Being the balance

I will only talk about the progresses of my novels from now onwards and I am not going to reveal as much as I have over the past few months, because of good advice from a published author friend of mine.

I will go back to my outlines I used to do a year ago, I won’t go into depths about the inspiration and so forth as it is too revealing and some people have rightly guessed what some of my work might be before it has even got out there and has played with the ideas themselves.

This hurts – but I knew I shouldn’t have done that, but the writing community aren’t social with those who conceal their work too much, I can see why actually.

In fact people have been using my poems as prompt ideas on their own pages and some are using them as short stories for their blogs.  Shame people can’t think for themselves – but never mind.

Recently I have been trying to learn how to write in comic and graphic novel formats as well as learning the business side of writing, because despite my obstacles, I am still determined to do something with my creativity.

The obstacles are increasing, there is nothing I can do with that, because the biggest obstacle is a toxic atmosphere with a family that just can’t get along with each other and I am in the thick of it being forced to be piggy in the middle a lot of the time.

But enough of that – I am not going to lose focus today.

I am trying ear plugs upstairs and I am trying to get used to writing without my usual stimulus of music and I have to say it’s hard.  Silence gives me a headache, I’ve never liked long bouts of silence, I am weird like that, and about an hour is all I can take when I am awake – when I am asleep, silence helps me but other than that – no thanks.

If I am ever unfortunate enough to lose my hearing I know I’ll go madder.

I am in terrible need of good luck with these new tactics.

Especially as only thirty minutes in writing just this and a poem beforehand, Henry rushes into the room makes me take my ear plugs out because he wants to talk to me about wrestling news for the umpteenth time today!

He knows I follow the wrestling news on Twitter, I don’t need this!

It’s hard to stay happy and positive for him when it happens so often, but I have to put on a false happy face for him and tolerate it because there is no balance with the other parent for him – I have to be that balance or my child would fall apart faster!

I have to be happy to see him, be the smile he needs and give him those hugs he requires.  The guilt is too much on the times when I snap because I just want to work!  Those times are Hell because Henry will go off; rightfully upset about the rejection and then his dad sets on him like a raging Rottweiler for twenty minutes solid and there’s a screaming match.  There is no civility between them and there is no compassion from Paul to Henry.

That’s what I am living with.

I said I wasn’t going to lose focus, but look what just happened! 

I have to re-read what I have said because I’ve lost my flow, its worse when its fiction, it’s hard to get that flow back, because sometimes I believe the stories I write might be channelled by some spirits of bygone authors as some of the ideas are too clever to come from me!  I’m not smart enough to write like that on my own volition!

So yeah, ear plugs help when they’re killing each other downstairs but it doesn’t stop them barging into the room with news.

My AD project is still in my head and not fully on paper yet, I will get there, my steampunk will get done as will my Christmas and Easter project, because these ones are the ones driving me into the asylum as they don’t want to be ignored!

Actually being driven into an asylum might be beneficial for me because at least I can write in relative silence because I’d ask to sit in the library with my laptop to write as part of my creative healing process.  They have libraries in asylums you know; well they did the last time I was in one, when I was a teenager.  I don’t think they’d allow the lap top though, because some doctors believe any outside link could cause setbacks.

Funnily enough I am trying to be upbeat about it all and ironic, lol.

Today I am in a pickle, I have these tools to get around the interruptions, but I want to write towards two things at once and it’s the decision I am battling with.

Something instinctively tells me that the AD project needs to be the priority because this one is going to be a huge success, but I can’t help but think about playing with the Easter idea as the main character is just super fun!

As much as I want to write the Easter project, I can’t listen to the music I want to whilst I do that today – so, meh, has to be project AD right now I guess?

Thanks for reading!

About my deafness

I think it was a 48 hour cold, though I am still a bit chesty but I am getting over it faster than I usually do – perhaps maintaining this high protein diet has helped?  I don’t know, but I do know that along with that I primarily drink water, green tea or lemonade instead of Pepsi and coffees these days.

I have been very tired and I feel as though I should sleep a lot, because I sense something is going to happen soon where I will be on my feet a lot of the time and I won’t have time to dilly dally anymore and laze around.

I haven’t a clue why my instinct is telling me, get all the sleep you can right now so you can be prepared for what’s coming!

I just hope it’s not going to be too much for me, whatever it is!

I have been bed and housebound sick for eight years now and it has only really been since Easter that I have managed to do approximately 45 minutes away from a chair at any one time.  What the blazes is coming into my life?

Whatever it is, I hope I ease into it and not get exhausted by it!

I really can’t think what it can be.

Puzzling, but my instincts are to be trusted, because I’ve ignored them in the past and I have been very sorry about it too!

But I have had this feeling about sleeping a lot for two weeks now.  But I hate sleep.

I have never been a person who loves their bed; unless there is some sort of activity going on if you get my drift?

I find it hard to sleep more than six hours unless I am unwell, simply because I am paranoid about missing out on something or not doing something I want to do.

