Writing – Jane Bremer

The River

Jane — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:50:24 +0000

Not yet… I’m not ready to leave this tranquil palace of ice and cloud. Not even as my aquamarine flesh ripples in the quickening embrace of water. There is something else. Something imprinted within the ice. Within my flesh. Cities shrouded in grey…in darkness…

I am awake. Lazurite shimmers with a golden aura as light from above sweeps through the gloam of frozen chambers and the steady drip-drop of meltwater keeps me from returning to the otherworld. A breeze carries the chatter of birds to the empty halls of my home, sweet voices with the promise of sunshine. It joins with the stone voice of Father Mountain and the groaning ice, reaching out to others awakening in this second life.

All around me waters surge into motion and droplet splash onto ice. For a moment, the sea hangs upon glowing walls. There was a flash of pearlescent scales as waves crashed and sucked upon shingle, and I hear a sorrowful lament of a female come from the deep. As with the faded dreams, the indefinite vision disappears before I could make sense of it. The meltwater of Gela Dandong is gaining strength, longing to move, to see the world…to bask beneath the sky…

The currents tug at my soul, pulling me from the lapis cocoon towards the birdsong and swaying grasses. I rush through secret passageways; twisting, coiling, and stretching into life as jets of foam and bubbles form behind.

Images dash across crystalline walls as I pass, cities of pewter and glass rising into the heavens while bridges vanished into cloud. Paper lanterns and colourful fairy lights shining upon black water. Rivers laden with cargo and blanketed in smog.

Then in a tumultuous moment, the waters I ride with break from their primeval source to tumble to the world below. My claws clench into the icy surface, and limbs tense, I leap into the air. Weightless. I was of the air and share the skies with a golden eagle soaring above. Droplets of light tingled across my skin as I drifted in rainbow mist. But I am of water, and to water I must return.

From freefall, I turn away from the wall of ice and return to the stream. The pressure against my ears quietens the world above as I move through a cerulean rush towards the sun. The voices of others came closer. First Dangqu from the Swamplands to the south joined with me, then Chumar of Red Water from the north. Their serpentine bodies coiled around me in play as they leapt into the air before crashing back down to startle the fish.

The surrounding plateau shifted through jade and olive to the droning of bees drifting among wildflowers. My river came to rest in a deep pool where the continual tug finally let go of me. Here I bid farewell to Dangqu and Chumar who continued on without me, searching for their next adventure.

To the west, the sun transformed the mountains into a fiery display. Clouds of vermillion and crimson watched over the Tanggula Mountains with its mantle of peach snow. As I lay there resting in the warm embrace, a breeze caressed my skin; a faint tang of brine woven with Oudh and Damask rose.

I faced into the zephyr, my whiskers twitched ever so slightly. Only She wore such a fragrance. The breeze brushed against me again as though her fingers were reaching through the abyss between us… The wash of the sea surged through tranquil space as ripples grew into waves and buffeted me around. Her light touch moved to my ears, to my neck… I could see her in the reflection of the stars upon the surface: pearlescent skin, eyes of coral, and Her temptress smile that had stolen countless lives beckoned me as my heart fluttered.

The last shards of light dimmed into black velvet: waters still once more. The image of Her, gone. My heart continued to ache at the parting as only winter lingered in the air. I exhaled, bubbles gurgling into life around my whiskers.

Her appearance had given the world the warmth of endless sun even as night fell. Now everything felt leaden. Paddling back into the current, I let the river carry me on again and floated on my back to watch the slow metamorphosis of pewter clouds. She was Queen of the Sea and I… I remember her as I remembered my brothers. Nothing more.

The mountains ruled the horizons all around as I continued floating down the Jinsha River through the night. Wisps of silver clouds raced across the sky after relinquishing their claim upon the skies, the stars shining brighter than diamonds in the moon’s absence. Wolves called to each other from far within the shadows of the cedar, their haunting cries disturbing a group of gibbons. The shrieks and howls of both ended the tranquillity of the night.

A grumbling noise was heading upstream towards me and I dropped into the river grasses. A boat scuttled into view that was nothing like the wooden vessels from my previous life. Those had been powered by hand or wind… aside from that one old coot who tried to harness fire of course. I’d tried to tell him it was a bad idea. I tried reminding him of that fact when he decided to try again at a different time.

The fisherman cast his net into the air. I wanted to stay and study the motor that had evolved from repeated disaster…but the fish had left this part. I didn’t want to deny the fisherman his catch as his net drifted back towards the surface and into the depths.

The sun was at its zenith as I returned to the surface. I’d been content to remain well away from the river traffic as more boats skimmed upon and down its length. Engines were humming and revving, the pitch altering all the time. My temples were throbbing from it all and the pain was making my vision falter.

The surface was thick with blueish smoke choking the air and tainting the water…It’s a wonder the fish come near the chaos. The air was seething and close, prickling at my skin as towering clouds grew into anvils. A sinking sensation trickled through my gut like embers as I looked around me from the shade of cedar.

Ahead of me were the two boats that had become the source of my disturbance. Two elderly men were brandishing empty crab baskets from a wooden boat and suffered a torrent of abuse from a group of younger men on the second boat. The engine of their boat muffled the words of all, while below it, the water shimmered in unnatural iridescence as oil seeped from the motor.

My nose wrinkled in disgust at the thought of getting closer to the cloying smell, but I needed to know what was going on. By the time I was beneath their vessels, the sticky substance had coated every inch of flesh and smothered my gills. Scratching at it coated my claws in the oily lacquer, spreading it further.

Then my eyes fell on them through the gloom…the hollow eyes of lifeless fish, the reason for the elders’ grievance. Slivers of dull silver counted passed the hundreds, the rancid flesh flaking away. Poisoned. The embers in my gut were igniting into wildfire that coursed through my blood, burning at my throat.

The air trembled, the anvil clouds collapsed, and the storm began. A metallic taste washed over my tongue within the electrified surge. I lashed my tail through the depths and nudged the wooden boat into the middle so that faster currents would carry the elders away.

Rain hammered down. Lightning crashed before me in a flash of hissing fluorescence through the roiling depths. Rage thundered from my throat and howled through the darkening day as I surged through the wreckage and leapt into the rain.

