A soulless tragedy

In my heart and mind I am many things

Which I’m not you see

Because I only act a little part of me

For people don’t like others who are bright and bold and brave

Who think they are better people

So they seek to berate and scathe

Yet look inside my heart and soul and you will surely see

All the people locked inside, the people who are truly me!

I am an empress and I rule with an iron might

My tongue commands great armies and send enemies into flight

But I am also a bird that flies up high and it is truly free

To sing any song she wishes, who dares to silence me?

I am the wind which blows at you, air both hot and cold

And sweeps you off your feet sometimes and lose my self-control

And like an angel I am mild and meek, I will care with tender love

And often I will mediate for peace just like the blessed dove

I am a monster and I am fierce, you don’t want to bother me

And I shall tickle you with bites, just like a little flea

I am flash and I am loud, yet I am dull and quiet too

I am many people you know and don’t, you really have no clue

For I am hidden within myself, I am ashamed you see

To show you who I really am

And what I could be

Though mostly I am a creator

I make worlds with words and paint

I create people and creatures too and I do so without restraint

I create vast worlds for your mind to explore

And all I wish for you is for you to adore

And live within these worlds of mine within your very mind

And love it with all your heart and inspiration find

So you too can create like me, your own little universe

And write good poems, songs and stories and a little verse

So you can feel important too and like you have a place

And ignore all the haters who try to stop you with disgrace

Because one thing that is true and clear

The arts are important my dear

For without it we inhuman be

And soulless we will live in tragedy

And never more shall we love each little gem we find

For our hearts will be black and cold

Because we’ve lost our mind

My authenticity as an author

What is my authentic self as an author?

What are my passions and experiences which seem to flow into my work effortlessly?

Basically, what makes this author, this author?

It’s not unknown if you have been following me for some time now that vampires are a huge passion of mine and that once they were all absorbing and my main if not ultimate focus?

They are still in my mind but is now swept away into a corner and regarded with a sense of guilty pleasure nowadays, which is a shame. 

But other than my vampires who am I as an author?

I like anthropomorphic animals (human like animals) and animation movies which have animals as main characters or heroes; to me I can’t get enough of movies like that!  I love reading books on the perspectives of animals, such as The Animals of Farthing Wood, Fluke, Charlotte’s Web, that sort of thing.

Being shamanic off and on throughout my life, I regard myself as having an unusually deep understanding for both nature and animals and anything primal really and yes, that does make me a Walt Disney fan.

I am a deeply spiritual person too with very philosophical ideas – this can be seen in some of my work but not all of it.

I do believe in miracles and magic, I believe in soul connections and spirits, so this belief of mine goes into my work a lot.

My work can be very profound and intense; it’s what I’ve seen in past reviews on my blog, in emails and from other people who were fortunate enough to get snippets from me in private.  Because I tend to throw in my philosophical thoughts, my spiritual education and I forget that sometimes for some people, they’re not ready for that kind of depth yet.  It’s a part of me, it’s a part of who I am and mostly I don’t realise I do it.

That’s my magic, that’s unique to me and when you follow your authentic path in your own writing, you will discover things about yourself you never knew too, it’s a kind of therapy a kind of gas-lighting oneself.

I love dragons and monsters, I like seeing them as misunderstood creatures, creatures that aren’t bad at all and in fact could be rather helpful but have their boundaries and they expect respect.

I like characters that are inventive and quirky, a little strange, maybe forgetful and definitely misunderstood by societies they live in, because they reflect who I am.  I am proud to say I am an air-head with little understanding of logic, that has an interest in science though not a brain to really fully grasp it and a memory of sieve – put all of this into a pot steaming with spirituality, creativity and free love and you’ve got me… a messy soup.

I am a mixture of Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Carl from Van Helsing 2004, Miss Bat from Worst Witch, Miss Trelawney from Harry Potter, Lucille Ball, Wendy Froud, Bjork and Bob Ross!  You get the message… I’m a mess!

I love writing lengthy descriptions of natural scenes and observations including as many if not all of the five senses all at once.

I have a deep sense of decay of both mind and matter, I understand the damaging effects of humanity on the Earth and I write plenty of dystopic sceneries in some of my stories.  I love the idea of nature taking back the world, after humans sought to destroy it! 

I love characters like Poison Ivy, Pocahuntas and The Lorax for this.

I have a deep sense of survival in me, from both being raised semi-feral in a North London garden with a violent family and because I have a Girl Guides attitude of “Be prepared” and a deeply seated understand of impermanence – that you can often see survival as a theme in a lot of my stories.

