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[ 6 minute read - 1312 words ]
Janky Thoughts
Usually, I just start writing and edit as I go. I don't use third party software to edit my words. Personally, I think I would be judging myself to be weak if I handed my creativity off to some algorithms that take everyone's efforts and makes an average but informed guess as a returned output. I would like to think that creativity is personal, like handwriting. No, I shall never knowingly use A.I. to represent my personality and character.
Usually, if I just start writing, with only an inkling of an idea what is going to happen, I have a theme in my head and as I read, editing as I go, I access my memory for parallels to the foremost thoughts in my head; essentially where I am in the thought process of what I am writing. Sometimes, I abandon hundreds of words because it is not going anywhere and it is boring. And, right there is why I find writing entertaining; it is a fun journey for me. I have no idea what my next sentence will be, or when I can stop writing. I need to have an ending, of course, and I am particularly pleased if I can make the whole episode sort of cyclic. I get a lot of satisfaction if I can write the first sentence or the title as also the last sentence.
Rarely, I make haphazard notes. I refer to these when I am tired or my mind is lazy. I look on my hard drive and occasionally concatenate ideas.
Here are some words in a file I found on one of my laptops. Clearly, I was going to do something with it. I just write stuff and forget why:
'I have just been watching some footage of The Beatles in the years of their hype, on YouTube, Good Crikeyness, it is getting hard to follow an interest in something without someone else’s idea of what you ‘ought’ to be interested in, these days.
‘Yeah, I see you, King, your like for the old, and what we now call the Third Degrees. You like our flag, the way we move, Step it Step it, you make us cool’
‘Ladies and Gentlemen’, I might suggest, ‘We are here to witness how a phenomenon lyric writer who was young and was once an idol, but sadly today is only remembered as a royal HERO, though from our past is worthy of knighthood, as bestowed by Queen Elizabeth the second, is here, now….is here now…is he coming?’
He did. But why would he? Knighthoods were, according to common British memory, awarded ‘in the field’.
‘Champion job! That fox nearly outfoxed me.’
He though, wasn’t about to be knighted because he is more fox than a fox, in a fox hunt.
Here is an anchor point for my position; which should be considered to be only as good as a pigeon startled enough to wonder why the other birds are growing fat from food I do not eat: a report made by the BBC today, 16th August 2025, The last surviving Victoria Cross recipient, for efforts in World War Two, John Cruickshank, died today, in Scotland, aged 105.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4d7j18v5qo
Walter Raleigh, as I recall from storybooks from my most valued education, was knighted for throwing down his cloak over a puddle over which Queen Elizabeth (England) gratefully trod.
Much else, surely went on before she was quietly told that it was he, that was in fact, the sailor, Walter Raleigh.
‘Oh dear! Didn’t realise. Cloak over puddle? Privateer? Of course!’ Let me wave a sword over his head as though I am in thought as to cut off or uplift his head.’
The history that pertains to the Elizabeths, or Elizabethans, I should not like to dwell on; I can hear, perhaps, triumphant music from the norths of Scotland (Viking) that do not mesh with the influx, or perhaps suffusion of new ideas. That was then, you told me; now this is then.
Sir Paul McCartney, whom I have never trusted.'
A bit random isn't it? I wonder if I wrote myself a kind of code for creativity; spikes of weird clarity that I cannot fathom today.
I can unravel some of it, such as YouTube makes playlists of music for someone who only wanted to hear / see a single music video which means an algorithm has decide that an average person would like to listen to a whole bunch of music for entertainment purposes. This, to me, makes YouTube less of a tool for learning and more a device for, begging your pardon, 'lunching out'. I know that people listen to music while they work or study.
There seems to be something inspired by a Lucozade ad I adapted to be about King Charles. I may have quoted that.
Then I have Sir Paul McCartney stuck in my mind. It seems obvious I was bemused as to why he refused an MBE in the sixties yet accepted a knighthood. Rudely, I cannot help thinking that the spouse of an MBE recipient gains nothing while the wife of a knight becomes a 'Lady'. Harsh and cold thinking. Yet, it would fill a story character with intent.
I am a bit puzzled how a rugged and strong 'Knight of Olde' (sic) is now a civil servant or poet.
What on earth was I thinking in my notes when I am talking about 'my anchor-point position only being as good as a pigeon startled enough to wonder why the other birds are growing fat from food I do not eat'? I think I may be wondering why it is interesting, for many people, that the last surviving recipient of the Victoria Cross has died. I know that over the years since Queen Victoria came up with the idea of a medal for outstanding bravery in armed conflict, it has become progressively harder to be awarded one. I think that if you are still alive after your heroics you will be denied decoration. But the pigeon thing is an example of my creative thinking. I suppose, it could be a parallel line of thinking in a story. I could make it so.
I think the bit about Elizabethans and Scotland relates to my understanding that the monarchical Tudor line stopped and was superseded by the Stuarts. In 1707, Scotland, one hundred and four years after Elizabeth I died, was annexed by England, and Scotland has never recognised England as being a country. I believe that there must be unanimous agreement by all countries in the United Nations that a state or province is a sovereign country. I think Scotland is a UN member and has still not stated that they believe England to be a sovereign country. Maybe something to do with James VI of Scotland (James I in England),
In the last sentence of my notes; 'Sir Paul McCartney, who (whom) I have never trusted.'; you know when you meet someone and you get a feeling that they are sneaky? I get that feeling when I see Paul McCartney claiming perhaps more credence for his song-writing than John Lennon would agree with.
Overall, I think my notes were a kaleidoscope of my thinking that swirled around my confused distaste that reward and celebration often goes to people I think are not as deserving as someone else. Perhaps knighthoods should be more like Victoria Crosses. Perhaps they could be given posthumously. But, let's face it; no-one today wants a Victoria Cross. Sometimes, I come across, perhaps tongue in cheek, a desire or hope for a knighthood in celebrities I see in media clips. That isn't a dark thought for anyone's earthly demise.