Creative expression plans

I am starting to think about doing some new approaches to my creativity soon, at the moment it will be difficult to do the changes that I want to do, because of the environment I am living in – but I am hoping soon, in the near future things will be different and I will have more freedom to express myself in an environment that I can thrive in.

A place where I am able to write when I need to and my personal time and space is respected, a place where I can do my art without fighting mess and a place where I practise my music without having arguments about overriding a television or making disturbing background noises because someone wants to listen to their laptop gaming noise instead of music.

Most of all, I am looking forward to an environment that is organised and clean most of the time and where nobody slobs about without a care for weeks on end, until mess gets so out of hand everyone moans and chips in finally for half a day, only for three days later it would seem nothing has changed at all.

It would be good to get back into the habit of watching movies again, because doing that here has always been impossible.  Nobody wants a movie on, unless it’s the same old, same old.

As a former movie buff, this has been a hard pill to swallow.

I haven’t kept up to date with the movie industry since I moved here in the early summer of 2009.

I am very behind.

Right after I have written this post, I am going to write something for myself and myself only. 

I am going to write a list of plans for my creative future and I am going to store this on my computer to read at a later date, a date when I am no longer living here in this environment.

I am doing this because I have been prompted to think about it by a book called “Art for happiness” by Val Andrews – they’ve set a task in which I am to think about any new ways I would like to express myself that I haven’t done already and there is quite a few actually and some I want to combine to create what I believe could be a new creative art form.

I have always had an interest in stage plays and the theatre and it is something along those lines.

I’ve composed music in the past, written lyrics and poems, done some amateur dramatics at college, did some private designs for fashion and dreamt up stories, painted pictures and even danced.  I have been known to decoupage and embroider, knit and crochet.  I have also been classically trained in opera as a child and was the main lyricist and singer of a rap/rock band in college, even though I was always more of a jazz, rock and soul singer in my heart.

Jazz and soul are the preferred genres my family and friends like me to sing.

As a child and into my teens I had always had an interest in burlesque but it was aggressively shunned by my mother, yet my paternal grandmother encouraged it as it was something her own mother did in between being a professional ballet and cancan dancer – my grandmother herself was a majorette and was known to do small amateur dramatic theatre work as a volunteer at weekends, usually to entertain for free the elderly visiting from residential homes and she did this along with two of my aunts and sometimes my dad.

My dad stopped going because mum didn’t like him doing it and she didn’t like my aunts encouraging me to think about joining them in their acts too!

They loved my singing, they said that my voice often moved them to tears and several old people in the audience too as I sang no less than twice for them all.

When it appeared I had some kind of talent, mum soon put a stop to my singing lessons too!

Some of the old people who lived in my street knew my mum did this and their hearts went out to me, because they knew I was home-schooled, they knew the house was noisy and didn’t sound very happy and they knew I lived in the garden.  They were sad when they used to hear me sing on my swing in the garden, people could hear me several houses away. 

Some of them tried to guilt trip my mum by telling them she should let me sing again and go back to her music classes, but she wouldn’t have it.

I lost my confidence when I was around ten years old to sing in the garden, when some new children moved into the house at the back of us and started to bully me for it, because it was opera and they felt I wasn’t cool not to mention I was fat and sad and lonely, as they called me.

Those children became the bane of my life from then onwards, as from 3pm until 8pm most days I would be self-conscious about being seen in the garden by them as they’d deliberately throw balls to bounce off my head and mock me by trying to knock me off my swing.  So I tried to keep nearer to the house, this meant that I couldn’t play with my rabbit called Toffee at the time or sit near the pond, because they’d make entertainment of me.

When I was around thirteen mum wanted more control of the garden and to make it family space as the summers were getting hotter and hotter and so because she was bothered by the children too, she put up a 6ft fence all around us.

This meant I felt free to exercise in the garden again without being mocked at any time I liked again.  I loved netball practise and swing ball, I played squash up against the house too and wasn’t self-conscious in practising my judo either.

I still don’t know when I will move out; I know I can’t really finance that yet.  But I am looking forwards to leaving – I’ve always believed this house is the thing that made me ill.

