Tag Archives: dragon

The 4 voices

I am redemption said the raven

I am the darkness said the dragon

I am the reckoning said the lion

I am the beckoning said the lamb

I fly between worlds said the raven

I shroud the worlds said the dragon

I subdue the worlds said the lion

I destroy the people of the worlds said the lamb

I bring opportunity said the raven

I bring knowledge said the dragon

I bring faith said the lion

I bring shame said the lamb

I offer a second chance said the raven

I offer to open your eyes said the dragon

I offer to show you lies said the lion

I offer you my control said the lamb

I fight to give you the chance to change said the raven

I fight to give you a voice said the dragon

I fight to save every fibre of your being said the lion

I fight to make you my servant said the lamb

I pray for your absolution said the raven

I pray for your quick wit said the dragon

I pray for place with God said the lion

I pray for your persecution said the lamb

I caw passionately for your recovery said the raven

I snarl loudly at your enemies said the dragon

I roar proudly the true name of God said the lion

I bleat boisterously to shepherd the lost said the lamb

Written 3:48am 7th March 2023

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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?

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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

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Raven’s snare

The black dragon watches us with a keen and sneering eye

The raven watches back and knows he is really sly

The jackals are very near him and yet the dragon doesn’t see

Because he watches the raven, so very closely

The cobras slither near his tail and he is completely unaware

That soon the dragon will be entrapped within the raven’s snare!

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Life of a cold dragon

Today I wished I had the stuff I need to wear cosmetics and dress up real nice – I don’t know why but today I woke up thinking, you know what?  I want to be a glamour queen today!

Instead however, because it’s Sunday and nobody is doing anything, I am just in scruffy lounge wear, wearing baggy pink fluffy cardigans and looking like I have just woke up – cuddling my cardigan to myself and wishing I had a different life!

Eating beef stew and a side of string beans, drinking a chocolate protein shake and wondering if that’s all I am having today?  It seems likely actually – I am not gaining any appetite and it’s been like this for weeks now!

Barely having more than 1200 calories on a good day – not good, not good at all!

However, I am flattening up a lot in the tummy area despite being disappointed by my triceps – I am very self-conscious about those actually… but I am trying my hardest to figure things out!

Still sticking to the two a day green tea with cinnamon and turmeric idea and freezing myself a bit to see if it all works – but it’s tough sitting around in the cold, when I like to be snug and warm and live in the temperature fit for a dragon!

I just need to think in a different dragon kind of way… an ice dragon… lol

I was raised in a household that from November the thermostat is permanently on 30c that’s 86F – since living with Paul our thermostat is set at 21.5c which is 70.7F and to me that’s always made the house too cold for me – but I am getting used to it.  My mum would always have windows opened with the thermostat that high too – totally insane, she was not the worst in the family – my maternal grandma was crazy enough to have the heating on in the height of summer!

So, is there any wonder then that Paul sees me as some kind of pampered fire dragon?

Though to be honest I hate it when it’s hotter than 24c/75f but I definitely hate it when it’s cooler than 21.5c/70.7f too!

All day long I have had this song stuck in my head “catch a falling star” by Perry Como – such a pretty song and I keep getting art ideas for it, but I don’t have supplies to make it and the art table is being used for something else these days which makes just doing art at random a chore, because I need to clear up for twenty minutes before I can do it – that also means move stuff from around the table, just so I can access it!

Going to be quiet from the 30TH November to potentially the 3rd December, because I have to be the one to sort the house out so we can have Christmas decorations up – if I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done and there is a chance this house won’t have decorations at Christmas if I don’t!

Every year when I have to do this, I tend to get ill during or after I have finished the decorating because of the amount of dust that gets into the air with the old decorations and moving furniture around – because nobody helps me keep on top of things here!  I have a severe dust allergy and often get chest infections around this time! 

To boot, I have a bruised ankle and it hurts when I walk on it.

Paul puts the decorations away every year, but I have to put them up – this means that no decorations are cleaned before putting away, like they would have been if I had put them away – but sometimes the chest infection is so bad I am off my feet until late January!

Thanks for reading!

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What is it?

How Italian am I?

