Emotionally depleted

I’m trying something incredibly counterintuitive right now.

I am suffering in a lot of areas in my life, I am hugely stressed and growing in apathy for almost everything and I am finding it hard to get the get up and go.

I am losing my fight.

So, usually, when under so much tension and uncertainty and sickness, people tell me to rest, take it easy, don’t overthink things, don’t do this and don’t do that and most certainly don’t start anything new – you need to calm down and rest up.

It would be natural to think I am crazy because I am going to do the opposite.

It’s based on an idea by Mel Robbins called “Bluewater”.

She took a glass of water and filled it to the brim and put dirt in the cup, lots of dirt and she mixed it up to show how a person looks when they’re feeling overloaded and stressed out.

She then explained how people then try to deal with each individual problem they have at a time, to try and lessen the load, she did this by demonstrating how people try to spoon out the dirt little by little and over a time, their cup gets emptier and emptier and this emptiness is representing the persons emotional health. 

Over a time, as you’re spooning out the dirt, you are becoming more and more emotionally depleted and burned out and the idea of doing anything becomes so exhausting you just can’t bear to do anything anymore and you lose yourself and you feel that you might never be happy again.

A dangerous situation for anyone!

She said the simplest thing to do at a time like this is to make yourself do something for yourself, something that you think you’d enjoy or if your apathy is so bad, go back to something you once enjoyed – force yourself to have some time in the week to yourself to do it and gradually ease more and more things that you like into your life – make the time to do some self-care and find yourself again!

So she showed what happens when you start adding more water into the dirty cup, it eventually cleans up, not entirely, there will always be a little bit of dirt, but as you add more and more back into your life that you enjoy, that makes you feel like you have some kind of purpose or soul again, your cup is going to get cleaner and cleaner and you will stop feeling so depleted in yourself and you will be stronger and healthier in the long run for it.

I’m trying to force myself right now into going into autopilot and doing some of the things I used to enjoy from the past, whether I am tired or not, whether I feel like it or not, whether I am currently enjoying it or not and no matter how bad the physical pains are in my body – I must do them. 

Because, maybe that’s what I am missing right now?

I’ve been encouraged to take it easy, stop and relax so much over the years that I have come to a virtual stop and any notion of doing anything makes me have this kind of feeling of MEH!

I’ve allowed peoples advice to make me lazy and I don’t like it!

I actually started about a couple of weeks ago.

I started to force myself to read 30 pages of a book again per day, like I used to a year back. 

I am forcing myself to write anything, no matter what it is, whether it intends to be published or not.

I am forcing myself to do some kind of exercise again.

I am practising art at least once every couple of days. 

I am forcing myself to take an interest in thinking about my future again and start planning things and maybe even start thinking about chasing dreams again, because around four years ago I gave them up.

So I am thinking about creating an inspiration or dream board again, I used to be a big fan of those but got out of the habit of it because Paul started pinning his things onto MY board!  He wouldn’t get his own.

I completely forsook any dream because I was convinced I was about to die at any moment!

Along with this I have been trying to remember to do the “High five habit” Mel Robbins also spoke about, but I need more practise with that and I am also trying to remember to count down from five when I am about to go back into a negative habit.

My memory has issues because I have been on survival mode and doing practically nothing with my life for the last eight years, because I have been recovering from bed bound sickness.

I have also had a scare recently.

I know as I am getting older, certain health problems, particularly mental health problems are getting much worse.

I came across a video online purely by accident, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I came across a video titled “loneliness is dangerous for your physical health”.

I knew it was dangerous for mental health, but not physical health.

It turns out people who have been isolated or lonely most of their lives have a hugely high risk of developing auto-immunity issues as well as memory loss.  Now that woke me up, because my memory is unreliable and scary at times and I have four different types of auto-immune disease.

Much of the abuse and neglect I had as a child was due to isolation, my mum refusing for me to socialise outside of tight family and friendship circles, even home educating me most of the time!

So I never really had a healthy social life that lasted, it always came in dribs and drabs.

Knowing this and knowing that people who have lived in isolation a lot are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or dementia before they are 60yrs old, worried me a lot!

