How to kill an artist

There is a broken bridge in the creative heavens

Where creators steal other worlds

Make them their own and change things

Make them straight when they ought to be curled

It’s a tragedy to see it

When a creator can’t create

For they need to take another’s work

To put food on their plates

How proud do they feel when they do it?

Does it feed their soul?

I live in doubt of the truth of that

If I may be so bold?

How hungry is the creator who takes another’s art?

How starved and deranged are they? 

If they could eat another’s heart!

For I have seen it happen

The scope of vicious duels

Of two creators in battle

For one who won’t use their tools

And I have seen the tragedies it causes in their lives

As depression rips them soundly, as though they’re stabbed with knives

They can’t live with what they do and they know it’s wrong and bad

But they can’t help it really and that’s what makes it sad

To kill another artist for the want of fame and gold

It pounds reality into me

And makes my blood run cold

Moledro what’s that?

Moledro

“n. a feeling of resonant connection with an author or artist you’ll never meet, who may have lived centuries ago and thousands of miles away but can still get inside your head and leave behind morsels of their experience, like the little piles of stones left by hikers that mark a hidden path through unfamiliar territory.”

A beautiful notion I’m sure, it is a new word I learned through an acquaintance on Twitter the day before I left the site for good. 

It’s interesting and inspiring to think that some artists and authors have the skill to be read and noted centuries down the line like this, but it seems only a small margin get the opportunity to have that effect on the world and we will never know if we will be one of those people, for life is cruel and short like that.

Some people are very fortunate in that they could predict they’d be like that someday, because they have been made a big thing of before they die – but most teeter on usually without the vain slither of hope that it will ever be them.

Some, who experience this kind of fame during life, often remain in denial of their talent and so they don’t get to enjoy it whilst they can.

I have experienced moledro with a couple of authors who aren’t widely known or popular – I found their books through Goodreads giveaways before they closed them off to the UK and I found them on kindle really cheap – attempts at vanity publishing, I presumed because they gave up trying traditional publishers after many years of failure.

Here’s one that I can remember Alex Weinle, his book The Decapaphiliac: or love in the time of cappuccinos, it is an anthology of fantasy stories and in my opinion he is very similar to Neil Gaiman, though more macabre.

There are many others that have never been traditionally published where their stories have gripped my imagination so much so, that I still cannot believe why they are not huge household names by now?

An amazing short story I read in a magazine once by an author I can’t remember the name of – where an angel was attacked by a demon on Earth and she had her wings ripped off her and she was found by a mortal man who took her in and had a relationship with her – suffering from depression as she pretends to be a troubled mortal.  Eventually her stepdaughter found her wings in the closet and the story had ended and I thirsted for more.  Why was it so short, why wasn’t this writer known?

Moledro, do you have an infatuation with an author?  Are they still alive?  Are they traditionally published yet?  Let me know in the comments below about any gems you have found and let’s help these people build their confidence as a writer and get them to try again shall we?

Thanks for reading!

Flux to Fluck?

I am in a flux today.

I am experiencing deep depression and high motivation and there is no real in-between.

On one hand I feel extremely down and tearful and struggling to even think that I’d get to April and on the other I feel pumped to exercise and morph my body over a time into how I really want it to be.

I’ve been staring in a mirror for months trying to see myself through other people’s eyes and occasionally I see something, but then I move my head a certain way and the ugly comes back to haunt me.

So, exercise raises endorphin levels when you do it after a time, but it’s getting the will to get up and just move today that’s eating at me.  Because I just want to hide under my fleece blanket and cry about things, cry deeply – I’m wearing hoodies a lot lately to hide the fact I’m crying so much to other members of the household.

They really haven’t noticed, perhaps my friend is right – I’d be a good actress?  Who knows!

When I have got used to never dreaming because things never happen for me, someone comes along and tells me that life is soon to be great and it’s like another tease.  More disappointment for the future and more broken dreams and an even more shattered heart – that’s the forecast for me I think.

I used to be a positive person, a Pollyanna and I used to tick people off with my ray of sunshine and words of encouragement – it’s like someone was bothered by it so much they’ve cursed me!

I’m told regularly, I will have great things because I have a great talent and this person and that person likes you – it’s all bullshit really, because I haven’t seen these people tell me things.

There are lots of talented people in the world who don’t have those great things – I’m not the only one and it’s not things that I want.  It’s love.

A few rich men haven’t got that into their thick heads yet – they think they can seduce me with things, but they can’t.

Why are the simplest things in life so hard to obtain?  A persons time, snuggles; words of love, support and encouragement, a good time and a laugh without judgement?

A tactile relationship that feels real and not based on lies and broken promises, a relationship where we encourage each other, instead of one of us being a sponge and draining the life out of the other in order to make the other one feel better?

I know I have had a life of abuse, but it sounds strange to roll this off the tongue, but I was always a happy kind of person, known for being bubbly and friendly and since I’ve moved here slowly and steadily I am being drained of life.

I remember before I moved here that I could never imagine the day I’d die, I was scared of death and wanted to be immortal – but now I crave death.  It’s so contrast!

My willpower for survival is weakening.

Paul told me the other day that when a problem used to occur when I first moved in and I wasn’t moved by it and stayed relaxed and the same, that it bothered him, frustrated him even.  Now, whenever there is a problem I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, where a problem can become a huge drama quite quickly and it’s a big contrast and he thought that I’d be more supportive and take it more seriously, but instead it’s made me fall apart.

I know why.