In my opinion not very much, but my heart is with that side of my family!  I at least learn Italian and I do cook Italian food a lot, but ultimately I say my family hasn’t readily been open about our ancestry – or least my mother’s generation hasn’t been.

Why?  I am a fourth generation Italian/Brit or as some people call us Britalian.  My grandmother’s generation was more ready to acknowledge the Italian ancestry in us, but my mum’s generation fought really hard against all their cultural mixes because they experienced extreme racism in the 50s and 60s growing up in London over it.

My grandmother’s family are a mix of many cultures in the past six generations, Romany, Italian and Greek or Greco-Italian being the strongest bloodline hailing mostly from Naples/Napoli, my grandmother is quite dark skinned and that’s because her great grandmother was mixed race black American and there is Vietnamese in her side of the family too.  So there’s a lot to chew on there. 

Her husband, my grandad is simpler Jewish and Roman Catholic mixed, Welsh, English with some unknown Slavic origin they believe may be Polish or Romanian but they don’t really know, it’s also rumoured there is Italian there too, but again no one has proved that yet – but we do know his Jewish family are considered to be mostly Levite and Sephardic.

My dad’s family have a very ancient history in Italy, they became mostly English though by 1919 as the family became too poor and too lethargic to keep skipping countries as they used to.  Italy, France, England, Italy, France, England, you get the drift, almost every one or two generations the change went on.  Once again his Italian ancestry is 2306yr history in Naples and Amalfi and an ancestral home is supposed to be Montalto castle in Chianti which is much farther north of Italy.

Both sides of my family fled Italy almost permanently around 1919 to 1950 because of various problems with fascism, though some started to come to the UK much earlier than that as they were seeking to better themselves outside of Italy as some of the ancestors felt there were better educational opportunities for their children in other places.  Particularly my dad’s family, they wanted to spread their genetic legacy to other European aristocracies. 

My mother’s Italian ancestors were mostly farmers. 

But as a fourth generation Italian Brit, I was very interested in all the culture I am a mix of and so I was always begging information from the oldest members of the family!  The most vocal are the Italians, Jews and the Greeks in the family.

Everyone else is shy about their heritage, because hey, we’re British now.    So in my mind, my personal culture has been shaped by the most vocal and the most proud of my family.

Unfortunately actually knowing Italian is rare in my family, because nobody sees the point in learning a language unless they are going to move to the country.  So only the oldest relatives knew any Italian and my mum forbade most of them to teach me anything!

As an adult I taught myself, because it was safer that way – my grandmother who knew a little bit of Italian was a rude and naughty woman who taught me all the bad things to say first – as she’s a natural imp!

So there’s lots of things I know about the family and their ways, but it is very different to how other non-related Italians do things… for example, I had an ex called Tony who was half Japanese and half Italian, his family love ragu/Bolognese – to them bolognese is meat, onion, salt and pepper, and pasta, nothing else – no tomatoes and the meat is always beef!

My family however we use lamb in almost everything!  Our Bolognese has tomatoes, tomato puree, bell pepper, onions, all the Italian herbs, sugar, cinnamon, salt and pepper and minced lamb.  Yet it’s not traditional in Naples, some Neapolitans say they either have vegetarian ragu or they have chunks of pork in it.

There’s lots of food traditional in my family, that I don’t even have a name for!  Some are Greek and some Italian; sometimes I don’t know which is which!

The confusion of mixed cultures gets me all the time!

Chicken Arribiata is popular in the family; we really spice it up because you’ve got to make that chicken angry!  Arribiata means ANGRY!  So we put chilis in that dish, cinnamon, onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper, cayenne – but you know so many people in my family they are wimps!  You give them that amount of chili and they cry about abuse!  But you just want passive chicken then, you don’t want it to be angry… lol

It’s fun in my family, you have the cultural deniers and the hard-core proud – eh what’s this long vegetable that looks like a cucumber but its slimy and bitter?  It’s a courgette innit?  No it’s a zucchini, that’s American – no not at all I say, nana what’s this vegetable called?  Zucchini!  See I told you!  It’s Italian for courgette!  Whatever!

