Nerves and Guitar (by sarah)

I live near Cheltenham and that town has some very good poetry nights etc... so Friday saw be going along to Slak Bar to an open mic at Earshot (probably my favourite poetry night). But this time it was opened up so that the open mic included acoustic so I thought I'd take my guitar and play one of the songs I worked on last month.

But though I was fine if a little upset as Jean refused to talk to me as I said she couldn't come in and watch, things got a little delayed and my anxiety and fretfullness mounted.

For a start I have a glittery nail vanish covered guitar, it is not one of those you can add pick ups too and I knew I wasn't getting the vocal range to be heard well over it in any case. (not an excuess but my glands where up due to hay fever and because of breast feeding I couldn't take anything for it - I find this heavily affects my singing)

Then one of the real acts got up (Horston Longsail) then one of my friends got up and using my guitar and his string clamp thing played a lovely haunting song.

Then I got up - for a start I hadn't wanted to use the crutches but there was no way I was going to be able to get up onto the stage without them. So I was feeling a little flustered as well as nervous. I sat down and begain to play and stuffed it up! I was shaking which didn't help and also I was so nervous my hands were sweating and my fingers slipped of the strings - I'd never encountered that before. Stressing out also makes my voice even tighter and smaller and I couldn't check if I was in tune becuase of the ringing in my ears.

The neverous twitch I used to get where my lip curls up on the left hand side started. I was still attempting to play. I closed my eyes and sang the second verse of my song instead of the first but then managed to look up a bit and get more in the flow - though I changed to the wrong cord and had to alter the sequence slightly so that it would all still fit.

I got off the stage feeling I had really stuffed up - I was so annoyed at myself - how comes I can play the song through perfectly whilst Jean is doing things like licking the guitar to get my attention becuase its dinner time but I get infront of people and it all goes wrong?

It's nerves.

People were very nice about it and I got given tips in the fact the microphone needed to be nearer my mouth and told that it started out a bit hesitant but once I got into it it was good. I even got told the song was like my poetry full of the sweet and dark and that it sounded very PJ Harvey.

I also know that I wasn't really ready to 'perform' in public but that if I didn't start trying I never will be. The issue I have is playing infront of other people and like getting rid of the stutter there is only one way to cure this and that is - if I mess up an open mic I simply need to play more open mics. Now I haven't got a clue weather my songs are any good or even if I can still sing in tune I just have to hope that people aren't going to be too mean!

I am still annoyed with myself over getting so flustered though - and with being annoyed - it meant I didn't really click back into gear until latter in the evening so basically missed Avril Staples poetry as I was waiting for the ringing in my ears to stop!

But I did have a fantastic night - I really enjoyed the two headline poets Bohdan Piasecki and Michael Wilson.

May’s Challenges (by sarah)

I am going to be taking part in NaPiBoWriWee (National Picture Book Writing Week) again this year - I will be attempting to write a picture book a day for seven days - I am focusing on more Little Books of Poetry as these seem so popular with Jean at least.

I will hopefully have 7 more Little Books by the end of May 🙂 This does however mean 70! poems which I'm not entirely sure is doable - ok they are formulaic and tending towards the rhyming end of things which I find easy but still :/

If I somehow get this done then I will probably expand the challenge to be an hour a day working on children's books. I now have several Little Books of Poetry which I really should make into proper books:

1. The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry (still needs some illustration work and more poems)
2. The Little Book of Festive Poetry (needs more illustrations including front cover)
3. The Little Book of Sparkly Poetry (Poems and illustrations need work)
4. The Little Book of New Baby Poetry (I want to draw 4 more page borders for this and rearrange the text into it so the pages can be double sided and readable in A6 format but it is almost there!)
5. The Little Book of Easter Poetry (Got most of the illustrations done for this one - want to tweak some of the poems too)

I'll be doing write ups on all of this on Orange Monster

So what is my second challenge for the month?

I think I'm going for Flash Fiction writing - I've fallen behind with this so want to aim for a story a day 🙂 They will be appearing on Magenta Monster.

Science-Art (by sarah)

I have set up a Science-Art website which is specifically designed to deal with things like my paleo-art and space man picture, not too mention Cloud Computing and my sci-tech poetry and world building stuff.

It will have regular articals/ posts and be where I collect together the pictures, sculpture and the like that is to do with science.

Check it out at:

http://www.science-art.co.uk/

April’s Challenges (by sarah)

April starts off busy with the Cheltenham Poetry Festival which I am/have been performing several things for. Then there is Script Frenzy - this is a writing challenge along the lines of NaNoWriMo but the idea is that within a month I write a 100 page script - I am reattempting last years project of a graphic novel script which chronicals the Punks life from the fall of Babel - it's all on Purple Monster for those interested.

Then there is a yet another poetry challenge NaPoWriMo - I am going to be using this as an excuess to work on songs. I will spend at least one hour a day on song writing and polishing. Bar however long it takes me to do the Little Book of Easter Poetry for Jean and Mary.

I am also launching my Science-Art Website on the 4th which I hope people will like 🙂

Poetry and Piaf (by sarah)

I am going to be reading my poem Piaf tonight as part of the Poetry and Piaf event at Cafe Rouge Cheltenham as part of the Poetry Festival - event starts at 7 pm and tickets are £10. The singer is fantastic and even if you think you don't know the songs you will as alot of them where hits during the second world war and so appear in lots of films etc... The singer Eve Loiseau is brilliant and tells the story of Piaf's tragic life - it's well worth watching even if I wasn't going to be there 😉

There are also some other cracking events - I'm hoping to catch [A. F. Harrold]\9http://www.afharrold.com/wordpress/?page_id=32) and Peter Wyton at 6 pm (also at Cafe Rouge!) - tickets for that are £5 each.

And of course there is the opening night party at Slak (also in Cheltenham!) run by Calmer* which is £6. I really want to go to this but need to check my energy levels etc... and also see how Mary is with drinking out of a bottle whilst mummy is socialising!