Blogs journey

My blog exists because I wanted an outlet to write about my life and my journey in defining myself; I also wanted a place to put short stories and poetry as and when I did them.

Nothing is edited, nothing gets a second or third draft and that doesn’t mean I don’t care about my craft or care about my readers; it’s that I care about putting words out into the world freestyle on a format, to get them out of my system.

I want and need one place in the world where I am not expected to be perfect, but having the knowledge that I am being listened to, even if it’s only by a couple of people!

I take more care in other places where I write.

I don’t use this blog as a promotional website, because I am not yet in the process of promoting any work!

I need this space to freely write, without thinking about grammatical errors and punctuation or even stressing over the content and its exact execution!

As a creator, when I write outside of this blog – I am more cautious, I am very stressed because from the first draft, into the second, into the third, I am stressing all the time about every single word and every single phrase, every character, dialogue, punctuation mark and how well its executed that it sometimes burns me out worrying about it all.

This blog exists to do away with that, whilst not stunting the process of writing.

So I don’t burn out entirely from my creative pursuits.

This blog is not a promotional piece.

This blog isn’t even what I set out for it to be!

I had fully planned when I started this blog that I would write one short story a week without fail!  That I would write two or three poems a week without fail, with daily updates on my life and other creative pursuits – photography, art, updating about my bigger projects, the novels, the song writing, the musical compositions and my foray into finding myself and my fashion interests!

None of that has happened.

In the time I’ve written this blog I should have published 500 short stories by now and approximately 1800 poems and 500 life updates amongst other things – but instead, I think there’s only  been about 10 short stories over the years and half of those were deleted to put elsewhere in the world, edited!

This website is dominated by poetry and that wasn’t the goal either, it was meant to be a mixture of art and fantasy short stories mostly, with an emphasis on life updates and personal journey of self-discovery!

I’m forty two years old in October; I’m easily stressed by the concept of having to be perfect at my craft, my work, my housekeeping – I need stress free outlets like this blog to keep me sane and focused on freedom of expression, without picky little people demanding I be perfect as they take it as a personal slight as my reader if I appear too carefree in how its written!

I’m not going to apologise for not making this as pristine as a book, because my blog is NO reflection on the work I produce in a book!  The qualities of my poems I think are higher and that’s not a slight on you as my blog readers – that’s just me being picky with myself.

I don’t need others to be picky about me too!

I’m already far too hard on myself – to listen to that!

I know those who have commented to me about my work are either trolls or they are trying to sell me the proofreading services; I’m not an idiot, I know the quality of this blog by professional standards – sucks!

But this blog is meant to be freestyle, carefree, freedom of expression, a place to talk and laugh and cry without judgement.

I don’t need proof-readers coming here making me feel bad about my standard of craft.

Because they haven’t seen the painstaking work I’ve done outside the blog, have they?

As I haven’t allowed it to be exist for seven years; I used to be an article writer for several places online and even a Wikipedia contributor.

I have had one book published when I was in my early twenties, but it is out of print now.  It was only a fifty page horror story about the biggest monster in the history of horror that has never been considered a monster… humanity itself.

Outlining all their faux pas and the horrible things they’ve done to other creatures over the years, especially those creatures they’ve demonised or hunted to extinction!

I have a copy here in my house, I have been thinking about doing a rewrite as I feel there’s a lot more to add to it.

But who knows?

I am called The Tardy Creative for a reason.

Tardy in my creations because of two things… mental health getting in the way and too many ideas pushing each other out; that I am like a kid in a candy store running here and there capturing whatever I can and then finding out I only have such and such room left in my bag; maybe put this back and add that and take that out too because this is much better and so on!

In my time writing this blog I have had 189 novel ideas and have only half completed approximately 7 which are non-vampire based or children’s picture books and a further 11 which are still in their first quarter! 

I’ve had about 50 short story ideas but only completed approximately 20 and less than 10 were published here! 

To every three poems I write at least one is never published anywhere! 

This blog is 11yrs old.

