Time for an update! I’m four or so weeks into the second year of my degree, and the main focus, at least it should be, is my novel writing elective and work has begun on my old novel, Robbin’ Toorak again, which is a WIP from NaNoWriMo a few years back. This idea, essentially one set in the world of professional wrestling, is an idea that continues to excite me which is why I’m redrafting it for uni this year. Though with other subjects and assignments, it’s been hard to sink my teeth into it as much as possible but workshopping sessions have been positive and I feel like the idea has legs (is growing more legs, changing form as we speak) and I’ve gotten the voice almost right.

What else have I been doing and what’s coming?

I was recently published on the Overland website talking about football, the Western Sydney Wanderers, ‘active’ supporters and their campaign against the police, media and other authorities. You can find the piece here.

Coming up I am involved in three poetry gigs:
Thursday, May 2 @ 8pm: I’m one of the feature poets in a line-up of poets performing ‘Twitter’ poetry at the new RMIT design hub.

Saturday, May 25 @ 2pm: I’m the feature poet at the Dan O’Connell Poetry readings, and will likely be reading an excerpt from the novel.

Saturday, June 22 @ 8pm: I’m the organiser of the revived Keep Left poetry night that will now be happening monthly. I’ll be MCing the first one as well, with our feature Maxine Beneba Clarke.

In an exercise of contradicting myself, I thought I’d write a bit about my struggle with not writing, and perhaps in the process, talk through some of the things I do want to write about but struggling with. I’ve been asked a little bit recently about how my writing’s going which has been a bit sad for me because I usually really appreciate people asking me, but I have had to admit to not writing much at all. I had all these plans for the holidays which came to nothing. I wrote a (bad) poem last week about Anthony Mundine out of the blue after some arguments on Twitter, and have been going to some poetry workshops in the absence of uni and written some poems then, but part of it comes down to a lack of my usual stimulus.

Often some atrocity committed by capitalism or some inspiring struggle against it throws me into expressing my relation to it through words. Sometimes it’s some sort of idea or debate that I want flesh out in an allegory or metaphor. Even though the usual fucked up things about the world are still kind of simmering there, there’s nothing really at the moment that is pushing me to the page. At least not in my usual sense.

Over the holidays, my passion for writing has been in part replaced by a strange return to a fascination with sport. Mostly football. But also my own fitness regime, getting back into running, some cycling and just last week, swimming. It’s a weird shift and perhaps something that seems a bit uninteresting. Why would I write about it? But I like the kind of measured progress of it and the ability to be able to perform regular movements and tasks that don’t require allusive and immeasurable things such as inspiration. But I’ve been wanting to write about sport and fitness nonetheless.

Why write about sport? I’ve become totally engrossed in the passion that football (soccer for those who can’t see the distinction) is developing in Australia via the A-League. I’ve been to a few Melbourne Victory games before and the atmosphere of the Norther Terrace supporters is pretty special, totally different to a League and AFL game. But this year, it was stepped up a notch with the introduction of the Western Sydney Wanderers into the league. The team created in the area I grew up in, has become an instant hit within the Western suburbs of Sydney, with a striking red and black striped jersey, their supporters call themselves the ‘Red and Black Bloc’ and are quickly become one of the loudest in the league. They have rehearsed chants and songs, and banners. It is not unlike a protest really. The Wanderers also have Youssouf Hersi, an Ethiopian born Dutch National who was been adopted by Western Sydney as a bit of a hero. He’s exciting to watch. Quick down the wing. And fancy with his footwork, able to change direction in a split second to trick opponents.

I suppose I am fascinated by the passion that people put into backing their team, the camaraderie they share in the highs and the lows. I have done it for so long with the Rabbitohs, a tradition passed down to me by my father like joining the union and not voting Liberal. It is interesting how often the fortunes and people’s aspirations and hopes are channelled through sport.