This is why I love characters such as Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, the TV series The Tribe, Rambo and so forth. 

Because I have experienced severe mental health issues over the years and lived with several people who have far worse issues than I do (I have never needed to be medicated for example, like they have) I can fully understand what it means to live in an asylum and how the public treats people who have a history of that environment.  I also understand and have witnessed several times people literally descending into madness to the point of both murder and suicide.  Yes I have seen a person killed in front of me that is something I’ve kept to myself until now.

I have also witnessed several people trying to take their own lives, dying of a stroke right before my eyes and other horrible things.

Experiences which are hard to write, but can’t be wrote properly unless you’ve truly experienced it.  I am not saying try to experience that sort of thing, goodness no!  But you can understand how an author’s authentic self can further their writing by putting in their life experiences into it!

Characters such as Jack Torrance from the shining, John Kramer from Jigsaw, Janet Frame from Angels at my table are reflective of very similar people I have known as well as several characters from the movie The Crow.  I’ve known very edgy, scary people who don’t hide the aspect of who they truly are to anybody!  A few of these people have been put into isolation by the authorities but there are others that have evaded this somehow!

In my experience it is the weak ones that get caught and dealt with, the really nasty buggers never are!

Injustice is another thing that crops up in my stories from time to time based on this.

I am afraid to say some readers may find some of my darker materials frustrating as justice are rarely served in a fair way; I tend to take people to a very primal place.

Some of my characters are kooky, childish and fun, but should really be responsible as they are adults but they struggle with that reality – therefore I like characters such as Mr and Mrs Luxury from the blue bird, God from Dogma, Brennan and Dale from Step Brothers and Sarah Sanderson from Hocus Pocus. 

I have a passion for characters with big egos and sarcastic humour so I am often drawn to personalities which are played by actors such as Alan Rickman, Tim Curry, Glen Close and Robert Downey Jr.  Those characters seem to be fighting against the odds with a pack of brainless lucky heroes who are out to ruin their plans or gas-light them in some way in my stories.

Comedy is becoming more prominent in my stories as time is going by as I am no longer hiding my sense of humour from the world; this is a transition that is not welcoming from Paul.  He prefers my more serious stuff, but that’s not being authentic to myself!

There is even comedy in my darker stories and horror these days, lightly thrown in.

I was given an article to mull over by Paul the other week about how dark humour is an early sign of dementia; I am not paying any attention to that!

Societal changes and upheaval are a theme in several of my stories, hence my love for dystopia.

I dislike romance, so that is at a minimum – but there are some saucy scenes now and again in my adult works, in fact I have been known to write full on erotica in a past blog as short stories, but I deleted them after a while and that blog – I also did it here for a short time too, in the early years of my blog as I was told I was too graphic and should really have it as a subscribers content.

That is something I am thinking about doing actually, subscribers short stories of both my erotic works and vampires, as well as a subscriber incentive of giving 50% off the purchase of poetry anthology E-books I am planning to publish by the end of summer.

I love certain sports and you can see which I am into by the books I write, I love wrestling and combat sports in general so there are plenty of fight scenes in my stories as well as ancient warfare.  I am very keen in ancient warfare history and gaming.  I know a lot of the terminologies and so there is little research needed for me when I write those scenes because it’s a passion of mine.

I am not afraid of killing off characters but I am not a maniacal character serial killer like George R.R Martin, but not far off it either! 

Death sells as good as sex in my opinion.

I like hard-core no nonsense and dominant characters that don’t like a lot of fuss, so there is at least one in every story.  My favourite character is a wild hermit woman from the Dragon project I am writing; a sort of mix of Miss Trunchball meets Nanny McPhee and Tarzan!  Again, crazily based on people I’ve known, as I have said before… I’ve known some strange people in my time and exaggeration can go a long way, especially when story writing!

So you see a lot of my ideas wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for life experience and a knack for exaggeration for entertainment value.

Though I keep my non-fiction as honest as possible, I can use that experience and exaggerate it for fiction!

This is how we writers do things; it’s how we give you the books we write.

Or those who have actually given their work to an agent to get published, that is!

I’m not far off to be honest.

I won’t give you a deadline or update until I send my work to an agent, but for now – let’s just say, I think it’s going to be sooner than you think – a lot sooner!

