Tag Archives: comedy

Easter project update 2023

As Easter approaches my Easter project is more thought of, more inclined to be written.  Today I wrote a small snippet towards it, which is more than I have done for weeks if I am honest.

I am quite proud of what I did, even if it was only two paragraphs.  The idea hit me and I had to add it in, the villain has been remastered, he has a more full personality now and seems quite real, whereas my old villain was pretty naff really.

However I am starting to realise that this story, which was planned to be a trilogy could actually have some kind of comic elements to it too and may not be just three books!

As I realised that the two main characters are very hero/villain with magical powers like a normal comic would be.

It was never intended to be another comic, but it is starting to flow that way.  But it is written as a novel, because I prefer to do that with this project.

Thing is, this project is not really in first draft yet, it is actually only in planning mode and note taking whilst I try to visualise the whole world.

I do actually know where I would like the story to go and I believe once I am happy with the whole plan, this will be written down quite quickly.

The story is quite musical in parts, with poems and it is reminiscent of Charlie and the chocolate factory, but it is also poles apart as well.  The storyline is only similar in that it is based on a fantasy candy world; there are no children as main characters, no competitions, no mutations and a lot more magic, myth and legend retelling.

Similarly to project AD, it does have anthropomorphic supporting characters and is set around Easter, with a little bit of Easter tradition thrown in to help the story along a bit.

Why is it musical in parts and has a lot of poetry in the plans?

Because when I write, I write the kinds of movies I want to see – to me this is a musical family fantasy based around Easter, the Easter bunny and candy land. 

I’m actually quite excited about this project because it’s super fun to write.

Project AD is fun to write, but it is less playful if you get me?

Also this Easter project has a better and more energetic playlist than Project AD when I write it, so writing moves along faster – not to mention the language is rather different in project AD compared to this project.

My sense of humour can be very naughty at times and I have to keep reminding myself that I intend for this to be a family audience, so at times I get sad because I think of a hilarious scene and then sit back and realise how would I respond if a young child read or watched this and then I am like – OH MY GOODNESS DELETE-DELETE-DELETE!

No innuendos about gumballs Tina!

Shocking, really I am!

But those things slip in there and I have to be careful and mindful about it and who my audience is supposed to be, so the gumball joke is deleted.

So, you won’t be reading about how you should handle an evil gum tree any time soon!

By kicking him in the gumballs!

Shakes head*

Sorry about that!

Thanks for reading!

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Rigid mind

Rigid, those are my thoughts tonight; Rigid and taut through depression and desperation

No matter how hard I try to sit myself down tonight and ignore what’s going on in my heart and mind on a base emotional level, I still can’t help but be dragged down by a numbed mind.

I have written four poems tonight, all destined for the deletion pile, though I am trying to be more merciful with my craft and lock them away in a file on my laptop called “wasted”, as it was wasted time.

Wasted one, wasted two, wasted three, and wasted four, until I felt that tonight I am not in my poetic mojo at all and gave up.

I am certainly in a creative mind-set, but not really focused for Project AD, that’s a children’s comedy horror and I feel more like writing something along the lines of Mr Ted or The Gargoyles Heart.

Oftentimes when I have days or nights like these, I tend not to write anything, not even towards my blog – but I have decided to change.

I have decided to share these times with you all, because these are the times when I can get really down to the heart of the matter – become creative, it’s a strange place to be.

Depressed and apathetic in everything but the written word, depending however what that written word is going to be at the time and whether or not it matches what’s going on inside of you.

A few years ago I used to write snippets, where they were more or less like practise pieces and I would just write the first thing that came into my mind and I would post it.  I got out of the habit of that and it really should be revived again.

This is the start of that.

Thanks for reading…

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TV and simple life’s pleasures

From the other day I forgot to mention another fandom I am hugely into; Dr Who.  The thing is, since living with Paul I am behind on all the series of Dr Who because it is a fight for me to watch anything in this house without being disturbed.