When I lived with my parents, emotions were not tolerated if it made a person loud or unmanageable and unproductive. 

When I came here, it’s ok to be loud, shouting, ranting and raving at the slightest problem and to not let go.

I’m a huge empathic sponge, I soak up the energies of people around me and become like them – I’m a spiritual chameleon of sorts.  This is why it’s essential I remove myself from this environment somehow, but it’s difficult when the energies around me are apathetic, depressed, defensive and aggressive.

On the rare occasion a visitor comes who is of lighter energy, it rubs off me quickly and I feel like the old me again – their energy can boost me for a couple of days in fact, but it never lasts.

I remember having such high energy when I first moved in that I drained Paul instead.  Paul looked awful and exhausted all the time.  Because I was always on my feet, being bubbly, finding joy in the smallest thing like a child in a candy store, no matter what happened in life – everything was like a novelty to me and it was.

Because I rarely got to choose anything and go out when I lived with my parents.

I had comments from Paul that I looked at the world in childlike wonder and innocence and that I was so excitable, he kept telling me to slow down, calm down, sit down, lie down, everything had to come down.

Till I emotionally fell down and can barely get up with the weight of it all.

Words can’t describe how I truly feel – all of this feels like intense whining of a bitter heart who hates the world for the joy it has because she hasn’t got it.  Jealous slurs, that’s probably what you’re thinking about this post right now.

If you aren’t thinking that, then I apologise.

Art would show the world more of what I feel inside, but then again I can’t use my art table right now can I?

I really miss doing art.

I think the reason why I look younger than forty is because as tragic as it sounds I cry so much my tears sometimes dry on my face and make it feel taut after a while.  Like now, my face feels tight because the tears have dried.

I try to keep my sense of humour and find something to laugh about, which is part of the manic depression I have.  One minute extremely low and playing with sharp objects near my wrists and then the next moment cracking jokes about my darkness.

I might be depressed but with the tear treatment at least it keeps me young.  It’s a little light, but still gloomy and incredibly pitiful.

But that’s where I am today.

No in between – motivated to exercise and cry my heart out at the same time whilst being at my most deeply creative. 

Lack of sleep, slept four and a half hours again last night, my average for the past few weeks actually.

Motivated to exercise because I saw a glimmer of hope in the mirror the other day that I could look exactly like Diana Dors (Diana Mary Fluck) my main idol after all!  Just dye the hair, tone up and lose around forty pound and yes, I can see its possible I could be like her…

Maybe someday I will get myself out of this dump and sell my work and get myself a red dress covered in rubies and diamonds and wear a pretty wine coloured faux fur shrug with a silk ribbon?  Maybe someday I can walk in high heels without looking like a rookie tranny and actually be elegant and swan like?

Or maybe someday I will be found in a pile of my own poems covered in blood and white as snow, cold and still like ice and maybe my finders will publish my work for me and I will become posthumously famous?

Sods law that.

Thanks for reading…

Avoiding fate

I was chasing dreams that I only half want

I had to keep pushing because they haunt

And I can’t get away from what the fates have to say

I have to take it on the chin and let things be this way

Too many years I have pushed against it

Only to find I have leant against it

And to find that fate has moved my path

I am walking in a circle, please don’t laugh

I can’t get away from those things

The universe keeps making my path as rings

So I can’t walk away from the light and the fame

Because another path will be the same

Why can’t my fate be about love and togetherness?

I feel like a bird, but I am featherless

So I can’t fly to another path

I know it sounds stupid, so please don’t laugh

It has happened before

And I closed the door

To open another, only to find more

And I can’t believe how much this has happened to me

Constantly opening new boxes only to see

The same gift of life staring back at me

It’s a weird sort of thing a weird tragedy

My life is opened for all to see

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I agree

So should I give in, to what fate has to say?

Or can I escape this fate someday?

I don’t know, but I am giving up

The next door I open, I don’t think I’ll shut

Because the fates are determined this is what’s for me

Even though I partly don’t agree

So I will sulk on and open that door

Because I can’t keep on running anymore

Each time I close it, my life gets worse

It is like the fates have said, then be cursed

So I am terrified of closing that door

In case life gets worse, some more

So here I am, giving up with fate

Taking what’s given even though it’s late

Because I don’t need to make any more mistakes

So here I go…

Trusting fate

And no sooner had I finished this poem I saw the clock said 15:55 = 555 again.

Vanity & suppression

I have been thinking about the YouTube channel I am going to set up after Christmas a lot, I have been trying to think about what it should be mostly about.  People like themes, they don’t like random people no matter how authentic they are, or do they?

I mean, I like a lot of stuff and I would like to do a lot of stuff – I don’t want to be bored with the same old same old, you know?

I want to sometimes read out my poetry to people, I want to share gardening tips and recipes and my journey through weight loss and other things.  I don’t want to just be a gardening vlog, or a beauty and fitness vlog or a writing vlog.  I want to do the whole caboodle, now people say, sure you can do this but have multiple channels, but I don’t really want to do that.

If I had multiple channels, then I will need to film and edit every day for a once a week post on each and that is taking up more time than I want to do.

Plus I am none too thrilled about the editing process, I hate doing anything technical for too long.

One of my biggest desires in having a YouTube channel is to visibly show people my weight loss, fitness progresses.  But contrary to that there are two things I hate about it… the fame this could give me and the fact I have to show my fat ugly body and face on the camera, or else, what am I showing?

I’m paranoid enough without being famous!

