Monthly Archives: October 2021

New system

All year I had been planning to do NaNoWriMo, the one for July, but that was cancelled due to the loss of my computer desk and sickness, then the one happening tomorrow – but I have changed my mind.

I remember that on two occasions I have participated in NaNoWriMo only to burn out by the twentieth because I felt I wasn’t as good as other writers who had already proclaimed that they have finished their novels and were now in the editing process.  By the way – don’t be perturbed by this, as I eventually learned that a majority of writers, who do this, have had words in progress long before NaNoWriMo even started!

I have a handful of writer friends online who started two weeks ago on their projects and one of them even started in the second week of September!

I find writing hard these days because I am not alone anymore when writing; I have no personal private, quiet space.  I have to write around my family and their noises and demands in very cramped conditions!  My work, both art and writing is spread in many parts of the house, because we lack space and there isn’t much cooperation in helping me get a larger space to put everything into, just so I can work like how I used to.

I am also doing all of this with very bad health, bed bound for at least four or five months of the year, so I don’t even have the comfort of my desk at times!

I used to write thousands of words per day, for my stories, poems, songs and a huge amount of online articles that were published daily on various websites!  There were times that Paul remembered me doing 12k in total in an entire day, he used to laugh and call me his future wife Barbara Cartland!

Regardless of my health, I could still produce that amount of work per day, if I did not constantly have to move around the house getting notes and using things in different locations all the while, whilst fighting to get to the places through mess and dodging fidgeters who are constantly on the move around the house! 

I have copious notes for each project and used to have postcard snippets to help too, but I have no table space to see them all at once, so I have to try and look at things by hand and put them back into places all the time so they are not lost!  This is difficult for another reason too, because I have a badly deformed underperforming left hand!  It is amazing that I am able to type 60 to 80wpm with that disability!

Before I lived in these conditions, I had half an entire room, the size of 10ft by 15ft and an L shaped desk that took up two whole walls.  I could use my swivel chair to slide from side to side and have up to twenty sheets of paper out or one hundred postcards, to constantly view whilst working, as well as having two large corkboards on the wall around me!  With this, I had total privacy and control over all stimuli that surrounded me!

I could still have that here in this house, but there are two rooms that are unused purely because we have a leaking roof and rising damp in them so it is not comfortable nor safe for electrics and paper!

We simply can’t move there is no option but to stay here because the cost of the house in such conditions would mean we would need to move thirty miles or more away from this village and Paul’s family and entirely out of our county, in order to buy a property of a similar size!  Henry has a three hundred year ancestry in this village, he is not eager to break it.

The roof will cost 5k to fix approximately, once it is fixed, I will gain two rooms and one of those rooms could have a C shaped desk set up that is even bigger than my previous set up.  So eventually, I will have what I need again and more.

Instead of doing NaNoWriMo this year, I plan to write differently.  A new way, in my tight noisy space, that will help me get less noise and more words done in a day, rather than sparse times in a month. 

My new plans are to write for ninety minutes before Henry comes home from school and ninety minutes on my laptop in bed when everybody is asleep.

By doing this, I will be producing an average of three to seven thousand words per day as an average, because my average fifteen minute timer says when I have planned words I can produce up to eight hundred words and on a bad day that is unplanned five hundred words. 

At the moment I am able to squeeze in twenty minutes around three times a week without hand notes, in between family quiet time or when Henry is in the bath or whatever.

Given the right environment I was very productive and proactive and very addicted to my work and was never tired nor burned out by it!

Happy reading!

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Being deaf & not being published

There are some biting comments in DMs on twitter and other places I get regularly about my quantity of work; yes, my blog is not as active as it should be, but no, I am writing a lot more than I admit to you all! 

One of the biggest things that is asked in DM is “why are you not published yet”?  My answer is – personal choice.

Once in 2003 I felt I wanted to get published but because of personal reasons, I refused to go ahead with it, when lo and behold a miracle happened, my first ever attempt at publication was accepted!

I still believe to this day it is a fluke!

I turned it down purely because my mother was salivating over the proposed advance and had already spent my money in her head – I was still very much submissive to my mother back then and I knew that only a small margin of any money I gained would be mine.

My mother tried to force me to take the opportunity but I feigned losing the letter and forgetting which company I contacted, she believed me.

Since leaving my mother to live with Paul in 2009 I had wondered when I will be ready to do so again.  The reasons up until now is purely fear, because although I want the work published as books and potentially made into a movie, the idea of becoming famous is very unappealing.  I know most writers don’t have a lot of glitz and glamour and huge fame, but I reckon it would be sods law that I’d be popular – and I am easily lead into things by good and supportive friends.

I am terrified of privacy invasion, I am prone to panic attacks and I do not like surprises and I do not generally like strangers unless I have someone with me on first contact.