I never felt easy living here, it was like the house is alive and it didn’t welcome me – ever been in a house where you have an innate feeling you’re unwanted?

Paul told me his house is haunted and that since I moved in, within weeks the spirit seemed to have gone.  I promised him I had done nothing to scare it off, but Paul has always felt it was weird how the ghost seemed to have just vanished when I moved in.

Perhaps I made it insecure?

Who knows?

Thanks for reading…

Rock or metal? Whatever!

I feel like a vampire rock chick today, feel half gothic, half rock chick.

I have black jeans which is something but I want them ripped – not doing that to the pair I’ve got!

But I haven’t got what I really want today and that is a black jean jacket with red roses embroidered on it.  I have the white cami with a lace trim which is good, I can’t find my bike chain necklaces unfortunately or my SLAYER brooch and the box containing my heeled boots I bought a couple of years back but never wore is also lost!

I also had a box of cheap costume jewellery rings, again lost.

That’s the thing with this house; it tends to eat things and regurgitates them back up again a few months later in a sorry state usually!

I also haven’t got any decent make up; I want to wear red lipstick today and who the blazes has nicked my crimper?

I shouldn’t say rock chick really when I am listening to my vampire metal playlist – because the songs I am listening to are metal version of Vivaldi and O Fortuna with the occasional Marilyn Manson… don’t ask – just don’t ask!  It’s one of those days!

It’s also one of those days where I am concentrating a lot on vampires, dark poetry and general dark stuff and a little erotica with it too!

If I have days like these I must use it to those genres – I can’t force myself to focus on Project AD or Steampunk 1 when days like that happen – I have to go with my flow or to put it mildly, I will get fuck all done for ages!

And yes…. Seeing me head banging is productive because it gets me into the mood for a scene I want to write, lol – it’s that or I am banging  my head against the flipping writing desk!  Your choice!

Thanks for reading!

Poem for a pet rock!

I found you once under my door

I turned my ankle a bit

I looked at you and thought to myself

You little…

You were kicked aside a week or so

I didn’t appreciate you then

But I got bored one winter’s night

And that is when…

I took you in and washed you down

I painted you up real nice

And gave you googly eyes

And sent you to a shelf paradise

Rocco you are my rock

My pillar and my friend

I can’t believe I kicked you once

I sound round the bend…

But never mind what people think

You and I are good

I take care of you anyway I can

Like anyone could

It’s not vanity week, honest!

Why did I confess about my supressed vanity and why do I seem so proud of it?

Because, it is a major part of my natural personality that got the hardest beatings and chastisements over the years, to me it feels like it was 50% of my personality and that since my suppressors took a hold on me – to get me out of the mind-set of it, it was like I have lived my whole life a lie.

I lived as my shadow self for too long, though many people feel that vanity is the shadow aspect in itself, maybe my mind is all muddled up – but to me, this is what came naturally to me and it is this what got moulded out of me.

I know a lot of people, my mother included will tell me that vanity is the shadow self, because vanity is a sin.

I don’t see how it’s a sin to make the most of what you have, why shouldn’t you adorn the precious body God gave you however you like?  Why should you not worship God through your temple, which is your body and give thanks and honour him for a job well done?

Why is it more holy to hate yourself and live modestly about your looks or abilities, surely revelling in it all is the biggest form of gratitude to the creator?

I remember slaps across my face as a child when I actually used to have the guts to ask these questions to my mother!

“How dare you” she used to say as she’d drag me to the bathroom to wash my mouth with soap, literally!

To wash those dirty words out of my mouth, because I say something that can’t be redeemed, her long nails scratching the back of my throat as she washed my tongue deeply!

I hate Imperial Leather soap to this day!

All the women I admired growing up were the vain glamorous types, I always kind of screwed my nose up at the ordinary woman and lived in amazement at how much some women put the time into their looks above everything else.

I always wanted to be like that too, but I was only like that for two short years in my adult life before I moved in with Paul and about a year when I moved in with Paul – funnily enough the year before I became sick.

