Insights
My short-lived venture into publishing has been good for me in a funny sort of way, for it has given me insight that was lacking previously. Until I started thinking about selling my novel, I honestly had no idea how many millions of wannabe writers there are out there. Encountering such overwhelming masses, it quickly became clear that there is no need for one more face in the swell. Read on…
19 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Reflections, Writing |
Tags: humanity, Publishing, world, Writing |
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The wittering twit
I see I am talking to myself again, rambling on without regard. Surely that is my greatest talent, to weave tales that nobody reads. Elsewhere there is a buzz and a chatter; here the deafening silence. Oh to be insignificant. The answer to a prayer.
18 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Reflections |
Tags: prayer, words |
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But dust
A passage from the novel Lead Us Not, which I was working on as time allowed between 2006 and 2010…
Never in my life have I considered putting my thoughts down on paper, but today something drives me to it. I had that urge in the middle of the service tonight as those words reverberated around the church: ‘The Lord remembers we are but dust.’ Tonight I made a covenant with Him, setting out to start my life anew. Tonight the depression will leave me. Tonight my childhood shall cease. Tonight I have made my resolve: these words shall be my witness. Read on…
18 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Writing |
Tags: excerpt, fiction, lead us not |
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Drafts
As I cast my eye over the various drafts that have accumulated on my computer over the past decade, the thought that recurs is that they are not very good, often embarrassingly so. I feel a purge coming on, finger on the delete key. Why do we put ourselves through these trials, penning great tales that in time strike us as being so poor? To retire from writing has never before felt so necessary, or attractive.
18 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Reflections, Writing |
Tags: realisation, skill, Writing |
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Madrassa
Another fragment from a story I was working on six years ago…
The air in the prayer carries the beautiful scent of musk, its essence renewed by the dabbling of worshippers with the oils on the shelf after almost every ablution. Whenever the sun’s rays penetrate the porthole windows beneath the dome, bathing the burgundy carpet in their yellow-orange glow, the odour lifts and causes friends to smile at one another. Read on…
17 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Writing |
Tags: excerpt, fiction, fragment, Writing |
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Self destruction
Was it really that bad? Was it really so completely worthless? I am always like this, defeated by the negative observations of others, believing them to be absolutely true and absolutely correct. I came to hate the last book I wrote for the exact same reasons, and now I hate this one too, shunning all the hours spent revisiting it as I sought to give it a second chance. Now I seek to disassociate myself from it, viewing it with same contempt I shower on everything I work on. Now I fling it into the bin, seizing it back from everybody I shared it with. This is my sunnah: to build, create, and then tear it all down with regret. It is not the way to live.
17 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Reflections, Writing |
Tags: regret, work, Writing |
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Hold fast
This is the first chapter of a novel entitled Hold Fast, which I was working on sporadically between 2007 and 2011…
Beneath the grey and pale blue sky the air hangs with that heavy scent of sea salt upon mud, its odour rising whenever the cold January wind blows hard upon the flats and back towards the shore. Gone are the huge flocks of waders that had landed to feast upon thousands of creatures left behind by the tide three hours ago; they lifted altogether as a mass of black and white across the horizon, swirling away just as the waters did. All that remain are the grey plovers whistling to one another, ‘Tee-oo-ee, tee-oo-ee.’ Read on…
15 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Writing |
Tags: draft, excerpt, fiction, hold fast, novel |
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Miss Wheatcroft
This is a fragment of a fictional story written 9 February 2007…
Miss Wheatcroft, she’s a funny one. She’s a white Muslim like the artist formerly known as Cat Stephens except she’s a woman. When I say funny, I don’t mean she’s a comedian. One of my best friends is a white Muslim, I don’t have nothing against it and I don’t mean nothing bad. My friend, she’s a Salafee which means you have to wear short trousers if you’re a man, which she don’t because she aint a man, and you have to wiggle your finger at the end of the prayer, which my friend Aminah also does coz she’s Maliki and they do that too. Read on…
15 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Writing |
Tags: draft, fiction, fragment, wheatcroft |
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Be with those you’re with
Are we smartphone gageteers addicted? Do we not realise we’re neglecting the companions sitting beside us just to be with the lines of text on our screen? I have just returned from my evening class—one that I cherish greatly—pondering, were we really all with each other tonight? Alhamdulilah, they’ve set a rule: turn off phones in class. But before class: eyes are glued to pieces of glass. Trying to make eye contact in order to exchange salams appears impossible. I accept we may all be shy and that the LED glow might be our refuge, but it is tiresome for those in search of community. No sooner has the lesson drawn to a halt for a half-time break, then those alluring screens are back. And so we never get to meet those we’re with, to know anything about the one who sits next to us, to learn how they are or how their day was, to discover if we have anything to learn from one another. For presumably Twitter calls, or a Facebook status needs updating, or someone, somewhere out there just needs to know you’re still there. What an age to live in: we’re more connected than ever before and yet so absolutely disconnected from each other.
13 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Reflections |
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Relax
Let this play at full screen in the corner of the room on a nice big screen; turn the volume up and the lights down low:
However to feel the heat, you really need to be running a Dell like me… which gives me a great idea: if I could just get my hands on an iPad, I’ll set this playing and bung it in the stove. Nobody will never know.
12 March 2013 by Timothy Bowes
Categories: Inspiration |
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