Proud lineage

I have a lineage that goes back two thousand years

Bred from governors, senators and kings

Blood of warriors through my body sing like sirens in the ocean wide

It is my spirit, it is my pride

I have the blood of witches too

Of wholesome living old and new

A little secret here and there

A silent culture that you have scared

My heart is ancestral and dances their beat

I am proud of who I am

So let me bleat

I wear the past as my clothes

I share with you, through my prose

And through my prose, you shall know me well

That I release my secrets from my cell

And all that is me is proudly shown

So you can see what I’ve known

And what I’ve known is vast and wide

And this is why it is my pride

My creative process

Since 2017 the idea of me getting out of bed and being eager to write anything towards a novel first thing has been a laughable notion; I used to be like that every day, but not since then.

Before September 2022 I would write approximately 1500 to 3k words a time, approximately 3 times a week sometimes more, but since September that too has been a laughable notion.

Yet there it is, several times this week I have done some creative work almost daily, though mostly drawing, but today was different.

I woke up with the enthusiasm to write and I wrote for nearly two hours and although it was only just under 2k words in that time, painfully slow in comparison to past efforts – it made me feel accomplished in some way and that perhaps I am getting my mojo back again?

Though the story I wrote towards was a project known here as Steampunk 2, I haven’t thought about this story for a long time, in fact it was last mentioned in a post here dated 3^rd July 2022 and that was probably the last time I did any thinking about it!

I have no idea why I woke up and immediately thought about that project, usually ideas stew in my mind for days before I get around writing things down, but not today – this was an instant!

I am still unsure why, but it doesn’t matter – the thing is, I did it!  I wrote like how I used to years ago, woke up with energy and enthusiasm to do so and I did it!

I think the idea of forcing myself to concentrate on a particular project just because, could be the reason why I may not want to write it.  I have pressurised myself and before I moved out of my parents’ house, I never did that.  I never pressured myself into saying oh well; I have written five chapters to project such and such I must do so again tomorrow!  I never did that, I skipped from one thing to another quite merrily and was very productive back then!

I think I’ve been too influenced by the scientific and orderly mind of Paul in this regard, because he has been the one to convince me to only concentrate on one maybe three projects a time, not all seventy odd!

So I kind of developed an element of guilt behind it wanting to write outside my planned five main projects.

I decided three wasn’t enough for me, I needed five.  That didn’t make me anymore productive either.

So, now I am going back to the idea that any work on any day is good work as it is towards something – no work in one day because  I don’t want to focus on one of five ideas is unacceptable to me.

You know what?  Last week I wanted to start writing towards a horror story that’s been in my head for two years and I didn’t knuckle down to do it, because it wasn’t my main five projects.  I had this guilt complex of writing towards that story, because I should be working on ABCD or E – you get the idea?

So I spent just 45 minutes half-heartedly writing towards project AD and the quality in my work was terrible!  In fact I feel like deleting last week’s work!

But if I had of written towards that horror I know I would have got 2 or even 3k done that day, because there were a few things I wanted to write about in that story and I was in the mood for it. 

Guilt stopped me.

I am being disloyal to my main five projects I felt!

Pah!

I am not going to do this anymore!

I believe the universe was talking to me directly tonight because I was reading a book called “Tate – brief lessons in creativity” and they reckon that every creative has their own process and when they deviate from it, they become naff or blocked.  It’s not 100% quoted accurately, but the gist is there!

Today I decided to do whatever I feel like from now onwards and today has been the most productive writing day I’ve had since 2017 in my opinion!

I noticed my poetry is becoming difficult for me, because I am trying to push myself to create at least one poem a day to keep the blog alive.  But that’s not working anymore for me!

I am putting myself into a poetry block mind-set and my creative brain is rebelling by thinking about other things – like art where I don’t restrict myself and I have even caught myself dancing and moving my body more and doing wacky things (which is normal for me anyway) only I think about random lyrical lines I am making up as I go along but it’s all freestyle and unrecorded.  Then I realised, it’s a kind of performance art this! 

Once again I felt the universe was talking to me, because it was at this time I saw an advertisement for a performance art show being performed at The Belgrade theatre called “Drive your plow over the bones of the dead”; where it is apparently dance, poetry, acting and all sorts of things in one show.  I don’t know much about it, but it kind of spoke to me and I would like to see the show some day – though I probably won’t get the opportunity to! 

My brain doesn’t like limitations, so it’s removing me from what it sees as harmful creative pursuits and setting me free in others I don’t overthink too much!

When I start overthinking and when I start making rules, I block those pursuits too… I think I am learning a lot about myself lately!

There are many things I would like to write for my blog but I worry about how chaotic it may appear to my readers.

Abstract thoughts, descriptions, no real story, no real poetry either;  just words thrown together almost lyrically with descriptions of random acts and I sit back and wonder – what am I doing?  What is this called?  Overthinking again… then I block myself and I delete what I have done because I become embarrassed.

