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Hi, I'm unclemac and have been writing professionally for some 30 years, mainly in the automotive field but also here and there as a humourist, and an occasional poet. I have to admit that I'm a stickler for grammer and spelling, and I am familiar with the use of gerunds. Apart from that, I'm quite normal.
Hello, Unclemac and welcome to UKA. I've only just started taking an interest in the site again after a prolonged absence.
My sister is a grammer and spelling maven, but none of her rules rubbed off on me. Sometimes wish they had.
I hope you enjoy your time here.
Chrissy
Do no harm.
Hi UNCLEMAC and welcome to the madhouse 😉 Glad you posted a picture. I know some prefer not to but I think it adds a personal touch and helps to make the person 'real' if you know what I mean.
I have already read one of your poems as you know and look forward to reading more.
I very seldom read prose unless I know it will make me laugh. ( in the nicest way of course)
My favs are Weefatfella, Steve and Zenbuddhist 🙂
Hello, Mac. I, too, am a bit of a stickler for grammar, punctuation, spelling etc.
Ah well, we all have our cross to bear, eh?
Welcome to UKA!
Thanks for your welcome, Chrissy. I must commend you on your writing - such a wealth of experience for someone who appears so young. It must be the lyrical nature of the Welsh, or alcohol! It worked for Dylan Thomas.
Pob lwc gyda'ch ysgrifennu.
unclemac
Hello, stormwolf. I rather like the look of your cottage, although with all those lights on I should think you need to keep a few shillings handy for the meter. I am clan MacGregor by recent descent. Are we allowed in your neck of the woods?
Regards
unclemac(gregor)
Hi, Andrea, and thanks for the welcome. Would that be WABD in Mobile, in the land of the golden-haired Trumpeter?
Regards
unclemac
Well Uncle Macgregor,
If you've Scottish blood in ye, ye cannot be all bad. 😉
As for the cottage? It exists for me in another dimension 😉 I searched it out when I was looking to illustrate an old poem I found, that as far as I know was never posted anywhere. I put it on a back-burner due to such apathy here among commentators at the time and my sensitivity.
I may decide to post but perhaps take some things out before I do so.
Where the cottage is, such things as meters do not exist. Yes the lights are on..and in this instance.... I am very much at home 😉
Alison x
Apathy, surely not?
Stick around...
Alison - Any idea what proportion of UKA members are professional, paid and published authors? By the way, my grandfather was from a long line of MacGregors stretching back to a clan chieftain, or BigMac,as he was known. Grandfather was in the 13th Hussars and was shipped out to India, where my father was born. Grandad finished up in France, where he received a fatal wound. My Dad never went farther north than Finchley, which is a suburb in NW London.
UncleMacGregor
Hi Uncle Macgregor,
I am afraid I have not got a clue. 🙁 I do know that many members are independently published
When I think about it, off the top of my head, most long term members, apart from myself, have books published.
I am in many anthologies but lack the motivation to progress perhaps. ?
Some spring instantly to mind, but I hate to name them, as I may miss out on some and hate to cause offence unwittingly.
Suffice to say, we have seen incredible talent come and go. Some still drop in from time to time (thank God) not for affirmation I am sure...but through fondness for the site.
You have really made me think and to be honest? we have an incredible library of unique talent, both here and sadly some deceased and some left.
Those who left in many instances found a bigger platform for their talent and good for them. I know several who cut their teeth here. Some chose to stay and again we owe them a lot for that. 🙂
As to making a living?
Probably very few, as there does not seem to be any money (in poetry at least) ...until you are pushing up the daisies.
I hope that answered your query. 🙂
The writers can speak for themselves. They have a whole shed load of successes.
Thanks for sharing your ancestry ?
i got carried away off track haha As I can do...?
I volunteer in Greyfriars Kirk here in historic Edinburgh. (Home of Greyfriar’s Bobby and very pivotal in the Scottish Reformation. ) I meet people from all over the world. It’s fascinating.
Many have come to retrace the footsteps of their ancestors. I have met direct descendants of original Covenanters who made it over to America ( most died in various ways before that) direct descendants of a witch at Salem,
Direct descendants of a Candlemaker from the neighbouring Candlemaker ‘s Row. It’s very interesting and all are proud of their Scottish blood ?
I am a bit of a Philistine (I am descended from the Levant branch of the MacGegors) and I'm afraid I don't get 'modern' poetry. In my English Lit. classes at grammar school we were required to write poetry that rhymed, as the teacher claimed this required more discipline and also developed our vocabulary as we searched for rhyming words. Now whenever I write poetry, I always make it rhyme, and also tell a story.
This is typical of the rubbish I write, most of which includes a thick vein of nostalgia:
A trip to Margate by the sea
Mum and Dad and me made three.
At Clapham Old Town by the pond
Surrounded then by flower and frond
We all would board a waiting coach
Its gleaming paint beyond reproach.
In East Kent colours cream and plum
A forty seat vivarium.
Trippers all behind its glass
Were very much a gentle class.
“Excuse me please,” and “Would you mind?”
At once polite, and of a kind.
Drivers then wore caps and ties
And drove with care, and watchful eyes,
And mindful of a decent tip
Went smooth enough for dads to kip.
