Open the Fridge
Door (c)
By
Michael Casey
Well I don't know should this be a
"chat" or a story, but I'll see where it goes.
Now, when I start I have a blank page, or white
screen, as white as a fridge door, then I fill the page. In an hour or so I
have something, and I read it all back to myself before showing it to you all.
Somebody in USA seems to grab my stuff immediately, so that one lone fan likes
my stuff a lot, or is just a thief selling it on claiming it to be his own.
He's throwing fruit at the screen now, so I have the fridge door open. Now I
didn't know I'd insert that joke, it just bubbled forth. That's my writing, a
load of bubbling.
I was talking to my small daughter yesterday,
already she's dreaming her dream of University, while her big sister may have
to spend Christmas in her University bubble, which will save me money on
Christmas presents. Anyway small daughter may end up doing Anthropology, and to
get to the best place she'll need great grades, and a good interview. Plus, she
may have to do an EVQ, if I've got it right.
We were discussing EVQ possibilities, and what
you have to realise is that a 30 page essay is a big deal, but then again it is
not. Why? Because you write 5 essays and stitch them together, my opinion was
spend 2 hours a week writing the essay. No more than 2 hours a week, split it
into 3 forty minute sessions, then you won't be overwhelmed. Remember she has
to do all her other stuff.
Work to your strengths. Get advice from everybody,
even the toilet cleaner, and then decide how to proceed. If you watch New
Amsterdam, the lead doctor realised just how great bog standard hygiene
is. This was before Covid 19 appeared. So it is with formal essay
writing, look North, South, East and West end even look to the Stars, then
you'll write a better essay.
Now I don't write formal anything, as you've
noticed I talk to you. I grew up with Radio, speech radio, not shock jock
BS like they have in USA, but BBC Radio 4, and yes it really is/was the best
radio station in the world, and part of my education. The rest of the world
gets the international version so to speak, World Service. So what has all this
got to do with a fridge? Yes I'm, a greedy bastard, who lives close to the
fridge door. I said it before you horrible lot said it, so I own it, but I'm
not like that. I just love seeded bread.
So let me explain. after 20 years of radio
listening, and then 30 + years of writing, I love words, almost as much as
seeded bread. That's 50 years, and no I'm not 100 years old, though as a
child I used to say I'd like to reach 100. Though nowadays, if I reach 70,
that'll be great, if I live long enough to see my 2 daughters graduate, and
maybe get a PhD or even 2 between them. Though in my Dark Nights of the
Tinnitus Soul, I negotiate for a longer life, plus the new wife who can speed
type, and have 4 more children and form a Korean Kpop band. Yes, I know it'll
never happen, but to dream is to be free, even if I can hear God laughing at
me, as I moan in pain. So there you go a bit of pathetic pathos, alliterated
too.
So I love words, in fact my Boston cousins
called me "Dictionary" when they visited back in 1975 I think it was.
Which brings me back to the fridge. It looks big and white, and you don’t know
what is inside till you open it. A page blank and white is just the same,
virginal, waiting expectantly. What you do on the page, can cause pain or joy,
and even ecstasy, and can have consequences. Long or short term, a family can even
arrive. Just by words on a page, look what happened to Luther when he nailed
his words to a church door. See I’ve got you thinking and smiling simultaneously,
choice of words, and cartoons made from words are now in your mind, and they
have power. This is thought, and that’s what good words do, they make you
think. You make even do Good Deeds, think of any Holy book.
So back to the
fridge, mum there’s nothing to eat, we have all heard are kids say. Open the
fridge door, then look around. If you have an egg already have several meals.
Hard boiled egg, soft boiled egg, scrambled egg, either in a pan or frying pan,
or even microwaved. A piece of bread can turn that egg into French Toast, which
had for the first time ever in 1980 when I visited Boston USA, before my cousin
became a Cop. And on it goes, you can turn left overs into great meals, just
use your common sense. And if your fridge is full, you really are spoilt for choice.
Back to the
white of the page, and Delia Smith will tell you all about egg whites and
yokes. But back to the page, it is a joy and it brings laughter, you just have
to poke around and use a little imagination, and yes I did plant another idea
in your mind, it’s not all virginal thought. I’m very fast, on the page,
because I have this 50 year love of
words. So I can almost pour words out
from the milk jug that is my mind, and if I can do it then all of you can too.
I haven’t prepared this piece, I just had a stray idea or two. A conversation I
had here, or something I read there in my daily grazing of the Press via my
screen in front of me here.
So now I can
see I’ve reached 1021 words now, obviously you need structure in formal
writing, and we have a Journalist on the Chinese side of the family, and Structure
was what he advised 20 years ago. Though I can only write the way I write,
which is far less boring and bad compared to some of the “journalism” I see and
read in the Press. Miaow, I hear some call. I’ll reply, go read some of my 2000
pieces, or 3000+ pieces if you include my “chats”, 1,640,000 words and many
more. To be able to Write you need to Read, and Listen. People are spoilt by
TV, they never actually hear the words.
The Image overpowers the Words.
I have to go to
the fridge now, so as I have an instant
Kenco coffee with milk, I hope you all have had food for thought, straight
from my blank page, as I’m not sharing my fridge with you. Now I could end there
on a joke, and it’s the best place to end, but I want you all to think, if Michael
Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham can “amuse” us
all, starting without any preparation. Then why can’t all of you do the same, and
better, you just have to give it a try. It may take you a year to teach yourself,
or reach the end of writing The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker to learn how
to write. But then years later readers
in 80 countries will read you, and TEN translations on the same day are being
read.
But there is no money made, perhaps I need the
Help of God and Two Policemen, and then my real journey will begin, though the
Undertaker might get me first, but for now fill my thirst for coffee, so now I’ll
really open the fridge door.
