The Word Cloud

Ok. I finished the second book in the series, Redemption, and waited for the inspiration for the last one. I knew there would be three..... How, no idea. I just knew. I found the titles, with help from my Sammy.... and waited...... Nothing... *sigh*

The first one came from a nightmare I had. Took ten years in total to go from a nasty dream I wrote down, to something that might be usable, to ooohhh a novel and then to a finished book that I quite enjoyed rereading (for once.)

The second came from a dream as I was editing the first. The dream kept repeating, driving me nutty and thus, I ceased the editing (will get someone else to do that since I hate it so much) and started the second book. That one took less then a year to finish. After I wrote the last word, I could not wait to go to sleep. lol. To see what the next one would be about......

A month later and only the dumbest dreams ever dreamed.... work... family.... stupid talking with peeps I do not even know.... silly dreams. dumb dreams. Made me want to stop dreaming....

Now, here it is... Tonight.... I was laying in my bed, sick with a nasty cold and playing fruit ninja on my cellphone and guess what?!?!

INSPIRATION!!!

I heard the first line in my head, I stopped playing to consider it and my mind kept going. Complete with visuals, I did not realize it would be an extention of sorts of the second one, a minor character that I had nearly killed off. *gasp* I was shocked. I have an idea. I looked at my game and realized that I had lost, badly, and shut it down. I found my book and pencil and tadaaaa... 15 pages already!!! I love it when inspiration does that though my wrist and arm could pass on it.

So here we go, book three, The Empty Throne...... I soooooo can't wait to see where it goes.....

I once bought a card which reproduced a painting called 'Transitions' - a beautiful image of clouds, rain and waterfalls flowing to the sea.  A cyclical and symbolic image, which I embraced as a metaphor for life.

The past few months have been transitional in a shared life and I've blogged about challenges of retirement; grateful for Cloudie friends' support.

The past couple of months have held other challenges, but scans have finally disproved the worst scenario.  Now, Mr J and I are going on holiday and I believe this will be a transitional one for both  ~ and inspirational in respect of my writing.

For Mr J, it will be the first holiday for 50 years, when he will not have to think about a return to work.  No doubt there will be mixed emotions, but I sense most will be positive now that time has mellowed his new status in life.

I go away satisfied that I have met a self-imposed target as regards my poetry and  I'm taking the first three chapters of my 'opus' with me, along with many notes.  I love it as it is, but know that it needs further change to stand a chance in the commercial marketplace.  It will be good to become reacquainted with my characters.  I've not worked on this creation for a while.

Wish me luck in the sun with this goal of improvement.  I will, in time, let you know whether muses descended in force and I hope to learn, on my return to this great fluffy place, of more Cloudie successes in the arena of publication. 

Au revoir.  Go well, my friends.  :) xJ

There’s been much talk lately ‘in another place’ of the delights of buying stationery; one which I have to admit, I share. Well I’ve just bought an item of stationery after looking around for some years to find what I wanted at an affordable price. I got it on E-bay at the weekend and it’s just been delivered.

A 19^th century, sterling silver dip pen.

It’s to go with a family heirloom: a silver pen and ink stand that belonged to my great-grandfather, W G Lyttle,  who was a celebrated Ulster author. It sits in pride of place, if somewhat incongruously, in front of my monitor, as a constant inspiration for me to carry on writing.

 

(Pictures a bit squashed, as usual, I'm afraid.)

My question is, what object, if any, do you have that inspires you to keep at it and to produce you best?

Andy Cope (author of 'Spy dog') came to school today(with Lara THE spy dog).

Writing workshop in the morning for the whole of KS2 and a 'Being Brilliant' workshop in the afternoon for Y5&6. I'd had the privilege of listening to the BB talk last September at a staff training, so was interested to see how he presented the same topic to kids and attended as a parent helper

His essential message is - be a 2%er - one of the two percent of people who 
are some of the happiest people ever. (CHOOSE to be happy. It'll literally change your life.)

Where does the sausage machine come into it?

Well, you put pork into the machine, you get pork sausages out. You put vegetables in (or even vegetarians some of the kids suggested) and you get vegetarian sausages out.

You get the idea.