Ironically it is not social phobia, I am actually afraid of myself – for two reasons, I am afraid that I am quite co-dependent and get talked into things whether comfortable with it or not; another reason is that I can sometimes become attacked verbally by people because they think I am being ignorant with them, but in fact I am profoundly deaf and rely on lip reading or people remaining on my left side, to hear them.

Another reason I am not published is because I haven’t sent anything off since 2003 and not only this but because I am deaf and poor at the same time, I have not got a telephone which is OK for me to use and phone conversations I heard are quite common in this industry.  Nobody has bothered to educate me about what is available, FREE for someone like me, so I have no idea what my options are!

All I do know is that on my previous hearing assessment, I was surprised to learn that my hearing levels are so low, that I am eligible for a dog for the deaf if I want one!

My biggest fear other than fame is disappointing people I will work with by my inaccessibility to talk with them on a 121 level and my inability to travel due to health.

Paul gets his navy pension next autumn; this will mean he will be able to afford technology for me to become independent in communications.  This is one of the major reasons why I will not be approaching publishers until autumn 2022.

During this waiting time, I plan to finish six books to final draft quality; this is more doable than you can imagine for me.  There is potential for more finished drafts too, but I am being realistic for now. 

In a few days I will post just for my naysayers photographs of all of my files, ring binders, envelopes and notebooks, so you can see how much work has already been done over the years!  Because there are a very tiny handful of people who don’t believe I work towards any novel at all and that it is all a lie!

I am determined to prove to you how much I have done, this is giving Paul a massive headache, because it is going to mean that the equivalent of 8ft by 3ft of papers are going to be collected for a photoshoot!  I am not exaggerating by the scale, either; I have been writing novels since I was ten years old!  I have kept at least half of them, the others were burned in a bonfire when I lost heart aged twenty one, when I was for the first time ever suicidal!

Happy reading all!

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Lost Notes Found

I have found the lost pages to my steampunk project!

Lo and behold they were hiding not in any file, ring binder or envelope, but were in fact in one of my myriads of decorative notebooks instead!

They are plans I have had that were scribbled down in a notebook waiting to be typed out and printed so it could then be filed away – I thought I did do that, but evidently not!

This is actually quite common for me, I should know better really – I am very organised once I have dedicated a project to print – but usually my new ideas are written by hand first and then they wait around a while in notebooks until I remember them.  This was one of those times!

So this is what I call a surviving idea then!

Now I can get on with practising the artworks of the eleven other characters I have totally forgotten about!

Happy reading all!

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Sumptuous Treat

Drip, drip goes the blood from your vein

Grading down the fleshy hill of your neck

A sumptuous treat for this denizen of darkness

A mortal in my arms that’s slain

I am sated for but one night

Tomorrow I’ll do this again

For another unfortunate mortal soul I sight

Shall forever be my gain

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Lost notes

I have lost six pages to the steampunk project, I am furious.  I haven’t the clue where it has gone! 

I wrote the first idea of it around two years ago and I have box files, decorative envelopes and ring binders all in three different places around the house for the sake of space – but those notes aren’t in any of them!

To top it all, it is extremely painful to go searching for them all, because my spleen is having one of its bad swollen days so any movement is torture!

I have forgotten many of the planned characters for the comic, their names, I remember one was a capuchin monkey and I knew it was a girl, but I have completely forgotten the name I gave her, which was part of the fun and pun of the comic as she was a sidekick’s beleaguering girlfriend!

I hope I find it soon – thankfully it wasn’t something I wanted to write towards immediately, but it was something I wanted to find to help me practise some artwork for it.  I can only remember around eight main characters of the series.

I didn’t think it would be easy to make artwork of various kinds of apes, but I am actually finding them easier than I assumed, in fact, far easier than humans, which is funny.

Happy reading!

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The irony of darkness

Yeah, as I know suffering I walk in the shadows of the valley of death

I fear no evil, for with them I have coalesced

I have sold my soul and without shame

I will never feel the light, not ever again

My dignity outstanding though my soul may burn

A freedom is wanted, no it is earned

A freedom of the stress of being pure

Of being a good one I cannot endure

A life of passion and greed without shame

I turned from the light but am I to blame?

I happy here in the darkness I dwell

Don’t try to save me – that would be Hell!

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The death of a heart

I am turning blue with the death of my heart

Love and tranquillity is soon to depart

Numbness crawls over my soul and my flesh

Pain is the only thing I have left

This song is a song of tears, but in vain

For I have become overcome with pain

Tragedy is the sweet song of success

Of a life lived in evil and chaos and stress

Darkness has always been a friend dear

Envelopes me with kindness as it shields me from fear

I lack a good heart, a mind and a soul

For sin has now taken its toll

My heart is dead, my emotions are gone

I am finding it hard to keep on

There’s no warmth in this place for me

I have forgotten its feeling, forgotten glee

Don’t cry for my heart nor for my soul

I had it coming; sin has taken its toll

I sit in the darkness surrounded by friends

Who all feel the same, who are all near the end

The end of their heart, not in their life

The end of feeling all things including strife

Maybe it is better this way for us all?

