{"id":1760,"date":"2017-09-27T12:31:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T11:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1760"},"modified":"2017-10-17T09:33:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T08:33:32","slug":"back-to-the-future-off-the-leash-or-fishing-for-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1760","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Future: Off the leash or fishing for words?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1761 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?resize=640%2C495&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?w=2420&amp;ssl=1 2420w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?resize=300%2C232&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?resize=768%2C593&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?resize=676%2C522&amp;ssl=1 676w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Boys_on_Russian_River_l972.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/h6>\n<h6>My favourite Carver photo on Russian River 1972<\/h6>\n<p>As I mentioned in last post the last three years have been difficult&#8230;that an understatement. After my Fine Art M.A. I tried to disengage with art school research and politics and reset my compass entirely to reconnect with my writing past.<\/p>\n<p>I was lucky enough to be published by Salt in 2010 but the majority of the poems in that slim volume (now OOP) were poems I had written in my exciting debut back in 1992 and through my Scottish phase up until 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Between 1997 and 2007 my output slowed from a drip to nothing but in my head I was still writing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"d2S59OeFeE\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?page_id=452\">Last Farmer &#8211; Salt Publication (Selected 1992-2010) O.O.P. Free Download<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Last Farmer &#8211; Salt Publication (Selected 1992-2010) O.O.P. Free Download&#8221; &#8212; SHAUN BELCHER WRITES\" src=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?page_id=452&#038;embed=true#?secret=IDGXgvbrbq#?secret=d2S59OeFeE\" data-secret=\"d2S59OeFeE\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This culminated in a brief and not entirely fruitful term on the NTU Creative Writing course which I left after a miserable first term..I simply wasn&#8217;t ready to break the art school connection then. I can now see that this was the start of three years of depression which I now can at least recognise and treat.<\/p>\n<p>I failed the first assignment as I was struggling to complete my first ever paid poetry commission for RIBA&#8230;..<br \/>\nI managed to complete that but the course suffered&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>That essay tried to lay the ghost of my possible grandfather (see Coppard essay below) and I was gone&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A.E.Coppard - Telling Tales\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/283324084\/content\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7080062794348508\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"283324084\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><script type=\"text\/javascript\">                (function() { var scribd = document.createElement(\"script\"); scribd.type = \"text\/javascript\"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = \"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/javascripts\/embed_code\/inject.js\"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })()              <\/script><\/p>\n<p>With a final diva-like flourish I delivered the Fiction module short story&#8230;..I was too good for them I convinced myself burying the mental block once again..<\/p>\n<p>David Belbin (standing in for the recently deceased Graham Joyce) was kind and marked it rigorously with his editors pencil and announced it a good &#8216;tough&#8217; story which made me smile as I deliberately imitated the hard-boiled approach and dirty realism we both admired and played up to his stylistic tics. I put the story away in a draw until today..metaphorically it available online all the time here&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>I think it good now I re-read it after nearly three years. I was going to change the detail of letting off the leash which I now know you can never do with a ex racing greyhound but the story still works because it suggests the woman and dog have a trust beyond its training and it could be read as the man provokes the running away&#8230;.so I have not re-edited at all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"3uPOzfJ7aD\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1076\">My First Short Story: The Leash<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;My First Short Story: The Leash&#8221; &#8212; SHAUN BELCHER WRITES\" src=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1076&#038;embed=true#?secret=Coo0H81qh8#?secret=3uPOzfJ7aD\" data-secret=\"3uPOzfJ7aD\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Little did I know that far from opening the floodgates of a irrepressible new fiction talent it was closing the door&#8230;.since then I have struggled to ward off depression whilst dealing with circumstances of a personal nature that to be frank almost overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>But I have come through and part of my dealing with the mental block, the lack of an occupation ( I resigned from academic lecturing in January 2016) and my wife&#8217;s concurrent illness has meant that I now &#8216;re-engaging&#8217; with the writing world.<\/p>\n<p>Last night I had the pleasure of attending a workshop led by academic Richard H. King on Flannery O&#8217;Connor where I met again John Harvey himself ( the person who published my very first poem way back in 1992 in Slowdancer thus starting my literary &#8216;non-career&#8217; ) and Graham Caveney who has taken a similarly circuitous route back to writing as me and shares a love of obscure musical knowledge and the band The Feelies \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>It feels like everything has come full circle&#8230;maybe just maybe this time I can keep going but as I known to my cost it never easy.<\/p>\n<p>As Carver writes in a wonderful essay on writing here &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Storyteller&#8217;s Shoptalk<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/01\/01\/21\/specials\/carver-shoptalk.html?mcubz=1\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/01\/01\/21\/specials\/carver-shoptalk.html?mcubz=1<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Ambition and a little luck are good things for a writer to have going for him.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Too much ambition and bad luck, or no luck at all, can be killing.<\/p>\n<p>There has to be talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My favourite Carver photo on Russian River 1972 As I mentioned in last post the last three years have been difficult&#8230;that an understatement. After my Fine Art M.A. I tried to disengage with art school research and politics and reset my compass entirely to reconnect with my writing past. I was lucky enough to be&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60,44,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-fiction","category-short-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6nhh-so","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}