It’s odd, nobody will get it, I think to myself.

This is the true reason behind my procrastination – the reality is, I am doing things but I am destroying them no soon as I have done them, because I think the world will find it strange or unfathomable.

Like I have lost my mind and lost in thought and dribbling on with different words, to the extent I appear to be talking gobbledygook and as though I’ve lost the plot entirely… men in white coats will be coming for you soon – echoes Paul, who also doesn’t really grasp what I do at times!  But then again, he doesn’t grasp creative people as a whole, does he?  Being a scientist and all that!

Then I think – what the heck… should I take a risk and publish it?

I never really know for sure… but I think I will risk it soon!

Thanks for reading!

Who cries?

Who cries for a heart that’s broken?

Who cries for a mind gone mad?

Who cries for the downhearted and fallen?

Who cries for the sad?

Left alone in our misery

We burden all who are around

Fake smiles and words of lies

Makes everything seem sound

Wear a mask upon your face

To cover up your pain

Wear a costume and dance a bit

Like darkness has been slain

Don’t let them see your sparkling tears

Don’t utter a wretched cry

Just keep on faking happiness

Just keep up with the lie

For sorrow spreads like a disease

It swamps all that it goes near

Keep the mask upon your face

For those you love so dear

Keep their hearts away from it

And shine your light so bright

So that all you love right now

Will never have the same plight

Creative expression plans

I am starting to think about doing some new approaches to my creativity soon, at the moment it will be difficult to do the changes that I want to do, because of the environment I am living in – but I am hoping soon, in the near future things will be different and I will have more freedom to express myself in an environment that I can thrive in.

A place where I am able to write when I need to and my personal time and space is respected, a place where I can do my art without fighting mess and a place where I practise my music without having arguments about overriding a television or making disturbing background noises because someone wants to listen to their laptop gaming noise instead of music.

Most of all, I am looking forward to an environment that is organised and clean most of the time and where nobody slobs about without a care for weeks on end, until mess gets so out of hand everyone moans and chips in finally for half a day, only for three days later it would seem nothing has changed at all.

It would be good to get back into the habit of watching movies again, because doing that here has always been impossible.  Nobody wants a movie on, unless it’s the same old, same old.

As a former movie buff, this has been a hard pill to swallow.

I haven’t kept up to date with the movie industry since I moved here in the early summer of 2009.

I am very behind.

Right after I have written this post, I am going to write something for myself and myself only. 

I am going to write a list of plans for my creative future and I am going to store this on my computer to read at a later date, a date when I am no longer living here in this environment.

I am doing this because I have been prompted to think about it by a book called “Art for happiness” by Val Andrews – they’ve set a task in which I am to think about any new ways I would like to express myself that I haven’t done already and there is quite a few actually and some I want to combine to create what I believe could be a new creative art form.

I have always had an interest in stage plays and the theatre and it is something along those lines.

I’ve composed music in the past, written lyrics and poems, done some amateur dramatics at college, did some private designs for fashion and dreamt up stories, painted pictures and even danced.  I have been known to decoupage and embroider, knit and crochet.  I have also been classically trained in opera as a child and was the main lyricist and singer of a rap/rock band in college, even though I was always more of a jazz, rock and soul singer in my heart.

Jazz and soul are the preferred genres my family and friends like me to sing.

As a child and into my teens I had always had an interest in burlesque but it was aggressively shunned by my mother, yet my paternal grandmother encouraged it as it was something her own mother did in between being a professional ballet and cancan dancer – my grandmother herself was a majorette and was known to do small amateur dramatic theatre work as a volunteer at weekends, usually to entertain for free the elderly visiting from residential homes and she did this along with two of my aunts and sometimes my dad.

My dad stopped going because mum didn’t like him doing it and she didn’t like my aunts encouraging me to think about joining them in their acts too!

They loved my singing, they said that my voice often moved them to tears and several old people in the audience too as I sang no less than twice for them all.

When it appeared I had some kind of talent, mum soon put a stop to my singing lessons too!

Some of the old people who lived in my street knew my mum did this and their hearts went out to me, because they knew I was home-schooled, they knew the house was noisy and didn’t sound very happy and they knew I lived in the garden.  They were sad when they used to hear me sing on my swing in the garden, people could hear me several houses away. 

Some of them tried to guilt trip my mum by telling them she should let me sing again and go back to her music classes, but she wouldn’t have it.

I lost my confidence when I was around ten years old to sing in the garden, when some new children moved into the house at the back of us and started to bully me for it, because it was opera and they felt I wasn’t cool not to mention I was fat and sad and lonely, as they called me.

Those children became the bane of my life from then onwards, as from 3pm until 8pm most days I would be self-conscious about being seen in the garden by them as they’d deliberately throw balls to bounce off my head and mock me by trying to knock me off my swing.  So I tried to keep nearer to the house, this meant that I couldn’t play with my rabbit called Toffee at the time or sit near the pond, because they’d make entertainment of me.