And I think in periods where there is not a lot of struggle and social change going on, this can be more so. It seems in contrast the impending election (yawn) that is about to be take place (or not really) throughout this year. Elections at the moment in Australia are characterised by their lack of competition and conflict. People can’t tell the difference for the most part between the policies of the two major parties and aside from Gillard’s speech calling Abbott a misogynist, Labor’s rule lacks the challenge to the right-wing threat of Abbott.

I kind of see football as an outlet for the open competition people would like to see. And that’s in part what I’m getting at which I want to put into writing. Well, I just did, but I mean in a creative form, perhaps through fiction or poetry, but so far my attempts have felt pedestrian, boring or clumsy.

Perhaps it will take practice, acceptance than some people might just not care this, as well as looking to the successes of other writers in this area. Suggestions are most welcome.

So although the Mayan prophecy was wrong, it appears I did fall off the face of the earth for a time. Against my better wishes, I’ve spent most of the remainder of 2012 watching sport and playing video games. I haven’t written much nor gone to many poetry gigs, but in the interests of posterity, and perhaps to revive some motivation, I thought I’d recap what I’ve achieved in 2012.

• Started and finished my first year of my Creative Writing degree, with 7 Distinctions and one High Distinction.
• Launched the website, MelbourneSpokenWord.com, held the inaugural Percy Shelly Poetry slam, and released a spoken word EP with Santo Cazzati, Duel Power which was mentioned by Ali Alizadeh as one of his top 10 poetic works of 2012.
• Had articles published in The Emerging Writer, Overland’s website and the Geek Mook, poetry in Overland, Social Alternatives and the RMIT anthology Little Spines.
• In the later half of the year took up running and cycling, and finished my first race, the 10km race at the Melbourne Marathon Festival, finishing 404th out of 9,000 competitors and running it in 45:17.

It was a pretty good year for writing, uni allowed me to focus on it more and I had more things published than years previously as a result. The fitness kick came as a surprise and made me realise that when I look after my body, I feel happier and more motivated, which is worth reminding myself now as I’m not doing much of anything. Oh and to cap it all off, a couple of days ago, we welcomed the uber cute Genie into our house.

It’s a bit of an oxymoron to write a blog post about not writing, but other than my little spurt at NaNo, I basically haven’t been writing that much over the last month or two, or perhaps longer, if you don’t include uni assignments. No poetry, hardly any blog posts, certainly not that much fiction. And I’ve kind of withdrawn from the poetry scene for the moment, and feel a bit rusty when I have performed at various gigs.

I’ve been doing a lot of trivial things that probably aren’t worth talking about like playing video games. I’m also looking for a job which is hardly inspirational, but rather pretty soul destroying. I suppose I’m taking a bit of a break. Perhaps it’s a good thing. Certainly, it’s not healthy to just force myself to write if I’m not feeling it, but the latest bombing of Gaza has angered me, perhaps enough that some poems will come out, but again, I’m not forcing it.

This is a blog post just to give people a heads up.

It might be just me, but over the last month or so I’ve noticed a bunch of writers that are also runners. It started with Steph Convery’s blog post and then as I outed myself as someone getting into running again, a bunch of other writers came out.

I’ve also come across Haruki Murakami’s memoir on marathon running and novel writing, What I talk about when I talk about running. It’s not just a coincidence. Perhaps there’s a common personality trait in some writers that leads them to complete long distances, like long stories. Both are simple. Running is a simple sport, you don’t need any real equipment and writing is a simple art form, again, no need for fancy equipment.

I’ve been running again for over a month now. It was the only sport I was any good at in High School, but haven’t really done it since. At first it was hard running again, but now it’s getting easier and I’m becoming addicted to it. So with a group of friends, I’ve entered the 10km run of the Melbourne Marathon. I always wanted to do a long-distance race, like The City to Surf when I lived in Sydney. One day I’ll get there with that one.

I’ve begun training and am aiming to run under 55 minutes. I’m also using it to raise money for the campaign for refugee rights. You can donate via my GoFundMe page. All donations will go to the Refugee Action Collective (Victoria). This way I can make my training go to a good cause and the donations coming through will spur me on.