So there you have it – my experiences, my passions and my work and why it is uniquely mine and why you will struggle to try and copy it!  You are not me and even if you were to go off and research the character references and include the subjects I’ve mentioned in this blog – you won’t ever reflect me, but only I can be purely me and only you can be purely you!

Thanks for reading!

Puffin “clown of the sea”

A couple of months ago I have been mentioning how flamingos, ibises and peacocks are being seen almost everywhere I go and how those things signify certain areas of a person’s life – more recently, puffins, raccoons, geese and squirrels are becoming more noticeable.

Puffins signify a new long-term and strong partnership is about to occur, I am finding puffins in the weirdest of places recently and before this time puffins were not something I would regularly come across anywhere – they are relatively unknown creatures really.

It is also quite amusing to note that out of my many tarot decks, the pictures with puffins on very rarely turn up in readings, but they are turning up in almost every reading I am doing with them lately.

I thought nothing of it until I have started to see puffins on TV a lot more in the last few days and then people talking about them on Twitter, so I thought I had better look into what they as a spiritual animal could be trying to relay to me!

Puffins signify new relationships, strong family bonds, new family units, a coming together or a partnership – usually relationships which are very strong and long term or where you would have an intense bond with.

Alternatively puffins can also relate to spiritual or religious faith strengthening or again faithfulness in a relationship that is about to arrive in your life.

The puffin signifies that the person coming into your life will have a strong sense of family and a smashing sense of humour as puffins are known to be clowns of the sea.

They symbolise the strongest of love and devotion.  Often they symbolise a soul-mate union and people who have come across puffins before meeting their future husband or wife also say that it is as though they’ve always known the person or may have knew them in a previous life.

Puffins also signify a new beginning, usually always positive and happy and a new beginning which will stand the test of time!

An amazing creature with amazing symbolism!

The picture at the top of my post was painted by me few a few years ago and can be found on DeviantArt under my username FFGallery.

Thank for reading!

Top 10 fantasy books

Top 10 Fantasy Books that I enjoyed and that influenced me the greatest are;

Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I have always been a big fan of the inane and very abstract.  To me this novel is enchanting to the most profound sense of the word.  I love how it shows us that entertainment and our imaginations do not have to make sense in order to inspire us to do great things and beauty and fantasy doesn’t have to have a defined set of rules. 

This book makes me feel liberated as a creator and much of what I write reflects just how much Carroll has influenced me as a whole, it shows you how to think outside of the box; which is a wonder really, because I have never really been considered by people who know me as someone who thinks outside of the box, regardless how innovative they also say I am! 

The wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum

Very similar to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this novel and the entire fourteen book series has also expressed to me how fantasy and the imagination comes with no rules, that in the throes of your own mind you can do anything – because only you are god to the worlds you are imagining, the only rules that exist are the ones you determine! 

You decided what makes sense or not in your world, but you have to make sense in those worlds and not have contradicting ideas that make the world come across as unbelievable.  It can be as silly as you want it to be, but there must be some kind of order and to me this novel and the previous one I mentioned does that excellently!

Gregor the overlander by Suzanne Collins

Comedy is a big part of my fantasy writing and to me there is a lot of that in this book as well as cute little moments and emotional rollercoasters galore!

This books shows that even the most disgusting things in life can be somewhat endearing if you choose to switch the way you think.  I mean I would never have felt compassion, sympathy and a sense of love for a cockroach for example, but this novel debunked that! 

The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

Once again the comedy aspect is here and that I absolutely love – also it shows that every world needs to have traditions and stories within stories and a sense of belonging and festivities.  I love how there is a familiarity to our reality reflected within this book, our Christmas and their Hogswatch and I try to do this in most of my novels.  Each world has a different ideology, customs and holidays and I think this is the biggest thing I love about story writing!  I love creating absolutely new customs and cultures!  Especially when I have conflicting cultures in the stories, each trying to explain the reason behind the things that they do to each other.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

I love this book because it makes you as a writer think about consequences of the things you choose to do to your characters and it forces you think about being consistent in your actions which precede the characters problem because of it.  It makes for good reading because there is a problem the character wants to resolve – a disability if you like, to overcome.  Also, once again, there is a comedy element to the novel and there are strong female characters, something which is rare in fantasy I have noticed.

Troll Fell by Katherine Languish

I love place descriptions and descriptions of movement, this book does that well.  I love the landscape and flow of the novel and I love the traditional sense of fantasy too – the old style fantasy, based on old folklore.  This novel has Vikings as well as house elves (nisse) and trolls.  I love Scandinavian folklore a lot and that can be reflected in some of the stuff I write, even if the location is not recognisable as Nordic. 