Seriously, you have no idea how paranoid I am when a stranger points and looks like they are talking about me.  I mean… I can’t cope now, let alone when I know they know me… you know… at least right now I can put it down to me being a schizoid, of course they aren’t really pointing at me…. Until they then call me fat ass to my face and I am like… ok I guess they were then, rude!

I keep my mouth shut to people who shout that at me, primarily because I want to live.  But inside I want to shout out “Like your lip will be if you carry on mate”!

If people knew the attitude that goes on inside my head, I would have been murdered years ago!

I don’t like the idea of going out dressed up in a headscarf and huge sunglasses and learning to turn my head away from anyone as I walk past them like some super international spy!   

I just want to dawdle down the street in my scruffs on a lazy day, walking a dog, without it being splashed on the papers “TC bad hair day” or “TC midlife crisis” you know.

But then again, there are days where the attention whore comes out and it’s like “for goodness sake notice me, notice me, stop ignoring me, why am I being ignored when I have just walked down the street looking like a bowl of fruit”?

Thing is, I do like attention if I have to be honest with you.  But the problem is, on my terms and the world doesn’t work like that!

Fame scares me because of the stupid lengths some journalists will go to for a good pic and a front page position in their newspaper; it’s disgusting what some people will do to advance themselves.

When I was little I was famous for a few months in North London as being a pageant queen stripped of her rightful prize because of nepotism in the judging panel.  I remember someone taking me by the hand to pull me away from my mum so they got a perfect shot of me, The Angel of Burnt Oak!

That scared me, let alone the incidences with a couple of my more famous relatives.

The universe has wanted me to be famous for a long time, but I have always fought it.  My grandmother and some of the Romany relatives we have often sat down having fortune telling annuals for the family and from the age of seven they have all been convinced I will be a huge name in the world someday; though they said I will be late in getting that name.  I will be in my early forties.

They suggested even back then, that I am destined for greatness, I will find greatness myself, but I will find someone equally great to spend my life with.  They warned me I would have a child with a man but then I would leave him to start a second family quite late in life. 

Though I would start all this late in life, my legacy would be huge and I would be like Shakespeare or Charles Dickens in how long my fame will last.

Vanity, I know – I know its vanity and I would hold my hands up and say, you think I am bad for this now?  You should have seen me when I was thinner and I felt prettier than I do now, then you’d know how vain I really can be!

I even have a playlist called “Vanity” where you will find songs on it such as “keep young and beautiful” by Annie Lennox, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile” by the musical Annie and “beautiful and dirty rich” by Lady Gaga!.

So yes vanity has always been part of what I call “my true” personality, but it has been badly abused and supressed over the years.  Make no mistake, I don’t think I am beautiful, but I do know there’s a lot of people who said I am and although I don’t believe them, I take their word for it; as the world isn’t generally nice about that sort of thing, unless it’s true and I know a lot of beautiful people who hate themselves too.

I used to obsess over my looks a lot because I can’t stand it when another woman notices; you forgot to do your eyebrows today, omg you have no lip liner, just lipstick? 

I can’t afford to be vain anymore; I don’t have the budget for it.  But when I got sick in 2014 I totally let myself go because my illness made me bedbound and for a while we thought I had some type of cancer, but it wasn’t. 

I also thought, nobody is interested in me with a child and I am approaching forty, why bother?  Especially with my baggage. 

But I have been doing a lot of inner child therapies lately and its waking the true me up again – I love it, but I also hate the idea of people seeing my changes and thinking I am trying too hard to impress others or that I am being pretentious, when in fact I am actually becoming my more authentic and very supressed self! 

As a child, before my mother started to peel me apart from the age of 7yrs I used to love standing in front of people performing for them, singing, acting, dancing, showing off and being my beautiful self in such cocky little way!  This I believe is one of the reasons behind why my grandad called me “cocker” because I was cocky before my mother got her nails into me!

It’s funny but I started to get fat around the time mum started to hate me and supress me, before that, when I had her love and support, I was blooming marvellous and hadn’t a care in the world, I could move mountains with my confidence. 

She insisted she needed to hold me down though, or I was going to the devil, she especially freaked out when I got the notion of burlesque – a thing I saw on TV thanks to my grandad and uncle watching it and predicting that will be me when I am older, mark their words! 

My grandma said if I turn out like that, I’d definitely be following her mother’s footsteps as she was a cancan dancer and burlesque performer!  Imagine that, my great grandma a cancan performer! 

As a child my biggest career dream was to be a fashion designer but my mother worked like a woodpecker on my confidence when she found this out and wouldn’t encourage anything that might be connected to fashion and destroyed my sense of self love as much as possible to get this stupid dream out of my head.

Yet, ironically, it was she who’d force me into the pageants until I became embarrassingly fat for her and she told me she was ashamed to be seen in public with me because of it.

So yes, given the right environment, the right sense of self, I am a vain creature and attention whore to boot and my mother did everything possible to knock me off the pedestal I was on, because she felt the way I was going my life would be filled with sin if she didn’t act cruel to be kind.

But I have tried hard not to be vain, narcissistic or to reach too high – because I can’t stand the reactions from people like my mother who are vitriolic and jealous or greedy to try and do something to you to either destroy you or make entertainment out of you.

I have to say it has been a battle that’s been with me my whole life.  I want to be this great person that everyone admires and to be beautiful and loved, but I also don’t want the evil that comes with it.  You know?

