Whilst writing my first book Swindon Orbital earlier this year, I learnt something important about the act of writing. It was a crucial lesson, but not one I can share with you right now, because it went on to form the key idea around which my second book Blakes Road is being built, and to share it would be to spoil that.
inspired by this post on my friend matt pearson’s professional website, i thought i’d have a stab myself at transcoding a william blake poem into code (using actionscript, as it’s what i’m most accustomed to)
var garden:OfLove = getChildhoodGarden();
if (garden.chapel is Chapel)
{
garden.chapel.x = garden.width / 2;
garden.chapel.y = garden.height / 2;
garden.chapel.shut = true;
garden.chapel.doctrine = “Thou shalt not”;
var len:int = garden.sweetFlowers.length;
for (var i:int=0; i<len; i++){
garden.sweetFlowers[i] = new Tombstone();
}
var priest:Priest;
len = garden.priests.length;
for (i=0; i<len; i++){
priest = Priest( garden.priests[i] );
priest.setStyle(”gownColor”, 0×000000);
priest.walk();
priest.bind(BRIARS, my.joys);
priest.bind(BRIARS, my.desires);
}
}
today is the 23rd of april: st george’s day, the patron saint of england. the hard, historical facts of the day and the figure himself may well be a little flimsy, but it is a good opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with one of this country’s leading artists & visionaries: william blake.
it is usually the famous two verses from his poetic work ‘jerusalem’ that are quoted on occasions like this:
and did these feet in ancient times,
walk upon england’s mountains green?
and was the holy lamb of god,
on england’s pleasant pastures seen?
etc. i love jerusalem, made it my business to memorise those two fabulous verses years ago, but we are all well acquainted with them already, i think st. georges day is an excellent opportunity to have a look at some of his less well-known pieces.