Oil still clung to my skin, refusing to come away no matter how much I raked at it. Lightning flashed through the sky, ripping the clouds apart as it rushed towards me to tear at the iridescent residue before booming upon the water below. My insides burnt worse than any fever. My heart writhed…breaking. I was screaming. It felt like a blunt knife was gauging into my left eye. I had to close it as the sky continued to shudder and flash.

The river was sacred. Worshiped. The mother of all life. Shrines and temples adorned its edge like hallowed jewels. Dynasties rose and fell all along the river while poets tried to capture the beautiful moments of life. Men had altered its course, adjusted and diverted its flow… but never let it be poisoned. The vacant eyes of river-fowl looked at me in the void between droplets.

Cries of terror rung through the world. Below me, the storm surge was reaching the narrow gorge. Screams. Shouting. I looked down upon it all, certain I was visible. It doesn’t matter. The pain in my temples forced me to close my right eye.

Water streamed from gutters, gurgling into rivulets below and sloshing into a deeper body. I squinted into the harsh light of civilisation; my body still numb from the abyss of sleep.

Aureate shutters of a teahouse in front of me were wide open to the twilight, with paper lanterns adorning the veranda that flowed around the courtyard. The pungent aroma of lapsang souchong drifted towards me as marbled koi lazed by my side, fat and complacent. They weren’t even fazed by me lurking in the depths of their home.

Eyes bore into me from underneath the trailing wisteria vines of the veranda where a person watching me stood. Waiting. Others moved behind them in a flurry of activity and someone started playing the guzheng.

The observer stepped from the veranda, moving with graceful strides and concealed by their parasol even as they crouched at the edge of the pond. The lengths of ebony hair with flowers pinned throughout and strings of pearls at her wrists and ankle gave her away.

“How did a water spirit manage to get himself landlocked?” Her eyes of gold glanced at me before she turned to inhale the perfume of the peonies beside her, the parasol balanced on her shoulder.

“Why is a mermaid walking upon the land?” Specks of red algae floated around me, catching in my whiskers.

“I like it here.” She looked over her shoulder to where the harsh lighting came from, as unaffected by its unnaturalness as the fish had been of engines. “No one else is around, you can come up.”

Fresh air filled my lungs. Being at the surface, smells from further away reached me too, that of garlic, soy sauce, ginger, and beef sizzling over charcoal. After tugging the pondweed away from my face, I let my chin rest on the warm stone tiles, looking up at her with what I hoped were my most beseeching eyes.

“You have more pressing concerns than what’s on the menu. They’ll be emptying this pond to clean it tomorrow… I doubt there will be any more rain tonight. Everyone is in a frenzy after that pandemonic storm you unleashed earlier. Whatever set you off like that?”

I didn’t want to remember. Before I could retreat to the safety of the pond’s floor, the mermaid reached out to me, cool fingers cupping my chin and holding my head towards her. “You don’t even remember who you are, do you?”

Bibliography

Primary Source:
The Mighty Yangtze: China’s Life-giving River, Shanghai Press and Publishing Development Company (2009)

Secondary Sources:
Turner John, A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry, The Chinese University of Honk Kong (1976) Wai-lim Yip, Chinese Poetry, Duke University Press (1997)

Online Sources:

Behind The Name. Chinese Mythology
Names [accessed 07 November 2020]
The World of Chinese The
Chinese Mermaid 2015 [Accessed 04 November 2020]
Wikipedia Shuimu [Accessed 04 November 2020] Wikipedia Yangtze [Accessed 05 November 2020]

Original article: The River.

Why Do I Write? (Pt2)

Jane — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 17:09:43 +0000

I finally managed to pin myself down at my desk and get on with the second part of why I write. I struggled more with this part because it focuses so much on the nitty gritty of my life, and all the stuff I spent years locking away and masking over. Even though it’s all thoughts and matters that are important to me and close to my heart, they’re also the things I never admitted to.

I’ve never admitted how badly I was bullied in school or what really went on and I’ve never talked about how screwed up I became as a result of it all. So here it is, the darker side of why I write…also…advance apologies if this isn’t the best writing. I have only lightly edited it as if I look at it too long, I’ll end up never sharing it. It is somewhere between why I write and general blogging…my life and my writing are 100% intertwined with each other.

(Why Do I Write – Part One)

What mattered then, what matters now?

A lot of what I write is connected to matters I’m deeply connected with in life. I guess because I started writing to escape the world, and to create a world where I had friends (I know, so sad.), what matters hasn’t changed that much:

Social alienation
Social stigmatism
Invisible illness
Fitting in, having friends
Living life to the full and doing everything
Falling in love/knowing what love is

There was a whole lot of darkness in my mind growing up…and still is…and I’ve always loved pushing my characters into really dark situations, messing with their sanity and generally being a cruel master to them. Some of that is dealing with my own crap I know, but then, why not use what I’ve got stashed away? I hope one day I get to writing some positivity, like how it feels to fall in love and all that vomit inducing crap I was spurning in part one of this post.

I want people to see characters that can be forced to the deepest depths of hell and torment and find a way out. I want people to find characters that still find a will to live in a world that rejects them. And if I can pull it off, I want readers to know how much it fucking hurts to suffer at the hands of humanity. I think that’s why Elfen Lied is such a favourite of mine, even though it’s technically every genre I hate. The story speaks to me on so many personal levels and I can relate to Lucy/Nyu more so than any other character. The revelation of her story is masterfully done, as is the comparison of natures between Lucy and other characters who are exposed to similar fates.

It’s also why stories such as The Otori Tales, The Old Kingdom, Sword Art Online and Blue Exorcist have always been favourites of mine through all of time; and bands such as Evanescence and Within Temptation, and OSTs such as Bleach by Sagisu Shiro are always music I go back to. They all share similar concepts and emotions that mean so much to me. I always go back to them when I’m getting back into writing because they connect my past and my present and remind me of everything.

Music keeps my memories safe and preserved, helps me wake up/go to sleep and integrate with the world, and is a part of every moment of my life. I literally start to go insane if I go too long without music. Because of how intertwined with my life and my thought processes music is, it’s also an integral part of my creativity and writing/editing. Pretty much every song has a memory or emotion attached to it from when I first heard it, so if I want to go to a certain point in my life and remember something, that song goes on.