I am on a weight loss journey, so I can be whoever I want to be unashamedly and with a little extra confidence – I will never have oodles of confidence, but I am going to fake it until I make it and I want to be a butterfly or better yet, a peacock!

As I’ve said before, I have had to learn to do everything on an emotional level alone – no support – no friends, nada.

It’s scary to think of what I could be if I am still alone, you know?  I need security, I mean emotional security.  Yeah sure, physical security, physical assistance is in abundance in the world, but it’s the emotional security that really counts.

I’ve never been taught to cope with grief or have my grief acknowledged by anyone.  I was always made to feel bad and selfish when I was sad and grieving a loss.

Told I am a stupid girl who needs to snap out of it, snap out of the idea my grandpa has just died, the same grandpa who I lived with for the last 3 months of his life as he died of cancer right before my eyes!

10yrs old and all I got was a pat on the head from my dad, nothing else from anyone else, when grandpa died, when I was still tearful after three days, people became aggressive with me – get over it you stupid girl stop going on trying to get attention for yourself!

All I wanted was a cuddle, some kind words, but being raised by adults who are all self-absorbed, obviously they don’t think about anyone but themselves.  They might have been a close family in that we had a massive family extended for five or even six generations that still maintained contact, but they were not supportive of each other.  They were not the kind of family that pulled together to grieve and help each other, they all go off into their own small groups or by themselves and the children usually end up forgotten.

When raised by people like this, is it any wonder then, why I cry when a stranger shows me kindness and goes out of their way to be nice to me and sympathetic?

Because I am genuinely not used to being treated with any kind of humanity!

I was raised like a thing, not a person.

I remember when I was in therapy groups as a teenager, I remember joking with my peers about how I wasn’t raised I was dragged up and spat out, reeled in and clout, clout, clout.

My peers though knowing it to be tragic laughed, the therapists cried and some refused to treat me as my case was so specifically hard, they needed a lot of mental time off from work, as hearing what I went through, broke them.

It happened to a lot of therapists, I often had them in tears when I recalled my normal daily life and they’d have to end sessions early.  I tried my best actually to hold back a lot because I needed the therapy, but some of them insisted I didn’t – my mother did.

I remember one therapist in particular was so aggrieved by what I went through, she broke all protocol just to give me a long, long tight hug as she cried and she told me, she so desperately wants to get me away from my parents and adopt me.  Then she came to her senses and she couldn’t be in therapy with me alone anymore, she had to have a colleague with her to maintain a professional standard.  This woman worked tirelessly to try and have me removed from custody of my parents, but she failed.

I was weirdly happy with quite a bit of my childhood until I realised that my parents weren’t normal, after seeing so many professionals break like that.  I really thought it was normal that at 7am you’re kicked out into the garden until lunch time, made to entertain yourself when you’re not at school with only a dog and a rabbit as company or the elderly neighbours talking to you over a fence.

At 12:15pm daddy comes home for lunch, perfectly normal to cook for him and yourself, eat your lunch and get out into the garden by 12:45 again until you’re called in for dinner at 4pm same routine, mums working night shift, you got to cook for everyone – then outside again until 7pm.

I thought it was perfectly normal to only bath once a week and nothing else and that in the summer your bath became the kids paddling pool, but with soap!

Of course it’s not, I know that now, but back then, it’s normal life!

I remember my mum when I was of legal age to drink getting excited that I was of age to become her drinking partner at nightclubs, but I was terrified of going to places like that and refused to go.  She was disappointed, but still tried to have drinking nights in with a slap up meal with her mates and tried to make me drink alcohol with her – “here love, drink more of this, you are more human after you’ve got a drink down you, you’re so tight otherwise… go on have another and another”.

She nearly poisoned me one night when I gave in to every temptation.  I got so ill I nearly needed the hospital, the hallucinations were really, really bad – she said it was only alcohol, but I never really knew.

Dad was furious.

I still went with mum to her mates, but I started to insist control in my drinks and never trusted anything given to me after that – I wanted to know my orange was just orange and not some exotic new type that mysteriously contained vodka or gin that they didn’t tell me about.

I am not tight; I will drink, but not enough to get drunk.

So yeah, all sorts of things could end up on my vlog, but I won’t make it a sympathise with me vlog.  It will all be upbeat or informative, nothing dull, nothing depressing; it will be my happy place.

I was thinking about being 100% authentic on there, no matter how tragic it is.  Doing all sorts of things, whether I get laughed at or not, because no doubt I will because I am cheeky – I am self-deprecating and I do stupid things, I am accident prone, I am just not graceful and clueless… it will be hilarious. 

I mean the other day, I was putting on something really tight and I struggled and I was hopping around the room like a Chinese vampire, trying to heave these darn pants on and I fell ass over tit on my face!

Don’t be surprised if that happens in the vlogs if I am brave enough to show my face!

Henry forgot his password to his Roblox game review channel he had, where I’d comment from time to time funny little quips now and again, interrupting his shows and he said if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have had as many views – because a lot of people loved the mum stuff.

We thought at the time, Henry was a budding “Morgz” because he did a lot of stuff with his mum didn’t he?

Well this post is getting a bit long now, so I think I had better end it here, sorry about that, just so much on my mind tonight.

Thanks for reading!

Sods law

I believe I am writing daily to add towards my blog consistently for the past three to five months now, that I can now say I don’t believe that scheduled posts are any longer necessary.

