It Doesn’t have to be hard

I sat among white roses and sewed 

When I was a little kid, adults tried to shield me from worrying topics of discussion. They applied techniques:

1: discussing the matter when I was in bed.

2: mouthing significant elements when I was around.

3: suddenly talking in Greek

I know about the first technique because a school friend overheard her parents in conversation about nuclear weapons and loyally fed back to me the following day.  She was very worried, and I have remained worried ever since.

Mouthing significant elements was a thing my Nan did. She died when I was seven. I am now forty four and I can still remember the frustration of having a whole word just mouthed out. A word of course that I was unfamiliar with, a word whose gravity I would not understand.

The third technique was the most frustrating of all, I would be keenly following a conversation about nothing in particular between mum and her sister and the moment it got juicy it went ..Greek.

When I was a kid I wanted to be involved. I wanted to partake in conversations. I wanted to listen and join in. Even if sometimes I was frightened by the discussion. Which I never was because they used those techniques, unless they were talking about ghosts, in which case they seemed to totally forget that there was a kid with an “Overactive Imagination” in the room.

Consequently I try to be open when discussing around my son. It seems kids very much want their opinion to be respected in the adult realm. I can't remember what we were discussing, but it was with great conviction that my boy said,  

“But if you work hard and try it will be Okay?”

There was maybe a minute of silence before my husband and I replied;In unison

“No.”

Working hard has nothing to do with success.

It's a lie that has been sold to us, the devil makes work for idle hands and all that. Working hard simply exhausts you. Working hard is miserable.

I believe it is quite feasible to be happy and successful without working hard. Though you might need to adjust your aspirations a little. Surely it is better to be  happy with who you are and what you have, than to work hard in order to get more stuff.

Yesterday I sat among white roses and sewed, pretty things for my craft show.

https://andyartisand.carbonmade.com/

My husband painted adorable creature cards in the room next door. I had the radio on. I was not working hard. None of it was hard.

Even my real job isn't hard anymore. It used to be. But that story is for another time.

Who told the kid its hard?

Did he stay up late and eavesdrop? Could he read the shapes of silent words? Has my mother been teaching him Greek?

There is no reason why work should be hard.

It just needs to feel good.

Big Bad Blog

To cook a fine meal takes love and care and even then it doesn’t always come out right, to sew a pair of curtains is quite straight forward, but you need care and concentration or you will make a mess. It’s the same with a blog.

My blog spiel at the top there says this is my take on life as a writer, a mother a wife and a lecturer. I thought it would be boring to exclusively blog about writing, which is basically just pressing buttons on a keyboard, in the right order, the sort of order that can be often impossible to find and on occasion makes me feel a bit like I’m Leonard Cohen writing Hallelujah!

As for writing about being a mother and wife, well that’s just reflections on my family life. Most of all I like my blog posts to be topical, I also like them to be positive and ideally of some interest to others. Therefore I was thrilled last week to have dredged up something positive to say about the election results and consequently to blog about.

You can read the mess I made of it here.

And this is where I think I went wrong.

I hurried.

I have set myself the target of posting every Tuesday and I left it rather last minute to write the post. Remember when Ed Milliband set himself a target of not using notes? He made a mess of it too.

I added too many ingredients.

At the time I was pleased to have included the following culturally significant references in the post:

Jazz, Rock and Roll, Glam Rock, Punk, Disco, Country, German Expressionism, The Bauhaus, Franz Kafka, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Picasso, Martin Scorsese movies.
And demonstrate my broad understanding of world events; The Great War, The Deep Depression and the rise of Fascism.

I made a literary bad.

I know the dust bowl was in Oklahoma, I remember the men kicking it with their feet and going in doors again muttering. But the land of milk and honey; California was so strong in my mind, perhaps because of the current drought, perhaps because it was for the Joad family so full of promise, that I put the turtle there and made myself look like an idiot.

The message was lost.