I get served some green leaf vegetable with nice herbal rice inside it like a parcel and I ask my cousin Maria, hey Maria what is this?  It’s food innit, she says!  No I mean what is it?  Why you don’t like it?  I didn’t say that I just wanna know what it is!  Its vine leaves wrapped around rice and herbs, you know what it is you’ve had it before!  But what is it called, I say!  Stuffed vine leaves I just said!  What is it called in Italy?  I am fucked if I know, just eat it!

I ask my older relatives who all say stuffed vine leaves with rice with a shrug – I ask them but what’s it called in Italy?  50% will say it’s Greek not Italian and the other 50% says it’s Italian not Greek!

You can see why I give up!

Ok so next up we have a large style macaroni dish that’s like tomato macaroni and cheese, super cheesy, real big macaroni style pasta – what’s this called?  Pasta!  No what’s the name of the dish in Italy?  I am fucked if I know!  Eye rolls, same answer every time!

I go and research and find out its Ziti!

I told my cousin Sabrina, hey that dish you make it’s called Ziti in Italian!  Ew that sounds disgusting don’t say things like that at the dinner table, you make people feel sick!  No that’s what they call it there – I don’t care it sounds gross in English!  You don’t like my cooking?  She asks.  No I love it, but I went and googled it and found out it has a name – well keep it to yourself will ya that sounds insulting!

There are lots of dishes in my family and I am still trying to find out what the blazes they are – ironically 50% of the dishes my mum makes are Italian, yet she tells me it’s English.  Haha – she’s the biggest denier of her heritage in the family, but she won’t stray from their cooking or idioms!

Why am I posting this?  Because a lot of my family home cooking has no names, so I don’t bother including them in lists because I am more or less writing the recipe out to describe it, lol.

So with that being said, I was raised in a family that didn’t accept any cultural qualities at all – all of them make shifting a new British ideology and failing miserably whilst still eating traditional family food and shouting typical Greek and Italian idioms everywhere but in English this time, because we’re British now!

LOL.

For the word, since living with Paul I have thrown myself into learning more about proper Italian and Greek culture, but mostly leaning to Italian as the family seems to be more of that than the Greek it seems.  I am slowly learning the names of the dishes my family made and I am trying to learn more traditional ways in making things, instead of doing weird things to the food like adding spices which makes it like some weird Middle Eastern hybrid that happens occasionally in the family!

The things I can name, that I make are…

Homemade ravioli, yes I can home make my own pasta, thank you very much!

Homemade pizzas unfortunately without a traditional pizza oven as of yet!  Yes the base and all, I can do that!  My dream is to have a dragon shaped pizza oven in the garden which puffs out smoke from the dragons nostrils whenever I bake pizza! 

I make focaccias and ciabatta and for the Jewish family I can make sourdough, or at least used to – lost the mother/starter, someone accidentally tipped it away thinking something went off in a bottle!

I do Bolognese or ragu whatever you wanna call it – I am easy going, I don’t care!  Lol

Chicken arribiata

Pesto

Of course people kill for my carbonara

They also kill for my ziti and macaroni and vegetarian ravioli and the pastichio and lasagne…

I make polenta but no one likes it no matter who makes it lol

I make vegetarian and gluten free Bolognese and ravioli!

Homemade meatballs

Now I don’t know where this is from but there is a big debate in my family about vegetable burger pates being Italian or not!  But I don’t know!

Eggs in purgatory!

Caprese

Cesar salad… which I discovered may actually not be an Italian invention lol

Gnocchi

And up until recently I found out a family pudding which we called Creamy chocolate fingers is actually Tiramisu only nobody in my family puts espresso in it. 

Still trying to work out what other dishes are in the family… we have homemade biscuits like digestive biscuits but we put in chopped glace cherries and other fruit jellies in it in tiny bits.

We make what we call bread pudding, which is wholemeal bread soaked in milk and drained semi dried with sugar, Christmas spices, eggs and raisins and bake it until crispy. 

We have chocolate pasta with large half melted chocolate chunk and vanilla ice-cream as a dessert!

Knickerbocker glory desserts!

But there are so many I don’t know the name of – most notably a thing we make which is almost identical to Slovakian goulash with dumplings, only it has lots of tomatoes, more spice, more mushrooms and lots of red wine and it served under mashed potato for some weird reason!  Or on some occasions we eat this with beef stuffed ravioli instead!  I call it an Italian goulash but everyone rightfully looks sideways at me! 