I think that I can now write daily and publish daily, though no doubt I will have some things in drafts for when I think my immune system is going to have a hit again – talking of which I seem to be developing a really bad bacterial ear infection right now and a cold, so who knows what is going to happen in the next couple of days.

Expect up to four posts per day, but I will refrain from doing more – because I don’t want to overload my readers.  I will try to make a poem daily, but we’ll see. 

I do aim to do more prose like short stories in the future too.

I am saving up money for a passport as my instinct is telling me something is going to happen soon where a passport is going to be needed.  It will cost £85 I think and will take 10 weeks to get at the current length to get it.  You can fast track it for a week but there are specific requirements and I think it doubles the price too!

Thankfully one of my personal debts has gone, which means I have enough money to save per week.  Unfortunately it could mean I won’t get my passport before Christmas, but we’ll see.

I don’t like to spend money on things I don’t need, so I am unsure if I will spend money on the passport, unless I have some notion as to why my instinct is telling me I should do it.  So I am not going to be too hasty, because £85 is two weeks food money here, it’s a lot for nothing… if you get me?

So I am trying to save £5 a week for it, I have been trying to do this for a while now and I am currently the third of the way.  But as I said, I won’t get the passport until I know for sure; there is a reason to do so!

Another thing I am trying to do is to clear the house a lot more.  Sure, a lot of the things I am getting rid of, I still actually want to keep – but I am getting picky now.  I have a feeling that my time in the near future will mean that I will need things like that less and less because my time will be spent doing other things – so get rid of the stuff I won’t need in order to not only make more space, but not to become a hoarder. You know?

I like knitting and crochet, but I know that it causes the carpal tunnel syndrome to flare up, so I avoid that activity these days, I am debating with myself, should they go?  I know during the winter I knit myself fingerless gloves and hairpieces, because they can be done within the hour, but should I actually just say goodbye to that hobby?

There are lots of things I need to wave goodbye to, old clothes that are now too big on me, styles that were given to me by my mother a few years back… do I really want those hanging around in my cupboards?  No, I don’t, because I don’t intend to wear what she picked for me and I don’t intend to gain my weight back anytime soon either.

For the first time since Henry was three years old, I am nearly in the 16 stone mark, another two weeks and I should be there!  I have came down from being over 22 stone, it’s amazing – because I literally thought I was going to die and never be thin again.  You ask Paul, this time last year I was sure I was dying!

I think the reason why I got this big, this time around was because I was bedbound sick and I had the attitude of “well, I’m going to die anyway”. 

Seriously I used to think that, because my lungs were so badly damaged over the four pneumonia bouts I’ve had since 2014.

It’s amazing the recovery I’ve had.  I really did give up.

But you know what made me start the changes in Easter?  The fact that I started to see that if I died, nobody would actually care, nobody but Paul and Henry will attend my funeral and I would be a forgotten part of the world and that made me feel – no fucking way am I going to exist in the crap that I’ve had and nobody is going to know about it… I am determined to make the world know me and I want them to mourn me when I die.  Vain I know, but it worked to give me the kick up the ass I so desperately needed!

I have a feeling that the more I DON’T WANT the more of it I am going to get, so what the Hell!  I don’t want fame, yet it creeps along behind my back, I don’t want someone to help me, yet I am inundated with kind helpful people… I mean the universe is sick in the head isn’t it?

You want something… too bad… you don’t want something… here your cup runneth over!

I desperately want a dog, so my house has no dog… when I decided ok I can live without a dog, someone comes along and says, hey do you want to look after my dog for six weeks whilst I tour Europe?

It’s like the universe loves making me rant at it because its funny or something…

Ok, ok, ok, I really don’t want roast lamb anymore….I really don’t want to be thirteen stone… I really want to be alone… I really want to be ugly… I really want to have an uncaring partner… is it going to work this reverse psychology or is the universe going to double agent me right now?

Yeah, so I try.

Well anyway, happy reading.

Baby steps to confidence

I am getting a little more confident in my looks recently, though I still have days again when I feel I am still hideous, but it is improving thanks to three things in particular.

I have had a front tooth removed recently and discovered that I am not too old for braces, this I have already shared, I haven’t got a date for the installation of my braces yet, but I was told it could be around six months’ time, to give me time to heal.  This would give me a straight smile, because I had double sets of teeth and two were crooked.

I won’t have braces at the top of my jaw, only the bottom, because it is said to be lucky to have a gap in the teeth up there and it’s not much different to what Madonna had/has. 

They say a woman who has a gap in her teeth is destined to become rich or famous.  I don’t mind fame if my privacy is respected; but I do hate people who feel entitled to interfere with a celebrity’s life just because they have the wrong idea that just because a person is famous – they are owned by the world!  That mind-set makes me angry and I am worried that I might be overly aggressive to the invasion of my privacy, especially as I am generally a gentle and loving person.

Though gentle, loving and nurturing I am also incredibly fierce about injustice, unfair treatment and inequality!

The second thing that has helped my confidence is that I accidentally discovered a large mark that was forming on my face wasn’t skin cancer or a mole, but was a horrible large wart and now that’s gone entirely!  It was about the size of a twenty pence piece.

I accidentally got rid of it when I bought some aloe vera wipes to help me clean my face as I started to develop acne when I did a detox diet and noticed that the mark on my face was shrinking, so I continued doing these wipes for three months and it went entirely!

The third thing is thanks to the motivational speaker Mel Robbins when she suggested people who lack self-love and confidence, should high five themselves in the mirror and treat your reflection as a friend you love and who deserves kindness and respect.  I thought it was baloney, but it’s strange seeing how my confidence has shifted a little and its only been four days now.