Its sods law that I want to get to grips with my true self now and I have long Covid alopecia which is ruining my idea of what great hair is!  I have learned these things over the years, your hair is your crowning glory, and the thing that gets you judged the most; second to that are your shoulders, people look at your shoulders and your neck and judge your posture a lot!  Thirdly to this is the clothing or accessories you choose to wear and it’s generally make up as the last thing people will notice about you. 

Though going back to the clothing, people don’t look up and then down, they look down and go up, they judge you from your footwear.  This is my experience in any case.

Your smile is another factor that probably comes before the cosmetic application judgement!  Which is why I have a closed mouth smile, I am ashamed of my mouth.

My mouth is the most abused part of my body, my voice suppressed a lot, my mouth has had a lot of abuse – forced feedings, mouth wash outs, slapped across the face a lot, squeezed to keep silent, hand over my mouth, is it any wonder my throat chakra is hard to unblock?

So what is going on here, why is it vanity week?

Well it’s not intentionally vanity week – it’s just I am really working on my inner child in the past two or three weeks and it just so happens to coincide with a few of the self-therapies I am doing.

Waking up the true me, the unblocked me, the real me.

I want to take you all on a journey with me – weight loss and changing my image and I hope it will be fun for all of us!

I am not going to be happy until I can rock a pair of suspenders better than Dr Frank n Furter!

Just don’t think of me in them now huh, don’t want to have nightmares now do we?

For me one of the big things I hate about living here is the inability to get access to someone who can do household maintenance when it needs to be done, instead of having to wait years between projects!  Our shower broke down in 2016 and I bought its replacement in 2018 and it still hasn’t been installed!  I need my twice daily showers and twice weekly exfoliations!

I miss lathering myself in shea butter for an hour and then showering it off, the stretch marks were reduced a lot and it does a lot to help with cellulite, but you can’t get into a bath to wash it all off, ew!

I think my biggest goal since childhood was to have the confidence as well as the body to rock a velveteen cat suit too!  One I’ve dreamt of designing since I was a nine!  When I had the figure to wear something like that I didn’t have the guts!

Its really weird how since doing all this inner child stuff, I am seeing a lot of butterflies, dragonflies, caterpillars, flamingos, ibises and peacocks – all representatives of transformation, flamboyance, vibrancy, vanity and confidence.

I have been taking care of my body with a high protein diet, a little exercise per day and face yoga and I am seeing a major difference to my face and figure personally.  I am starting to like myself a bit but I am thinking that’s a lot to do with the change in my mentality, thanks to that Mel Robbins technique I shared with you a couple of weeks back!

I am now able to plank for about one minute, which is impressive when you think that I struggled to hold a squat for fifteen seconds at Easter!

Six weeks ago I could only do ten reps of bicep curls without weights before needing a two minute break to continue to the full thirty reps – now I can do fifty reps off the bat without resting, though I am slightly out of breath by then.

My main focuses in toning up are my triceps area, as that is not a very nice part of my body, as well as my abs, because I look five months pregnant if I am being honest right now.  The rest of the body seems to be doing itself naturally and appropriately, I don’t know why these two areas in particular are being stubborn!

The aim isn’t to become too muscular, but to tone it up and not be horribly flabby.

At the moment my arms look alien to the rest of my body, which is why I pose with them tightly behind my back, because I look like an ape… well I am an ape, all humans are… but you know what I mean!

So, I just want to be beautiful and feel good for it, I want to be in a position of belief when someone tells me I am beautiful.  But I don’t want to be a mean cocky bitch about it like some women are. 

I just want to wear what I want, feel great in it and be who I want to be, when I want to be it, instead of cringing and thinking I am making a fool of myself, or that people are going to think that two little boys are fighting up my skirt as I walk down the road!

Thanks for reading!

The spirit of everything

The weird thing about me is that I have a lemon tree in the living room window called Cyril.

Why is he called Cyril?  Because Paul named him it, when I was thinking about what to name him?  I thought Citroen, but Paul thought Cyril was a good idea, so it stuck.

Yes, I am in the habit of naming my plants as though they are individuals, the same as I used to name any fish I can identify in an aquarium I had in the past.