I am trying to sew up the holes of my heritage, I am trying! 

Thanks for reading!

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1st reading part 1

I like to do a once a month tarot and oracle reading on average.  I am not confident of my reading ability, though many people who I have read for in the past have indicated that I am very accurate and spooky.

I have decided to share the monthly readings online, because a spirit told me that someone is interested in the mysticism that’s in my life and wants to see more of it, they also indicated that our cards might be similar…  I wonder who that is?  Let me know if it’s you in the comments below!

My oracle reading for the next four weeks;

1 – Druid animal oracle by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm

EAGLE

This card indicates that I have a huge decision to make this month.

I may also make a powerful alliance with someone.

There will definitely be some kind of detachment from something or someone or rejuvenation because of one or both of the above.

I may have to have courage in whatever this card is indicating, the decision or the person or the situation.

2 – The Lovers Oracle pack

MANIFESTING MIRACLES

My dreams are soon to become a reality.

I have to trust my heart and continue to follow in its guidance.

3 – Chakra wisdom oracle cards by Tori Hartman

VICTIM

This card represents the Heart Chakra – so that chakra could be the most dominant this month particularly with the below meaning behind it;

I am going to be in denial of a situation that will occur to me

I am asked to make a major decision regarding my whole life

I will feel delusional about what is offered, I won’t believe the person, but apparently it’s not a trick as the other cards in this reading will show and indicate…

The offer is about both growth and empowerment, but other cards in the reading indicate it could be a new relationship too, where growth & empowerment will be important throughout that relationship

The card is VICTIM – but this indicates I could be the victim of my own inability to see that I am worthy of this potential offer or relationship!

4 – The Spirit of the Animals Oracle – I was only meant to draw one card from this pack but 3 fell when I had barely shuffled after asking my question and I read them all as I felt an instinct to do so! 

4.1 BEE – COMMUNITY

The bee indicates an increase in communication, community spirit or social matters in my life.

It is also a powerful manifestation card, meaning that something I have wanted a long time is coming to me. 

It is also a card meaning reward, gifts or an offer.

This is another reason why I believe it is a new relationship coming into my life and they are coming with an offer that will change my life.

4.2 GRIZZLY BEAR – POWER

The grizzly bear shows me that there is an increase in my personal power coming soon, or a person coming into my life that has a lot of personal power.

If it is a person coming into my life, this person is strong, powerful, protective and loving towards me. 

4.3 EAGLE – MASTERY

To have two eagles from two different packs indicates an increase in all the eagle energies of the reading, so it is intensified.

But this particular oracle deck suggests that this card for this reading mainly indicates letting go of the past.  This is yet another reading I have had a lot of in the past nine weeks about how my life is going to be turned literally upside down but for the better in every possible area of my life!

All previous readings I have had from the past few weeks indicated to me that November 2022, February 2023, July 2023 and September 2023 are all going to be major months in my life with big upheavals or events.  In a previous reading it indicates in July 2023 there will potentially be immigration, leaving my homeland not just the house but the whole country!  But I have no plans for that – yet… what’s changing?  Well another reading a few days ago showed me that July 30th could be a wedding date, now that’s super-fast, if this is a new relationship that’s happening!

5 – Tea Leaf Fortune Cards by Rae Hepburn

I dropped 2 from the first of two piles.  I read them both.

5.1 DRAGON

Beware of self-delusions.  This is another card which has indicated the above again… I have a hard time accepting when anything good happens to me, I am always expecting a trick behind it, you know?

5.2 CLUB

Someone will make a decision for me or will force me to make a decision or do something – again, a decision to react.

Pile 2 is next as this is a huge deck that needs to be split…

5.3 BUTTERFLY

A change for the better! 

Again over the past three months, I have got a lot of cards about how I am going through a major transformation.

I thought it would be interesting to let you know how these cards were arranged so far…

The bee had the dragon underneath it – which shows that the decision I have to make, I will probably not feel worthy of again, so this is definitely a major message here.