How do I deal with writer’s block?

There’s no real hard and fast answer to this, and I’m not sure many writers dealing with the total writer’s block/writer apathy have an answer for this. The main thing I do is switch off from other writers. The last thing I need to see when I’m in the doldrums is a horde of creative people telling me that I’m not a writer if I’m not writing every day, or that there’s no such thing as writer’s block.

I’ll also do something else. During the summer – if in Wales, it stops blowing a gale and raining for longer than 2 days – I’ll get out in the garden. That’s a double bonus as I find caring and nurturing plants is good for procrastination and for caring for personal mental health. Likewise, going ham on unruly weeds is good for stress management.

Travel used to be a fantastic way of getting over some block in my writing. Hell, I’d say this is the *absolute* best method for me. Sadly it’s also an unavailable option due to atrocious health, raging anxiety and total lack of funds. Also, I drive now, so I don’t ever get to enjoy being a passenger in the back seat.

Between mid-October and late April, I’m cooped up indoors (because cold, wet, and utterly awful outside…) so I tend to default to gaming as a way to cope/deal with writer’s block. There’s nothing better than being in an open world RPG/MMORPG to help counter the growing sense of frustration when words won’t flow. It’s also the most likely way of me coming across an idea that sparks an idea off, or suddenly makes something in my plot make sense since I don’t go outside. The downside is starting off a new RPG. I’ve given Fallout 76 way too much of my time since I picked it up after Christmas.

Something I picked up at the end of last years is the Writer’s Block book by Jason Rekulak which is a beautiful little cube of 786 ideas and prompts for writing. I’ve done a couple so far and do find it a really good way to challenge myself and my writing style – I did one recently that ended up in first person narrative and present tense which was interesting. (Check out Writer’s Block posts here.)

I do find journaling sometimes helps, though it can also hinder if I get into things too deep, so I tend to leave a lot of journaling for utter off periods when I have nothing to lose. Like writing fiction, there’s so little in my life that there isn’t even any point in keeping a journal.

Why I’m struggling to write now?

Two major core processes that kept me running: dreaming and writing. I can dream without writing, but I can’t write without dreaming; though I realise that may not make sense and I will probably do a separate post about dreaming and writing at another time as it may get lengthy.

As a child, I’d be sitting in the back of my parents’ car and stare out of the window as the landscape rolled by. Stories would ignite from the littlest spark – the way the sun glinted through trees, the lighting of the sky or seeing woodland on a hill. The music my parents listened to would set the pace of the story and within minutes of leaving our home town, there’d be some story or other taking control of my imagination. I don’t remember most of those idle daydreams, but daydreaming while travelling was something I kept up as long as I could.

Now I drive and never get to be an antisocial passenger, I’ve completely lost this ability. I’ll glance amazing views around me and wonder what secrets they keep. And that’s it. The wilderness around me keeps her stories secret. Also, if I’m in the car with someone else, no matter how much I repeat “do you mind if I zone out for a bit?”; whoever I’m with will simply keep talking at me.

My main battle is that my health has forced me pretty much into total isolation in a tiny village in Wales that is best known for its absence of life and pretty much anything. (I mean, there’s a university, but in 3 years living here and even using the Starbucks on campus, I’ve seen like…8 students? Not even joking, I took my dad once and even he couldn’t believe how unpopulated it was.) So no new and fresh ideas here.

I hit this current block in August as things reached a whole new level of worse coupled with losing two good friends purely because my health was a problem to them. One, who has also been through mental health battles of their own even told me I freaked them out. Wonderful. Who needs enemies right? Suddenly any and all social interaction was null, my association with the world was gone and I completely ran out of ideas to use up. As it is, The Sirin Chronicles is largely based on concepts of social alienation and invisible illnesses, so it isn’t even like I could utilise this new situation to feed my work.

Also, every time I hit a setback and/or flare-up with my health, it takes me 2-3 months to recover. 2 months where I’m entirely unable to write or create, and another 2 months where I’ve been dragged out of my work and become totally disconnected from everything. By the time I’m getting myself back together again and about to dive into my writing, it’s time to repeat it all. Each time I get disconnected from my work, it becomes 100% more difficult to reconnect to it. The battle against brain fog (part of ME/CFS) is real too.
Describing real life things is hard some days.
Describing my fictional creations becomes impossible!

Where do I go from here?

I guess for now I still need to do some more soul searching and reminiscing of the past to find out what is lacking from my WIPs now… and trying to find the place I was in so I can start moving forward with my work again. And also pray for a miracle. I know something needs to change in my life, and no matter what I do, I always run into a locked door… though I’ll keep looking for one that opens for me. And keep writing, even if it’s just one word at a time.

I’ll also keep wishing that the fates will allow me a life before I’m old and decrepit.

Original article: Why Do I Write? (Pt2).

Borrowing Someone Else’s Body

Jane — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 12:16:30 +0000

“Borrowing Someone’s Else’s Body…”

***

I’m back with another writer challenge prompt from The Writer’s Block by Jason Rekulak. It’s good to be back writing anything again.. I think the recent period of winter-summer helped give me a boost of creativity. I was able to make it (1) out of the house and (2) actually made it to New Quay for a few hours basking in the sun. I really don’t know what it is with winters, I just switch off. So hopefully that weather forecast of unto 13 inches of snow being dumped somewhere on the UK in the next few days isn’t accurate…

Anyway, back to the point of this post and the writing prompt this time: “Imagine that you could wake up tomorrow in someone else’s body. Whose would it be? How would your life change? What are some of the first things you’d do?”

This turned out to be an interesting challenge for me, and I went with fictional characters rather than myself personally as I wanted to use this prompt to create a story. I also ended up writing in first person narrative and in the present tense which are two styles I normally run in fear from.

Do any of you use writing challenges or tags, or anything else? Let me know all about them!

‘Why don’t we swap lives for a day?’

…Why don’t we… My eyes shoot open to someone else’s life. Normally, I’d wake up to the constant grumbling of heavy traffic on the road below and the sporadic chatter that accumulated at the bus stop; to my life, back in Bristol. I’m not sure where I am now, only that there’s a blinding amount of sunshine pouring through the thin curtains and no hint of traffic anywhere near. I sit up and knead at my temples trying to piece things together.