So I am several years out of sync with the TV and movie trends.

It’s annoying, because before I moved in with Paul I watched TV about 2 hours a day, usually movies or sci-fi, fantasy series and along with this I used to also buy specific magazines in the genre I am interested in – such as Rock music magazine and Sci-Fi Now.

For the six months living with Paul we didn’t own a TV, he didn’t want one and it was a battle to convince him to get one – he didn’t, my mum gave me one of her old ones instead and then he had to go and get a TV license, he resented her for this.

It’s one of the small things I was actually grateful of my mother doing!

These days I kind of keep up to date with things by watching movie and TV news on YouTube, so I am not totally in the dark about what’s going on – but I sit and watch in envy because I know most of the things I see up there are out of my budget and reach and I will only ever see things if it turns up on Freeview at a convenient time where the household isn’t going to disturb me!

Convenient times are hard to come by – generally I am left alone between 8:30 and 10pm most evenings, but Sunday is the best time for me if I want to watch something.  7pm to 10pm, this is why I was able to watch Lucifer until the seventh episode – I didn’t get to see anymore because Henry was sick and I missed a week and if I miss a week I know I can’t get it back so I gave it up.  It’s a shame because I got to like that series a lot!

We have watched “Zomboat” and “What we do in the shadows”, Paul and I because it was on around 10 or 11pm at night and its horror comedy, which Paul is OK with.

I have never gone to the cinema as an adult either; the last time I saw anything on cinema was when I was 12yrs old and that was Jurassic Park!

Simple life’s pleasures like watching TV seems a feat in this house, it’s so bloody weird how everything seems unobtainable whilst I live here – it’s like the house has cursed me!

I’m pretty sure my lung problem is to do with the damp, Paul denies it! 

Thanks for reading! 

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My quiet dad

Today I am going to talk more about my dad.

My dad has hardly had much of a look in regarding my past, but I thought I should share some things about him, because he wasn’t part of the problem when I was growing up – he was like a cushion to the blow I could have had – if that makes sense at all?

My dad was always fighting to get me better things, to get me better socialised, to get me better educated and he was almost always ignored – but my dad did have some small victories now and again in regards to having choices about what happened to his child.

My mum made no secret about why she married my father; she let it be known to both him and I that she married him purely to keep her boys safe in case she died, because she had a health scare about a year before I was born.

Her arrangement was, I shall marry you Tom if you ensure that you will raise my boys as your own if anything happens to me!  He agreed and he would have done so too, however my dad said he was sad he would never have children of his own and he sulked about it for a time – my mum was terrified in having another child because the child she had before me was a breach of which she was more or less forcing herself to have naturally and she suffered for three days in labour until she relented to have a caesarean.

However, she told me she felt sorry for my dad and said that she would give him only one child to seal the deal and he was happy with that!

So I was born before they got married, they married in the January after my birth. 

My dad was a sheet metal worker shortly after this and remained in that job until I was seven years old. Then stuck to his next job until retirement, pun intended a glue factory foreman – where I got my first job as a labeller at the age of 15.

Before he married my mum he was a chicken farmer and a train driver before he went into the army to get a HGV license, but he stayed in the army longer than he had planned.  There is a family rumour that my mum broke my dad’s leg deliberately to prevent him attending his duties in the Falklands, but it was never proven.

My dad was a quiet man, who hardly spoke about himself and so I don’t know much about him in his own words, only the rumours from other relatives who knew him.  He kept himself to himself and often shut himself away to play on consoles in other rooms away from family.

Sometimes dad would cook, but mostly I cooked for the family when mum was on nightshifts from the age of 7yrs onwards, dad was a less fussy eater than mum and would be more adventurous in the food he ate – he would have been a healthier person if mum wasn’t so dominant about the kinds of food she bought.  He had very little say on what happened to the money he bought into the family and he only ever had £25 a week to himself for betting on horses only.  She didn’t like him buy what she called junk to fill the house up with, because my dad was a bit of a retro head.

