically, 'English' (whatever that means) culture?

Seriously, Why?

I'm being pestilential. I apologize. But honestly, I am working on pure writing at the moment, as my visual compositions are only accepted as adolescent paths to 'true literacy', while my subject matter remains terribly adult.

I cannot write, myself, in prose for pleasure.

I envy you, Ms. Dudman. I am jealous.

Sat Aug 09, 03:04:00 am  
Blogger Clare Dudman said...

JL: I have only recently come across graphic novels (sorry to use the term, but I think we need to both understand what I mean) and I have been most impressed by the ones I've seen.

There are some writers who would no doubt envy your talent to draw.

I think the important thing that we all have in common is our ability to create, and the happiness we can glean from that is the most important thing of all.

Sat Aug 09, 06:24:00 am  

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