There is no shame in naming animals, plants and things in general.

I was bored four years ago and found a nice ghost shaped rock; I painted the said rock blue and white, attached googly eyes on it and named it Rocco.

Rocco sits on a bookshelf in my bedroom, amongst perfume and little gnome ornaments.

When I walk into furniture or walls I apologise to it, sometimes if I am in a bad mood, I will slap it and say how inconvenient it was to move just then! 

I am the sort of person that sits watching TV and talks to it like the people in the TV can hear me – no don’t do that you stupid person!  Or, yes, I just read that in this book over there called “what not”, Paul has grown used to me talking to anything; it’s what we call our normality. 

Paul laughs when he hears me accuse the furniture of moving to block me, but I am still not so sure that they don’t move occasionally… because sometimes, it’s like they see a danger I wasn’t aware of, because usually when things like this happen to me, there is someone else charging around the corner of a door or other things. 

I still can’t help but remember what my grandma said about the fairy ancestry in Ireland she claims we have.

Paul was a complete atheist before meeting me, but he admits since knowing me and seeing the strange things that go on in this house since I moved in with him – he can’t deny there is something else.  He has said, since I have moved in, this is definitely a fairy house!

Why did he say that?  I asked him – he said well, since I moved in there is a new energy in the house, he sees shadows and coloured lights occasionally, hears strange mutters in the dark corners of the kitchen at night and food goes missing! 

Although I am a fantasist, I am also quite analytical.  So I said to him, how do you know that I haven’t sleep walked downstairs in the night and ate things?  He said, because when you were in hospital for a week having Henry, it still happened and the mutterings got worse.

I said, did you forget to feed the house spirit?  It was this time that Paul didn’t realise I left offerings every night for it, and so, he didn’t leave things for the house spirits whilst I was away.

Paul heard a crash downstairs one night, after I gave leftover beer as an offering in the kitchen, when we came downstairs we saw saucepans everywhere and Paul claimed he heard a woman mutter about “giving blooming alcohol to him, never leaves him alcohol”!  Then we heard what sounded like a cat fight outside.  So now we never leave alcohol, because the female house spirit doesn’t like her man to drink it!

My grandmother told me that the house spirit always follows the family, they don’t belong to the house – they belong with the family as they are family too!

Whether they’d follow me when I move out or stay with Henry, I am unsure, maybe they’d split the family, some will stay and some will come with me?

We’ve discovered there are seven fairy occupants living here, with lots of occasional overnight visitors.

As much as Paul used to be a sceptic, even he has claimed at the corner of his eye he has seen what they look like and he describes them exactly as I know them to look – because I am clairvoyant; or mad, whatever the case may be.

Dora Lilac-Switch is the head of the house and she does use a lilac cane as a switch to keep the others in line and Paul has complained he felt a sting across his calves when he spilled something in the kitchen and couldn’t be bothered to wipe up after him!

Paul has talked me into eventually writing a book about the brownie goings on in this house, but it might not be done for a while yet.  I have about seven other projects to do first.

Ray our house rabbit used to get tired regularly to the extent he wouldn’t move the next day, Paul started to worry about him, but I drew up a diary about when it happens to see if maybe he was allergic to fruit and veg we gave him.  It turned out the tiredness coincided with common fairy and pagan party dates, which made me consider – has the faeries took him to the party with them?  Fairies do get along with their animal housemates according to legend.  So, it seems they do.

Especially as his fur it usually roughed up and after he is over the exhaustion of it all, almost like a hangover and he goes into a bad mood for three days, like he missed the freedom!

My brother was also a sceptic when I lived in London, but claimed one night he saw a little man in his bedroom eating the leftover pizza on the floor – though my brother was drunk, he still saw it and that little man visits here from time to time, I think he follows my dad, so he doesn’t live here with me anymore; though dad has never said he has seen him, I knew his name to be O’Hara.

There is another little fairy called Lara who is childlike and she has the habit of knocking my drinks over if I have forgotten to water my houseplants for a while.

Dora helps me remember not to burn things on days I forget to put on timers, by chinking glasses in the kitchen loudly together.

