Monthly Archives: May 2019

Will you follow my imagination?

Will you come on a journey with me? 

Will you sit and wait for me to find inspiration again?

Will you want to see my victories of mind?

How I will loosen up my imagination again and make whole worlds mine?

If you do, I will show you things that will fill you with awe and it will be sublime.

I will show you worlds filled with zombies who can travel in time

Giants aplenty sitting by fires singing rhymes and werewolves growing orchards of limes

And pixies who entertaining kings with mimes whilst mermaids eat shark meat all the time

And faeries all tip toe

If you follow me I promise you, there are no bounds where my imagination can go

So will you join me?  I don’t know

But perhaps you will time…

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Writer losing her mojo

We all have heard the saying that “writers write as simple as that” and it is really is as simple as that, but most don’t actually do it as regularly as they should or at least believe they should.  For me, I do not write as much as I believe I should because in the last few years I have lost my mojo, I forgot what it meant for me to write and I have done a lot of soul searching in the past year to find out where the passion has gone.

I did something rare for me – I re-read a book, usually I don’t re-read books unless I put them into a reference category but this particular book I re-read and saw it with fresh eyes and read things I didn’t remember were in the book in the first place.  The name of the book was “Big Magic” written by Elizabeth Gilbert.  When I read this book I asked myself a question; “Why do I think I have lost my love for writing”?  It was a simple answer really upon reflection and I would never have gotten this answer if it wasn’t for this book.  My writing became too focused on financial panic, the urge to write as much as I can so I can earn a living because I needed to break out of debts, but instead, this kind of pressure halted everything about my creative mind and I found I couldn’t do anything other than dramatic self-pitying poetry on mass, the stories and the playtime died, literally.

For the word, nothing has been published except for the things that are published on this blog simply because I didn’t want to approach a publisher with such depressing poetical themes, because I still hold to the idea that I am primarily a fantasy and horror story writer, not a poet!  I am also an essayist I suppose, because I like writing and hoarding information I have learned about my favourite subjects, but I am not sure how to become a paid essay writer and I am not really going to approach that as a career until I learn more about it. 

Anyway – getting back to the main subject of this post.  I forgot how to play – yes, even in real life, I have forgotten how to play and to laugh because of my severe depression, breakdown and financial worries.  I became so down in the dumps about my life that I had two years of being carefully guarded by Paul my fiancé because I couldn’t be left alone for fear I’d commit suicide, seriously.  One point it got so bad, Paul had to go out somewhere without me and he needed to ask a neighbour to sit in with me.  To say I am over that now, would be wrong, the slightest thing brings it back, but I am not as bad as I used to be, the self-harming has stopped a little bit and I am more predictable these days; but ultimately, the depression is still there and I am trying hard to find out how to play again, how to feel happy again and how to enjoy life.  I don’t enjoy anything anymore and it is getting increasingly difficult since the doctor is now looking into what they believe to be a very serious neurological problem, either MS or motor neurone disease, but like always there is a long waiting list here in the UK and I won’t really know what’s going on with me for several months apparently.

So, how does one go about trying to find out how to be happy again and learn to play again?  It turns out according to the book “Big Magic” and a couple of other books I have read recently that it is something most adults get out of practise of, that once you start trying to become playful and do things which are generally playful (even if you don’t feel happy doing it or feel that it is playful) you will eventually trick your mind to becoming playful and you will build up a type of momentum.  Once the momentum is built up, you will start to feel a change – well I hope so.

I thought hard about how I write stories now in comparison to how I wrote them ten years ago, was there any notable differences in how I produced work back then than now?

Yes there was a huge fundamental difference in fact. 

A decade ago I wasn’t afraid to be thought of as eccentric or insane, I would play with my imagination and I would share my thoughts and ideas no matter how obscure and strange they were with people around me and then I would write about those ideas.  I used to have a lot more creative friends too, but many of them have creative careers which have made them too busy to socialise even online, some have died, some have decided that they too have lost their playful side and have become super conservative people.

I have also found that my social circle is smaller these days which is amazing because I used to think my social circle couldn’t get any smaller ten years ago, the people who I do talk to these days are very serious people who have a worried look on their faces whenever anybody talks about anything out of the ordinary, even if you were to explain that you are an artist and a writer so it’s not a mental health problem, it’s just my mind playing with ideas and therefore there is a story in this.  You’d be surprise how people like that can dry up your will to be imaginative or to share your ideas.