I had been meditating before falling asleep and decided to try astral projection for the first time in many years. My life is rather stagnant at the moment and I wanted to feel a connection to the arcane again. Anything to feel like my life had more meaning to it than a potato. Anyway, that’s when I bumped into someone else. Billie. Her name was Billie. She seemed as lost and frustrated as me, so we started talking. Turns out she wanted to escape from the mundanities of her own life as much as I, and that our lives were opposites, and that’s when she suggested we return to each other’s bodies instead of our own. I agreed, thinking it was nothing more than the madness of my own mind and my astral travel had morphed into lucid dreaming.

Yet here I am. Awake in someone else’s home. Oh god, what else did she say? Where did she work? What hours? I turn to the bedside table and sigh in relief that she leaves her phone in a similar spot to myself, and attempt to figure out the finger recognition. Someone called Rachel Scallywags sent a text asking to swap shifts, so Billie doesn’t need to go in today. I study the conversation so I can reply as authentically as I can and put her phone back down.

In a way, I’m kind of gutted I don’t get to go to her workplace. I came out of university a couple of years ago having gotten my Masters in journalism. Since then, there’s not been a single sniff of work anywhere. It’s utter madness that I live in a city and somehow can’t land a job. I’ve just been festering in my apartment being the scourge of society and avoiding people while trying to navigate the online world of self-publication and blogging.

That reminds me actually… I pick her phone back up and open up the map to see where I am. Some village called Gwithian. It’s right on the coast and I’ve picked out a cafe close by that looks like a surfer’s paradise and a good place for breakfast.

The phone beeps at me, bringing me back from my coffee and surf filled reverie and I can see it’s a response from Billie’s work colleague again. I wonder if Billie is a social butterfly? That thought sends a rush of dread throughout my body and I turn the phone off. Sorry, Billie, your phone is mysteriously dead today. I hope no one panics about her. I mean she seems close in age to me, so surely one day of silence isn’t going to cause a mass freak-out?

Okay. I’ve got someone else’s body for the day and where ever I am, the weather is way too good to be indoors. I’m also aware that Billie’s body works properly, you know, has normal energy levels and all. She probably has a better lifestyle and diet than me, which I’m no doubt about to butcher with a fully loaded bacon buttie at that cafe.

***

I’ve so far made it halfway through the day without any kind of disaster or run-in with a part of Billie’s life. I’m also one hundred percent coming back with my own life as soon as I can. I think the guys up at the cafe have started to sense something un-Billie about me though. I’ve made several trips for provisions and pretty certain I used my last life or something on the last trip for more coffee and the chilli beef nachos.

Billie must know one of the staff members that just came on, and I’m guessing the may well be a vegetarian or vegan. I should leave her a note apologising profusely before the end of the day. I stop my thoughts from contemplating what she could do with my life. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t want my demons to follow me here and wreak havoc in paradise.

Right now, I’m sat with my back against a well-weathered granite rock that’s warm from hours under the sun and doing wonders to get chill out of my bones from being in the water for a couple of hours earlier. I had to relinquish the sea when a group of six surfers appeared, which is fine with me as I now get to watch them instead.

Someone in a blindingly white jacket is currently storming on to the beach. Judging by the scowl visible even this far away, I wouldn’t want to be the one at the end of his wrath. I turn my attention back to the surfers and wriggle my toes into the coarse sand, breathing in the fresh air that is perfumed with the intoxicating scent of gorse and tase the salt on my lips.

I’ve got to get away from Bristol. There are so many pros to living there…but I feel like I’m home here in this tiny village no one has heard of. It’s like my eyes have opened to a completely different world of slumbering ancient power, arcane secrets and wild spirit. I can feel my soul responding and connecting to this place in a way it never has before.

The sea is the most delicious shade of colours reminiscent of a peacock’s feather. Indigo and lapis melt into sapphire and turquoise as pearls of white flash through the sun with each crashing wave. There are miles of golden sands stretching away in either direction disturbed only occasionally by the jagged outcropping of granite that adds to the wild energy of this place. I can also see a striking white lighthouse further around the bay which is Godrevey point. Basking in the wonder of this place, I can understand why artists love St Ives so much, there really is something about the lighting here.

“I’ve been looking all over for you for hours. I only heard about you being down here by chance from Rachel who saw you heading this way. Why is your phone off?” Approaching me at a rate of knots is the guy I noticed moments ago, piercing green eyes flashing in the sunlight. Why is the name Rachel familiar? I don’t know any Rachels. Wait, the girl Billie swapped shifts with… More to the point, who is this guy and what does he want with me?

Now I can clearly see his expression, it’s somewhere between really hacked off, and also someone who’s been fretting for several hours. Was Billie meant to have been meeting him? Maybe I shouldn’t have turned her phone off… but instead, put it on airplane mode and checked it intermittently. He’s incredibly beautiful though. I feel like I’ve met him somewhere before, which is insane as I’ve never been to Cornwall before today.

“Oh…it died and I couldn’t find the charger.” I lied. Actually, I know exactly where the charger lead is. It conveniently fell behind the sofa cushions first thing. He stops inches in front of me and I can feel his eyes scanning right through me. It’s kind of unsettling actually, it’s like he knows something is off….something isn’t quite Billie.

“What’s gotten into you? You’re not yourself at all today. First you drop off the face of the earth without a message, and now I find you, you’ve been in the sea?” His eyes are boring right into me and I realise a fatal mistake. Billie doesn’t like water. The expression on this guy’s face is making that point especially clear to me right now.

Wait a minute, is this… oh no. Oh crap. It is. It’s Billie’s boyfriend that I’m only just learning about now. He’s crouched down and pulled me into a crushing embrace, probably thinking his Billie is having some kind of mid-life crisis. Which she is. We both are. She wanted out of this life for a bit, and I’m now trying to work out how to be someone else’s girlfriend without crossing any lines.

“I’m sorry I didn’t text you or anything. I just…wanted to get out.” What? How lame is that excuse?

I know it.

He knows it.

There’s one hell of an awkward silence stretching out and I start watching a surfer who is about to have an almighty wipe-out any second. “So…how was your day?” Yes, turn the conversation back on to him, I can figure this out.