My dad always wanted to be an entertainer like his sisters, always wanted to do stand-up comedy and play the harmonica in public and create his own funny songs.  He liked making people laugh, but mum told he she wouldn’t let him do that as a side hobby, because he embarrasses her and it’s not fair to her that he should do that!

Mum was always telling him she was embarrassed by him and he just took it on the chin and obeyed, he tolerated it because he loved her.

My dad was a Tommy Cooper lookalike and he had his style of humour and my dad often imitated him a lot at family parties and weddings – in fact he looked so much like him and could remember all his jokes that his sisters tried heavens hard for years to make him be a lookalike act at special events where they honoured Tommy Cooper after he died – but mum simply wouldn’t allow it!

My dad would have been very successful doing that!  Especially as my dad could also do the special magic tricks that Tommy Cooper could too!  My dad was a bit of a magician!

My dad taught me how to act too; he would often play and relive our favourite movies together.  As a child I knew the lines to almost every Laurel and Hardy movie there was, because we played it together the most and also Blackbeard the pirate!  We also liked Norman Wisdom movies, Carry on movies and George Formby!

I don’t remember too much nowadays as it’s been almost twenty years since I saw a Laurel and Hardy movie last, but I do have recollections now and again.

But my dad and I were definitely entertainers for the family at family events, which is why mum started to refuse a lot of the invitations from the age of ten onwards – because we were both embarrassing her, my dad for simply being who he is and me being a fat funny girl who was too highly influenced in naughty humour bought about by my love for the Carry on team and comedians such as Frankie Howard and Julian Clary.

I like saucy and naughty humour, naughty is nice!

My dad paid for a while for me to have singing lessons (opera to be specific) but mum put a stop to it when they decided I had talent and needed to go to talent contests etc. around the country.  Plus she hated the idea of the amount of money she had to lose in order to hone my skills.  When I lost the singing lessons dad fought heavens hard to get me tutored in playing the piano, because of my addiction to my grandmother’s piano whenever we visited!

My dad would not compromise on one thing in his life and that was visiting his side of the family, something my mother really loathed bout him.  She hated every Sunday, because that would be the chosen day each week my dad would take me visiting his side of the family!

She rarely went with us because most of the family were outside of her 3 mile limit and the anxiety of travelling was just too much for her!  My gran lived 25 miles away in Bedfordshire.

Other relatives lived in Berkshire, Luton, Cheshire, Wales, Southend and Canvey Island or West London, far too far for my mum – so she stayed at home most of the time.

My dad and I would often go rowing in the lake at Alexander Palace in the summer with my cousins and have a large picnic, mum hated us doing that because she didn’t like my cousins being called cousins – as despite my mum having a mixed religious and mixed race background herself (third generation), she hated the concept of me calling my mixed race cousins, cousin and was quite racist about it, to the extent my aunt who is very passive was pinned up against the wall by my mother and threatened simply because she felt that she was putting ideas into my head that were against her own!

My dad never tried to control my mum behaviour, never tried to apologise for it or make any comment or even seemed to notice it – sometimes he would sigh and look downwards and wait for her to finish so we can all quietly leave again and hear the rants in the car about how victimised my mother felt for her own actions!

My dad was bullied by my mum and sometimes that did include physically being bullied too, though he’ll deny it, because he loves her.  But I remember lots of times where my mum has slapped him, kicked him, pushed him out of the way, called him names and dragged him physically off somewhere!

I do believe that domestic violence can affect both genders; I have witnessed it growing up!

Whenever my dad was pushed to the limits and he would rarely stand up for himself and say something, mum always won because she would say she is going to leave him right then and there and would often storm out of the house and stay with her friends for the night to try and scare him back into submission.  I remember those times, she would come back in the house with a smile on her face and carry on like nothing happened and dad would be thankful she is back, but she would pretend she wouldn’t know what he was on about!