It’s all approximations above, I am probably completely wrong – but I do know about there being 189 unique story ideas because I have a story idea journal with half page synopsis for each of them and that’s how many I’ve had since this blog existed!

Thing is… I’ve lost that blooming journal!  I’ve got a new idea to add to it, so I should say 190!

I’ve got a feeling I’ve packed it in one of the boxes to protect it from damage as there’s issues in the house…

Well I blooming hope I have in any case!

I should really add those to my cloud so if I lose it again it’s no big deal!

Anyway, I just needed to get this off my chest!

It was brewing for a couple of hours and then I read something online again about proofreading and professionalism in your blog and it kind of set me off a bit!

I’m getting incredibly hot-headed as I am getting older, lol.

I can see me being part of the panel of “grumpy old women” someday!

Actually all jokes aside I’ve spoken to one of the panel and she’s actually quite a good laugh – not dropping names!

Anyway!

Thanks for reading! 

May 2024 brain hurricane season

I have had a quiet few days as I am trying to focus my mind on only two or three projects as my mind has been saying, ooh look at this and look at that all week!  Brain hurricane season appears to be rather erratic this time, like hundreds of little dust devils running around bumping into each other or something.

I’ll try and focus on creating short fiction for the blog soon, as I have four ideas for short stories with picture references.

Just a heads up!

Thanks for reading!

Experimental horror performances

I miss horror and in the past eight years I’ve hardly written any outside of poetry and I have hardly watched any on TV or DVDs and I really do miss it!

I believe horror is my strength as a creative, but I want to write more comedy and fantasy or dystopian themes these days – there is a huge difference between my works though.  My horror stories are definitely a stronger point for me.

Which is making me wonder if, after five projects are complete, whether I should go back fully into horror after all?

There are five projects I can’t get out of my heed right now, but they are not horror themes, they are fantasy or family adventures, one is a family dystopia which borders fantasy somewhat. 

I do like being descriptive and psychological in my creativity – I like the idea of toying with my readers emotions and I know that horror readers in particular loves when an author does that too and I am speaking from the viewpoint of a horror fan as well as an author!

As I am getting older though, I am looking with interest at the performing arts and once I know when my life is stabilised and where I will be living and with whom and what I will be doing – I plan to join an amateur dramatics group, or a small theatre to learn more about the performing arts first hand and to become a part of it.

Why?

Because since I was a child, not only have I been an author, but I was also a musician and composer that had a huge love for theatre, plays and musicals – the more artistic and abstract the performances, the more passionate I am about them and I have many ideas for creating stage plays, artistic performances and yes… even composing my own music along with it!

The thing is, as far as performing arts go, the stuff I have planned would appear a little too abstract and way too freestyle, that I doubt it would get much interest.  Because it would be downright weird really – I mean down Alice’s rabbit hole kind of weird!

There’s a lot of weird stage performances I love, from magician performances of Rob Zabrecky and Sacred Riana, to classic musicals, mime artists, The Circus of horrors and Cirque Du Soleil; I have a love for experimental classical music and jazz too and I love mixing things up.  I adore metal and rock versions of classical favourites, such as O Fortuna, done in heavy metal – it’s totally awesome stuff and if you throw in some poetry from Lord Byron and I’ve got my evening made.

You kind of get the idea what I am into.

 I have no idea whatsoever how I could market some of those ideas other than just call it “experimental”.

I don’t even know how to start, other than just writing down what comes to me and hoping for the best in the future when I start socialising at places like that – I intend to start with joining The Belgrade Theatre or Rugby theatre in some way, if I am not leaving this area completely.  I still haven’t the foggiest where life is going to take me right now.

Until things are settled, I am literally up in the air, floating in the clouds, dreaming my life away!

But mostly dreaming up weird crap I have no idea what to do with!

I know that some of the stuff I want to do will touch on dark themes, a dark fantasy, dark surrealism, absurdism, a horror musical of sorts, where I can throw in my poetry and my composed music and my imagery, my art, my ideas will be worked alongside professional choreographers that can get to grips with what I am trying to show them that’s in my mind.