Some people who have very little imagination tell me that they wished they had more of an imagination and they start to tinker with my story ideas themselves (which I don’t mind) but then they start demanding that they must change my concept on my fantasy worlds because things are just not plausible and that readers are real people who live in the real world and they want something believable, so they start pulling at the threads of my fantasy infrastructure and start literally pulling my fantasy communities apart by the seams.  It turns out that even my perfect all powerful fantasy God is not infallible, that he has other beings that will cause problems he can’t deal with and that even this God ponders who created him and so forth.  I told the person, you are going too deep here buddy, I don’t want to go that way in my story, but they insist that I must.

I became a fantasy writer because I find the real world too boring and predictable for me to want to think about and write, the idea of making a fantasy based novel plausible, to me, is laughable, because fantasy is supposed to be anything BUT normal. 

To cut myself off from such people will almost completely isolate me again, which I don’t want.  But can I really sit through another conversation where my worlds are being shattered write before my eyes?  I often feel like screaming at the top of my voice “Of course this fantasy God has a creator you dumbass, it is me, I am their goddess, I made them, but I am not egotistical enough to put myself in the book as the all-power”, does any other writer go through this?  Or is this situation totally unique to me?

So I am currently on a journey to find “My tribe” as Elizabeth Gilbert puts it and to find my playful imaginative self again and to have the confidence and focus of not listening to those who are dismantling my worlds and to continue with what I had always planned instead.  Which is a shame because these people used to feed me ideas, used to support me, but these days it is just soul destroying.  I have to ignore the world destroyers.

I wanted to join a writers group, but not sure what is involved with those and I am scared to find more people who are like that, once they’ve heard my stories.  I am trying to forget the people who are making me focus on writing purely for financial reasons and try to focus once again on writing for me, for fun, for release and for pleasure; the way it should be for all writers.

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A monster calls (a non-review)

Last night I finished a book called “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness, I won’t say this is a review per se because it really isn’t – but I would say it is more of a little chat about the characters. 

I felt that this book was a huge tear jerker, it certainly got my eyes watering in parts – as for the monster, well to me the monsters in this book aren’t what you think they are, I think this book has a moral and that is “not everything is as it seems and don’t judge a book by its cover” you will misinterpret at the very beginning who the monster/monsters are, trust me, you will only find out in the ending chapters the truth of who the monster really is.

Because it is a twisty turning fabulous book, I won’t give you any spoilers other than what I have already said. 

Now, about the characters, the main character is a boy named Conor who is going through a huge amount of trauma at the age of thirteen – but I am more interested in mentioning the supposed monster that comes to visit him at 12:07 every night – why skip the main character?  Because he is just a human boy going through a bad time and I am more interested in the fantasy aspect of this book rather than the realism of it.  The so-called monster is nothing more than a big brash ancient yew tree that comes alive like an ent from middle-earth to basically have a chat with the young boy and tell him a few stories.  I loved this about the book because in the past ten years I have thought off and on about writing a novel about a tree that comes to life as well based on the Germanic folklore of the wood wives, the wood wives according to legend are beautiful female spirits of the forest who are also vampiric, basically vampiric faeries who turn into trees and bring trees to life amongst other things;  I am also interested in the yew tree because it is very similar to the avenging birch tree from the short movie “The Birch” which again I believe could have been inspired by the ancient Germanic legend, the wood wives. 

So if avenging wrathful trees are your thing, you know what to look out for.  I got this book from the library but I have bought a copy along with the DVD from Ebay because I just find it absolutely fabulous!  The movie stars Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver.

 

 

 

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Introducing – Ray The Rainbow Rabbit!

My rabbit Ray the Rainbow Rabbit.

Ray was born on the 22nd July 2018 as a Dutch grey rabbit and was adopted by me, his human mother on the 5th October, as part solace for me losing my guinea pig called Truth and part birthday present to me.  Ray was originally named Rainbow by Henry my son, but the rabbit was so deeply embarrassed and depressed by this name that we tried many various names to console the poor chap – until one day it dawned on me that Ray could be a shortened version of Rainbow and Ray has loved us ever since! 