In any case, I am glad things aren’t getting worse.  I was getting worried last night because two huge zits appeared on my face and I thought I might have had some kind of pox, monkey pox or something – but it was just the two and I seem to feel ok.  They are embarrassing though, not used to getting zits in that particular place of the face, weird!  Though upon reflection two nights ago I had an unusual amount of dairy in my diet for me – fatty foods can do that!

I am not happy about being requested to sleep more, but there you go. 

I also wanted to point out that I am deaf as many of you know – but I am not a signer.  I thought I had better put that out there as someone indicated they were worried about not being able to communicate with me offline.  I am fine, just follow these rules;

I can’t hear you if your back is turned away from me.

I can’t hear you if you cover your mouth.

I can’t hear you if you stand to my right – my right ear is completely dead and can’t have a hearing aid there.

Stand to my left and face me when you talk to me as I have a hearing aid sometimes – I don’t need it all the time as my left ear hearing fluctuates a lot due to the auto-immune inner ear problem I have.

Let me read your lips

Don’t take me to places that echo as the vibrations get distorted and I get disoriented and anxious.

You don’t need to sign for me, because I don’t understand it much.

But if I can’t wear a hearing aid because of infection in the left ear, you may need to shout or use a mini white board!

I am eligible for a hearing dog, but I don’t have one.

I can’t use a phone unless it’s very loud or on loud speaker – preferably a zoom call or something is better for me if there is no lag – for lip reading!

I rely on hearing people to take phone calls on my behalf, as a lot of places in authority and finance do not have alternatives for the deaf, yet – which is bloody disgusting!

On a positive note, when I get 10k – if I ever get 10k I can have surgery to repair my hearing in the right ear, all I need are ossicles, little bones to help vibrate sound and a new tympanic membrane.

Thanks for reading!

Brain hurricane season

It’s what time of year again, a time I call “Brain Hurricane Season”.

What is Brain Hurricane Season?

Brain hurricane season happens approximately twice a year for three weeks and inundates me with new story ideas that I have to plan out; but they come so fast I often have to pause current projects and oftentimes I never get to write all the stories I dream up!

The catalyst for this brain hurricane season was an idea I had for Marvel, thanks to discussion Henry’s friends had about Iron Man.  Can he be saved or not?  Is there hope?  I did some research but not much, only about four hours and I have got side-tracked by other things.  But still, interesting stuff nonetheless.  I need to get watching the last two movies though to fully understand what the kids are on about.

Anyway, the kids moved on and now they’re talking about three or four other Marvel movies, such as hearing rumours that Tom Hardy is giving up Venom, is that true?  I did some research and it doesn’t appear to be!  We’re big Venom fans here in this house, it is a recent movie that made us cry laughing – it was so funny!

So I can blame this little bit of research and playground gossip on being the catalysts for my brain hurricane season.

Turns out some of the new ideas are connecting to a current project; my so-called standalone Christmas novel is now going to be part of a small series, hence why subconsciously I have been holding off it for a while.  I thought it was just Christmas music as to why I couldn’t write it.

For some reason or another, the Christmas novel is going to contain poems and songs and is going to be connected to another story about Candyland and The Easter Bunny.  This idea was brand new on the 16th October 2022 and will be known as my Easter Project.

I think another catalyst to all this is the fact that Henry and I realised we listen to a lot of songs related to candies and chocolates and so we created a playlist last month called “Candy” on our only luxury, Amazon music.  It’s funny what the brain does when you listen to certain types of music!

Henry is excited by my new plans as he loves movies about candies and anything Willy Wonka related, he just loves food that kid!  But put it in a dream world where you are having adventures it gets him all excited, but my Henry is ever the businessman – he said to me “ma, think of the merchandise”, oh yes, he is already acting like my manager!  I just wish he would let me write!

I have also decided that although I love writing horror, I want to downplay the gore and darkness of it to make them into family friendly Halloween style stories, as I have decided to focus mostly on family entertainment more than just doing whatever I feel like doing at the time.

I sat back and thought the other day about what kinds of responses from fans will I enjoy the most?  I thought, I love kids, the kids of the world mean everything to me and I am most likely to respond to a child in full if they ran up to me.

Then I had the idea of, wouldn’t it be cool if I became a bestseller and I had mini merchandise toys in my handbag of the characters I wrote and handed them to a kid who recognised me on an off chance?

Thanks to Henry I am thinking about the other business behind writing, not just the book sales now.  Good to think big I suppose?

So I decided, well then, that settles that, I am writing for family entertainment with kids in mind and my inner child has been singing about it all day!

It means I can be more light-hearted and playful and I love seeing kids laugh! 

My inner child has also been insisting that I revert back to being a nine year old but I told it, OK, on some conditions… we don’t eat like we did when we were nine years old and we don’t laugh hysterically in people’s faces when we are nervous and put on a show for them and then hide behind the sofa because you forgot your senses and realised what a nitwit you made yourself out to be!

My inner child nearly cried, I was too harsh to it, so that’s why I said sorry to it and gave it 4 individual jelly babies to make up – she wants the whole bag, I said no, she cries and I am trying to ignore it – it’s for her own good!