They did say though that reversing this can be very quickly done actually and socialising for at least 30 minutes week outside of your home regularly or more can put you back on the right track in not getting that type of dementia, as it’s a specific type apparently.

So there is a lot going on in my life and according to the Bluewater technique there really should be a lot more going on too.

But right now, I am trying to concentrate on solving a mystery in my life and getting my passion for writing back.  Because I haven’t felt passionate about anything for a long time!

Tell a white lie, I have, but then I quickly felt, what’s the point someone will ruin it…

So, yeah, that’s what’s up lately!

Thanks for reading!

A soulless tragedy

In my heart and mind I am many things

Which I’m not you see

Because I only act a little part of me

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

Who think they are better people

So they seek to berate and scathe

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

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

I am an empress and I rule with an iron might

My tongue commands great armies and send enemies into flight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To show you who I really am

And what I could be

Though mostly I am a creator

I make worlds with words and paint

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

I create vast worlds for your mind to explore

And all I wish for you is for you to adore

And live within these worlds of mine within your very mind

And love it with all your heart and inspiration find

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

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

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

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

Because one thing that is true and clear

The arts are important my dear

For without it we inhuman be

And soulless we will live in tragedy

And never more shall we love each little gem we find

For our hearts will be black and cold

Because we’ve lost our mind

Inspiration in the air

Any progress towards any project is good progress in my opinion, even if that progress is only around one paragraph a piece – this is how I am doing things these days!

Today for example, I struggled to get into a creative mind-set, I told you earlier what I did and the results of that – well that wasn’t the full story as after I posted that post other things occurred.

I did a little bit more towards one of my previous projects, the Steampunk 1 project to be precise.  This hadn’t been worked on since Easter 2022 and after I posted my previous post I started to draw up a map of a new area within the story.

I had also had a brainstorm of what happens in the mid-section of the novel, an area I was struggling with for months.

After I did this I had yet another entirely new idea for yet another story and once again it is another horror idea although I would say this is more of a psychological horror than a dark fantasy and no sign of any animal distress in this tale at all, thankfully!

This story will be known as The Hermit Horror story and you’ve guessed it, there is a hermit in the story.

I wrote the synopsis to that already and I know the beginning, middle and end which is unusual for me as it usually takes me months or even years to see all the three sections pieced together appropriately; which got me starting the project immediately and I am halfway through the first chapter already – again, highly unusual for me!

What is concerning is this story reflects quite a lot of my personal life as the main character had a life of isolation and has a similar health problem to me and well… let’s just say I can really identify with her!

So by “How to write” books this book is destined to be a bestseller then?  With any luck, though I am not holding out!

I have also added paragraphs towards the Anthropomorphic Dystopian project too today and I have to say this has meant that today has been my most productive day since September – which is something I didn’t think I would do this morning because of how difficult it was to get into the creative mind-set initially!

I don’t think I have finished yet, yes I am having a break – but technically not because I am still writing… well this post for you right now – so that’s not a true break is it?  But to my brain if feels like one!

I feel poems coming on, so I am going to wrap this post up now and I am pretty sure later on tonight I will do more Project AD snippets as well as Steampunk 1 and even more towards the Hermit Horror… I can feel inspiration in the air!

Thanks for reading!

Abstract world

I hear the gold in your heart

It’s beating like a tin

It is thick with the taste of happiness

And it is wet with the fluid of youth and the lack of sin

Cherished by the cherry tree

By the birds and solidarity

Your voice is shrill like a mouse

Your voice is home, like a house

And I am warmed by your eyes as they burn into mine

I can smell your dreams

They flow like wine

Into a well of hope and future

Mending my wounds as the suture

And I am destined to stay with you

Because you are special too

We live in this daydream

Walking on the mist of clouded sleepwalk

How much I can hear you talk

Of all the mysterious things

Our existence is strange to the people

The earth ball round

They can’t hear the sounds we do

They are deaf and have no clue

We are different

You and I

This is why we walk on the sky

And we together we’ll be

For eternity

Alone

I have always loved the abstract in poetry, film and sometimes art.  I have also always love innovations in absurdism and surrealism in all art forms – though I have to admit I treat them all with guilty pleasure, as these things are rarely understood by the world and are often shunned as being too weird.