Even when someone proved to dad my mum was having an affair with a bouncer at a nightclub my dad’s reaction was a shrug and well she comes home to me doesn’t she?  He wouldn’t challenge her on it.

My dad was submissive and unassuming and incredibly patient.

I often questioned his reactions and said you are not often happy dad, why stay?  He would make all kinds of excuses, but the one that stood out the most was hearing at the age of nine your dad confessing that if your mother did die of her heart troubles, you’d lose two parents at once, because he told me at the tender age of nine he’d commit suicide if she died.  Which shocked me, because he promised my mum he’d look after her sons if she did!  His reply is, they are adults now Tina, done my bit.  I said to him, well what about me?  I was shocked and hurt to hear him reply, the deal didn’t say anything about me!

I told him, I am your daughter, and surely you’d think about me wouldn’t you? What would happen to me then dad? 

He said I would be alright with my gran!

It was a scary time for me, because this was the time mum left for two weeks to go on  holiday in Great Yarmouth with her sister and friends because of another argument, one of which my dad tried to prepare me to pack to go and live with gran with him.  So suicide was lurking around the house for too long, mum came back, no smiles this time and she was asking if he had packed yet and he said no, but Tina has – then that’s when mum sent me off again to another aunt for a while and the whole time I was scared dad would be dead!

Other than gardening and playing darts with me from time to time, there isn’t really much else to say about my dad, other than his addiction to horse racing and online casinos.

He is a teetotaller, a good honest man who works hard and got obese living with my mum on the diet she provided him and he has very little self-esteem.

He is funny, a good entertainer, but she knocked him off his pedestal as much as she did me.

That’s all there is really to my dad.

He tried hard to get me into clubs and learn things – singing lessons, music lessons, pushing me in my sports, but mum always stopped us.

Dad always wanted to take me on holidays, but mum didn’t like it, didn’t like travelling unless she was with her sister and so we never had a family holiday together ever!  Not once.

I had no birthday parties after the age of 7yrs, nothing special for my landmark birthdays and that hurts when you see your mother go all out on landmark birthdays for your brothers, 16, 18 and 21.  It was always made clear to me, I was not important, I was not really supposed to be part of her family and so I don’t get those things!

That was my life, she lives for her boys, I got the scraps.

My dad never hit me unless he was bullied by her, she would literally lay into him to force him – but outside of her, he never laid a finger on me, even when he was at his most angry! 

Thanks for reading!

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Guinea pig tango

Abstract thought of the day, guinea pigs singing and dancing to “Sway” by Frank Sinatra!

I have had this image in my head for a few days in actuality – guinea pigs partying it up to that song, dancing the tango and singing “when we sway I go WHEEK!  Yeah, I know, Paul has already expressed concerns for my mental health!

But that’s what happens when you live a life of solitary boredom!

Thanks for reading…

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Beauty, dance, and gratefulness

A handful of friends have sent me DMs recently about my deadline.  I have to agree to take their advice and not push for it, because in the past two weeks in particular life here has been hard on me and I have found it difficult to focus on reading anything, let alone writing anything.

Henry is has recently had an emergency assessment to test for autism because his behaviour is worsening at school, at the moment they decline to say much about their findings because they feel they need to do another one or two assessments on him before they are sure.

Along with this, as you all are probably aware of, Paul and I are separating; which is a surprise really, because around 2015 we more or less decided to stick with each other, despite our relationship only meaning to be temporary.

We don’t know when we will decide to live apart as I have discussed recently, but it is on the cards.

Along with this I am trying my hardest to get into shape and lose weight, so I have more confidence in myself when I start a new relationship.

I really wanted to debut a book by summer, which is why I wanted to approach an agent on the 21st October, however, I have too much going on right now to do it and along with it all, the idea of YouTube may also be a failing start for January too; because my future is very uncertain right now.