When I was around thirteen mum wanted more control of the garden and to make it family space as the summers were getting hotter and hotter and so because she was bothered by the children too, she put up a 6ft fence all around us.

This meant I felt free to exercise in the garden again without being mocked at any time I liked again.  I loved netball practise and swing ball, I played squash up against the house too and wasn’t self-conscious in practising my judo either.

I still don’t know when I will move out; I know I can’t really finance that yet.  But I am looking forwards to leaving – I’ve always believed this house is the thing that made me ill.

I never felt easy living here, it was like the house is alive and it didn’t welcome me – ever been in a house where you have an innate feeling you’re unwanted?

Paul told me his house is haunted and that since I moved in, within weeks the spirit seemed to have gone.  I promised him I had done nothing to scare it off, but Paul has always felt it was weird how the ghost seemed to have just vanished when I moved in.

Perhaps I made it insecure?

Who knows?

Thanks for reading…

Gold and Scarlet

Dressed in gold and bent for you

Another dressed in scarlet hues

They dance the dance of balance

One is a lie and one is true

Which one is the one for you?

Each dragon dances for their part

In order to ensnare your heart

Which one is the precious jewel?

Which one will be a lie and cruel?

Which one is the Queen you need?

Which one intends for treachery to proceed?

Which one can you trust at all?

Which one really caused the fall?

Dance to the beat of life!

Sometimes we need grey skies to make it rain

Sorry if those days cause you pain

Let’s hope the sun peaks from the clouds

So we can have a rainbow party so loud!

So we can dance away the insanity of life

Dance away the strife

Because it hurts like a knife when life is grey!

Because life is more than this they say!

So dance to the beat of life and be merry

Dance with your friends, Leah, John and Jerry

So come on now, let’s plough a field of dreams

You need the rain it seems

To make it grow

And it will grow

Just wait and see

You’ll be free some day!

Yippee!

Because everything is temporary

Love and hate

Peace and war

 Rain and sun and so much more

It won’t last, so have a blast when the sun shines down on you!

That’s all you can do

Right now!

Dance to the beat of life…

Dance to the beat of love and life

Touch my heart make and it beat again

I need a hand to help it mend

For so long I’ve lived alone and blue

I really need the touch that comes from you

Since forever I have had a dream

That you will come and save me from this stream

Of tears that fall down from my eyes

Like a raincloud high in the skies

My sorrow can’t always be here

My heart beats when you are near

So carry on in your journey to me

So my heart can beat and be free

I need the love you have for me

I will love you too, just wait and see

I promise you the deepest love

I will show you peace, I’m a dove

Unassuming I will wipe your tears

And I will hug away all your fears

Just take that step and step into my arms

And I will whisper to you a charm

That I love you and I will always

We will last so long and we’ll play

We don’t have to judge each other now

Our future is a field to plough

Together we will make it last

And together we will have a blast!

And forever we will always see

That you and I were meant to be

So come on near and take me by the hand

Lead me to your life, it will be so grand!

Comfort, love and security

Together we can grow just wait and see!

The future is within your hands

So come to me now and dance, dance, dance

To the beat of love and life and play and forever

Let it be this way

We will fly together!

Just trust that my song is true

Yes I will always love you!

The Lord’s dragon dancer

Gilded beauty in the hall

Dances for him, one and all

A dance for balance and security

She dances for his authority

A golden dragon that is true to him

Dancing away the scarlet whose fate is grim

A secret that the world doesn’t know

She dances for an awesome show

Of the power he has within his hands

Always obeying  his commands

Because the time is nearing so

Where the world will be comforted in their woe

And he will come and rule them again

Because his name is Lord Hashem

Queen of Winter

Skipping bare foot in the snow, dancing and laughing is the crystal fairy of winter’s chill

Tapping frost onto cobwebs and lacing the ground white with each step, over mountain and over hill

Icicles worn like gems decorate her silver neck and frosted leaves make her shining dress

A gown fit to impress, the faeries at the Yuletide ball

She will be much loved within the dance-hall of Oberon and Titania

Bringing a dancing mania to one and to all

An ice dance supreme, like a tremendous dream as she decorates streams of icy walls

For she is The Queen of Winter and she will stand tall!

Land of the mortal blue

In my garden I play with the blackberry dragons

They sing songs to me

In my garden I swim with the mermaids of my pond

They sing songs to me

They sing “we know you’re not free, we will keep you company”

They know what life is like for me

A prisoner of mortality

The fairies too they sing their songs

They say we will protect you from the wrongs

The satyr too, sings a song

About justice and freedom and truth

Drink from the fountain of youth and you’ll be free

Come and dance with me

Says he

And I do

And I am released from the deep blue

And I am free again

And now I’ll mend

Because I am forever young and happy

True

Now I am a part of you

My fantasy land

And I feel grand

Because I have left the land

The land of mortal blue

And I’ve learned that all the magic is true