I have no idea how well I will do, it’s all talk right now – it may be years down the line before I start it for real – but the ideas are there.

Better late than never they say!

I just think I want to give it a go, that’s all!

Thanks for reading!

Expectational stress

“If you are focused on fame or exposure – any external outcome – it’s easy to forget exactly why you started a creative endeavour.  You feel pulled in every direction by your audience’s expectations, you make compromises, and you end up with work that isn’t authentic.”

These were the first words I read in “An audience of one” by Srinivas Rao; I have read something similar to this before, but not sure if it was quoted in another book or not – but still, it resonates with me a lot.

Back in 2003 I sent of a synopsis with three chapters to a publishing house of a piece of work I had completed, I was actually accepted immediately and I was excited about it but I was also deflated, because it was my first ever attempt to get publish and I never had a rejection slip – and as stupid as it sounds, I was looking forwards to a rejection slip, because it’s what every writer expects… maybe I am stupid, but I was mixed about it.

At the time I lived with my mother and when my mother demanded to know what the letter was that was in my hands, I told her – she started planning how to spend my advance immediately and I conveniently lost the letter and never went through with it.

Why?

Because I didn’t want my mother spending my advance and secondly, I was shit scared of the fame it was going to bring, because the review I got from that publisher was amazing!

This made me scared to write for about a year actually.

But I got back into the flow of writing again and I didn’t plan to publish at all, until I met Paul and I felt I needed to try and get serious about my writing, so I can pull us out of poverty somehow.

But this hanging over me – the need to write – put me under a lot of strain and I was dismissing the fun ideas for the commercial ones.

Around 2017 I decided to write whatever I felt like and see what happens.

I started having great ideas and working on them off and on until the summer of 2022, when too many people were interested in a particular piece of work I was the most excited about – like a rabbit in headlights I got afraid again, there is more to this story – but basically, I felt like I have expectations to live up to now – and I am terrified of letting people down!

But the thing is, I have let people down – because I’ve allowed myself to get so wrapped up in a game of somebody else’s making, that I’ve literally lost my mind this past year – procrastinated on everything on every level of my life except inch loss (not losing weight but I am losing incredible amount of inches weirdly enough) – as far as my writing is concerned, I write one or two poems a week now and that is all I do.

In the past few days I have tried to write again, but it’s just snippets and plans and every few days, something happens to emotionally upset the cart again.

I’m very vulnerable right now, I’ve been vulnerable since 2017, but since February I have struggled to keep things together at all and even starting to battle my old foe, anorexia off and on again.

Most days I eat 1200 calories, but I have been known to only eat just under 800 in a day and I am not sleeping until I literally pass out as well and I rarely sleep for more than 5 hours at a time.

The concept that I could be capable of suicide hasn’t left me, if anything, its increased and I have been struggling to fight certain urges.

I’ve had a lot of tension headaches in the past few weeks too, which isn’t helping and especially because I am in a state of confusion about my life – there is a big upheaval soon in my life, but I have very little details to share about it right now – other than, Paul and I are separate now, but we are still living together and I am due to move out at any moment, but we don’t know exactly when and that is the most frustrating thing about it.

I have no idea where I am going or who with, I just know that there are a few options for me and that a certain relative of mine will possibly become available to have me stay with them for a while, but nobody is being clear to me about anything.

The start of this post however, was that I find it hard to write to people’s expectations unless I have a deep relationship with that person and then I tend to write even more, because I am doing it for them and I enjoy making people I love happy. 

I guess I am needy like that!

But it’s difficult to write, when nobody in your immediate social circle cares about the fact you write and just don’t enjoy listening to you talk about it and that the only people who want to hear what you are writing are people who genuinely want to steal your idea from you; Which is something I learned last autumn that someone wanted to do this about one of my projects, my steampunk anthropomorphic project to be exact.

That was a shock when I discovered their plan of becoming romantic with me, just to take the credit for my work as a romantic/collaboration!

I wouldn’t have minded if they were up front about it and were willing to share the credit with me and state that the brains which started the whole projected was me initially – but they felt they needed to sneak around behind me a bit, which wasn’t very nice.