When I wake up tomorrow (or today), I’m going back to uni for second semester. Bit sad that holidays are over and never really got all the projects and writing done I wanted to during that time. But looking forward to the new subjects and there’s some cool things that have been happening and are coming up that I thought I’d update you on.

The first is the Toll dispute. Workers, hired by Toll, at a Coles Distribution Centre in Somerton have been out on indefinite strike fighting for equal pay and conditions with other Coles Distribution Centres that don’t use Toll as a middle-man to fuck over worker’s conditions. I have been down at the picket a few times since it started on Tuesday. It’s an inspiration to see old-fashioned unionism where workers are actually blocking the trucks from getting in and out. There’s some videos on my YouTube channel with some interviews and speeches with workers as well as some creative actions at Coles supermarkets.

Last Friday, Vignette Press launched Geek Mook, a collection of geeky writing including my piece ‘Make the rich tap out: class war in professional wrestling.’ I had a great time doing a reading there as Mr 99%, Bolshi Ben Solah. You can get a copy of Geek Mook at most bookstores and there’s digital editions in most formats coming soon.

On that note, on Saturday night, I went to my first MCW – Melbourne City Wrestling – show at the Thornbury theatre and had a blast. For those who are into wrestling and live in Melbourne, it’s definitely worth getting along too. It’s lots of fun and I was impressed with the range and intensity of moves, hardly a softer version of big budget companies like WWE or TNA. I think I want to add being involved some how in a wrestling show to my ‘bucket list’ if I even have one of those.

So coming up, on Tuesday night I am reading poetry alongside Ali Alizadeh and Amanda Anastasi on the theme of refugees at the launch of Azlan McLennan’s art exhibition, #Occupy Mandatory Detention. The launch will start at 5.30 at the RMIT First Site Gallery. And on Saturday night, I will be performing a new spoken word piece on the theme of genocide at a commemoration of Black July, a pogrom organised against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government in 1983.

On that note, I have set up a new page for ‘Performances & Appearances’ that lists performances and other gigs upcoming as well past highlights. I’ve also updates my publication page and rewritten my bio.

Coming up on the blog are reviews of China Miéville’s Railsea and Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett. Will try to keep the blog moderately updated throughout semester.

Until, Friday, I will be deprived off the internet in the interests of escaping to Phillip Island for a week. Despite my addiction to technology, I always like to get away for a bit, perhaps a few days or a week and detox from the sometimes overwhelming stream of information, updates, and things to do both on and offline.

There will be penguins, reading of books, poetry and journals, perhaps some poetry and writing etc. Perhaps a return to a normal sleeping routine.

See you all when I return. I will probably still tweet, but probably no blogging.

Last night I wrote a beautiful blog post. Actually, it wasn’t that good, it was just a relief to actually find a chance to blog, but when I went to post it, finally happy that my hacking bugs were behind me, I found it wasn’t the case and this is why we’ve ended up here, to WordPress.com and a new website. Do you like the new minimalist look? I need to keep the sidebar stuff to a minimum this time.

I will port the domain over to here when I find the time, but for now, it’s benjaminsolah.wordpress.com. The hackers have won. It’s too much effort and really not worth it to try and run the blog yourself and WordPress.com does most of that stuff for you. Back when I set up benjaminsolah.com, you couldn’t have a free WordPress blog like this anyway, and you just stuck with fucking Blogger.

The Emerging Writers’ Festival is coming up so I plan to blog more, but am slightly hindered by the fact that I’m writing this from a Uni computer as my my MacBook has been in the shop for a few weeks now after its Hard Drive died. It’s been really hard to write and settle into a routine, but it seems writing in uni computer labs make me damn productive, far more productive than using my partner’s Windows laptop from home.

Apologies if you tried to access the website over the last couple of days. It appears some of my pages, were hacked and replaced with pages that the hacker seems to use to celebrate conquering websites like mine. Why I was targeted, I have no idea.

In the process of trying to restore my site and then update the theme, I lost the old style sheet so had to use an old backup. When I find time, which is in short supply at the moment, I’ll upgrade or restore it back to its previous glory.