Dora also helped me with the bad neighbour by talking to the magpies and they swooped down to attack him one day, but one nearly got knocked to the ground as he managed to swipe at it.

If it is mental illness and not reality all of this, then it is something I don’t want cured as it is excellent story material if nothing else.

But Paul and my brother were hard-core sceptics, scientists and physicists and they won’t let me think that it’s just my imagination – because how could they see my imaginings? 

Being analytical myself and also a former student of psychology and social science, I said this; “it’s quite simple, it is a form of mass hysteria”.  They won’t have it!

I never finished my degree in psychology and social science, I wished I had, it was fun.

The meaning behind this post?  None specifically, just something I wanted to share and something a bit fun about me and my home.

Happy reading!

Top 10 songs I can’t live without!

Top ten songs I couldn’t live without

Road to Hell by Chris Rea full version!  I always singing part one of this song!

End of everything by Stereomud

Crush by Garbage

Jealousy (anchors away) by Lesley Garrett again, another one I sing regularly!

Cry little sister (lost boys theme) by Gerard McMahon

Runaway by Aurora

Stand by Me by Ben E. King

Catch a falling star by Perry Como

You’re never fully dressed without a smile by Peter Marshall Annie Musical soundtrack – this always gets me singing and dancing even when I am feeling sad!  

As the world falls down by David Bowie

I’m a warrior

I’m proud to be a warrior

I am proud to have a life

I am proud to crush your enemies

I am proud to bring them strife

I’m lonely as an owl, flying in the night

I’m a warrior of darkness, I will set things right!

Tragedy will come to you that’s my solemn word

Victory is here for me, I will have the last word

Angels will cry for you, as you lose your life

You lived life with sin and it cuts you like a knife

I’m a warrior of darkness, I will set things right!

I will hunt you in the darkness and take away your light

I’m a passionate emissary for those who you have wronged

I’m a warrior of darkness; now sing your last song

This is a song meant for hard rock or metal I wrote; tunes will be made for it around Spring 2023 when I reset up my home studio with the new computer Paul promised to buy me after Christmas.

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 block and brain food

A debate today on twitter has been whether or not “Writers Block” exists or not?  My two cents on the matter is that writers block does not exist, I used to believe it did but then as I grew as a writer I learned that it was purely laziness on my part and the simple fact that I rarely thought outside of The Box.  I was also very nervous about how much of what I wanted to write has been done before and how little my stories represented “Original” ideas. 

The latter is laughable to me nowadays, because every idea in the present and the future has already been done somewhere, nothing is unique, but you need to understand that every human being is unique and therefore will have a unique take on a story already written.  For example, if a hundred writers had to write a story based on Alice in Wonderland every one of them would have a different stance to it.  Some would suggest that Alice was a drug addict hallucinating everything that had happened to her, another writer would believe that she had multiple personality disorder and that every other character who was not Alice was in fact her alter egos.  Another, would write the story as close to the original as possible, but even then there will be differences, some will make it dark humour, some will make it serious, some will throw in too much drama and one might make Alice a man from a rock band who got kidnapped and taken to an alien world and so on and so on. 

Now that has me thinking, wouldn’t that last idea be great?  Aliens kidnapping Alice Cooper, taking him to Wonderland another planet, but you see I can’t do that because of so many copyright laws, but it is a fun idea to play with in my mind or as a fan fic.

I can play with ideas like this all day long in any situation.  The problem for me is that I have too many ideas and I can struggle to decide which one to play with at the time.  I have got to the stage where I have selected five current novels I am working on and having to use random.org to help me choose which one to work on today?  I literally list and number my ideas like a maniac.  I even have a random scene list which is also numbered to help me fill in boring bits of my story or to prevent boring bits from occurring.  If I don’t know what I should do in the next scene, I use random.org and my lists to help me.  Each list is categorised.  It doesn’t sound very artistic, usually artists and writers are disorganised and free thinking, but I do organise my stuff like this a lot.  Granted I lose lists a lot, but I am getting better at keeping them in their place lately.