I am also very confused by people behaviours online recently.  Since alerting my readers of my separation with Paul, I have been getting a lot of attention in DMs.  I suppose it’s not so confusing as I have more or less announced my availability, but what is confusing is the dominance some people are portraying in their emails to me from the off-set.  Like whom do they think they are?

It started with the email from a well-known author to Paul, I won’t mention names, but he is pretty big as far as authors go.  According to Paul this author had asked him outright whether or not we genuinely are in an open relationship and if it is OK for him to approach me for a relationship someday?  Paul said of course.

Though this author has not approached me in any other way other than being a sort of friendly online acquaintance, I felt it was cheeky to do that and especially behind my back!

He has a blue tick on twitter, so it’s the genuine article, but he is not the only person who has approached this recently with me. 

Unfortunately I feel some pressure by this person to finish my AD project in particular as they believe they’ve cottoned on to my plot with my hints and has got inspired to make something very similar if I am not quick enough; unfortunately, they’ve kind of guessed correctly what my story might be. or so, Paul has told me someone who is associated with this author has told him.

I don’t know whether or not Paul is just rocking the boat telling me these things, because he was initially afraid of losing me, but more recently he has found a new lady himself and doesn’t seem to think that what he told me in the past is anything to worry about, now.

I really don’t like cloak and daggers and underhanded stuff and I am getting rather uncomfortable with it all.

But if what Paul has said is true, then this author will be starting the idea around March apparently, which is why I feel the pressure to write this quickly, because its a series.

For now, all I want to do is focus on is my fitness, trimming down and getting my head together, whilst still trying to write a tiny bit per day towards any current project.  Maybe read a book once a fortnight, the reading has slowed down immensely.

But I am trying to find my true self. 

My true self, since a very young child – kindergarten almost, has always had a massive love for fashion and glamour.  For short bursts throughout my life, I have tried to get into it all big time – but there was always someone getting in my way and stopping me, usually my mother.

My mother is out of my life right now, so I feel free to be as vain and beautiful as I want, in the manner I want.

I loved the book “Matilda” by Roald Dahl as a child and in there is a quote where they say that there are two types of women in the world those that choose looks and those that chose books. 

Most of my life I chose books, purely as a means of escapism.  Had I have had a more stable life I would be more focused on looks and entertainment of other kinds, such as singing or acting.

All I know is that I am a huge daydreamer. 

I can’t help but think of great stories all of the time, often at the drop of a hat – but I have little interest in making them books, I want them to be on the screen somehow.  It has always been my primary goal.

My idea of the best kind of entertainment is visual and audio.  I read a lot, yes, but mostly to learn, I don’t really read for the amusement of it – I am just knowledge hungry, that’s all.

I really don’t think I’d be as much of a gaming or science geek as I am today, had I have been raised primarily by say – my honorary auntie Sheila or my grandmother for example.

I know had I of been raised by my paternal grandmother she’d have made me go into the equestrian gymkhana groups and gymnastics and all sorts of things like that.  She’d have fully supported my sports goals in swimming and judo and would have pushed me into other things to socialise a lot with the better classes as she’d put it; Potentially making me become a singer or an actress along with it, because she often tried to encourage me to go with my aunts to their amateur theatres to be a part of their little comedies, but at the time I was bullied out of it by being fat shamed by my mum.

I really wanted more of the life my grandmother wanted for me, as it reflected what my dad wanted for me too, but mum never supported any of it.

All my life I have envied women in gymnastics in particular.

As an adult my grandmother learned I had a passion for watching dance shows and that I really wanted to learn to dance and she arranged for me to go to Ealing to become taught by a famous dancer called Anton Du Beke.  When my mum found out I was going to go to it, she gave me a nasty ultimatum, go to this school for dance or lose the internet.  At the time I had an Ebay business and I had a lot of online friends, so losing the internet was not an option for me, so she had got her way.

I have always wanted to learn to tango, especially with a life partner, because I have a lot of passion in me and I really would love a relationship like Morticia and Gomez Addams. 