I often want to write whole stories and songs like this, but it’s so very niche really and I don’t like how some people will try to dissect the art and prose to try to make sense of it, or me – or worse, to presume that I have some kind of deep mental problem or something along the lines of substance abuse, simply because I can put my mind into far-out places!

A school teacher of mine in the last school I ever went to, called Mr Kingham saw how much of an abstract, absurdist thinker I was and tried to get me to take art seriously in school – but I never did.  Because it was not an encouraged thing at home; he was so proud of a statue I made in abstract of a guitar, that he insisted that he had to take it home and keep it forever for himself as it was too brilliant to just throw away at the end of the school year!

My parents never understood the excitement in him, nor why he would insist that out of all my achievements art supreme in me.  I never understood it either, I don’t reckon much of my art – my paintings and drawings that is, and even my abstract poetry.

I think it is nice to play with them – but is it really contributing to anything?

I have an over-analytical mind at times – yes I am playful, yes I can do this and the above I enjoyed doing a lot!  But I can’t help but think that other people will find it all a stupid waste of time?

There has been hundreds of poems similar to the above, I have deleted since having my blog after deciding that I might be too embarrassed to share them after all.  Hundreds might be an understatement.

There are times where I stop writing my novels, because my thought has become too abstract, that I have to put it away and rethink them for normal brains. 

Such as I am having a serious rethink about my description in project AD!

The description in project AD is based entirely on what a wild animal would perceive of things when it has been bought into the human world – how would a wild hare view newspapers strewn over a floor?  To me that is a simple idea, obviously they are the weirdest shaped leaves I ever did see with speckles of black all over them and white and snow!

The strange shaped logs that the two legged creatures sat upon groaned like some tortured squashed animal.  I mean, could you really read a novel like that?

As much as I love to write it, I worry about how it’s going to be received!

Yes I often hold back in this kind of description for a lot of my work, but it soon gets boring when I do.

Sometimes I think outside of the box so much I find it hard to get back into the box!

I love wild and out there ideas, hence my obsession with stories such as Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass, Wizard of Oz fourteen books, the arc of the scythe series, His dark materials and such the likes.

As a child my imagination often ran away with me, I didn’t need to see scary things when the light was off, I saw them when the light was on! 

A mere pile of clothes on a chair could take on some weird shape of an abstract multi-coloured witch and the pigeon on the window ledge cooing sounded like some awful mischievous chuckle.  I often found myself over the years fantasising about making mini art movies based on those kinds of imaginings, but I don’t have the wherewithal to know what I am doing!

Last year when I made a post called “The spider’s suicide note” https://tardycreative.com/2022/07/30/a-spiders-suicide-note-or/ I actually wanted to rush off and make a mini movie about it and really make a thing about it with noir 1930s detective kind of slant to it – but I don’t know how to do these things and I don’t have anyone to help!

But it can be bizarre and spontaneous and it can be hard to hold off for a while waiting for things to be done, because by that time the inspiration would have left me!

I wanted to join Skillshare to learn the technology for all of that, but I can’t afford an annual subscription taken out in one lump sum like they are requesting nowadays!

I am really upset about that actually, because I was going to get ready to learn these things for YouTube and TikTok – but it’s going to have to wait until I save up for it.

The above poem is heavily inspired by Bjork and Aurora, I love those women!

Let me know of what you think of all the above… do you get abstract ideas like these or are they beyond you?

Thanks for reading!

Dragon 1 update

What is in this story?

Long lost relative rediscovered

Found family

Witches

Dragons

Comedy

Battle scenes

Camping

Giants

Pirates

Main character Male in late 30s

Coming of age young girl learning her place in a strange world

Portal world

Magic lost

Set in Britain & Alternate reality

Betrayal

Treachery

Fire elemental magic

Travelling quest

Huge didn’t see it coming plot twist

What works by other people inspired this project of mine?