The grizzly bear had the club directly underneath that, which is kind of scary when you see a grizzly bear with a club in its hands!  Lol – but on a serious note, this is about power play, someone wants a decision and they might not be afraid to make it for me if I am too insecure or dithery about it.  Remember this person indicates a loving, strong and protective person.

The eagle has the butterfly underneath it, which shows us that I will be letting go of the past because of a major transformation happening in my life, the transformation is happening because of this major decision and potential alliance/relationship and I am required to have courage and move onto greener pastures.

So that’s what’s going to be happening in the next four weeks according to my oracle cards of the reading. 

The tarot decks will be done in part 2.

Thank you for reading!

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Filed under cosmic ordering

Feb 1st 2022 update

I kept my promise, despite having an ear and headache to keeping to my plans that from the first of February this year, I will write a minimum of 1k words per day towards one set novel, rather than a bunch of them; because I am trying to live by “The One Thing” principle for a while to see how much of a difference it would make to my productivity as a writer.

Today I have written 1354 words towards the dragon fantasy novel, but instead of working for two solid hours like I had planned, I felt in order to prevent burn out – I would stop any time after 1k words if I felt I am getting bored or tired of being in this writing position.  Therefore I wrote 1354 words in just one hour and twenty minutes, with a ten minute toilet break in that, so it wasn’t completely tied to the chair.

I have moved in a different direction with this dragon story, focusing more on character development and even added a drama scene in there, which is not something I am known for.

But to me, it works and has made a vast improvement to the plot in general.  I feel this story has a firmer future than before because of it and it has given me more freedom to give the characters a future in other potential books.  With that being said, this is going to written as a standalone; in case the publishers feel that there shouldn’t be an extension to this story.

Basically what I am trying to say is, this story is going to be more complete by the time I have finished it, without any questions needing answering if the publisher decides that this book should not be a series.

Also, I have noticed that my chapters are shorter than usual because I have learned to condense down a lot over the past few months, which means that the size of the book I am writing will not be epic as I used to fear.

This has not affected the quality of the book negatively, but has improved it tremendously.

I do realise, even now, that there will be another draft, even though this is supposed to be the final draft, because after I had written the previous chapter, I realised there was a certain element I forgot to include in the story, a build-up, the tension was short, the backstory almost non-existent, this will just mean when I have finished this draft entirely  in a few weeks’ time, that I will need to add around three pages to make up for the little bits I missed out.

But I am making notes after I have written towards the draft, so I am not distracted from the writing process – this is another thing that is new to the way that I work on my novels.

I am still keeping a spreadsheet on how many words and minutes I write per day, this is excellent in showing me just how much I actually do, do.

I guessed at the end of January that I wrote around 5 to 8k and only for around ten days of the month, but as it turned out, I realised going back to the spreadsheet that I wrote 36k words all told and wrote for fourteen days throughout the month.

Much more than I realised, it is a confidence booster, it also shows me that there was a time where I thought I didn’t write for two days last month but it was actually five solid days where I didn’t even type one word!

It is a real eye opener!

So, with that being said, I will keep you updated day to day as I am writing.  But remember, I have Fridays and Saturdays as my weekend, where I do not intend to write anything and I have scheduled in holidays where I allow myself the time off from writing altogether, unless I feel otherwise.  My first holiday from writing will be the last week of February, because this is the time Henry has time off from school and I would like to dedicate my time to him.

Happy reading everyone!

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Filed under About my work

My brain takes me here…

They say that the books you love to read, the movies you love to watch and the things that stick with you the most can be seen in your own writing. 

What you love is often reflected in your writing and once you know yourself well enough you write better.  Once you throw yourself into all of your passions and are writing things based on your passions or similar to your passions unashamedly, you will develop your style and you will therefore come across as unique and fresh in the genres you write.

As long as you stay true only to yourself, do not write for the market, write for you!

I hope this is true.  If it is, then you can more or less guess from my likes and dislikes what could end up being in my novels.

I don’t like to be predictable though, but it is true that there is a little of what I love in everything that I do

Below is a list of stories, books or movies in which I mentally visit and live in a lot, for some reason or another, I am dragged back there to relive scenes or add new ones in my mind.  However, I never write those reimagining’s down through fear of becoming a fraud!  Though I have sometimes thought about doing fanfiction!