It’s a goal I have still, once fit enough I will go to find a school for the tango.  Or if I become a published author and famous enough I’d practically beg “strictly come dancing” to let me be a celebrity contestant!

But ultimately, my stories should be on the screen and should also be merchandise as a lot of my ideas are not only horror, but mostly for the family entertainment industry.  Horror is lessening these days as I am thinking of more light-hearted fantasy stories.  Sure, project AD is a dystopian, but it has anthropomorphic characters, children and comedy in it, which lightens the mood immensely.

Even if I am only writing a paragraph per day at least it’s getting done.  But for now, I can’t do much more than that because there are a lot of explosive arguments going on about me, mostly between Henry and Paul but lately, Paul is starting to drain me with his noticeable irritations, because he feels as trapped as I do.

I am just in the way.  That is not something I want to feel when I am still quite emotionally vulnerable and could at any moment decide to seek out the medicine box.  I mean, other than Henry and a rabbit, what I have I got to live for?

Paul and Henry have already decided between themselves that Henry will stay with Paul not me, so I won’t even have Henry as an excuse to stay alive soon; Just the rabbit, and he is 5yrs old on his next birthday.  He is also the last birthday present I’ve ever received since we fell into poverty, that’s if I am not including the regular chocolate bars I’ve got between then and now.

Still, shouldn’t be ungrateful.

Happy reading!

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Who influenced my writing? Part 1

Over the next few days I will be choosing three authors who has influenced me the most in writing and why; what did I learn from them by reading their books and so on? There will be eighteen in total and they will be placed in alphabetical order each day. Enjoy my first three;

Suzanne Collins showed me that writing about politics is necessary, particularly fictional politics, because politics is a major factor in every bodies lives whether they are interested in it or not.  Nobody can escape the politics of their country or their culture and their lives are influenced by it more than they realise!

She showed me that the government can eventually become anything and do anything and that it is our job as writers to think of all possibilities that could occur to arm the public with the knowledge to understand political trickeries. 

Her books showed me how to write characters that are trying to survive dense political control and how to overcome them in ways which inspire others, rather than just being a rebel without any real cause outside of themselves. 

She has also taught me through her writing, that even the most disgusting creatures deserve love and respect, because she is certainly the only writer I have ever read that actually made me feel sorry for and cry over the death of a cockroach!

Neil Gaiman showed me that writing has to be fun and you should play with ideas no matter how silly they appear, all ideas are worthy and all ideas will find people who love them! 

He showed me not to be afraid of my own sense of humour or my sense of darkness either and that everything about the worlds you build should have some kind of balance to them. 

He showed me to find sense of humour in dark things and to find dark things in the light!  He is very clever at this in all his works! 

Also no matter who the character is, their position in society, their outward personality, everybody has a hidden side, a fun side and he shows this well in his works too! 

Stephen King showed me not to make my writing too pretty because it doesn’t help your readers identify with your world.  In order to make a realistic world you need to put in some of the bad nitty gritty stuff occasionally.  People aren’t perfect, people falter and have flaws and every character you write about must show their flaws as much as anything else.

If you are writing horror, you have to get over yourself and your own sensitivities in order to write it more effectively, because if you are uncomfortable and squeamish and give yourself nightmares over what you are writing, then congratulations you are a horror writer that is going to succeed!

I’ve learned that you can find the most fearful or disgusting thing about anything if you put your mind to it, even a gentle walk in a flower meadow will have its horrors!  A dead rabbit lying amongst the flora rotting away with maggots and flies, or an earwig hunting aphids on a bellflower:

Thank you for reading! 

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Top 10 non vampire movies

Finding nemo

The Devil’s Advocate

The end of days

Snowpiercer

The hogfather

The witches of Eastwick

Mad Max (1979)

Minions (2015)

Rear Window (1954)

Hook

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Things you shouldn’t say to a vampire!