Andy looked at all sorts of things the kids could do to become happier, saying 'Be careful what you put into your sausage recipe. Good stuff in makes for much better sausages out!'

So, fellow cloudies; how are your sausages looking, and what can you do to make them even better?

Many thanks to Andy for yet another inspirational day.

(The pig of happiness is a short youtube video - check it out and see whether you can leak happiness too.)

Hi all,
Perhaps you can help dig me out of no man's land? Appreciate it if you can.

I've been writing non-fiction for a while, and editing and twiddling and polishing and plotting for existing works - my own and others - and now I'd like to write a totally fresh project.

'How nice,' I hear you say. 'What is it?'

That's the prob. I haven't the faintest idea.

I fancy changing genres for the hell of it - perhaps something historical? Perhaps set far away? Perhaps even Sci-Fi?
I'm tempted to try a whodunit, or a wild caper. Something light and fun; something I've not done before.
I'd like to write 'Hitchhiker's Guide'. Oh, has it been done already?

I miss the whoosh of writing with abandon and would like to remind myself how that feels.
So particularly those who know how I write already (but others welcome), do you have any blinding suggestions for me? I don't mind doing a bit of research but don't want to get bogged down in it.

I've thought of using one of my older short stories as a template for a full-length novel (i.e. the synopsis already done?) and may do that.

Friends have urged me to write about my travels, or something set in Africa (since I lived there for a while), but that's essentially non-fiction again. ('I had a farm in Africa, below the Ngong hills' - oh, that's been done too?)

I want to find a new world and populate it with my imagination; to have the freedom to take the story any whacky way I please.

I've thought about adapting an ancient story to modern times - a Greek myth, or a Bible story, or a legend. Maybe. If I can think of a good one that hasn't been done.

In fact I have so many ideas but none of them with any legs; I'm tired of hopping along.
My pencils are nicely sharpened and I'm tapping my teeth. What's the next bit?
Any creative juices out there? Muchly appreciated if so.
Thanks.

Last night, I had one of my very coherent and vivid dreams. These dreams are both inspiring and a little bit scary in that I have no idea where they come from, and that they do not seem to behave in the way most people's do - no weird things happening in terms of physics (so no floating, no being able to fly, no walking through walls etc), there are no killer socks, no people turning into Alsatians halfway through etc - they're more like being in a film than dreaming, and they form the basis of many of my stories.

So, if you would bear with me, I'd like to share this one.

I was one of three people - there was me, an older man and an older woman. We were hiding under some undergrowth, and before us was a clearing, ringed with vergreen trees. In the centre of the clearing was a group of people - mainly children - being set upon by animals. Surrounding them was a baying crowd of people. Hey, I said my dreams were vivid, not nice...

Unable to stand just watching any further, myself and my two companions run into the clearing and start trying to rescue the children. But, for some reason, they all of a sudden turn on us and start fighting like savages. The ringleader of the crowd laughs and brandishes a vial, telling us that the children have been given some kind of serum that turns them in a blind, barbaric rage,  all so they get a better spectacle. My male companion grasps the vial and drinks it down, to the horror of the crowd - he is already a seasoned fighter, and so the effects of the vial are much more devastating in him. Whilst he turns into a whirling dervish, the crowd scatter and the children run away. A small baby is left on the ground, which my female companion and I scoop up before running away. Our male companion follows a little while after.

We travel together for a little while - the baby is suprisingly easy to take care of, but we have to find somewhere to rest and get some food and milk. So we stop off at a village, which, on the surface, seems a nice place. However, there is something sinister about the place... in the dream, I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first, but then it became apparent - there were no children there. At first, we wondered if this was due to their children being stolen from them, but then we found out that the village was the source of the trafficking. We then try to leave, but are stopped, and so hatch a plan to flee at night. This formed the bulk of the dream - smuggling goods and preparing to leave without the villagers realising what we're up to.

I woke up just as we got into our cart, ready to flee, so I don't know exactly how it ends.

I have to write them down, or they bug me no end. This also sets them apart from 'normal' dreams in that 'normal' dreams usually fade with the morning mist, but these ones hang around, nagging me, until I set them down for posterity. They are detailed and plausible (even the fantasy ones with dragons in them). It's like they want to be told.