1922 By Stephen king – this story in particular has actually influenced a horror I am writing, which is based around a well in a garden too, funnily enough.  But the story concept is poles apart besides the setting of a well. 

Spider By Hanns Heinz Ewers – Every time I see a spider I remember the story.  Every time I see a woman working at a loom or spinning yarn, I think of this story.  You would think that wouldn’t be very often then, but I know a lot of prepper, homesteading type ladies who do this regularly.  I have wanted to do this myself; I have always wanted to make my own felt too. 

The complete collection of The Wizard of Oz By Frank L Baum – So many imaginative things in all the stories, living china dolls, servant monkeys, it’s absolute joy!  The landscape descriptions, oh my word, they are divine, I just can’t help but bring myself back to those scenes. 

Smoke and Mirrors By Neil Gaiman – So many lovely stories and poems in this book, I presume they are poems in any case?  I see them as such, I love the prose, I just love the way he writes!  It is very soulful writing. 

The man in the picture By Susan Hill – This is the only book in my entire reading history, of such length, that I have read and could not put down even for a toilet break!  It is just so gripping and I loved it, it had a similar air to Dorian Grey, but in my opinion much better executed.  I love Venice, never been, but still, always wanted to, love with a passion masquerades and carnival life. 

Matilda By Roald Dahl – Ever since I was little, since Victoria Wood read this on TV I have loved this story and nagged my mum in buying me the book, but she never did.  I must have borrowed this book a hundred times from the library before I became an adult and bought it as part of a trilogy compilation.  How I wished that my soul got angry enough with the people in my life that I could play with the supernatural like she did!  It may have solved a lot of my childhood problems, or created worse ones, who knows? 

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – Very alike to Wizard of Oz, the scenes are great, but I also like crazy characters, madness or at least the descent into it ideas.  I love kooky takes on animal and plant life and this was such a joy to behold.  The artwork etc, I love everything about Alice in Wonderland and I have an addiction to collecting Alice in Wonderland novelties.  There were times I pranced around in life hoping I fell down a hole where things were very different too. 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – If you can actually manage to read the whole book and get past the awful main scene, you will actually find this book very deep on an emotional level that is not just traumatic, but beautiful too.  If you read deeply, push past the horrible stuff, it is very meaningful.  How the dead view the living, how the living cannot move on until the dead does, what dead children do in the heavens.  Living out their wildest imaginations; yes, a lot of it is weird and sickening, but I urge you to try and edit those horrible bits out of your mind and read it without those bits.  It takes strong stuff to do that, I know!  But honestly, it is a lovely book besides. Try to skim the nasties.   

Confessions of an ugly step-sister by Gregory Maguire – I love Cinderella anyway, but this plot was good and more to the way that I thought it was behind the scenes.  I love how I learned real history in this book too, the bit about the tulips in Holland.  By the way, that’s another addiction I have – tulips.

I.T By Stephen King – I used to be scared of clowns, big time, before I even learned about Pennywise, but it is funny to actually say that I loved the character Pennywise so much it lessened my fear of them.  Weird I know!  In the past two years in particular, I have lost my fear of clowns entirely and now enjoy them, in fact, they are becoming the main projects for my art!  I just hate the scene of little Georgie.

The Mad Max Movies – I have a thing for life on the road, roguish living, post-apocalyptic tribal societies and the general chaos of survival as whole societies descend into madness.  For this reason too, I think I like the next movie;

Reign of fire movie – I love subterranean settings and when you throw in dragons in a post-apocalyptic world I am in my element. 

Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins is another subterranean setting I love, full of gothic elements such as bats, rats, roaches and gore with an edge of the apocalypse feel to it. 

The Blue Bird starring Shirley Temple – this has been in my mind since I was a very small child, a lot of things about this movie can be seen in small snippets of some of my work.  I have mentioned Old father time and I have cats and dogs which can take on a human form, children trapped in dream time in a couple of my stories to date so far.  No Spoilers, because they were just passing things in the plot, not the actual plot at all.

The Karnstein Trilogy – I love this much more than Dracula, I love the movies and the books they were based on.  I loved it so much that I had been heavily influenced by this trilogy my whole life; I have had to be careful when writing my vampires in fear of coming off as a plagiarist.  You may see what I mean with what I mentioned in “The Blue Bird” paragraph.  I have had to learn to chop up everything I love and move them around genres and different stories, like some experimental stir fries. 