“It’s been a weird day all around. The computers at work have been crashing non-stop and calls have been dropped or crossing wires. Anyone would think Mercury had gone retrograde or something.”

Now I’m starting. In my entire life, I have never met a single bloke interested in magic or astrology or even anything of the sort. Yet this guy just casually mentions something like a planet moving back on itself. Why on earth would Billie want to get away from her life? Even if the job is crap or something, she’s got this guy. I’d go through hell for someone like this. Wait. What am I saying, I don’t actually know this person. Right now, I don’t even know his name. I also don’t know that much about astrology and he’s waiting for a response.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He’s looking at me suspiciously again. At me and the offending evidence of my lunch that’s still lingering nearby. I was really hoping he wouldn’t clock that. Please don’t ask me about diet related questions?

No. I am definitely not okay right now. “I’m fine, really.” Yup, just go with the fake smile Morgan, there’s no way he’s going to see straight through any of this. I feel like I should reciprocate some sort of physical attention right now, instead of simply sitting with my fingers idly drumming into the sand.

“Okay, so you’re definitely fine to come with me to see the boys in a bit?”

“Of course.” I keep doing the best natural smile I can. He’s trolling me now, I just know it. Who or what are the boys? I also know that no matter what tricks I try to use, he is not going to give me a clue on what I just let myself in for. “I can’t remember we agreed for dinner plans though.” Food or weather. Always a safe conversation topic.

“We didn’t agree to anything.” …Or not in this case. Thankfully his attention was caught up by the surfers, so he missed the horror that no doubt just flashed across my face. If every day is like with for Billie, I can see why she’d need a day off. Casually as I can, I finally pull my hands away from the sand and wrap my arms around his neck, burying my face into the warm skin.

I can’t just sit there like a potato anymore. But it also feels completely right. It’s like he’s weaving a spell around me as he turns his gaze back to me. Even though neither of us are saying it, I feel in the core of my existence that he knows I’m not Billie. My head is spinning like crazy and I can feel the madness awakening inside of me as his fingers trace down my spine. We’ve been here before. Somewhere. Sometime.

I realise something at the back of my mind. The madness isn’t waking up because of this guy and the crazy scenario I’ve found myself in. Something has happened back in my life. Don’t ask me how I know that right now, but I can feel white-hot rage gathering in the pit of my stomach. Or is it Billie’s rage? Can she sense my proximity to her boyfriend? No…that doesn’t explain the insanity that’s trying to summon my demons here. I have to get back to my reality, everything is starting to make me feel violently ill and confused. I have to somehow-

“What’s going on?”

He sounds terrified, and I can’t answer him. I just press myself further into his embrace and feel my fingers twine into his hair. I can feel his embrace tighten even more and feel the searing pain in his heart. I want to scream that I’m not Billie, that he’s holding on to the wrong person. I want to stay in this moment with him forever. I can’t though, this isn’t my life.

My mind finally reaches into the abyss of meditation and the strange swirling, floating weightlessness that comes with astral projection. I keep my eyes and my mind focused on the faint ball of indigo light that is guiding me back to where I need to be and ignore the other spirits around me. I can see the ghostly image of my body sleeping between worlds I drift through fields of celestial matter and quicken my pace towards it, the ominous sensation clawing at my heart with every step. What has she done in my world?

“Morgan…” I feel the sensation of the ocean tugging me back as someone whispers my name through crashing waves as I start to reconnect with my body. Something important and unintelligible continues to whisper through the darkness, so many voices trying to be heard. There’s some lingering sensation in my heart that doesn’t want me to return, but I can feel the tingling in my feet that tells me I’m almost awake. There’s also still the opposite sensation of foreboding waiting for me in the physical world. “Wait, don’t leave me.”

***

I’m bathed in the amber ambience of Bristol streetlights and staring back up at my ceiling again with tears falling into the pillow. How long was I asleep for? Why did it take waking up to realise who was calling out to me just before I reconnected with my physical body? I remember why he was familiar to me all afternoon too, I’ve been dreaming about him for over ten years and never knew his name.

I’m also not alone in my flat.

Original article: Borrowing Someone Else’s Body.

Why do I Write? (Pt1)

Jane — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 16:40:39 +0000

I recently put out a tweet to the amazing writing community about how people found their way back into writing if they’d fallen out of the world for whatever reason.

The response I got was fantastic, and mostly the suggestions were of remembering what inspired me right back at the beginning. Why inspired me? What was I watching and reading? What music was I into? Since then, I’ve been thinking about it a lot and trying to remember the person I was. This is a challenge as I’ve spent the last 15 years suppressing my past and trying to forget all about high school and 6th form.

Still, I’ve been soldiering on with it, and maybe I have still forgotten a lot of my life, but it’s also made me realise just as much about my past and present self. This post turned into a bit of an epic, so I decided to split it and make it a two-parter. ~~(Also, I haven’t finished part two as I really am trying to keep my madness and desolate feelings out of all of this.)~~

The world has changed, and change again and I’ve shed countless skins through every transition, yet a lot of who I am has always remained; the writer being a major part of my soul’s construction. How I perceived the world then and how I view it now hasn’t altered that much.

Something things have completely switched to opposites. Back then I was in love with love: think old Disney movies and the whole happily ever after thing. Now I’m a total cynic that wants to remember what the crazy feeling was, but also gets nauseated by the idea and would prefer some rage-filled future dystopian fiction.

Me then – playing The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Skyrim
Me now – Ruthlessly slaughtering my way through hordes of ghouls in Fallout 76, with Fallout 4 on standby.

To anyone who knew me growing up, I loathed first-person shooter games, PVP and post-apocalyptic settings. Yet here I am, trying to crowbar this crazy genre into my fantasy environment. And while my naïve, innocent self may have long been destroyed by the toxicity of this world; I still search for the beauty, love and purity within everything. I still believe in magic, even if my relationship with the arcane and the gods has changed. The child that was always daydreaming, creating stories, and looking for prince charming still there. In very opposite ways.

Why do I write, and when did I start writing?

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Writing has always been such an integral part of my existence. Conjuring up stories from the landscape around me and summoning characters into being was easier than breathing (n.b. no idea why, but I’ve always had a tendency to forget to breathe. Whoever said it is impossible not to breath was wrong…) I can’t not write. I want to do a post at some point this year looking back at my older works and the worlds I created *shudder*.