I like you, up to a point!

You’re a bloody nuisance!

Fancy a steak?

Bite me!

Fangs for the memories

You need to go out and catch some sun!

You’ve got bats in the belfry!

Have you seen yourself lately?

Whatchya fancy to eat?

Once bitten twice shy!

Stick it to the man!

I want a shish kebab

I think I’m bleeding!

Bloody Hell!

Fancy a bloody Mary?

I’m cross with you!

Have you ever been baptised?

You’re my wing man!

Occasionally I find you a bit loopy!

You look like death warmed up!

You’re cold hearted!

Amorte!  “to death in Italian”

Should I open the curtains and get a bit of sun in here?

Do you fancy a nibble?

You suck!

Lap it up!

You’re very hypnotic

Blood is thicker than water!

You’re my battle companion! 

It’s of a grave concern

Tomb it may concern! 

I love you to death!

I’m going to break your heart!

Neck and neck!

You’re pulling on my heartstrings!

I’m bored to death!

Upon reflection isn’t a sigh of relief for you to know that my vampire stories aren’t comedies!  My vampires are part of my dark fantasy and horror works, they were not meant to be humorous, but me being me, I can’t help but think of fun things regarding my vampires from time to time – but this stuff doesn’t really belong too much in my personal vampire series. 

I have thought about having a separate comedy vampire series I’d like to write, but I really am unsure of taking that plunge due to the amount jokes already in the genre – many I have used above!

Thanks for reading!

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Watery writer

I’m going to throw caution to the wind and publicly admit via this blog, that I am not a confident person and I feign intelligence. 

I am a writer but I am uneducated, everything about me is self-taught and I am not a good teacher. 

I blunder my way through life, please take that seriously, because I really do!  Blunder Woman was a character that was in Russ Abbot’s show, but I am pretty sure someone saw into a crystal ball and knew that Blunder Woman might someday be a real person… me!  I think I might look like her when I am eighty; actually, we’re kind of alike!

But anyway, I digress!  So easily distracted like a dog with a… SQUIRREL! 

Right so, now that’s out of the way, I think it has something to do with my Chinese astrological sign – I am a water dog, a poodle or a Labrador I am not sure which, but a water dog nonetheless! 

Water goes with the flow, I always go with the flow, I am always flowing somewhere and even I never know where I end up or what I am about to do; I am true to my element, I am spontaneous, usually best at peace and generally calm but occasionally turbulent and rarely tempestuous!

But generally I am like any water, that if I am not in the right environment I go stagnant – and who wants stagnant water around them?  It’s quite easy for me to flow into stagnation, I am very much affected by those around me and if I choose the wrong sort of people to flow with, I do generally stagnate a lot or become tempestuous.

I am very self-aware, I know it’s my nature to be like this because my astrological element is water and this has helped me a lot to understand myself.  I love Chinese astrology and since I found it, I have found my life has been working more towards what I want from it, rather than just having life happen to me outside of my control.  But as a water element, I don’t like to control too much as I love going with the flow and I am easily dejected when the people I choose to flow to, aren’t good for a water spirit like me!

It’s easy to get me flowing into the right things, with gentle persuasion, love, conversation, I am easily motivated to flow anywhere and that does mean I am occasionally prone to finding manipulators that like to take advantage of my nature.

My main life partner Paul is a fire elemental (fire monkey), you are right to think that this sounds like chaos waiting to happen, because there are many times where I feel that I flow around him and dry up a bit.  Contrariwise he suffers as I can over suffocate him when I try to calm him down and he is easily exhausted by my high energy and my spontaneity.

My Henry, my son, is a metal tiger.  I consider him a huge support but I can’t help but think I am not good for him, as I sometimes feel I corrode him, like water does to metal over time.  Perhaps I am overthinking things, but this is how I feel!

Perhaps I should try and help balance him more by making lemon drizzle cakes and homemade lemonade to help maintain his metal spirit?  Lemons are good with corroding metal restoration!  Thing is, the boy hates lemons, so what is a water mother to do?