There was such a tangle of ideas that my overall message was lost. It was not clear if I were saying the Tories were the villains (which I am) or Labour was (because they were in during the seventies). My big idea, the one that gave me some level of pleasure to put together; that there may be a significant cultural movement coming our way. Well that was lost.

So I suppose it’s a bit like cooking a meal, plan ahead, do your research, carefully select your ingredients, take it slow, and check the seasoning.  If you have any other suggestions as to how I can better the blog please leave a comment.

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Art in the Apocalypse

I wondered will it be like the seventies again, when we were poor? Then I remembered that we are still poor. Will I need to get in a supply of candles for the power cuts? We will have big snow once more and will there be a massive drought? 

Will students come to class each day to announce that their Dad had just been made redundant ( they already have been)? Will there be bomb scares? And riots? Will popular music become stark raving bonkers (Glam Rock, Punk, Disco, Country Ballard’s)?

Apart from the fact that I like candle light, I could find nothing positive in the election results. In a smouldering despair I began to write the darkest piece of work I have ever crafted. It will soon be complete and I will share with those that dare to read it. Saturday there was a call for writers on the theme of The Apocalyptic, HA. I laughed a bitter laugh, THIS IS THE Apocalypse. I did get that down. I even decided to move to Germany instead, whilst we can still move freely in the EU. 

My husband lived there, it looks nice, it’s also where we find German Expressionism and I especially like that, I like its darkness. German Expressionism was an artistic revolutionary response to the horrors; the rise of Fascism, the war the Apocalypse. 

http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/ge/

Brilliant art can sprout from disillusionment even despair; consider the raw genius of pessimism in Franz Kafa’s The Trial, the knowing innocence of Huckleberry Finn borne in America’s Deep Depression and of course the harsh beauty of that turtle trying to turn himself the right way up, in the burning heat, in the dust bowl of California through the craft of John Steinbeck. Let’s not forget tragedy and catastrophe has not only given birth to powerful words and images (I’m thinking here of Picasso’s Guernica.) But also to moving images, The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver are two striking works of cinematography conceived in an unimaginable hell.

 

What of the music? Jazz as medicine to fight the horrors of the Great War, followed, by Rock and Roll as the defiant drug of the young, un-dead and free, and Punk Rock;  the ultimate musical rebellion.

What would happen if we were to bring these art forms together like they did in another German artistic movement; The Bauhaus? What if we enabled viewers to participate and even shape the narrative of that art form? We would have computer games. What shape will they now take? What will terrified independent developers do with this art form? Yes this situation is terrifying. How will the art community respond, what revolution can we expect? Because there will be one, perhaps not on the streets and maybe it won’t be televised but viewed on Twitch.

They said the election was going to be interesting, it wasn’t, I felt like a lobster being slowly brought to the boil. The interesting things, the hopeful things, they will come from the people and from their art.

Leaving The Politics Out.

A while back I found a list of short story competitions; more often than not they come with a theme, as this one did. I responded to the theme and decided to go for a horror genre. That’s horror in the loosest sense of the word.

Though I knew there was much wrong with the first draft, I still felt I had something. I sent the story to Mum and Dad for feedback: it was too long, meandering and about too many things.

I am now on the third draft, and having introduced a Doctor character I feel things are improving. Incidentally I have now missed the deadline for entry. The problem with the story is that I want it to be about many things. My story is about a single mother journalist investigating the suicides of three teenage girls. There is a story behind the suicides, and this is where the genre of Supernatural Horror comes in, but the bigger story is about how these suicides affect the journalist and her son. If it wasn't about many things it would end up being about nothing.

Whilst crafting this short story I have also been pondering the structure of a lecture I am soon to give on Personal Branding and Identity. When it comes to PR I am personally doing it all wrong. According to the PR people I most definitely should Not be filling my twitter feed with political statements and pleas that Lord Grenville Janner be brought to trial. Please sign the petition which you can find here.