When we first told Ray that his name was going to be Rainbow when we got him home, he did in true rabbit style drama collapsed on his side and was sulking for the first 4 months of living with us.  When I said to him I will now permanently call him Ray near the end of March he was so happy he literally did circuits around his cage and now licks and purrs at me whenever we snuggle.  Whenever I remind Ray that he is called Rainbow, he instantly gets shy, lies down tightly with his ears pinned firmly back to his neck and refuses to acknowledge anyone. 

Ray is toilet trained and is a house rabbit that coincidentally is a huge fan of Peter Rabbit from Cbeebies – my former rabbit Rozzy liked Dr Who.

Ray doesn’t like carrots in fact all rabbits I’ve ever had hates carrots, so I don’t believe in the carrot munching rabbit myth.

Ray has been trained to say “Hello” and “Yes” by using his ears as sign language – yes I know you are probably getting your phones ready to send the men in white coats to me right now aren’t you?  But it is true and someday I will get a phone I can work out and prove it to you on YouTube!

He is a very talkative and responsive rabbit with a temper – I have never known such an aggressive self-assured rabbit before and he will bite!

But he is a loving soul really; I also think he is rather mystical; he has done many strange and unexplained things since living here.  Such as managing to push an entire corn on the cob out of the narrow prongs of his cage by himself, flattened his wooden hut and often high fives Henry.  Not to mention the household Nisse is his best friend!

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Bog roll, fantasy and talking to rabbits

I have a lot more things to say these days, other than just poetical rants about my life, fantasy short stories and prose and I feel that I would really mess and confuse this blog up if I were to include things here which are not fantasy based – which is a silly concern really when you consider the poetry I’ve done.  But how well will it be received if I were to include my gardening snippets?  Knitting projects, book reviews and random thoughts and conversations I’ve had that I find interesting?  At least with all of the latter there will be more photographs to share on the blog and although it will not entirely be a fantasy blog any-more, it might be more interesting to read?  Particularly as I always have a fantastical stance on life in general – for example – did you know that I am writing this on the 1st May 2019 and that this post shouldn’t really exist because I hadn’t planned on posting anything until September the 1st as I intend to bulk up 4 months in advance some work to make me come across as more active?  That last night was Walpurgisnacht, a night where fairies celebrate fertility and the life of summer coming?

That I sat down with my rabbit Ray (Rainbow) and had a lengthy discussion about the faeries and what they might be doing that night and how he has to refuse any invitation to their wild parties on account of worrying his human mother?  You see, I had to talk to the rabbit about this because it can be a real concern, because in the past my guinea pigs have got sick shortly after Walpurgisnacht and have often looked exhausted on May day and it got me thinking – are the faeries to blame?  I wasn’t taking any chances with Ray, particularly as he is still a baby, only 8 months old.

I was talking to Ray in depth about the faeries and Walpurgisnacht because I am a sad lonely mother  who has been rejected several times from her human (nearly 9yr old) son about anything to do with fantasy, unless of course it is Harry Potter related; So to get it all off my chest and hoping that my son who was sitting 3ft away from me and the rabbit, would overhear something interesting, I told Ray all about it instead, because at least Ray responds to me with nodding his ears for yes and yawning if he agrees it is boring or worrying which is more than can be said for what responses I get when I talk to my Henry!

Yes, becoming a mother has made me eccentrically insane and inventive with my time, but maybe these are the sorts of things I should be putting up here on my blog?

Also I have been thinking about something embarrassing BUT amusing – I often get my weirdest ideas for prose or fantasy writing whilst sitting on the toilet and I had thought, there is such a thing on-line for blogs as the blog roll, but what about a new category on my blog called The Bog Roll?  Where I jot down exactly what I thought whilst on the toilet that day – as I can tell you, something are short and funny and wonderful and are popular being retold to my family and friends.

I am famous for my verbal Bog Roll ideas, why not put them here?  I will also open a new category along with it called “Talks with nature”.  I’d rather call it “Talks with nature” because putting up a category called “Talks with myself” may not be taken as seriously and could land me in an asylum.

Talking of which, I tend to talk out loud when writing and nobody is home with a rabbit that is 6ft away from me (he is a house rabbit) and I thought about having three extra categories but changed my mind to which he stomped his foot about.  You see I was going to have “Rabbit Talks” about my conversations with the rabbit and then do another category called “Talks with nature” but narrowed it down to just Bog Roll and Talks with nature – Ray doesn’t like me skipping the idea about a special category for him and rightfully so!  Good for you Ray for sticking up for yourself and making mummy give you the credit you deserve!

 

 

 

 

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