When I’m not writing, it’s like madness and rage swell up inside me and start devouring at my sanity. So many voices of unwritten characters constantly clamouring at me from an unknown world; those of the characters whose fates are in my hands waiting for me to finish their stories. It is utter insanity. Every minute I’m not writing or working at writing in some way, it’s like I’m dying, and the characters fade away from me. Then there’s the fear I may lose them and their stories for good, and then what would I do with my life?

I first started writing A Dawn of Dreams back in 2006, and that was the first book I completely finished and stuck with. I was a teenager full of angst, an outsider…and I was in love with love. A Dawn of Dreams was also called Angelie I Demonie. It had(s) nothing to do with Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, I didn’t even know about him at the time, but I was in love with the song Inner Universe by Yoko Kano and Origa, and the original book title is literally the first three words of the song.

Back then, I was obsessed with anime and their soundtracks. I felt like my life made more sense watching them somehow, and the songs spoke to my heart. It’s over 10 years later and those songs I was in love with back then are still my favourites.

What inspires/d me?

I found inspiration everywhere as a child, and even in the throes of darkness as a teenager, I saw something in everything. Some of the most notice influences on my writing were holidays in Cornwall and the wild and rugged landscape of its coastline. I visited so many castles and Nation Trust properties as well as the many old towns that my mind was overflowing with stories and ideas.

I grew up on tales of Arthur and Excalibur, Mab and the Cornish Lady of the Lake, and the legends of pirates at Jamaica Inn. My brother and I would scour the caves whenever we could looking for treasure, which is when I first found crystals and fell in love with them.

Now I live in Wales and have been introduced to the Welsh Lady of the Lake. I also have two lakes that I now need to visit. In all the years of crossing Bodmin Moor, I never made it to Dozmary Pool. And so far in three years in Wales, I’ve yet to make it to Myddfai and Llyn y Fan Fach either.

Tunisia was the other place that gave life to The Sirin Chronicles in particular. I fell in love with the country the first time I went out there, it was so vibrant and rich. There’s so much culture and history everywhere, and even new locations being discovered. (Tozeur had only recently been discovered the last time we went out into the Sahara – I need to go back since they have uncovered so much more of it.)

I remember being overpowered by the intoxicating fragrance of jasmine the first time I was out there, and the smell of the desert always behind everything else. Pralines were, and still are, one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted. Damn, everything out there was (and is) so full of flavour, colour and scent; unlike dreary wet Britain where everything is pallid in comparison.

Aside from travel, music and fiction have been pivotal for my imagination. I have a strange connection between writing, music, dreaming, and memory. I was in love with Evanescence, Within Temptation and Nightwish through my teenage years. Classical music and soundtracks were also a big part of what I listened to. Whenever I was dreaming or writing, there was always music.

One of the greatest, unplanned moments I’ve while writing was a scene towards the end of Dancing Shadows and Kneel For No Man by Ramin Djawadi came on. I was completely into my writing, and oblivious of the music in the background until I got to the end of the scene. That the piece of music had completely powered the detailing and the pacing of the scene.

I’m one of those writers where I have a plot, and I do automatic writing. Half the time, I’ve no idea what the outcome will be as I let my characters take total reign and tell me the story. This character gave me five minutes of uncertainty over her fate and I was shaking because of how the scene had unfolded.

I only hope what I felt writing that scene passes to the reader. When editing Dancing Shadows, the same thing happened. I got to that scene, got into and the same track came on whilst I was deep within the fabric of the scene. (My YouTube ‘Writing’ playlist has 756 videos in it which makes it all the more bizarre and wonderful that it happened twice.)

Books and other worlds helped me develop my own world. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia were the three most pivotal books in my younger years. They introduced me to complex fictitious worlds that drew the reader in. They taught me a different kind of magic, one where you can open a book and travel to a whole new world for so long as you read. I never saw words. With both reading and writing, as soon as I got into the flow of things, words vanished any everything became more real than life. The more I read and experienced that sensation, the more I wanted to create my own magic realm for other people to find and escape to.

I was also obsessed with manga and anime, especially the amazing world of Bleach. At the time I got introduced to it, there were 72 episodes and I watched every single one of them in 24 hours. I forgot that both sleep and school were a thing. (I also had a raging crush on Hitsugaya, which incidentally, is one of those things that hasn’t change between then and now.)

I got into anime about the same time I got into The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. A common theme of interest for me both then and now was of getting stronger and dealing with insane odds. In all the stories I love, the main element is one getting stronger. It’s something that mirrors my own life where, for various reasons, I’m always trying to get stronger and conquer my own battles and demons. It’s a theme I love toying with too; how far can I push my characters and can they overcome their fate or find a way to change it?

That’s also why I prefer automatic writing and letting my characters have some control in the first few drafts. Sometimes they’ll make it easier for both of us…other times they’ll come up with an incredible idea and phenomenal challenge and leave me to fix it. How do you kill an immortal? Their idea? GET AN EVEN MORE EVIL AND OVERPOWERED IMMORTAL. Thanks, guys.

What inspires me now is largely the same, though it is lacking somewhat due to my current health status. I don’t get out anywhere near as much as I wish I could to explore. Also, lacking friends in the immediate vicinity of where I live stifles my creativity. I haven’t got someone I can bounce ideas around with, or speculate over plots of other stories – Game of Thrones, a favourite to speculate over.

I’ve discovered in the last couple of years that not speaking a word is actually detrimental. It’s like not speaking means not thinking, and not thinking is not creating or problem-solving. As soon as I’m with people, ideas start flying around like crazy. It’s a shame that in a year, I’m only among company for a week or two, every few months. No joke, my life is spent in total isolation for 2+ months at a time. No conversations. No human interaction.

I’d love to say that in itself was a good story plot to work with, except that’s already 90% of The Sirin Chronicles and I want to include life to my work, not more death.

***

[Why Do I Write – Part Two]

Original article: Why do I Write? (Pt1).

