A GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR OWN

It’s not about the Hits we get;
it’s about the Waves we make;
The connections and memories that are provoked;
The trip down memory lane.
But why not make memory textual?
If you fancy it, here’s a practical easy guide to creative writing.

(If any readers are into the intellectual side
of all this slipping through wormholes of time stuff,
and fancy some prompts about psychogeography,
Radical walking and the imagination,
an A to Z of Psychogeography
follows the creative writing guide.)

A guide to creative writing: An A – Z Writing Guide

A is for ALLITERATION and ANECDOTES
and ASSONANCE and ATMOSPHERE

B is for BATHOS and BLANK VERSE and BACKSTORY

C is for CHARACTERS and CLIFFHANGER and COUNTER-HERITAGE

D is for DIALOGUE and DRAMA

E is for EFFECT and ELLIPSIS

F is for FIRST PERSON and FORESHADOWING
and FACT and FICTION and FREE VERSE

G is for GENRE (which will you choose?)
and GUERRILLA MEMORIALISATION

H is for HONESTY and HEART (and soul) and HERITAGE

I is for IMAGERY and IDIOM and IAMBIC PENTAMETRE
and IMAGINATION

J is for JUSTICE and the JUST word

K is for KINDNESS and KINESIS

L is for LUCID and LUDIC and LIMINALITY

M is for METAPHOR and MOOD and MEMORIALISATION
and MYTHOPOEIC and METRE

N is for NARRATIVE and NOTEBOOK (necessary)

O is for ONOMATAPOEIA

P is for PERSONA and PLOT and PACE and PUNCTUATION
and PARENTHESIS and PEN and PENCIL
and PAPER and POETRY and PROSE

Q is for QUEST (for the right word) and QUESTIONS

R is for RULE OF THREE and RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
and RESEARCH and READING and RHYME and RHYTHM

S is for SIMILE and SIBILANCE and STRUCTURE
and STANZA and SETTING and SENSES and SENTENCES (varied)
and SYNTHESIA

T is for TRIPLES and THIRD PERSON

U is for UNDERSTATED

V is for VARIED SENTENCE STRUCTURE and VOICE
and VERSE and VARIED VOCABULARY

W is for WANDERING and WRITING and WORMHOLES

X is for X-ROADS (liminal wormholes through time)

Y is for YEARNING (for the past and for the right word)

Z is for ZEN and the ART of STATIONERY MAINTENANCE

A-Z Psychogeographical Guide

A is for Ambulatory Art; the Arcades Project; Alienation; Ambience/Ambiance; Aleatory Walking; Ackroyd (Peter); the Association of Autonomous Astronauts; Autism and Walking; Ambling.

B is for Beach (Beneath the Pavements!!); Benjamin (Walter); Baudelaire; Bohemian; Barthes (Roland); Baudrillard Jean) and Bucolic.

C is for Commodity Fetishism; Crowds; Chtcheglov (Ivan); Coverley (Miles); Cartography (Re-imagined); Critique of Everyday Life; Commodification; Cultural Terrorism; Choreographed Walking; Cadogan (Garnette); Cyberflanerie; Crowds; constitutional.

D is for Derivee; Detournement; Debord (Guy); Defoe (Daniel); de Certeau (Michel); Disabled Walking; Dementia and Walking; Dreamtime Walking.

E is for Edgelands; Existentialism; Experimental Exeats; Egressions; Ecophilia.

F is for Flaneur; Flanerie; Flaneuse; Five Valleys; Fete (see Potlatch); Foucault (Michel) and Feminist Psychogeography; Field Walking.

G is for Geography.

H is for Hessel (Franz); Huizinga (Johan), Homo Ludens; Harvey (David); Hawksmoor (Nicholas); Home (Stewart); hollow-ways; hike.

I is for International Situationniste (the S.I. journal); Infraordinary; Interpellation; Indolence.

J is for Journals; Journeys; Jorn (Asger); jogging.

K is for Kaleidoscope; Kafkaesque.

L is for Ludic; Lefebevre (Henri); Lettrist International; Literary Communism; Ley Lines; the Loiterers’ Resistance Movement; Languid.

M is for Marxist-Materialists; Mythogeographers (discovering political and/or multiple meanings in landscapes; Maps (mmm ...); Manifestos; May ’68; the Materialist Psychogeographical Affiliation; the Museum of Walking; Multicultural Inclusive Psychogeography ; Memory Retrieval through walking (dementia sufferers); POPS (Privately Owned Public Spaces).

N is for Noctivigant; Noctambulist; the Neoist Alliance; Navigation; Navigators (inland); Navvies.

O is for Occultist Walking (invoking de Quincey, and William Blake for a harder political edge.); Oldfield Ford (Laura); Ocularcentrism.

P is for Psychogeography; Potlatch (the S.I. journal) and Potlatch (devoid ‘of all Productive logic in which everyone may Participate’ - A Fete*); Performance (Poetic and subversive Potential of ordinary life revealed); Pranks and Property Defacement; Praxis; Papadimitriou (Nick); Postmodern Flaneur; Psychogeography and the Deriviste;

Q is for de Quincey (Thomas); Queues (bus stop).

R is for Rural (reading and writing the rural – individually/collectively); Romantic (literary tradition); Rhythmanalysis; Reverie; Richardson (Tina); Rimbaud; Relational (cf solitary) Walking and Recollection.

S is for Signifier; Signified; Semiotics; Situations; Spectacles; Situationist International; Society Of The Spectacle; Stroud; Site Specific (art/performance); Solnit (Rebecca); Subversion; Spatial Interruption (cf Temporal Interruption); Sinclair (Ian); Savage Messiah; Social Critique ; Schizocartography; Smith (Phil); the Situational Derive; Situational Walking Arts; Sensory Mapping; Soundscape and Smell Walks.

T is for Time; Temporality Interruption (cf Spatial Interruption); Three Sided Football.

U is for Urban (reading and writing the city/town – individually/collectively); Unitary Urbanism; Utopianism.

V is for van Ratingen (Witold Jerzy) (see * Potlatch above); Virtual Psychogeography.

W is for Watkins (Alfred); Walking as ‘A Pedestrian Speech Act’ (de Certeau); Wrights and Sites and the Walking Artists Network and Walking Women and Walking While Black.

X is for Cross Roads and X marks the spot of whatever you wish to bury or find.

Y is for Yearning/Nostalgic walking.

Z is for Zen-Fullness; The Art of Zen and Shank’s Pony Maintenance.