Don’t give up the day job!

Mark Niel - Poet, Writer....Wordslinger!

That’s the advice you’ll hear most often when you tell people you’re a writer, and to be fair, it’s good advice. Writing is, as my friend Lucy V Hay pointed out today, a gamble – there’s no pension attached.

But giving up the day job is just what Mark Niel has done. You can find his blog – Pawhouse Boy – in the blogroll at the side of the page, and that’ll describe him and his endeavours better than I could. Mark is a poet, and a very successful one. He’s won awards, seen off other dedicated wordsmiths at slam poetry events up and down the UK. There’s very little I can say that will convey my utter respect for that ability, let alone the faith that allows him to make the jump from mainstream employment to freelance writer.

As a playwright, I like to think I choose my words, but in reality, they rush out. I think in paragraphs, hear waterfalls of dialogue. To put it another way, when I turn out my script, I’m not facing my audience, I’m hunkered in my bunker behind a .50Cal manuscript, battering the audience with a stream of words, hoping one or two will penetrate and be enough to knock ‘em dead.

The poet, particularly the Slam Poet, picks their words with care. They are the gunslingers of the writing world. The wordslingers. They use their ammo sparingly, making each word count, finding the target again and again with a scary precision.

If you don’t believe me, see Mark in action here. Try not to be deceived by the apparent simplicity of the words – think about the time and effort it took to assemble each line, to make it fit the meter and subject and the signature refrain. Poetry is hardcore. Respect!