Attempting Brand Identity

In PR terms, I should have a clear identity: Dark Fiction. Ideally I should have a defined image; this is mostly based on my hair. I should blog regularly (top marks there then) yet I suppose I should be blogging about Dark Fictional things, which I don’t. This is because as stated in a previous blog post “Which Me is Me.” I am not a character in a piece of fiction with clear motivations; I am a character with motivations that are often contradictory and difficult for others to understand.

My politics, my atheism, my being a mother, a lecturer and a writer are all massively intertwined.

So when I read a twitter post to a young singer song writer suggesting she “stick to music and keep the politics out of it.” I wondered what kind of music she would make if she left the politics out of it. What kind of songs would she write if part of her belief system was exempt? What stories would writers tell? In the end you would create art about one thing, when of course art is about many things and how they intertwine.

Twitter Fighting

“Wait.” I said to the boy, “Let Doc have a sniff.”

Doc sniffed the dried dog urine patterns on the wall, aligned himself and left his mark. I explained that he was leaving a message for the other dogs, “A bit like Twitter?” the boy said. Yes a bit like Twitter. I love Twitter.

I’m not saying that it’s like trails of dried dog urine on a wall, though when it comes to things like #FeministsAreUgly there is a case to be made for the analogy. Having read the comments @CCridoPerez has to deal with dried dog piss might be appropriate after all.

Never the less, Twitter is better than the news, if it’s not hash-tagged it’s not happening. Without Twitter I wouldn't have known about the Baltimore riots, I wouldn't have known about the #WorstCrisisSinceTheAbdication” which for one tweeter was akin to using semi skimmed milk instead of full fat.

What I like best is that twitter allows people to openly fight, not just one another, but the system, it allows them to spray these virtual walls with neon signs screaming to be heard.

Here there might be a big society, individuals determined; for example not to let go of the Grenville Janner injustice. I've seen those individuals work relentlessly to raise awareness of this situation. I've discovered investigative journalism that cuts and picks through the mindless dross and presents hard facts. I've read the pain in Black Lives Matter and I have seen people fighting for what they belief in.

http://www.exaronews.com

Some people are fighting for justice and an end to the killing. Some are fighting for truth, pulling the curtain from cover ups: revealing the detail and yelling to be heard. Some tweeters are fighting depression, some are fighting for our vote, others to find work, to promote their books, to get somewhere to be someone, to do feminism properly.

And we group together with a little press of the follow button. Then you realize you are part of a community, you are communicating with others that enrich your life through their knowledge, their passion and their sharing, and in unity there is power.

So many of us fight alone, we’re not comparing scars here, but it’s hard alone, just battling to keep your head above water, to put food on the table, to apply for another job, to get through the day.

Last week I responded to a facebook group seeking donations, a local mum was moving out of a hostel and into a flat with her little boy. I was genuinely excited that I might be able to help. I sorted through my boys clothes, we pulled bags of toys from the attic, we eagerly awaited her message. As did so many others, I was astonished how many people were happy to give, no questions, no judgements, no asking for sponsorship or recognition, not even on the condition that we read a leaflet, just helping.

The internet, our internet is pulling down boundaries, letting us scream and it’s listening, listening and responding. I love it.

Some of the fighters:

@absurdistwords

@andrewspoooner

@discovery77_

@realperidot54 

In Preparation

I used to get ready for things. I used to get things ready, for example “Joanne is your homework ready for tomorrow?” Mum used to get things ready for us Dad used to get his things ready, his scarf and gloves would be laid on the radiator ready.

The best sort of ready would be getting ready to go out. This would involve a friend, loud music, fags, excessive makeup, the trying on of several outfits, some posing and great hilarity.

Until recently preparation was something you did to food and woodwork. Then people started using phrases like “Fail to Prepare: Prepare to Fail.” Kids started preparing for exams, job applicants for interviews and I found myself in a situation where I had to prepare for lessons. I couldn't even pretend to prepare because my preparation had to be documented in order that I prepare for observation.

I did once try and work on this surface!