I am not saying I can give up horror for good though, adult horror that is, because it’s a major part of me – but it’s just not as big as it used to be in my heart anymore as I am healing a lot of my darkness lately.

All I really want in life now onwards is light hearted fun, lots of love, good friends and a comfortable home, health would go a long way too – but hey, I am working on it!

There is a children’s picture book series brewing in my head too, for kindergarten age.  It’s about a friendly community of monsters that are friends with each other. 

Another story is about an angel who decides to become interviewed by a chat show.

So many new things coming to me and this is only the start of the Brain Hurricane Season, I still have two weeks to ride out, if this is a normal storm!

I wanted to do NaNoWriMo this year, but there are lots of problems in the family right now where I can’t concentrate on more than a paragraph or two per day; so this year I am just not going to bother.

I really wanted a project completed by now, but it wasn’t meant to be, I guess.

To be perfectly honest, I am losing hope to do anything creative these days as I am simply not allowed the time to myself to do anything.

I can’t rely on working on anything whilst Henry is at school, because at any moment Henry is sent home early in the day and I lose my flow.  He is being sent home as often as twice a week!

Since Henry overheard the school suggesting he has an autism assessment, Henry seems to have taken it upon himself to emotionally play up all the more, like he enjoys the attention he is getting about it.  Henry is really play acting towards the teachers concerns and I have told him, this is a dangerous game for his life long-term, but he thinks it’s all a game!

I suggested to Paul he is only doing this so he can be sent home from school to create his robots all day long and play for twelve hours a day on that darn laptop of his!  When he is sent home from school, we should ban him from TV, laptop and his robots until his proper home time comes.  But then Henry plays the suicide card and Paul relents and lets him have the things!

Then I hear the arguments and screams between the two of them because they are getting in each other’s way, and Paul can’t move around the house because of the mess Henry is causing!  I try my best to help, but every time I open my mouth it just fuels the fire in the both of them! 

I tried to take myself upstairs to my bedroom to write upstairs, but they shout so loudly to one another so often, it’s hard to drown them out unless I put earphones on and I don’t like to do that because of increased ear infections. 

I am dying of embarrassment because neighbours walk cautiously past the house, staring at it because of the hysterical screaming that goes on consistently.  I tell them about it, but Paul and Henry are so self-absorbed, they just don’t really care. 

I hate this kind of environment, it doesn’t help my PTSD at all, in fact I am often drained and can’t eat because of the stress of it all, because a lot of the huge arguments are at dinnertime at the dining table and nobody can eat when this goes on! 

I don’t wear my hearing aid when Henry is home, because to be perfectly honest I don’t need it – that’s how loud things are here as soon as he gets home.  Besides, there are times Henry will randomly screech loudly for the slightest thing and it blooming hurts if I have it in my ear at the time!  I even lost hearing a couple of years back where Henry did a screech so loud my ear bled, found out I had a perforation over it!  Henry was two feet from me at the time! 

This is what I am living with.  It’s not excuses to not working, you have to be here to experience it for yourself, because I am telling you, it’s constant!

I do most of my blog posts when they are all in bed at night; this means my sleeping pattern is badly out of sync for a healthy and social lifestyle.  My sleeping hours are anything between 3am and 1pm depends on the day!  Mostly its 4am to 10am, not enough I know, but what else can I do?

I rarely watch TV as nobody respects the fact I want to watch something, reading is getting less and less for the same reason – practising art is almost non-existent, my meditations are slowly going out of the window… it’s tough to have a decent life here on any level!  Even when I am asleep, from 7am until I wake up, someone checks in on me every 45 minutes waking me up, so it’s not even undisturbed sleep.

Lately Henry’s behaviour has been so bad, that I have often forgotten to take my meds because he has been so demanding! 

Anyway, just a heads up about why I can’t finish things.  Never used to be this way! 

Happy reading! 

Weekly prompt 2

This week’s word prompts are – London – An Emperor – Easter – Windstorm – Rocket

Interesting and remember to think outside of the box with these prompts; an emperor for example might not be a ruler, but an emperor penguin or a tarot card or an emperor butterfly.  A rocket might be a spaceship, a firework or the English name for a spicy lettuce leaf known as arugula – but also consider this, Easter is also a girl’s name and a variant of an ancient goddess which is more commonly known as Ishtar.

Marshmallow World Review

One of my most favourite songs for the imagination at Christmastime is “Marshmallow World” lyrics written by Carl Sigman, the music by Peter DeRose and was a hit sung by Bing Crosby in 1949.
It captured me with the descriptions of landscapes of snow being of marshmallows, whipped cream and sugar. I often wonder if that is where Roald Dahl got his inspiration for Willy Wonka from; it isn’t very difficult to see why.
I myself have often seen in my mind similar landscapes for a certain story I love writing. Though I am not too happy about getting that particular story published as to me it is just overly descriptive with no real plot, though I often thought about making a story based around an Easter world.