This project is a long series with complicated characters and plots – it’s not a one off novel, it is a series which is really meant to have been a comic rather than a novel.

This is what I consider my main project right now, but just because it is my main focus doesn’t mean it is my priority to publish first, no. 

The novel I wrote in 2003 which was accepted for publication, I feel needed more work and I did more drafts on it and I feel it’s even stronger now; this book is likely to be published first.  I am on its final draft, a better draft than the original finale – I have sixteen more chapters to draft out and it is done, it is a thirty six chapter novel.

This work is known on here as my Dragon 1 Project.

It’s likely to be first, once I find where my printed papers have been displaced to, then I can write more towards it; in fact this is what I have been doing these past couple of weeks, I have been sorting the house out of its piles of strewn about papers trying to find the seventeen chapters of that last draft, so I can get finishing it.

But as I am finding papers I am copy editing everything to put on cloud, so I never lose things again!

Copy editing is boring when I have to focus on it, because when I find old ideas lying around and some unfinished stories and I copy edit them, I make amendments when I do so and I get in the flow of wanting to add more things to it, but I have to keep disciplined and keep to copy editing only, because I need to get Dragon 1 done and not start doing a hundred other projects, or else I never get anything done!

So this is the situation here recently.

I am trying to get back into some sort of flow again.

Thanks for reading!

First brain hurricane season of 2023

I think its “Brain Hurricane” season again, this week there has been lots of new fresh ideas for things and I have started some new stuff, whilst working on my current projects too!

This hurricane season started around the 13^th May 2023, I never know how long it’s going to last or what will survive the storm, but I hope I get as many of these ideas finished as quickly as possible nonetheless!

So far the storm has given me a dark cabaret play, a children’s series with art ideas for making a new toy brand and some better ideas for old projects such as one of my ghost stories.  It has also reignited my interest in a project I abandoned eighteen years ago about a boy addicted to video games.

But mostly this storm has given me a lot of ideas for art projects to make my art brand more recognisable with its own characters.  One such character is a type of rag doll, based on an old story I gave up years ago – talking of which, this doll’s story is also in revival.

Now I was beginning to panic about how this will affect my current main work, Project AD but it turned out to be assisting me with that, which is highly irregular for brain hurricanes! 

This storm is actually helping me think of art pieces for the characters of that project too and they look more original in my mind – the thing is though, I am not a particularly good artist, so there are a lot of art practises that needs to be done!  But I believe I have found a style I want to work with and that excites me a lot!

So that’s the general work update right now.

Thanks for reading!

My creative process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guilt stopped me.

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

Pah!

I am not going to do this anymore!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading!

Rigid mind

Rigid, those are my thoughts tonight; Rigid and taut through depression and desperation

No matter how hard I try to sit myself down tonight and ignore what’s going on in my heart and mind on a base emotional level, I still can’t help but be dragged down by a numbed mind.

I have written four poems tonight, all destined for the deletion pile, though I am trying to be more merciful with my craft and lock them away in a file on my laptop called “wasted”, as it was wasted time.

Wasted one, wasted two, wasted three, and wasted four, until I felt that tonight I am not in my poetic mojo at all and gave up.

I am certainly in a creative mind-set, but not really focused for Project AD, that’s a children’s comedy horror and I feel more like writing something along the lines of Mr Ted or The Gargoyles Heart.

Oftentimes when I have days or nights like these, I tend not to write anything, not even towards my blog – but I have decided to change.

I have decided to share these times with you all, because these are the times when I can get really down to the heart of the matter – become creative, it’s a strange place to be.

Depressed and apathetic in everything but the written word, depending however what that written word is going to be at the time and whether or not it matches what’s going on inside of you.

A few years ago I used to write snippets, where they were more or less like practise pieces and I would just write the first thing that came into my mind and I would post it.  I got out of the habit of that and it really should be revived again.

This is the start of that.

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!

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!

Tired & desperate

I really miss being able to go into my writing zone for lengthy bouts of fiction writing and I really miss doing both Inktober for the art and NaNoWriMo, however, this year I won’t have done either.