The ‘Anti Writing-Prompt’ Post

Jane — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 18:00:24 +0000

I’ve been kinda flagging with writing and blogging lately. I don’t know what it is about October/November, but every year without fail, I get totally de-railed in these months. My brain can’t function or think. I can’t even explain what it is…it’s just…Nothingness? A gaping abyss has opened in my right hemisphere, sucked out every ounce of inspiration and creativity and is ravenous for more?

The worst part, I have so many projects on the go too, and I can’t string a single thought together for a single one of them. Just countless hours staring at the document before giving up and switching the computer back off. Normally in November, I’d be doing NaNoWriMo which would at least stave off creative drought until mid-December to January. Last year was a real battle to finish it, so I decided for the sake of my mental health, I shouldn’t even try it this year.

Around the end of December (much earlier this year), I start looking at things like “365 prompts for writers” or “52 week challenge for writers” as a solution to break through the writing rut, but instead end up thoroughly pissed off and depressed. They’re all the same for starters, but there’s no option for someone who was/is a loner and doesn’t have 90% of the experiences required to do the challenge. They’re pretty much only geared up for someone who’s lived the conventional life.

Q – Write about a childhood party:
A – There was one, but I was so unpopular I didn’t even get any cake…and it was my birthday party.

Q – Write about your childhood best friend:
A – …That backstabbing C that…. ANYWAY.

Q – What’s your earliest childhood memory:
A – Seriously, that’s a story NO ONE wants to know, let alone read.

Q – Dig out a photo from ten years ago and write about what’s going on:
A – There isn’t a single photo of me – digital or physical – ten years ago. There isn’t a shred of evidence to prove my existence passed five years ago… People didn’t want my pictures.

Q – Write about a relationship:
A – Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Why is there no option for ‘life as a spinster’?

Q – Pretend you’re a tourist in your own town etc:
A – Like… I have social anxiety, agoraphobia etc and just… don’t go anywhere. Also, it reminds me I’m a total loner as I never go anywhere with people and never have, so even without the anxiety, I still wouldn’t be going out.*

Q – Contemplate your future…

And that’s enough of that. Probably too much of it.

This is the third year of looking at various other blog sites that reel off lists and my opinion is still the same about them. I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t okay to write about the nitty-gritty of life, the bullshit, betrayals and hurt…and if that’s pretty much all your life and memories are made up of, then you shouldn’t be writing because no one gives a shit.

But why not? I feel I should make my own list… but considering I’m looking at other lists for inspiration as my brain is on mega-derp mode, that’s a futile idea itself. Maybe I will in the future. “52 Weeks of Reflection Challenge for Writers – A challenge to question the darker side of reality” (coming soon.)

The lists do make me wonder though. What would my life be like if I’d had friends through school? What would it be like if I’d experienced the stuff other kids go to? Parties, sleep-overs, road trips when the world was still full of mystery and possibilities, going on dates, kissing under the mistletoe… or whatever? (I don’t actually know what kids and teenagers do, I was in the library being all nerdy.)

What would life be like if I could work, even if I hated the job? Friends that live close enough to meet for coffee, or enough money to go live by my friends? If I had a boyfriend? If I didn’t go a month or longer without speaking a word? What would it be like if my life wasn’t so chaotic, nightmarish and lonely that the few wonderful memories I do have weren’t drowned in darkness or silenced by demons?

Writing is something that comes from involvement in the world. Having a place in the world, society and the community. Stories are born from the connections you have with other people – friends or strangers passing by. Being pranked/pulling pranks, goofing around with others and generally talking. What if the world rejects you? What if you’ve lived the same nightmare for over twenty years and can’t even imagine a world where things change?

*Has anyone ever noticed that if you do something solo, say go to the beach or a garden/house in the care of a trust, people STARE at you like you have something seriously wrong with you? Or is really obvious when you’re somewhere alone because you’ve chosen to do so, or because you just don’t have anyone to go with.

Bonus writing prompt – Write your “week in review”:
Same as last week…did nothing, went nowhere. Bloody cold; have discovered adding cubes of cheese to soup was a really good idea. (But not red Leicester, the flavour doesn’t reall cut through enough.)

…Too much?

Original article: The ‘Anti Writing-Prompt’ Post.

The Writer Tag: 20 Questions

Jane — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 10:21:51 +0000

I stumbled over these following questions at InkBlots and IceBergs. Since I’ve been uploading mostly chapters of my various works for the last couple of months, I thought it was about time to do something a bit different, though still with the writing theme it seems… sorry?

1: What type of writing do you do?
I mostly do novels; though I have recently started attempting short stories. I have also done some journalism about spirituality and crystals in the past. I do on very rare occasions attempt poetry, which quite often ends in disaster and many torn pages in the bin.

2: What genres and/or topics do you write about?
It’s pretty much always been fantasy fiction and magic for me when it comes to writing a novel, they’re two things I’ve always had a fascination about. Though lately, I find myself leaning into paranormal and steampunk as well, with a few elements of horror and romance are thrown into the mix.

3: How long have you been writing?
I can’t remember a time I wasn’t writing, pretty much immediately after I learnt the skills of reading and writing, I was creating my own worlds and stories… maybe five or six? So…23 or 24 years? Oh god, what happened to my life. I’ve been seriously writing since I was 23 though; before then it was as a hobby and I never really contemplated anyone reading my work seriously.

4: Are you published?
I have been published. I had A Dawn of Dreams (previously Sykajume) published through Amazon Createspace in 2015, and Dancing Shadows (previously Vaejume) published in 2017, also through Createspace. I took both down in August as I’m re-editing them due to plot holes thrown up by the fifth book, and also because of the title change. I’m currently editing the chapters and putting them online more as a web-novel for now.

5: What was the first story you ever wrote?
. . . I can’t remember what the first story ever might have been! The first one I remember, and possibly because it was the first time I wrote something to the end (and had a reasonable word count) was about a pack of wolves that were displaced by humans encroaching into their lands. They had to cross the entire country and pass many dangers to find a new home and safety…Which considering I was nine or ten at the time, that suddenly seems pretty deep for a kid. I think two of the pack were killed off as well. Damn, I was screwed up. No wolves have been killed in the writing process since.
Bonus fact: wolves have always been my favourite animal and I practically live in a shrine to them these days – my cat lives a confused life.

