Over the past few weeks, I have received a few questions
about Ghost Story IV after my blog from April for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry
Writing Month) concluded. I won’t name the people in question but firstly they
asked when Ghost Story is completed would I try writing in another short burst
like this say for example a Western or a love story under the rules of
NaPoWriMo.
I must admit, I have had a go at writing in a love story
some years back and the first two parts of it got published in a little zine Unsung.
Writing it at the time, if I am honest in hindsight, I simply wasn’t ready to
do a longer sequence of poems like I did and I did maybe half a book of it over
a few months. Doing The End of Summer and my Edge of the Flames sequences, both
from my last book The End of Summer proved a learning curve how to start doing
a slightly longer curve, and certainly when I did Ghost Story, I really started
to learn how to write sequences and quicker also.
In short, it’s something I would consider in the future certainly
but Ghost Story has at least another two parts to go, and outside of that over
the rest of the year, I’m currently working on another huge sequence called
Role Reversal which all I will say at the moment is I am onto Part 31 of this
sequence and each piece will have 6 lines and has a bit yet to go I think (Not
quite sure if it is a poetry sequence or something different altogether) on it as
well as a fantasy novella (which I originally wrote when I was 17 and recently
re-found and am up to Page 81 on it and am really pleased with it) and my epic
poetic series The Wall. (Part 2 is halfway now Surivors of the Wall) and my my
third (and likely last full length poetry book) From the Diabetic Ward book is
still pending possibly for next year or 2019.
Secondly, Why did you decide to set Ghost Story in Manchester ?
A lot of this simply comes from something that grabs my
attention really and the fact I wanted to use Manchester as a backdrop to the full story as
I hadn’t seen anything tackle this before. There is a very old horror film from
the 1970’s called the Living Dead of Manchester Morgue (also released as Let Sleeping Corpses) knocking around which was filmed in Rochdale
actually, but I wanted to write something that was set straight in the heart of
modern day Manchester.
While Part One and Two were reaction pieces, Part Three and
Four in contrast have been completely different as my brother got me a book
called Below Manchester for Christmas between the writing of Part Two and Three
which went on about the tunnels and secret bunkers below the centre of
Manchester which led by chance to where I was going to next, and is referenced
about four times in the sequence.
This year’s Part 4 really is set in a gig venue on Oxford
Road which of course I won’t name and of course, it is not a dig at that
wonderful venue as I have seen countless excellent gigs there, but the research
really came into through Pendle Witches came by accident again, and will be
mentioning again in Part 5 next year which will go in a direction hopefully
nobody will be expecting, and who knows over Part 6 in 2019.
Lastly, why wasn’t Andy in Part 4? What has happened to him?
That’s coming in Part 5 I can promise and with a few other
mysteries answered of course
Or maybe not…. (:
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