I am not confident with my hair because I have developed acute alopecia due to three things according to my GP, those are, my previous mental health problem of trichotillomania (self-hair pulling) that was pretty bad when I lived with my mother weakening the roots; a symptom of long covid and a hormonal imbalance of a woman who is potentially starting the perimenopause early.  I don’t believe the latter, because other than hair problems I am OK with everything else.

So, as I said before, I am working on many things at once in my life.

I am feeling proud of myself and I will improve much more than this, I will make sure of it!

Happy reading!

Staying true to my goal

I have set my main current words in progress AD (anthropomorphic dystopian project) to be finished by October 2022 that’s to approach an agent with the work – however, there are many obstacles between now and then which will make this particular deadline hard; I am determined to stick to my word!

One thing is, that I want this story to be destined to be a graphic novel series eventually – at the moment I am writing it as a novel, so then I can see the story easily and re-edit with graphic novel in mind.  Whilst this is happening I am studying really hard how to make this work as a graphic novel, by reading books and watching videos on how to. 

I am not sure whether or not I need to produce the artwork for this graphic novel or whether or not I should just provide details for an artistic team to do it for me through my agent?  But that’s what I am learning for, to find out!

I have to have dental surgery, which could make me drowsy for up to two days, because I don’t do well on anaesthetic and it’s not a normal injection in the gum, because of my anxieties and other health problems, I need to be pretty much out of it entirely! 

Also, three days after this dental surgery I have a relative moving in with us on a long-term basis as she needs support through her pregnancy and isn’t confident in becoming a mother.  She doesn’t mind that I share this here; she told me she would like that and would like me to document her stay with us so she can then feel confident to create her own blog eventually about her life as a new mother.

So yes, a new baby will be coming into the household around spring not sure of the date yet it’s very early and she won’t go to midwives without my support, she is panicking! This is probably the reason why I am getting broody too lately the idea of babies always does that to me!  I always wanted a huge family, but it didn’t work out.

I am partly expecting her not to come because there is another relative who is also offering support, but we’ll see.  She wants to come here because she feels that Paul could do with some help around the house because I am getting absorbed in writing and I am often too sick to do much anymore anyway, especially as movement is painful with an enlarged spleen!

We’ll see.

Also Henry is having a lot of hospital visits starting at the beginning of October, there is a huge concern about his health and we’re very worried actually.  I can’t say much until October, it really does depend on the paediatrician because they’ve found something in his samples and they want to investigate further.

Whilst we’re unstable with knowing what’s going on with his health, the school he goes to has been hugely helpful in sending Henry out of class regularly for respite and sending him to charity days out for helping him mentally to cope with potential changes in his life and also generally his mental health as Henry is under tremendous stress because my sickness is scary for him at times.

I have a lot of breathing problems and certain other health concerns of my own, which can often mean I can’t eat much in a day without problems!  This terrifies him, especially my asthma attacks when I go blue due to lack of oxygen at times and so this is why he goes to Young Carers, Circles Network, Rise CWMind and Forest Schools Association.

Along with all of this he is also struggling with his identity and is generally unhappy about not being able to change from boy to girl whenever he likes; he is trying to find peace with his gender. 

It is likely that Henry’s physical health is psychosomatic and bought on by anxiety; in fact the doctor thinks it’s a high chance, but as a precaution he needs further investigation.  As I’ve said, there is something in his samples.

It really isn’t the right time to contemplate a new career to start this autumn, but I have planned it for so long Paul has defied me to skip for another year, he wants this badly for me as much as I do.

So doing this at this time will be a very bumpy ride, but I can’t break my promise to myself anymore, I simply have got to do this!  I’ll be turning forty this October, October the 3^rd, and I truly do believe that life starts at forty!  I am determined to make big things happen in my life from here on in, I am tired of putting myself aside time and again.

But you see, it’s not a selfish thing what I am doing, I am doing this for Henry too – my success will smooth out his future that is if I can make myself a success; you can’t succeed without a good team helping you!  I am not fool enough to believe I can do it all just because I want it bad enough, I need a team that believes in me and my work or else I can’t succeed can I?  Well not to the extent I have in my dreams and I dream big!

Though I am terrified to become a famous face, because I love my privacy too much (as in, not having people in close proximity to me crowding me if they are strangers) and I am prone to extreme anxiety attacks myself, I know in my heart, I really want my work to be out there for people to play with my ideas and to enjoy them.

The idea that people would like my work enough to change their lifestyle for cosplay occasionally, or spend hours of their time absorbed in fantasy worlds I have made for them to play in.  It’s an amazing thought!

It’s also exciting to think that people may become inspired because of my work and it will spark something in them to do something just as amazing and big! 

It’s wonderful to think that my stories can become movies and plays and that if I am lucky enough to become really popular, those stories could someday become so big in society that everywhere I turn, I could see posters or merchandise of my characters all around me and become a brand almost.

I know it’s egotistical of me, but we all dream big things like this don’t we?  Only some aren’t brave enough to grab it by the balls, I don’t want to be one of these people who dream but never chase those dreams down and hold them tight!

I visualise this daily and I do believe in cosmic ordering and it’s an exciting thought.  But as I said, I sometimes feel a churn in my stomach when I remind myself that popular things like this tend to make their creators life Hell with personal invasions from both their fans and the media and it puts a bit of a dampener on it a bit.