The idea of writers block is unfathomable to me in recent years.  I have learned if you constantly read and learn and if you make yourself look for art of what you are looking for, poetry etc, you will become inspired and if you do this daily as part of your routine, your mind will eventually throw things out at you.  Don’t ignore “brain farts” as I call them either – things such as…

I was reading a book about ancient Sumerian beliefs and I came across the title chapter called “The creation of man” I misread it as “The Cremation of man”.  This can spark interesting ideas if you don’t ignore it.

You’ve got to constantly stuff things into your brain daily, furiously, eventually your mind can switch into creator mode with little or no effort.  Try it.

Do this… 

Think of silver dragons and go to deviant art, flick through the pictures you first see in their search bar that says “Silver Dragons”, do this for 5 minutes, then go to pinterest and do that there again for around 5 minutes, just flick through pictures quickly, you don’t have to look at anything individually, just literally look them over, notice each different scene and do it at quick speed, you are not there for research, you are not there to steal, you are there to feed your mind and it is a hungry monster than doesn’t stop!  No idea is stupid, no idea is pathetic, if you get an idea whilst flowing like this, write it down because you’d be amazed how quickly these things pass through, it can be like being on a high speed train and you are trying to keep focused on a particular field you’ve just gone past!  Then search silver dragon poetry in google, or silver dragon songs, or silver dragon art in your search engines or snap chat or tumblr or anywhere that is likely to have a search option!

Do this with scenes or creatures or events you want to write about.  Writers block is just an excuse for lazy writers.  Don’t be a lazy writer.  If you don’t love playing with your mind and feeding it like this and you find writing hard work, then you can’t be a writer.  Because writers don’t work, they play and they do this every single day.  Some scenes are hard but the writing is never stressful or hard work because you love it and if you love something, it can’t ever be hard work!  Don’t keep chasing the money either by looking for things that are trending, because trends change exceedingly fast, as soon as you write about what is trending now you are already out of date by 30k words.  Play and write for you and read a lot of books; not just fiction books on the genres you like, read broadly, especially non-fiction because that can help you world build.

 

 

 

Tale of a magic daffodil

Fragaria, a little red haired fairy likes to live in gardens, particularly rose gardens, particularly in spring.   She especially loves attending the spring ball even though she never had a date to go with; she’s always with the shrinking violet fays, the shy retiring fays.

One day, just at the beginning of winter this all changed, or so she thought.  A fine young fairy swain zoomed into her life from the snow, or so it seemed.

“Greetings fair maiden” said the white haired gent, taking off his ice capped hat and bowing courteously to her.

She instantly shied away behind a sleeping lilac bush and hoped she would sink into the soil beneath, but she couldn’t, for the ground was frozen solid, so she had to grin and bare this strange newcomer to the garden.

“Hope I didn’t alarm you, there” said the brazen character.

All Fragaria could do was giggle and skip across the garden behind an ash tree.

“Ah, I see, you’d like a game of chase?” asked the stranger.

He quickly ran after her, this frightened Fragaria and she ran across the garden and hid behind flower pots, sleeping rose bushes, garden gnomes and various other objects in order to keep away from this strange, but handsome stalker, but he still wouldn’t quit.  Poor Fragaria tried hard to do away with his advances, she quickly hopped over a large rock but tumbled the wrong way and fell into the half frozen pond and went down with an almighty splash into the icy depths.

The young swain leapt in after her and pulled her out after cutting away some of the algae that tied itself around her legs. 

He wrapped her up in his rabbit skin coat and carried her off to a little clearing in the ivy where he lit up a small fire for her to warm herself up and dry.

The whole time she never spoke to him, both of them were looking at each other apologetically, Fragaria with shy sideways glances and slowly sipping hot cups of rosehip tea.

“What kind of fay are you”?  He eventually asked.

“I was thinking the same of you, but since you asked first, I’m part rose and strawberry fay, strawberry on my father’s side, I’m Fragaria Fraise”.  She proudly announced.

“I’m Hail, I’m a winter fairy” He said, as though she should have known that.

From then onwards their meets were regular and Fragaria became ever more attached to this gentleman, her heart grew light and fluffy with the love that started to grow.