Which in turn leads me to imaginary friends (bear with me - all will make sense in the end!) When I was a very little girl, I had an imaginary friend. He wasn't the kind of imaginary friend you'd imagine a little girl to have - he was a T.rex called Godzilla for one - but he went everywhere with me, much to my parents' exhaustion.

It was the beginning of a deep and abiding love for all things ancient - not just dinosaurs, but marine reptiles, ancient invertebrates, archosaurs... basically, if it isn't around today, I am fascinated by it. There is something about the inherent mystery of ancient life that sparks my curiousity like nothing else. So, in a way, it was inevitable that I would pass a bit of this onto my kids, so it's come as no surprise that at the grand old age of 2-and-3/4, my eldest has succumbed to the lure of all things dinosaurian.

But then it gets a bit odd. You see, Lucy now has an imaginary friend. And he is a T.rex. And, according to my mum, he behaves identically to Godzilla in every way. He is naughty and chases her, just like he was naughty and chased me. One minute he is 'giant big - look, he is looking into my bedroom window!', the next he is 'likkle likkle likkle, and there he is, in my hand'. Just like he used to do when he my my imaginary friend. This is particularly freaky for me, because the changing nature of Godzilla's / T.rex's size is something I have never talked to Lucy about, and yet it is there. With me, one minute he was as big as a house; the next, small enough to sit in my hand - just like Lucy. My mum says it's like having me around all over again.

What makes this even weirder is I actually remember Godzilla. Sure, I know he didn't really exist... but I still remember him being around. Drop Dead Fred, anyone?

Which leads me to the inspiration bit of this blog. Terry Pratchett once theorised that inspiration was a physical thing, sleeting through the universe, which blossomed once it found a head to nestle within. It's a motif that he revisits again and again (and uses it to explain the amount of ideas his character Leonard of Quirm has), and I have to admit, I do wonder sometimes if he is on to something. After all, what is inspiration? It's a devilishly squirmy thing to pin down. People are 'inspired' to do things... but how? Where in the brain does it take place? Why do some things inspire some and not others? Why are some people seemingly more prone to inspiration than others?

And why is it so bloody insistent?!

When I am 'inspired', I find I can barely concentrate on anything else until I do something about it (usually scribbling it down appeases it). Until I give it a little bit of life by writing it down (acknowledging it, if you will), it will occupy all my waking thoughts. There is something prima donna-ish about it all - 'pay attention to me of else!' - that is both frustrating and ultimately fascinating... and I do wonder if anyone else finds this. Is inspiration actually something independent of the people they inspire? Is 'the muse' actually something real? (And can be handed down through a family, as I seem to have bequeathed my imaginary friend to my daughter?)

So... inspiration. How are you inspired... and do you have to appease the inspiration gremlins so they won't take your life hostage?

 

Today in Oz it's Anzac Day which is a day for remembrance and consideration of the people who sacrificed their lives in World War II. 

I find it a little sad that while we're taught about "the war" as a homogenous occurance, the human stories are often left out of our history books.

Some years ago now staying up late I watched a 20 minute short on a little known Australian nurse - Vivian Bullwinkel. Through all the Anzac ceremonies I've attended over the years I've never heard her name or story so I thought today was an appropriate day to do my best to tell her story and let people know who she was and why she was awesome.

It's a long-ish blog with pictures so I'll just refer you onto my blog - I have a Dreamsicle. 

I hope you enjoy; I personally find her both amazing and inspirational.

~ Kally  

Dear Reader...

How do we handle discouragement? Do we allow discouragement to dictate our lives? Discouragement can make us feel as though we are imprisoned within a cell of total despair. We can feel as though these moments of discouragement are keeping us from completing God's will for our lives.

In Philippians 1:12-14, it reads..."Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. (13) As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. (14) Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly." In this reading...Paul was imprisoned but instead of sinking low into moments of discouragement; Paul used these moments to minister and because of his chains of imprisonment; others were encouraged to also speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

I believe that when Satan brings on an affliction; one of his main goals is to keep us discouraged. He knows that when we become discouraged, then he has us right where he wants us to be...in his control.

Many times throughout my own life; I've served God through pain and tiredness. I didn't do it to prove that I was stronger than the next person; instead, I did it to throw a weapon back at Satan and send him a message that he wasn't going to have the upper hand in my life. I have found that when I minister through my pain and tiredness; that I am also giving my needs more directly to God, so I can press on and do what God has called me to do.