Running fast and straight and true
The journey down the old A2
Was fine until the Medway towns
Where stoppings dead and slowings down
Were preface to the dubious thrill
Of crawling, grinding Chatham Hill
Where, gasping for the distant crest,
The pre-war coach would do its best.
So, when at last we reached the top
The driver said we soon would stop.
And thus we came upon The Rose
Which, of course, all Rainham knows
Serves Shepherd Neame, the local brew
Since seventeen hundred thirty two.
But Tizer pop would see me through
With crisps and salt in bags of blue.
With trippers and the rad’ topped up
(And Dad, I think, had had a sup)
To Margate off we set again
Hoping that it wouldn’t rain.
Soon, turning east on Thanet Way,
Ignoring signs that said Herne Bay
We sped along in East Kent style
Margate closer, mile by mile.
Past Birchington and Westgate, too.
From trips before I by now knew
Another hill and we would reach
Margate’s golden, sandy beach.
The sun was out, the gulls in flight,
A grin in place, my eyes alight
We stopped outside the funfair gate.
But Dreamland, it would have to wait.
First and foremost, there’s the sea
The dipper ride’s for after tea.
But my-oh-my! How fast they went
Those sunny, happy days in Kent.
But now I look upon the past
Hoping that the memories last
A few more years as I grow old
Their warmth still keeping out the cold.
Meanwhile, farewell, old Thanet Way
We’ll take a trip another day.
I would never dream of posting this on UKA because it's pure indulgence and would have no meaning to anyone but me. Apart from that, most serious poets would deride it, and I'm such a fragile soul and don't think I could take any disapprobation. In fact, I think I shall hide behind the sofa in case you laugh at me.
I am off the weekend to visit my grandfather's grave at Aldershot Military Cemetery and mark the 101st anniversary of his death at Passchendaele. I have managed find some traditional MacGregor tartan ribbon, and a 13th Hussars' cap badge to embellish the wreath. My son and grandson will be with me. My son and I are trying to instill in the youngster that he should value the strength and unity of families, and to grow up wanting peace not war.
Uncle McG
p.s. Has anyone ever thought of running a workshop on UKA? I have to say some of the prose is badly in need of editing
Hello again, Unclemac.
"p.s. Has anyone ever thought of running a workshop on UKA? I have to say some of the prose is badly in need of editing"
I'm sure someone must have at sometime or another but mostly, I think, a lot of the people who post here, rely on the comments to pick up on spelling or grammatical errors. They used to anyway when it was fashionable to make comments.
To me, submitting to a workshop would feel a bit like going back in to full time education and despite my 'youthful appearance' in my photograph (that was taken some 65 years ago and was always referred to as my Mussolini picture because of my 'Ya lookin' for a fight' face. In my defence it was taken just after I'd had my hands 'normalised') I finished with full time education 45 years ago and have never felt the need to re-enter the hallowed halls of academe.
Personally, for good or ill, I rely on 'Word grammar and spelling checker' and don't really think of it when reading other folks work, but that's just me. I'm a contents first person. If I like what I'm reading, I read and then, on this site at least, tell people so.
As for making money out of writing, I certainly haven't made enough to declare to the tax man. In the past, maybe when I was performing my poetry and trying to flog books by doing that, the odd few quid would come my way but not so much nowadays and I'm a little too long in the tooth to cart my sorry arse around far flung venues to even try it.
I personally have three poetry collections and four short story collections 'published' and I've conned the gullible in to buying most if not all the copies I have. I've even sold a couple of copies of my illustrated fairy tale. As I had my first poem published in a children's anthology when I was nine I can safely say I have not made a fortune in a sixty year career as a 'published' author.
Chrissy
Do no harm.
Chrissy - AKA - The well-known Mussolini impersonator
Apart from UKA, I don't think I've published a single word (he wrote, smugly) without being paid for it. I was fortunate to have embraced Internet publishing as long ago as 1992, when a lot of people were still calling it a 'fad'. As a consequence, I cornered the market in my particular discipline, and as print media revenue declined with the advent of blogs and 'amachur' writers who would accept self-esteem in place of hard cash, I was able to maintain a decent income until the good Lord began to gather me to His bosom in increments - starting with bits of an arm, and later an entire leg. Now I just write for fun, and to keep the grey cells lubricated. Unfortunately, I am still only 18 at heart, despite what it says on my birth certificate.
I suppose because of my professional background and qualifications, I am a bit of a stickler for grammar, punctuation and spelling. It took 400 years to perfect the English language, and the last 40 years to bring about its decline. So those of us who still care, continue to fight the good fight, but in vain, I suspect, except perhaps in Inverness.
I imagine it must be hard to make a living from poetry. It is a niche market to start with, and unless you have the right connections, and sufficient media savvy, I guess you will go largely unnoticed. I used to take part in a Writers' Circle in Surrey where most of the participants were beyond delighted if the local rag gave them a few column inches: in the hard world of publishing there is little revenue to be garnered from sentimental poems about cats or dogs, which seemed to be the compass of most of the Circle's would-be authors. As a joke I wrote a piece about buying only those dogs that would fit in a microwave. It was not well received.
I should like to hold a competition - 'Rhymes for our Times - just to challenge poets into composing a poem about modern life but not to be ashamed if it rhymes. Do you think I'd get many takers?
Uncle McG