6: Why do you write?
Why does anyone breathe? It’s hard to answer this in a way…I write because to not write drives me mad. When I can’t write because of ill health, my mood becomes really depressive and dark (I am possibly entirely cantankerous to boot). If I’m going through a patch of ‘numbness”, I feel even more detached from reality. I guess writing is simply my life, and to not write is to, in a way, cease to live.

7: How do you find time to write?
I used to steal time… (If only!) When I was in school, I used to “loose” my textbooks and request another, and then I’d sit writing away completely unnoticed, and just switch to my textbook when I needed to write something else down or if the teacher was coming around. When I got a job in retail, I would pinch receipt paper and write down ideas and fragments of story between serving people. I’m never sure how I got away with any of that…

These days, I’m signed off long-term sick due to disability, so I have ample time even if my health itself disagrees. I try to do a few hours twice a week on average, and if I get a good patch, I do as much as I can when I can as I never know when I’ll come to a total halt – which happened this time last year. I barely got anything written at all until around July, and it’s still really difficult for me.

8: When and where are the best times to write?
Whenever I have the energy….Though I find nighttime is the best. I’ll be flagging all day, get to about 10 pm and just be like ‘HELL YEAH IMA WRITE EVERYTHING NOW’. I do sometimes contemplate just switching to nocturnal mode.

9: Favourite food/drinks while writing?
COFFEE. I think that counts as food too? Pizza is definitely the go-to food for writing sessions, and any other finger food. I do make a conservative effort to be healthier when editing as I can structure my time much better than when possessed by the first draft. I drink a lot of fruit smoothies and try to avoid eating while working so I can throw something healthy in the oven before or after. Always the coffee though, even if it is 2 am!

10: Your writing playlist?
This varies an awful lot. Right now I am obsessing over Mannavegr by Danheim which really fits the mood of my current WIP. I do have a generic writing playlist on YouTube which I’ll often stick on shuffle when I’m pantsing or editing and contains any song that I find inspirational – so, 723 videos as I write this and possibly a few duplications by this time (this could pretty much be a topic for an entire post.)
I also have a playlist full of fantasy/RPG/ambience compilations for when I want to be a bit more specific – I love writing to Jeremy Soule’s TES: Oblivion soundtrack when I’m working on The Sirin Chronicles.

11: What do family/friends/loved ones think of you writing?
I think my parents found it quite funny when I was younger, especially when I was trying to write in fountain pen whilst my dad was driving around Cornish country lanes. As a teenager, I don’t think they were fully behind it and I was always told to pull my head out of the clouds and stop daydreaming. These days, I’m officially labelled as The Writer or The Storyteller by my dad in particular and I get to argue that daydreaming is a part of my profession.
I didn’t really have friends through school, but the friends I have now are really supportive and encouraging, as are my family. There have been a few times where I’d have completely jacked this all in if not for them ♡

via GIPHY

12: Parts of writing you enjoy the most?
I can’t really choose a favourite part to writing, I enjoy all parts just as much, though maybe it helps that I sort of compartmentalise the different processes so I don’t get conflicted between world building? I guess slightly ahead of everything else, creating a new world to get lost in. That’s certainly the most liberating part of the process when you have total free reign over everything.

13: Parts of writing you find challenging?
The start has always, and will forever be, the absolute WORST part of the writing process. Just getting any words to start flowing on a new page or document can take hours sometimes, and I don’t know why! I find first drafting the middle can go a bit awry, especially if I just jumped right in without a plan.

14: What do you write with and on?
These days, I tend to do most of my writing on my iPad with Evernote so I can get it across all of my devices, and then transfer it to Scrivener for editing. Any notes when I’m researching or planning go onto whatever paper is available and becomes a total shambolic nightmare – I’m currently training myself to use one notepad, though even then I’ve got loose pages all over the place.

I used to write in fountain pen and paper all the way through the first draft, and I really miss doing that! It’s not that possible with my health though as I get a lot of pain in my wrists, hands and fingers and struggle to hold a pen for too long. I still do my planning this way though, I find the story flows so much more easily when writing by hand.

15: How do you overcome writer’s block?
I’ve learnt to just turn the computer off, put my notebooks and iPad away and just focus on something else entirely until it goes away. I don’t think writer’s block is entirely “creative drought” in my situation. I will do some gardening if I can, or binge watch something if I can’t – I’ve recently finished Versailles for the second time. I also love playing the Elder Scrolls games if I’m really stuck in a rut. Pure escapism if nothing else!

16: How do you motivate yourself to write?
I’ve never really had to motivate myself to write. Either I am writing, editing or taking a slight break – I always have Christmas as pure downtime regardless. Or, my health is too bad to be writing. It’s taken me a good five years to stop hating on myself when that happens, and even then I’m usually jotting ideas down or researching something.

17: Authors who inspire you as a writer?
This could become a ridiculously long list as I find any author I fall in love with inspires me as a writer, so I’ll keep it to just those who started me on my writing career for real – J RR Tolkien. Those who have inspired me to create a richer world, a stronger plot, to be thought-provoking and to educate the reader in someway – Lian Hearn, George RR Martin, Reki Kawahara and Isuna Hasekura – I became really fascinated by the merchant trade because of Spice and Wolf.

18: Books that inspire you as a writer?
Since JK Rowling didn’t get a mention in Q17, Harry Potter? There are a lot of books . . .

19: Best advice you’ve gotten as a writer?
Write about what you know and question what you know. Right the story you want to read, and something that means something to you. Right with passion and honesty, and always keep to your individual voice. My absolute favourite and I feel really bad because I can’t remember who came up with it: “If life gives you melons, you need a proofreader.”

20: Writing goals this year
I’m doing this a bit late into the year I guess? Rolling from 2018 into 2019, I’ve got my work cut-out. I have two novelettes that I’ve just started work on – The Lost Chapter and The Edge of Darkness – to work my way through. I also have quite a lot to do with The Sirin Chronicles; editing A Dawn of Dreams and Dancing Shadows, finishing off Fallen Star and Ghosts and then writing The Last Carnation. I’ve also got another book to write at some point, but I feel that might have to wait until 2020 or beyond. If anyone sees my sanity, please let me know?

Also tagging all of you who read this and want to give it a go!

Original article: The Writer Tag: 20 Questions.