The movie Reign of fire

The movie magical legends of the leprechauns

The book A monster calls by Patrick Ness

The pirates of the Caribbean movie series

The lord of the rings trilogy

Worst witch TV series and books by Jill Murphy

The character Sirius Black in Harry Potter’s prisoner of Azkaban (this has not given away the plot twist)

Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

And several Ransom Riggs novels

This story started in my head in 2003 and is currently paused in its eighth draft because I have preferred to work towards my project Anthropomorphic Dystopian 1 instead.  Once Anthropomorphic Dystopian 1 is finished, I will continue to complete draft eight of this project, with the hope to be sending it out to the world around three months later; or rather, after it has stewed again.

This book may have a part two or three, but I am unclear as of yet – however, it has an open ending, that will not leave you feeling dissatisfied, but may have you asking lots of questions – don’t hate me for it, please!

Happy Reading!

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

Anthropomorphic dystopian 1

The above is a mouthful, but that is not its real name, aren’t you relieved?– its real title will give away too much about what is in the story and we don’t want to do that this early on!

The general themes in the story are as follows;

Cyberpunk

Anthropomorphic animals

War

Revenge

Dystopian

Survival

Imprisonment

Inventions

And last but not least – comedy

The above story has been inspired by;

The animals of Farthing Wood

Wind in the Willows

Watership Down

Mad Max beyond the thunderdome

Secret life of pets

The hunger games

Nuclear warfare

Rude dog and the dweebs

Frankenweenie

And very much Tim Burton inspired

The above is the work that is likeliest to be sent out first and it is only really a couple of months away from being perfected to its final draft!  However, with the upcoming surgeries I am going to be having, it is best that this work should not be sent any sooner than mid-autumn, potentially before winter – though November to the second week of January is not the best time to send anything to an agent – it’s their busiest time of the year!

So unless it’s polished before NaNoWriMo 2022, it may not be sent until late January 2023, but I am working on it being sent out by early October!

This book will be a series, so this is only book one that will be polished by then and I know that agents are not keen on new writers sending in series as a first approach, but I think this is something special and I am sure they will see it too?

I have spoken to a handful of very close friends about this story and I have several people excited over it – this is why this story became my primary focus and I dropped my original first novel whilst I do this one.  Because, the other story I think should be my first novel – is actually less exciting to my friends than this project.

Some friends think I should ditch it as a novel and make it a comic, but I have had other friends suggest that my prose like writing does better as a novel and that to write it as a comic may actually kill the story’s effect overall.

Time will tell – it may be a case that it may turn into a comic a few years down the line, I don’t know if that sort of thing happens, but I suppose it’s possible?

Anyway – happy reading!

Do you show yourself up?

I have started my writer’s journal yesterday (6^th June 2022) and I was finding it insightful rethinking how my projects developed over the years and how I have grown as a writer.

Because I get so wrapped up in my projects I often forget to post on my blog, so I often do blog posts around two weeks in advance, just to help maintain activity here – because if I don’t, the blog goes quiet for three months at a time and I don’t like to do that!

Anyway, going back to my first paragraph of this post, I discovered that certain projects were bland when I originally started them – but over time, they fleshed out really well and morphed into something completely different, even character names changed to suit the new situations that ensued.

For example, I had a young child protagonist who was originally seven years old, she then became twelve and now the character is going to be fifteen.  Simply because of how the story developed into something much different and my goals are very different today than they were back then!

I also only had around five characters that were friends of the hero and helped her on her journey; this grew to become nine solid friends and a small number of fly by helpful friends.

I decided the villain dies in the end and that so does the heroine too, but this changed, I leave no spoilers as to my current decision or you’d be looking for it in any book that sounds alike, when it gets published.

But what threw me was the fact that the book developed when I developed – I don’t mean creatively developed, I mean, its subjects developed with what was going on in my life at the time of writing…

The heroine was a runaway –then she was not.

I was a runaway at the same time this story originated in my mind, the characters plot of running away changed, when I no longer felt the need to run away in my real life. 

This is a development I didn’t notice until I revisited the writing process to add to my current projects journal – it is interesting.  I used to pooh-pooh the idea about creative people subconsciously putting their lives into print and that people psychoanalysed everything that wasn’t really there, but, you know… I think there is something about all of that!