I know for a fact that if I were to become this famous, I will be regularly in the newspapers for fainting or vomiting publicly because of the stress of it all – I know I am like that now, without the fame aspect as it is!  Yes, I am very socially awkward with strangers, but when I am comfortable with someone I can feel too at ease with them – but how on Earth will I get comfortable with millions of people?  I will become skeletal with the anxiety attacks as I won’t be able to keep anything down!  I’m struggling with that as it is! 

Sobering thought really, but as I said, I am a worry wart and I pretty much know that someday my body will cave in and I will embarrass myself in front of a camera by puking up my tense emotions!

Weird thing to admit though, I am don’t have stage fright; I have been known to give lectures to more than fifty people when I was in work and it didn’t bother me like my colleagues.  But it’s when people are really physically close to me and I don’t know them, which I get frightened and that makes it worse is, when I am frightened I lose self-control and can slap around a bit to get away!  This is because it triggers my post-traumatic stress problems, in the past when people have crowded around me like that and I am not comfortable with them I have been brutally beaten up and so, crowds of strangers just trigger that survival response in me… that’s what is really scary about my anxiety attacks! 

Let’s see if I am going to do it by October, or at least by Easter 2023!  If not by Easter 2023 I don’t think I could live with disappointing myself again.  So it is essential, for my mental health, that I finish my work to send to an agent.  I won’t be so hard on myself when I approach agents who reject me and not get my work into the world because of that – but I will be very hard on myself if I don’t at least try!

Happy reading everybody!

Worrying about probably nonsense!

Other than the time back in 2003 I have never approached a publisher or an author’s agent, nor have I ever entered any kind of creative competition, whether it be for art or writing; I have never joined a writers circle either.  I have never had any real formal education on writing and not much schooling throughout my childhood.  Everything about me and my creativity is 100% self-taught and badly taught too in my opinion!

I have no idea where all these punctuation marks really should be, I have no idea about my grammar or where a paragraph should start and end, really it is all either dumb luck or a right mess, I don’t know which it is.

I don’t have much confidence in the idea of becoming a successful writer, I have said before and it is very true, I am scared that I will let people down a lot because of my health issues.  In my personal life, I let people down almost all the time.  I am afraid that I will have people wanting to publish my work but will have second thoughts about it because the writer will be a no show for at least 50% of the promotions, book signings and interviews.  In my personal life my health is so bad that a simple two hour shopping spree can set me physically back by three days.  I have more than one auto-immunity problem working against me.

I know in my heart of hearts it is unrealistic for me to have what many people would call a “real job”, writing is a real job if you get published isn’t it?  Despite publishers and agents alike stating they are working towards having more underrepresented writers, how ready are they for those who are bed bound for 10 – 16 weeks of the year?  How patient would they be in dealing with such a writer who is also deaf, too deaf to use a phone and relies heavily on face to face lip-reading, text messages or a representative to take telephone calls?

This is what holds me back in approaching publishers.  My own realism. 

I really don’t want to be told “you have a lot of talent but you are not working hard enough to promote yourself or take yourself seriously, it is a shame you are so sick, you could have gone far”.  This has happened before to me, not in the writing industry, but other forms of work, which is why I rely on benefits.

Is this something I should even put in my covering letter to an agent?  I mean, come on, if it really is like any other job, then who the blazes would ever look at my work twice if they knew that I am that sick most of the time?

Am I being too defeatist as well as a pragmatist, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel – who knows?  Maybe there is an agent out there who can push someone like me into the limelight and support me in spite of the health problems?

I am writing this for two reasons today.  One is the fact that there has been quite a few people contacting me in the past five years in my email and on private messages on twitter and other social media, who support my work with all their heart and has asked me to send them some of the work and I have not done this.  Many have become active cheerleaders in trying to get me to write regularly and to state how my poetry amongst other things has helped them and other people through hard times in their lives.  The thing is I am too polite to verbally let people down and I don’t like dragging up my health as an excuse all the time, even though that is the primary thing.    So I let it all slide.  I don’t want to do this, I really don’t.  I really want my books out there, I really want people to enjoy my worlds, because I have put my heart and soul into my worlds for a very long time, in some of the series I have written, two decades of blood, sweat and tears have gone into them!  I need to see my characters come to life through actors and actresses on the television as this is the main motivation for me writing.  I have always written the things I have because I have always wanted to see them on TV.  They are things I want to watch.  I am a huge supporter for acting and have always wanted to get into theatre and television myself, as a writer/screenwriter and eventually producer and I know with my health problems that may never happen.  When I was younger I loved going to the drama classes during lunch break and playing with my friends various roles.  I love playing and I believe acting is the only way an adult can still play pretend with their peers and not be considered insane or childish.  The course I was doing back then was after I had a breakdown, my mother was really worried about me so signed me up for a general vocational skills course to boost what she thought was my confidence.  It wasn’t a confidence issue I had, it was severe depression due to something that had happened to me which was nasty and as usual swept under the carpet by her and never spoken about to the family.

When I went to those drama classes, my creativity ran riot.  I became a writer for short plays that we would do at the college together, I also wrote rap songs for my beat boxing friends and joined what was known as a rock choir with my gothic friends, I was a Goth back then too.

I find it really easy to write songs and poetry, it comes very quickly to me and this amazed my friends in the creative scene.  I would literally sit on the table with my legs up, write on my knees a song of any subject they chose and give it to them to sing within ten minutes max, never revised either.  I do this with all poetry even now.  It comes and in a few minutes it is posted or printed and ignored.