Smoke and mirrors By Neil Gaiman

There are many little gems in this book, lots of lovely prose and I do love novels that have a prose like feel to it; most people find prose hard to digest, but I love it.  I think there is a huge snobbery against prose and I find that hard to understand.  I love “descriptive dribble” as some people call it and I often find it offensive listening to people who put down prose like works. 

A major part of my lack of writing in recent years is due to the snobbery from my readers who dislike the prose that often gets interjected into my stories.  I am not overly descriptive, but I do borderline poetic.

According to my previous beta readers, my work is too old fashioned – it is at best Edwardian in style but, usually Victorian and I have to bring myself more up to date; that is the usual complaint I have ever had as well as having too much of a broadsheet vocabulary.  They felt that my readers would be a niche and narrow in margin purely because a vast majority of readers have more of a tabloid vocabulary and I feel that is actually insulting to readers of the world!  I did allow these comments to dictate my style a lot for a while and it started to kill me as a creator somewhat. 

I love how Neil Gaiman seems to be older than he is in some of the works in this book, some of the stories look as though it has been around since Queen Victoria and I love that about him and this book!  A lot of my stories are based in the Victorian era which is one of the reasons why I could never understand the problem my beta readers had with it – am I to have modern day urban language at a 1850s lord of the manor’s dinner party?  My work is certainly not contemporary usually. 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I love the rawness of the novel.  I love how the horrific realities of life are imbedded within its pages; the girl doesn’t merely hunt the deer but straddles it and slices it to a perfect death for her and her fox’s food in the winter time.  Some might say that is overly descriptive and disturbing but life is disturbing anyway, so why shield from it?  It is good writing! 

I have been described by a home school tutor as being a very gory writer so perhaps I share in Ivey’s violent descriptions of life and the world?  Perhaps when I eventually approach the publishing agencies they may want to censor a lot of what I write, but I have seen many books which go beyond what even I think is acceptable, so they might leave me alone on that matter? 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I can’t talk about this book to many people as they often reject it as being too awful and the subject matter really is!  However, they often overlook the beautiful prose and philosophy that is hidden in the pages which makes it an absolutely delightful read for me!   I love the aspect of the afterlife and how emotionally connected this novel gets to become with its readers.  It makes you feel what the characters feel. 

It is very intense and I can understand why many people cannot tolerate that, but if you can push through the horror of this book and concentrate on Susie’s afterlife you will find that it is incredibly lovely, it is incredibly beautiful the things she does in the “before heaven” as I call it.  I love the pages where the author gets lost within Susie’s playtime in the afterlife, that is my favourite, despite how weird and distasteful I found a couple of the subjects, such as experiencing a kiss whilst possessing her sisters body, that was too strange for me. 

I write a lot of books about the afterlife and ghosts, as well as vampires. 

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

I find it a fun all-rounder – there are comedy elements and basically a little bit of everything from above in the novel too, as well as being a traditional and classic version of epic fantasy.  I love the mix of creatures in this novel and there be dragons too, I love dragons, one of my top five favourite creatures to write about!

forests and campaigning

I am meandering through the mossy forest

The lichen clings to the trees

A little micro garden

They are sheltered by the leaves

The smell of earth is fervent

The trees are rough to touch

The energy I feel here

I love so very much

Though you cannot see them

They are everywhere

Billions of lives are flowing

In the forests welfare

How gently they crawl upon the earth

How delicate their façade

And though you cannot see it

They work so very hard

This is life in the forest green

This is how it flows

And each and every day I walk

Through the emerald groves

I know each and every footstep

I know each and every bird

I know my way through the forest

You can trust my every word

When the little stars are shining

I can see them, not

For I am roaming through the forest

So the sky I have forgot

My friends are Mrs Badger and little sooty mole

I find their company pleasant, I find their humor droll

I sit upon a fallen oak and watch them playing near

Oh how I love my forest and how I love them dear

It is wicked to hack the forest down, billions of lives get lost

Please sit back and realize, it’s such a big cost

We need the peace that’s founded here

We need the earthy tones

We need to consider more so, that it’s not just humans who need homes

So please take a thought and a care

For every little creature there

And maybe earth shall grow again

New forests everywhere

My heart is wild, my soul is free, yet my body is not

I need the forest to stay secure I do not ask a lot

 

This poem was written because I love forests, woodlands, fields, you name it; I love it as long as it’s natural.  I have a friend who is trying to climb a career ladder as a local MP for a North London council – Barnet to be precise; he told me two weeks ago that Barnet and Brent are going into collaboration together to rebuild the Hendon estate, this means that they plan to drain the local reservoir/nature reserve and build on it, he is campaigning like mad to stop this madness and rightfully so, I was raised on that reserve (more or less). 