We can either sit within a prison cell of discouragement, while each moment continues to feel like a raging storm or we can use our discouragement to reach out and share the love of God with others. When we choose to wallow in discouragement, then Satan can use our weaknesses even more to control our lives and keep us plumeting down into a place where we feel even more distant from God.

Satan has formed a weapon against us and the weapon's name is "discouragement". What we need to ask ourselves is this..."what weapon are we using with God's help, to destroy these weaknesses in our lives?"

No matter what we may be going through today; let's take the weakness called discouragement and use it as a mighty weapon for God! May you truly find God's best, while walking through moments of discouragement! See you tomorrow!

It's Only Because of Him...

Diane

            Part of my fascination with movies is not there script, their acting, but rather, how the movie was made. I recall sitting for hours watching the “making of: specials when a blockbuster movie would premier. What struck me was the magic behind the screen and the way the idea took shape. I especially liked the discussions on how the whole project started. Sometimes it was a mutual collaboration between producers and directors on a patio in LA, or over a cocktail in New York. No matter where, the story behind the story is always amusing. In this work, I wish to share with you all some of the little known stories behind my works. Like the movies, each has a unique beginning and may help the reader to understand the work a little better. Here they are:

 

Lost in the Fog

            Lost in the Fog has its origins a little over a year ago, at Christmas, when we were visiting my wife’s family in Virginia. It was the night before we were to travel home, and it was exceptionally foggy out. In the dense mist, my mind began to wander, and perhaps wonder at the setting in which I found myself. Save for the actual fog on their road, all else came from the vaults of my mind.

 

Death Immortal

            I was the only one of my family to hike up a steep, nay, very steep hillside to see an old family cemetery located in the Cataloochie area of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It was small and picturesque, sitting like a sentry upon the apex. Here lies the inspiration for Death Immortal.

 

Perpetually Seven

            In the final year of graduate study, a small group of us took a religiously oriented trip to China. While there, I became sick with some illness and was immobilized one even at the hostel. I recall lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. My roommate, Josh, was unpacking some items from his bag. I asked him what time it was. He responded, “Seven.” Content, I drifted off. When I opened my eyes, I again asked him what time it was. He replied, “Seven,” again. I had thought myself asleep for some time, but found I was wrong. The story then took shape from there. I wrote it when I got home.

 

The Man in the Window

            There is no particularly interesting story behind this one save for its intimate connection with the swine flu which attacked the world a year ago, in September of 2010. I wanted to write a piece which would be set in a cultural incident, and the flu presented me with the perfect situation.

 

The Expense of Ill Judgment

            Not yet released, this story has its origins in a stroll around the cemetery and historic chapel at historic Jamestown, in Virginia. I even lifted the chapel and dropped it in the story, allowing it to make a cameo appearance. It was my ‘thank you’ to the building.

 

The Nursing Attendant

            My only full-length novel (not yet released), this story has perhaps the best story, second only to Perpetually Seven. The story began life not as a novel in the works, but as a short work of fiction. I wanted to create a short tale where a nursing attendant took residence in a home with an invalid and a madman, who then tries to blame the girl for all the terror he enacts. The story changed drastically as the characters began to speak loudly. The madman became the honest Robert Latoure, and the innocent nursing attendant became, well, Caroline Asher. I won’t give away the story here, but suffice to say it became an amazing work with psychological monsters, witchcraft and the waking dead! 232 pages in all, I began writing it in room 310 in Graves Hall, and ended down the hall in the Resident Director’s apartment.

 

            I hope you enjoyed these little stories, the tale behind the story. Every work as an amazing set of circumstances behind the pages; the next time you read an awesome work, stop and think for a moment about what went into the novel or short work, and what brought the idea to the forefront. Knowing the story behind the story can be wonderful.

 

As always, good luck writing.

Thinking in the dark... somehow...

How does a story come to you?  I’m going to set down, as closely as I can, how one story came to me, and I’d love to know how it works for you.  I suspect that the process is as individual as we are individual human beings, and that the very nature of humanity is reflected, not in one work of fiction, but in fiction as a whole, and in the process of creating fiction.  We are a storied people.