If I had someone tell me that I am now a full time poet, I would freak out about the ink and paper I would use daily, because I literally could throw out 5 to 10 poems an hour.

Similar things happening too since I took up my recorder practise; I can play by ear and I have composed several tunes since first starting out.  I can compose a new tune in around 90 minutes and lyrics to go with that within 10 minutes.  I am learning well in how to read and write the recorder music now.  It’s winter now and my chest is playing up, so it’s likely the recorder is going to be put away until April now, which is a shame.

The second reason I posted this, is that I am considering entering a writing competition for the first time in my life.  The Writing Magazine (which I am subscribed to) has a competition which has sparked six story ideas in my head – however, I can only afford one entry.  The competitions requires an opening line which is this “They weren’t like me”, closing date February 15^th 2020.  It is a subscriber’s only competition. 

I am running short of money and I hope there is enough ink in the printer, as it is unlikely I can afford more ink before Christmas.  I know me, the story I will choose will be done and dusted within a weekend, then it will rest a week, then I will redo it and it will be sent a month in advance.

Thousands of people will be entering this contest so I know that my chances are slim, but though I am a pragmatist I am also an optimist and I have as good a chance as anyone.  But what I want to know is… is this the sort of thing I put into a writer’s CV when approaching an agent?  If I win, I mean?

Anyway, just some food for thought!

Merry Christmas everybody if I don’t post again beforehand!

Writers and non-writers

A lot of non-writing people think that when you say you are a writer you have had books published and you are successful and have a lot of money or you are a social recluse.

They imagine that I sit for three hours a day or more just tapping away from beginning to end the same novel day in and day out until it is finished and then post it to the nearest publisher and within a week or two I get a phone call about how great the novel is and how I should expect to join some top celebrity at some award ceremony somewhere and become a millionaire within a year. 

But this couldn’t be further from the truth unfortunately.

For me, writing is mostly planning, writing short snippets that doesn’t go anywhere and redoing work I have already done.  I don’t follow a set pattern to my work as my brain (as well as most other writers I know) doesn’t have an organised brain like that.  Also quite a lot of my time as a writer is spent imagining things freely without writing, because the thoughts sometimes come too fast that I simply cannot type or write fast enough!

I will think about my vampires one minute and do a paragraph there, then I am onto the mermaid story and do a few lines there, then my brain will give me an altogether different idea and I have to write three or four pages of the proposed plot down immediately before I forget it, then I have to edit the three chapters I finished last week as I felt in the mood for it.  That is the life of a writer – me!

A majority of my work will never see the light of day because I worry about its content.  Is it too violent?  Are the sexual scenes too graphic?  Is this touching a socially taboo area?  But I don’t stop writing them because it is a part of who I am, but it does mean that the public will never get the full and raw me and I don’t think that society ever does get that from any author anyway.

People who don’t write don’t understand that there is much more to writing than that and for a lot of people who do write, it is never about the money and it is never about the fame.  Take me for example; what spurs me on to write?  Originally what spurred me onto writing was the fact I enjoyed it too much not to do it – the second reason was that I hoped my stories would become movies.  I really do still hope for the latter.  But it is not a realistic dream yet.

I don’t intend to be a scriptwriter, which makes it all the more difficult.  I don’t like the idea of my privacy being invaded when I am out shopping as I can often suffer from anxieties in new places and having a famous face someday will just add to the stress for me.  But despite this, I love people and making them happy.  I wouldn’t be human if I said, I don’t want the money – but being rich from writing is also not realistic.

Which begs a question as to why I do it then?

I do it for the love of writing and the love of play.  I am a very playful and imaginative person who constantly lives in hope that there is always something better than this.  I believe if you don’t like to play and you find writing hard work and you want the money and the fame and you don’t believe there is something better than this then you are wasting your time.

I love entertaining people, I love being a hostess, I love sharing ideas with people, I am very much a people person by my very nature.  I have often thought about becoming a life coach or a creativity coach as a lot of people who know me describe me as a very motivating bubbly and uplifting person.  I don’t see why though.  Because to me I am a very pragmatic and often sharp person with people, particularly those I find who are ignorant and arrogant or both. 

Despite dreading fame for the having my face noticed in public and despite the fact that becoming famous through writing is probably a pipe dream, I do still fantasize about how happy I would be seeing how happy and excited strangers will be whenever they see me around.  But it scares me witless too, what lengths would some people go to in order to be near me?  It terrifies me.  But I am more than happy to be polite and friendly to any who come near and by me, entertain them as much as I can but I would just want to get on with my life, do the shopping, and spend time with my family out and about without such concerns.  I suppose I get the fear of the behaviour of fans from my mother, because my mother is the sort of fan who screams and charges at celebrities whenever she sees them – I couldn’t cope with that as I am a naturally jumpy person.

So instead of worrying about the good and the bad, I have decided to just let life happen to me.  If the universe thinks I should have that kind of life, let it happen and hope it’s all good.  Maybe I will somehow be protected from all that fuss – who knows?  All I want to do is write, entertain and have my brain poured out onto the TV screen eventually as good movies.  That’s all I really want.  If I was rich enough I would probably produce movies instead of books, not that it would be any faster quite the contrary, but the notion of working with a large team of people playing with the same dream would be absolutely fantastic.

Besides, with the people I am related to, doing this is in my blood by all accounts and I should fine fitting in with playful, imaginative people in that setting like a glove.  Let’s hope gran was right.