I shall write about the tropes and scenes and types of characters I like in future posts – keep eye out for those!

Happy reading! 

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Filed under About Me

To pants or not to pants that is the question…

“I don’t think I really want to wait for NaNoWriMo to start this new story idea, but would it be considered cheating if I started this early?”

This was posted on my twitter @CreativeTardy yesterday and I can only imagine my friends sitting there staring at their screens in disbelief shouting “oh, for fucks sake, just start, will you!”

Well, you see, I have never been one for breaking the rules… well… certain rules.

“Bloody Hell, what rules?  Fuck rules! Just get on with it, creativity has no blooming rules”! 

OK, tone down the language please.  No these are not real actual replies on twitter… but, I do know there are friends who talk like this to me from time to time in private.

I frustrate them no end, I can see that it takes a lot for the poor dears not to slap me one when I get like this!

 Usually I plan my stories a little.  I have certain ideas about what I would like to include in the story and the types of characters even if I have no idea of the direction of the book, I usually have some sort of idea about some of the future of the story before I write it – sometimes I don’t know how the stories end, sometimes I don’t know the middle but I know its beginning and end.  I don’t usually pants it, as the NaNoWriMo vernacular goes, I am or was a planner.

I am thinking this new story idea called Dragon 2 will be totally and completely pantsed, but I am fighting against it at the same time.

I am, in my personal life, a little bit of a control freak – I don’t like micromanaging people, I am not that type of control freak, but I like things organised and simplified in my own personal life and I don’t like surprises!  I am prone to panic attacks when surprises jump out at me, my brother often described me to his friends as the “rabbit in headlights”.  I am the sort of annoying person who always asks for reassurance and a reminder of what to expect at certain events and so on and Paul has a lot of patience with me as he tells me for the fifth time that day that it will assuredly be such and such.  I am only like this in certain things, not everything.  I am not constantly like this throughout my life, just things that could potentially… terrify me. 

Funnily enough, I am not somebody who suffers from stage fright or being surrounded by large groups of people, especially people I know even a little bit.  I am not like that.  I am more likely to be jittery around small circles of people I hardly know or never met and I am more likely to be this way around my birthday, Christmas, parties hosted by other people I don’t know well or anything regarding health… occasionally I can be like this when food shopping, I don’t like being around small groups of strangers alone, at all.

Never really understood why – but Paul reckons it has a lot to do with things that have happened in my past with my mother.  My mother is usually antagonistic with strangers especially if she feels there are no witnesses to dispute what happened!  She often dragged me along with her for whatever ride she hoped to have from the event she caused.

I like to be organised – artist friends are astounded at how neat my areas are when they used to visit, how as I painted I would wipe up spills and go back and forth from the kitchen cleaning the water jars I used as I did my work.

Reader friends who note my bookshelves look twice at my shelves and cannot believe that my books are in genre and alphabetical order and that I had at the time eleven bookcases around the house, now I have twelve.

I also have around thirty box files all with different genre story ideas, poems, research files etc., those are not in order at the moment because I am struggling for space and that is damaging my mental health no end, the torment knowing that those are not in order when everything else is – it makes my writing work very hard!

They mostly reside on the upstairs landing balancing on our very wide bannister at the top, that acts like a half wall and guests who use our bathroom sometimes sheepishly quiz us on why there is a box marked vampires and another marked dragons by the bathroom door?

One such visitor joked that they thought perhaps I was some kind of cryptozoologist as a secret life.

No, but it would be interesting…

I know I was a pantser before 2006, but I was told that planning is key, strangely enough my writing habits have been declining slowly ever since! So I became a planner, I know being a pantser should be as easy as it was in the past, but I don’t really know anymore.

Anyway, back to the NaNoWriMo story – I would like to start in a few days’ time, but at the moment I am trying to decide whether I should plan the characters and some of the scenes now or let it flow naturally?

Paul suggests naturally – but I have never worked that way before… I have had a lot of dreams regarding this book; a lot of the dreams suggest it will be very successful if only…

Happy reading!

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