You may think I wrote this entry in jest, but it is my life, it is quite serious for me.  An insight to my brain like this can often terrify the sensitive, but at least I am honest!

I am drying up, or becoming stagnant, I am not quite sure which it is yet;

I say this because I am wanting to write more than ever these days and I am – but I am not focusing too much on novels anymore, because I can’t flow how I want to or how I used to, when being creative.

I used to brainstorm with a close circle of family or family friends, before I moved in with Paul and it would be good energy for me to make me want to write so I can tell them what I have done and what I might plan and to see what they have to say about it all!  But Paul just isn’t into my genres or my sense of corny humour.  I have no one where I can do this to, without the worry that they are going to steal my ideas and use them because I am too slow as I am a meticulous planner.

Because I have no one to share my thoughts with, I am being boiled within the inch of my life and becoming despondent with my storytelling, because, well, what’s the point?  If I don’t have someone who wants to share my creative journey with me on a personal level and talk about things as I do them, how else can I get the fuel to want to finish what I started?

I am easily downcast; I am easily demotivated by other people’s disinterest and I am a worry wart, who is fearful of anyone new who wants me to talk about my work – I have trust issues because I have been bitten a lot in the past.

I need a mentor or a friend I can trust, preferably a small group of them – but how can I find them?  I am at a loss… I had thought about joining a critique group, but there is a problem with that… I am a slow reader, I can’t read three or four extra novels in a week as well as my usual two books I need for research and my own pleasure reading, I just can’t read that fast!

So what is a water dog girl like me to do?

Flow into stagnant waters again I guess… I don’t like it there, it’s too murky and stinks and it’s a bit boring to be frank.

My confidence has taken a huge bashing recently; I feel lame in my sense of humour and I feel alone in my creativity because I am overly cautious and don’t trust the internet very much – sorry people!

But recently I am starting to feel a little bit ashamed of the comedy aspects of my work, because it’s too corny, stupid, over the top and it hurts!  It hurts a lot.

The only genre I can openly talk about without boring the only person who will listen to it, is dark humour in my horror or some dystopian works, outside of that, I don’t have any support.  I wrote a list last week of all of my current WIPs, there are nearly two hundred novels and eighty nine are fantasy mostly, half of which are comedy.  There are only thirty seven horrors that are not vampires or dystopian based.  I have to admit, this person is trying to make me refocus mostly on horror and I am more fantasy and family really.

My main project – the anthropomorphic dystopian is really loved by my listener and only one fantasy novel about dragons and magic is loved by them too – the rest gets a meh or a snore, if it’s not traditional horror.

I prefer fantasy because it heals me from remembering the crap in the world; horror was originally written because my life was horrible, I experience intense violence and been in survival situations that were horrid and I was excellent at writing nasty things like that because of experience.  But I don’t like reliving that kind of thing all the time, fantasy is more healing for me.

I need the pretence that life can be utopian and magical and miraculous and lovely, but I also know that leads to a boring story and I know there are always people out there who wants to destroy a perfect thing for someone else because they are jealous of it, so that is seen in my fantasy a lot, but it is more tame than my horror because my fantasy is written for a family audience.

I’ve personally had enough of pandering to ogres and monsters and being submissive to them and their demands – my horror stories have been developing more and more into revenge style plots, where nature gets its own back on humanity for tearing apart paradise bit by bit.

My reader has noticed and he misses the horror I used to do, the gore for the sake of gore, the horror where anything is possible just because it is meant to be horrible!  Although he likes my new take on horror, he doesn’t like it nearly as much as when I used to write descriptive body horror and taboo scenes.

At the moment I feel like my watery self is forming a whirlpool and it is getting scary, because I have never been a whirlpool before and I am not quite sure what’s going to happen if my instinct is right!

Thank you for reading and hopefully understanding *love you all*

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