She started planning in her head the ball gown she’ll make for the spring ball, she planned it all completely and she began to quiver with excitement, until the day the snow started to melt.

“I have some bad news for you Fragaria”. Hail reluctantly said.

“In the next few days I’ll have to leave this place and I am not sure when I’ll return, I hope you understand?” said Hail, with all sincerity.

Fragaria immediately felt shattered into a million pieces, she found someone to go to the spring ball with, yet now he has to leave and the spring ball is only a month away she thought.

“I’ll come and fetch you late this afternoon; the sun will be in the perfect spot to start melting those long icicles I told you about and I don’t want you to miss a thing”.  He said, and he skipped away merrily, unknowing of what he had done to poor Fragaria.

Fragaria ran home to her mother in tears. 

“What’s the matter with you dear child?” said Fragaria’s mother. 

“Hail said he is leaving me, now I won’t have anyone to go to the ball with” she wailed.

“Hail? You never mentioned Hai… oh no!” stopped her mother suddenly, she knew what a name like Hail meant; she was a fairy of the world, she knew winter fairies came and went like rain, well, during the winter that is and sometimes late spring snow showers bring them back and hail storms in random times of the year, generally a winter fairy was bad news to the likes of other fairy’s in fact all seasonal fairies were:

“I can’t bare the pain mother; I can’t bare it I tell you”, whimpered Fragaria.

“There, there, I know what we can do if you want this pain to stop and if you’re sure he won’t come back to you” said Fragaria’s mother.

“What? What is it?  I’ll do anything to stop this hurt”. Fragaria begged.

“Luckily I noticed one in full bloom this morning, where the snow melted a few days ago because it gets a lot of sunlight there by the lawn, well anyway there I found it, a DAFFODIL, all you have to do is go and crawl right in and it will sense your pain and it will set things to rights!” said Fragaria’s mother in excitement.

Fragaria looked up at her mother and without a word dashed tearfully through the garden to where her mother had directed her and climbed up into the daffodil and cried herself to sleep.

Fragaria had the most peculiar dream; she dreamt the flower sprayed perfume at her and told her that to put all her woes behind her and that friendship is immortal.

When she woke up, she felt no more pain, but had sunny memories of Hail and her sharing fun in the snow like happy children.

She went home and had a lovely supper, of nettle soup, followed by spiced beetroot salad, when suddenly there was a knock on the door of their little tree house, Fragaria’s mother opened the door to find a crestfallen Hail standing there.

“Are you Hail?” asked Fragaria’s mother. 

“Yes Mrs Fraise, do you know where she is?  I was due to meet with her late this afternoon to look at some icicles melting in the sundown and I noticed a fox going under the garden shed and I got worried for her because she didn’t turn up”.  He said dolefully.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Fragaria is here with us, eating a lovely beetroot salad, but I thought you should know, she’s been to the daffodil about you.” said Mrs Fraise, warningly.

“Oh no, she thought… oh dear no, then I’ll go there myself presently” he said dejectedly. 

Mrs Fraise just stood and nodded.

“That is the best you can do, she’ll never leave the gardens, you know that, it’s in our blood, it’s in all our blood to stay with who we belong, and it’s only fair”.  She said.

Hail agreed and went to the daffodil, where he too had memories of friendship and child games in the snow with Fragaria, and every winter there on in, they met up and played in the snow together, never ever falling in love with each other again… but that was for the best, for they both knew they loved their birth right too much to lose and each found love in their own way eventually.

© Tina Cousins 2013

This story was influenced by the poem I wrote earlier called “The magic daffodil”, it is also semi-influenced by a novel I read last month called “The Snow Child” By Eowyn Ivey.

This idea happened completely at random.  I wrote a poem, the poem sounded like a story and I sat back all day thinking, wow, this needs to become a short story and there it is, right up there, winking at you, my story.

I feel the story was slap dashed, I don’t think it’s well written.  I hoped for it to come across like an old fairy tale, but I am unsure if my voice/style is any good.  But anyway, critics are most welcomed to comment.

I am here to hone my skills, not flaunt them… well, partly so.