At what stage do you actually move on from preparing, planning, getting ready and do the thing? What about the artists muse? Does anyone wake up from a dream, rush to the pen and paper and just write or do we now flick the switch on, boot the computer up and wait while windows prepare the desktop?

Many times I have been caught with an idea. I have allowed it to mature and evolve during my working day; I've caught the bus home with a fully formed idea ready to be spilled onto the page only to have every day preparation get in the way.

Maybe I’m not a real creative. An artist would be oblivious to the pile of the dishes or some dog piddle in the hallway. A writer would understand that everyone in the house hold knows how to make toast and not worry about dinner. They would just do it.

This weekend I was determined to work on my crafting; on flutterjos. So much so that I prepared and Friday nights kitchen was immaculate. Unfortunately the Saturday morning kitchen not so, and I was a little delayed. Never the less I managed to spend most of the day pattern cutting, colour choosing and embroidering.  

I wanted to do more on Sunday, but I needed to prepare for the coming week. As I’m not the only member in the house hold I made a list of chores for all three of us and then set about getting them completed as quickly as possible. I’m not going to bore you with the woes of ironing, washing, hovering and floor cleaning,  but by eight O’clock Sunday evening when I finally sat down with my sewing paraphernalia I was physically shaking. It took a glass of wine before I was calm enough to thread a needle.

So from now on I am going to try and go with my creative side, I’m going to focus on doing the thing rather than preparing to do the thing. I just hope I’m prepared for the challenge.

Pets as Persons

We buried Chubs this weekend, and the boy cried. Chubs was a lovely little thing, he had bright sparkly black eyes, a chocolate brown coat and a creamy belly. Above all though, Chubs had personality.

RIP Chubs (fancy mouse)
Oct 2013-April 2015

He was, true to his name a rather rotund mouse, who would come down from his bedroom; a large sphere at the top of his house, carpeted with sawdust and soft paper like bedding and he would select a tasty morsel (he had a particular liking for dried sweet-corn), he would clamber into his wheel and sway. Yes, Chubs swayed, he used that wheel like a swing, or even a rocking chair for mice. He very rarely ran about in it, just swayed, chilled out and munched. One time Chubs escaped, and discovered (I guess to his delight) a large bag of that soft paper bedding and so Chubs climbed in. We found him there, stretched out, lounging in a giant mouse bed.

If you put your hand in the mouse house, Chubs would come to see you; he was a friendly mouse and will be sorely missed. OK so I have just described the characteristics of a mouse, Chubs simply displayed mouse behavior right? How can it be then that Allogop same age, same species, though with golden fur and red eyes is such a different character?

I didn't think mice had characters either, yet Allogop, does not sleep in the master bedroom, he drags all the bedding into a much smaller sphere. He is not as friendly as Chubs was; he is a suspicious mouse. Put your hand into his house and he hides. He’ll take a few twitchy steps forward then back away. Unlike Chubs, Allogop lives for the wheel, every night; hour after hour he is sprinting on that thing. Allogop is a lithe mouse he is in training. I get the feeling Allogop has a plan. Who knows what it would be?

I just anthropomorphised  the animals, because that’s what they are; just animals. Not dogs though (or cats so they tell me.)

Doc: Westie-Lakeland-JackRussell Cross aged 11

Everyone knows that dogs have personality; because we give them personalities. No. Not the case. Doc (our eldest dog) had personality when he arrived. When he was a tiny pup he sat in his bed, on his hot water bottle and growled at me. He is still grumpy now, and yet ever so childish. Doc is somewhat like a spoilt toddler.

Charlie our youngest is the baby of the family. He is not only physically tiny, but quick to excite, curious, interested and yet exceptionally gentle, especially considering that he is a Jack Russell.

Charlie 8 month Jack Russell

Doc and Charlie were not purchased as look outs or protectors, or even as good rabbiters. They were purchased as companions, as friends and they do their jobs perfectly. They make us smile, they bring us together, and they get us out on walks. They are members of our family and when they go where the good doggies go, well then I’m sure my heart will break.