I can’t do it, there is just too much stress and chaos around the house lately, I am not allowed more than twenty minutes in my zone before someone wants to either disturb me or start a new screaming match again.

The only time I have is late at night when everybody is in bed, but that means strange sleeping habits for me – for example, I am writing this blog post at 5:28am on the 28^th October 2022.  I had five hours sleep last night and I had only managed to eat 800 calories all day.

It’s nearly 6am; I guess a new day has started?

It torments me when I can’t add to my current projects.

At the moment I am too tired to think about doing it, I haven’t slept in twenty hours and I am doing all of this without caffeine, remember, I went cold turkey and I only had three slip ups this month!

I really want my AD project and the Christmas and Easter project to get done as well as my steampunk lesbian adventure story.

You know I was too embarrassed to share this at the time, but I had to turn down winning a prize for a writer’s retreat a friend nominated me for, because I couldn’t afford the transport money to get there?  But imagine if I had been able to afford it, a whole month in solitude writing at my heart’s content, no interruptions.

You realise I could easily write 12k a day again, don’t you?  Most probably only 4k on average because the scenery was beautiful and I am a natures child by heart!

I rarely watch TV because of the noise too and my average of 150 books a year has gone down to 70 if I am lucky, all because of noise pollution from my other household members and invasion of personal space.

When Henry was a toddler, he was much quieter, seriously, he was very quiet and undemanding – he is twelve, surely things should be easier now?

Surely he’d want to shut himself away in his bedroom doing his own thing?  No, that’s not him he wants and needs constant attention, its tiring.

I have lived with cousins who had three kids under the age of seven playing around me, not necessarily quiet, regular kid noise and I still could write – but it’s different here, because it’s not normal noise and it’s not just kids shouting.

I hate the idea of not getting my work done, because whilst it’s not getting done it means I am staying less than mediocre, I am unable to pull myself out of this poverty or bettering myself in any way.  I can’t practise art anymore, I can’t do puzzles, I can’t do anything, just sit there and exist and be drained and to listen to vitriolic crap being fired between Paul and Henry.

I try to take myself upstairs out of it all, because if I open my mouth it makes it all worse; no matter how much of a Pollyanna I try to be, that doesn’t work here!

But then I still hear them shouting at each other, but it’s muffled so I don’t know what’s going on then I hear screams and doors slamming, then silence.  Then it starts again around twenty minutes later.

I have outlined my story plans so well because I can’t get into the zone to write the story, that once I have the peace around me to write, I am writing very quickly and I am not needing to edit as much as I used to.

Because I have to re-read my notes a lot, because I lose track of what I just read because of a sudden scream or bang.

I am beginning not to need to refer to hand notes anymore.

I know through experience that with this kind of depth that I have of my story plans, that I could write the AD project within three weeks to completion.  But it will require three hours a day to do it.  I write at a pace of 3k per hour on an average day when I am undisturbed.

Problem is, I need my music on and I need to be left alone without any interruption so I can go into the zone a trance-like state and do my work.  Without that, my writing is trash and bland.

Henry hates certain types of music I love for writing, he is using this as a supposed “Trigger” to his bad behaviour and he laps up the “trigger” remark to the fullest capacity that he can.

When he realises I am writing and I have ear phones on, he does everything in his power to come upstairs a lot and open my door constantly, making me have to take the ear phones off to hear him, because I am deaf without my hearing aids and I can’t use hearing aids with ear phones on. 

Then, when it’s not him coming upstairs every five minutes, it’s his father, the amount of times they need to use the bathroom is stupid, funnily enough when I don’t write, they can go an hour between pees, when I am writing its every fifteen minutes.  But they don’t just go to the bathroom and leave, oh no, they want to give me a running commentary on the news or backstabbing each other to me.

I can write my blog posts, because it flows differently to a story.  I can lose my way a little here, but in a story I need to be consistent and shift perspectives a lot of the time.

I’m exhausted, I just want to write.

Thanks for reading.