To not feel a thing, to become numb to all?

So quickly this can happen, when little things do

So quickly the death of a heart will ensue

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Desk built

Today we have managed to build my new desk in the corner of the lounge and hopefully by tomorrow evening my computer and the rabbit will all be ready in the lounge for a normal life again.

More updates to come.

Happy reading!

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Junk Journals and steampunk collages

Experimenting with steampunk in my art is very difficult as there aren’t many references I can get my hands onto easily in this area, my main source is DeviantArt and Pinterest but I would rather have a paper source in my hand. 

I have however, decided that creating my own references via junk journaling may be the easiest way to find the kind of images I want.  For some reason or another sculpting and collaging is easier for me to do than drawing or painting.  But I want to be able to draw what I see in my mind’s eye!

Junk journaling is something I am venturing into a lot lately because I love that sort of thing, shabby chic and collaging pretty things together, with stitch work and crochet; but I had thought about bringing in charms and brass objects to create steampunk collages for myself, in order to create the characters and sceneries I see in my mind, so I have the visual references I want.

My money is limited, so it will be several weeks before my first collage will be done, but I think by and large, this is the easiest way for me to hone my steampunk art skills.

Happy reading everyone!

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Rewrites and steampunk animals

I am eager to get my desk up and stuff put into organised areas again, because I am desperate to get a start on writing towards six projects.

The idea of doing NaNoWriMo may go out of the window because I am working on remastering an old project to go into an entirely different direction altogether. 

My old project is known as Dragon 1 to some and Maud to others; so I will start calling it Maud here, because that’s the title I give it, even though I feel the title will change with the rewrite.

Why am I completely remastering the story? 

I have learned that my characters seem to lack soul, vibe, if you get what I mean?  They are bland in my opinion, well most of them, and only around six seem to have any real spirit for the storyline.  I learned that my main character is someone I do not know as well as her mentor.

Therefore the stance of the story is changing to not focus too much on her (Maud that is) but to concentrate on events unfolding and the mentor’s journey with Maud.  Because this story is about a teenager who is being mentored into understanding a certain culture and to prepare her for integration in that culture; this story is a fantasy setting where dragons and witches are a huge part of their cultural heritage.  I like to think of my story as a mix of Princess Diaries and Lord of the Rings, but the few people I have shared the old parts of the story with, believe I am not being fair to my story as in their opinion it is nothing like it, but certainly moreish!

The story has comedy elements which were slightly supressed, but now I am more confident in adding humour into my fantasy stories, the comedy scenes will be less choked as it were.

I never wrote the story from a first person narrative, which will make the rewrite easier; this story is written in a third person narrative – I rarely write in first person.

Originally the story was focused on what Maud could see and hear and what she immediately interacted with but within the confines of a third person narrative.  Now it is not like that, it is more chopped, flowing to and from characters, building atmosphere, tension and mysteries which weren’t present in the old manuscripts. 

I know it is an unpopular idea, but it is crucial to the plot that there will be two chapters or large scenes of flash-backs, because there was a murder in the plot – so, saying that, it is understandable, especially as the murder does not happen in the story, but is part of the past of the story, if that makes sense?

So this is the project I am writing towards as soon as my desktop computer is set up on my new desk.  This story has nearly been sent to publishers twice since starting it and I am so glad I held back until now; because I have put the story away for a year without reading it and went back to it with fresh eyes and saw zombie like characters and characters who personally should no longer exist in the rewrite because they did nothing but follow Maud around like lost puppies and the only exciting thing those characters did was sacrifice their lives to save the group!

“Kill your darlings” as Stephen King says, I think it was him anyway…

The second project is something I will be working on long-term and it has interest already from some comic fans I personally know.  This is going to be a long-winded project because I am trying to hone in on my art skills, which are still in the baby stages if I am honest.  So not only am I writing the series of stories this will become, I am trying my best to do anthropomorphic steam punk art that goes with it!

Yes you read right, anthropomorphic steam punk art – exciting stuff, eh?

In fact it is this second projects fault, that I have not published anywhere online at all any new inktober art for this year!  I am focusing too much on practising art for this project that I haven’t really practised much else.

Being the overprotective little creator that I am, I am scared to share my current artwork with anyone online, in case it gives too much away to the plot as a whole!

But there are steam punk anthropomorphic animals, running around a dystopian horror world, that’s all I am going to say!

Happy reading everyone, hope you are as excited to see what I am doing as I am!

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