If you write a certain theme, it’s because you think or feel or have experienced it in the past or at the present and it is coming out in your writing. 

So be careful at what you are writing out there, I know a lot of real life bitches who tend to write a lot of romantic dramas where there are mega bitches and they just think, their work is set apart from themselves… but… hey… what will literary psychoanalysts say about you in the future, what will they see in you through your work?

It does reveal a lot – I have a writer friend who writes a lot of childish roles in her stories that are not entirely based around children and she struggles a lot with her inner child, she is trying to be mature, but she just can’t hack it and she doesn’t mind I am writing this, I asked her!  But she found it amusing about how accurate this seems to be even with her!

I know another writer who always wanted to be a rock star or a Goth, but was always nervous to do so because of societal stigma, particularly within the Jewish community – so, they write those kinds of characters.  Sorry I didn’t ask them about this, but being that they aren’t named… do they really mind?  I hope not!

You don’t know it until you see it!

But you write yourself in everything!

Since learning this, it has kind of made me paranoid about what people will think about me… but then again… I am happy with who I have become and I am happy I am not who I used to be anymore, so I won’t stress too much!

I just don’t want the analysts to harp on about my mental illness all the time and look back on me with pity!  I don’t like that.

The journal has been a revelation.

What is included in the journal is my journey and thought processes about what is happening in the book – any movies or books that influenced those pivotal scenes, are my characters actually a mock-up of say, my favourite movie characters?  Yes, actually, I can see that a lot in my work!  But it is unique enough to not come across as a total rip off!  That’s very important!

I have even included lyrics which also helped me think of scenes, with references to the singer and the song name. 

Why am I doing this?

Because these journals are on a work by work basis, when I get a piece of work published I have this goal that if I sell ten thousand books, I will send out to publish these snippets from my writers journal to show my readers how I got it done and what influenced me, because I don’t know about you – but I am a very nosy reader!  When I read an author’s book, I want to know more about them as a person, what they think and what they like so I can see who influenced them!  Because I love evolution!

Being a creative, whether you are a writer, song writer, musician, artist etc; you are going through an evolution which will influence and inspire other creatives in the future.  This is exciting and I love this sort of thing!  I am obsessed with evolution, particularly the evolution of the mind, culture and society!

At this point in time, there are hundreds of works by other people who have influenced all seventy nine of my nearly finished works, yes, seventy nine!  There have been many things which have influenced me several times over in most of my works and those are;

Nox Arcana music, art and lyrics

Neil Gaiman’s works, particularly his prose and comics

Colleen Doran’s Raphaelite style artworks

Various wrestling shows with their gimmicks and storylines

Aurora Aksnes lyrics and music videos

Anne Rice vampires

Vampire movies in general

Modern gothic art, particularly by Anne Stokes

Tim Burton’s movies and artworks

Ancient myth and legends worldwide

Roald Dahl’s works and movie adaptions

Lady Gaga’s music videos and lyrics

Stephen King’s works and movie adaptions

Brian Froud and the Froud families’ artworks and puppet movies

The Mad Max series and franchise

Mafia movies and history

Max Brooks works and movie adaptions

Children’s classic bedtime fairy-tales

Marilyn Manson music videos

Queen music and music videos and adaptions

The Rocky horror picture show and its adaptions

Suzanne Collins works and adaptions

The Animals of Farthing wood

Watership down and its adaptions

Wind in the willows and its adaptions

Monty Python TV shows and movies

Terry Pratchett’s works and adaptions

Johnny Depp’s characters

Robert Downy Jr’s characters

Gabriel Byrne’s characters

Al Pacino’s characters

Bette Midler characters

Kathleen Turner characters

Pam Ferris characters

James Earl Jones characters

Bon Jovi lyrics

To name but a few, I know it’s really a lot, but its few in the real number of influences I have had over the years!

So you see – you are what you are and you can’t hide it!

Happy reading everybody!

Writer’s journal plans

I have decided to keep a writer’s journal as well as an artist journal, to record my thoughts, feelings and inspirations about the work I do and where those ideas may have stemmed from.  I plan to do this on a daily basis, or at least if I add anything towards my stories or ideas, which is generally done on a daily basis anyway, even if it isn’t towards an actual novel – there are always notes and plans made!