Take one story.  I entered Alan’s Inter-City Challenge before Christmas with this short story: Roath Park in the Dark 

There was a story brief, and a place: Cardiff, where I grew up.  That night, in bed, the whole arc of the story came to me, at once.  A drunken boyo is seduced in the park, and persuaded to buy a landmark that is obviously public property.  (The clocktower in question has meaning in my novel, but that’s another story.)  The story would show his vulnerable, loving nature, and the final twist would be that he couldn’t care less when he finds out that he’s been conned.  The night meant more to him than possession of his flat.  All that didn’t come to me in bits, but as a whole: a quest through a part of Cardiff I know very well, in a loving, drunken haze.

When I came to write it for the first time, several weeks later, nothing had changed in the storyline, but a character grew, Rhodri from Tin Street.  I have written scraps of conversation in Cardiff voices before, but never a whole story, and that is where the real work began.  At first, there were chunks of my voice, and chunks of Rhodri, and they sounded OTT to say the least.  I had to think what Rhodri WOULDN’T say.  That is very much the test I apply to characters in my novels, and as I get to know them, it gets easier.  I have to live with a character to find the right voice and tone.

A bit of research on the internet told me that the two pubs name-checked have barely changed since I knew them in the 1970’s.  The Clifton was the obvious starting point for Rhodri’s quest, but he needed a girl.

Rhian had to be more than any girl, and she came next.  She is no mean-hearted seducer, but a girl with a lust for life and love, with a childish, impetuous streak, and, for those who take an interest in Welsh mythology, more than a passing resemblance to Rhiannon, half-goddess, half-woman.  Rhiannon has magical powers, but is also prepared to suffer for crimes she didn’t commit.  This 21st Century Rhiannon is a little more assertive.

I had my characters, two voices, and a journey mapped out.  But from the very beginning, there had been something else, a Cardiff atmosphere: and that’s the bit I find difficult to analyse.

Cardiff isn’t an old city.  It is Victorian at root, and the creation of industrialists-cum-aristocrats-cum-philanthropists-cum-romantics.   The Third Marquis of Bute not only gave us Roath Park, but endowed large chunks of Cardiff, including his fabulously-furnished Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch.

These Victorians were the enthusiastic amateurs who helped pass on Welsh mythology to the wider world. Lady Charlotte Guest, wife of an iron master and later iron-mistress in her own right, translated the tales of 'The Mabinogion' into English.  But these people were also responsible for the appalling conditions in the mines in the Welsh valleys, and in the slums of the bay area, and Cardiff is still alive with that contradiction.  In my story, Rhian’s ancestor had seduced the Marquis of Bute, and I guess that was where that theme found expression, but it wasn’t planned, it just happened in the writing.

I had plot, characters, voices, atmosphere, and the ending had been there from the start, but could I find an opening?  Not in weeks of trying.  Then I thought of a little ditty we used to say at school: Max Boyce made it famous. ‘I’m Cardiff born, I’m Cardiff bred, and when I die, I’ll be Cardiff dead.  They’ll bury me in a plot in Splott, and remember me in Cardiff.’  Splott is where my story starts, and so at last, I’d found a way in.

Another little ditty went in earlier.  I wanted Rhian to have a childish streak, and so I gave her a skipping rhyme, ‘Roath Park, in the dark...’  That is my very own work, but I love kid’s rhymes, and one of my favourite books is Iona and Peter Opie’s ‘The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren.’

After the opening, it was a matter of writing and re-writing, and as is usually the case with me, the editorial process made the story longer, not shorter, and I got perilously close to my 2,500 word limit.  I stopped when I was happy reading the story aloud twice.

So, that’s how a story came to me, and how it ended up on a website in cyberspace.  How do stories come to you?

I won the competition.  (That was a fun sentence to write: I won!)  In reality, I won by the slenderest of margins, and if you look at the Inter-City Challenge Group – do, it’s worth it – you will see sixteen other solutions to Alan’s story brief.  Each one is as individual as the city that inspired it, and as the author who – somehow – put two thousand-odd words into an order that conveys a vision.  It’s the ‘somehow’ that I’m interested in.  How does the ‘somehow’ work for you?