The reservoir is called The Welsh Harp. Whether it’s true that they have planning permission to do this or not, I am uncertain, but my friend doesn’t tend to lie. 

It’s a very worrying thought that approximately eight to ten acres of North London’s nature reserves is going to be snatched away from the locals and more to the point, the wildlife there.  There’s creatures such as swans, Canada geese, moorhens, squirrels, including reds funny enough (I’ve seen them) cardinal beetles (extremely rare), blue tits, badgers, foxes, hedgehogs, frogs and toads (they’d be there naturally anyway but when mum filled in her pond we set our fish, frogs, newts and toads free in the reservoir, so they had a new home), and many more beautiful creatures are going to lose their homes, because Barnet wants to cramp in another 20,000 families, despite closing down their hospitals might I add.

Should this be allowed?  Hell no, and guess what?  I am sick and tired of people sitting back and going “Oh, well, it’s a shame, what can we do”?  And just allow it to happen, if you don’t want something to happen, because you like walking around that area or you think that it’s beneficial to the locals and the wildlife, then get up off your arse and campaign the current minority brave souls, who can and do get off their arses.  The more numbers who protest against such things, the more likely we are to save it.

You don’t like something the officials are doing, you have a voice and if you start standing up you will motivate others who are quieter than you to voice their opinions too, and there’s more civilians in the world than officials, so they have to listen to the loudest voice!

So get MOVING!

I’ve done something similar here in Rugby, I attended a meeting where the locals wanted a small playground for the local children, because the council took away the one we had four years ago.  three years after heavy campaigning in a progressively enlarging group, we’ve got our way, now they’re building a huge adventure playground on our local field (one mowed constantly as its 2 football pitches for the local lads and an acre spare) not only that though, but they’ve allowed us local parents to pick and choose what things we want there and how to design it.

If you work with your community, you get what the community wants, not what some officials think will shut you up.

I wasn’t the loudest voice, I was in fact pretty quiet and sitting and the back but making it known I wanted the playground too, just by being there.  Unfortunately I was the only one at the time who had their child with them, Henry was just turning 3 months old and I got a lot of attention just because he was so darn cute, but the councillor listening to us, wanted to know more about what I particularly wanted, so I reluctantly spoke out in front of about 70 people and they pulled me to the front, and I was clinging onto Henry for dear life, scared as hell that all these people are looking at me.

She said it’s unlikely we’d get anything done by 2012, but we may get something done by the time my little baby turns 5, and it will be done as they are going to start building it in spring 2014.

So was it Henry who finally got it by pulling her heartstrings?  I don’t know, but one thing is for sure, although I wanted to campaign with everyone and hide, my thoughts counted A LOT, and we got listened to.

So get out there and get what you think your community needs, after all, why are you paying taxes if you’re not prosperous with your environment.

 

 

 

 

hear my vox

I’m whispering with the wind

Secrets of untold imaginings

Of prayers unheard

Of silver rings

I’m dazed within, this mind of mine

But my fantasies are diamond mines

 

Sweet whispers help me write

I hear them in the wind

Of frog princes and fairy rings

I see such life in those little drops

Of rain water that fall from rooftops

 

I have a habit that is true

That my dreams will include you

You’re a knight upon a fiery steed

Doing good and knightly deeds

Or sometimes you’re a giant man

Dress for dining, so very grand

 

These things are precious to my soul

It makes me feel so very whole

I need my dreams wrapped in a box

But I like you to hear my vox

 

My many worlds aren’t secret

They are quite well known

But not to you or Joe blogs

Just the creatures that they home

 

I have been invited

To play with them quite free

In my lands of mysteries

Flows a golden stream

 

I would stay forever

In the shadows of my mind

But to leave you here without telling

It would be so unkind

 

So I come back to consciousness

The place of my birth

To see around me strangers

In my alien hearth

 

I don’t belong here truly

In my bubble I should stay

But even people of reality

Needs time to sit and play

 

So I come back to visit

Sharing with you my dreams

Telling you about the magic of a land of extremes