This will be private only to me until certain works are published, because I plan to use some of the things I put into my writers journal as non-fiction bios about where my work came from and who inspired me to do it.

In this writer’s journal, I will explain how I meshed ideas together and the thought processes that went into it.  I will be doing this for every piece of work I do regardless of whether or not it gets published or not, because you never know what the future might bring!

Meanwhile, my blog will start to be updated with my general thought processes anyway about works I have read, things I have researched and programs I have watched and how I feel about them and how I am inspired by them.  I will only be doing this with things that I feel have influenced me in some way, with my own work!

Happy reading!

Imagination from the shadows

The shadow world surrounds me and inspires my heart

Stories to tell and wondrous art

Fantasy, horror, I love them all

They dance in my head in their raucous ball

I sit and I write about courageous fights and dragons protecting their nest

I write about angels betraying God and I think I like those the best

But the thing I love more than all of these things

Is the fantasy that someday I may inspiration bring

To other writers and artists like me

To help and set their imagination free

Hyper-thoughts a mental illness?

I think one of the biggest reasons why I dislike reading novels are because they feed my imagination and make me think of new stories and I am not in any shortage of story ideas as it is.  I think reading fiction can add to my insanity at times, overflowing me with too many ideas that sometimes it literally does feel like my creativity really is driving me insane!

I am the same if I am overloaded with looking at other people’s art, new movies and playing new games.

I do all these things with caution but not matter how cautious I am in doing these things, reading, watching movies and looking at art etc, I can’t help but become over exposed to stimulus that feeds my imagination at least three new story plots at a time!

There are times I have actually bought on strained wrists or my carpal tunnel syndrome to just write the ideas down fast, I can never do so fast enough and I have even had people buy me Dictaphones to try and help me but again, I can never speak fast enough!  It is actually quite horrible, people say it sounds like you are blessed, but in my head it is utter chaos, I can’t focus at times and this is a huge part of my procrastination in general, because I can’t seem to focus on one idea, my brain thinks about multiple things at once.  I am sure this is actually a mental illness, but I don’t think there is a known mental illness out there for people who can literally think about several subjects and problems all at once and then get confused when they have to try and focus to explain to others what those ideas and thoughts are!

I wish telepathy was a thing, it would solve a lot, I could have a room filled with people who would be writing separately all of my ideas for me and help me organise the chaos and bring it into reality as fiction or art.

I have been suffering from this strange mental problem even more in the past few weeks; I am inspired by almost everything I have access to lately.

 I suffer from migraines frequently and it could be my auto-immune inner ear disease doing it some of the time, but most of the time I think it’s the hyper-thoughts as I like to call them. 

I have been told I can’t be a very good writer unless I read a lot of fiction and I don’t generally.  I read more non-fiction than fiction, so I feel lately I have to throw myself into some more novels by other people.  I am finding it hard to fit into creative circles because of two major flaws I have, the lack of fiction reading and the lack of social media I indulge in.

Ugh, I don’t know what to do.

But I do know this; it is affecting productivity lately at a major scale.  Whenever I sit down to write stories these days I don’t enjoy them as much as I used to, I sit there sometimes and cry, because my thoughts can’t seem to align themselves.  I am confused and often confounded by the goings on in my head that I stare at my previous words in awe that I finished those at least, but I can’t seem to move on and I can be like this for over an hour before giving up.

I am trying to do what other people recommend that I do, that is focus on one to three novels and finish those before doing others.  This is not working for me and I am so out of focus these days I find it hard to go back to my old way of writing – which is to literally write towards one idea until the others call me and so on.    This has meant in the past I once had as many as 27 separate novels on the go at once and the average time it took to complete just one of those stories was around 5yrs.

What has put the pressure on me the most I think is the notion that I have been told that some of my words in progress will be of out of date or over used themes by the time I get it to publishers that they won’t be interested in it when I get around to it.  That is so very demotivating.

I don’t really know what to do right now because of it.

Happy reading