You type it or you write it, but you get it down -

it’s all there’ll be left when you hit the ground.

I is for ink.

I’m always slightly worried on behalf of artists who talk about their work – this new thing they’re working on, this idea they have for a project, the new thing they’ve come up with. Most of it, ultimately, turns out to be in service of nothing… And I’ve come to realise that the minute you talk about it (in detail, at least), some of the air just... goes out of the balloon. It always feels like bad luck to discuss a creative idea before you get it down. Having suddenly lost faith in the middle of such work, I've been known to stop people in mid sentence as they describe their ideas.

Ernest Hemingway had a great phrase to describe it, claiming that it took off ‘whatever butterflies have on their wings and the arrangement of hawk’s feathers if you show it or talk about it’. I don’t know why that happens. I remember meeting a friend who told me he was working on a play. ‘It’s about this guy…’ he began, and proceeded to tell me the entire plot. In that second, I was convinced he would never finish it. And... I haven’t heard it mentioned since. In most cases, the best thing you can do is get the work done – you can talk about it til the cows come home - once the ink is on the paper.

Copies of the new album Ink are available from the STORE page at this website.

The album will be officially launched at the Lyric Theatre on Sunday evening, April 23rd, in a concert that will feature special guests Ciaran Lavery, Eilidh Patterson and John McCullough. Click HERE to be directed to the ticket sales page at the Lyric Theatre website.