Tag Archives: Dark Fantasy

About my poetry

This post is not about bragging.

But to those who will read it, no doubt you will have your suspicions that it is a sort of act of boasting.

However, it should be said.

No poem on this blog has ever been revised or made into second drafts etc. and no poem in this blog was pained over for hours on end.

There, said it.

Most of my poems are done in less than twenty five minutes, first draft, scheduled or published online immediately without a second thought and I can only recite one poem I have ever written.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

It’s one of those reasons why I am not a member of any poetic clubs; I am not welcomed because I can push out three to five poems an hour without aching over the words I should produce.

It just naturally flows.

I was astounded to find some poets online take weeks to finish a piece, I personally couldn’t do that and I think it goes to show who is more dedicated to their craft.  They are – I wouldn’t faff around like that over one poem.

I live for the current emotion, it is the current emotions that drive the poetry I don’t want to hang on most of those emotions for weeks on end, good Lord I really would commit suicide if that was the case and at the moment I am only tiptoeing at the edge of it.

It took me about an hour and a half to write one poem once, the longest ever.

I do delete poems never to share them, this happens about twice a week, so you’re losing around a hundred to a hundred and fifty per year, because I am embarrassed to share the depths of my emotions at times.

Sometimes I preschedule poems for months in advance whilst I think about deleting them – at the moment there are seven whose future is as obscure as mine.

Nobody believes I can write that fast until they see me in action, offline. 

Then they accuse me of boasting.

But they did challenge me!

I will sit there and ask them, pick a subject and I will think about it for two or three minutes, to get my mind into the zone of that subject and how I feel about it and then the words pour out and the poem is done within minutes.

I can write a poem about anything, so long as it doesn’t feel like a lie to my heart.  For example, I couldn’t write a poem which is supposed to be a love song for Hitler – I hate fascists!

So that’s not a poem I could write.

But I could write one about cutting his balls off and feeding them to him, no matter how disgraceful that would be and inelegant.

That’s not an invitation for requests by the way!

I find it hard to write more than three poems a day, though I have been known to do up to ten.

I try to force myself to do at least one per day, if I live to a hundred imagine a future publication of all my poetic works, how many volumes could that possibly be?

Thing is, I haven’t a clue what I am doing poetically.

I have never been formally educated about it, I can’t tell a poem from a rhyme to a sonnet etc. – for all I know they could be the same thing but fancy names!

I do know what a haiku is though and I used to write them.

In fact talking of sonnets, I have been seriously thinking about reading a book to learn about those.

One of my dreams is to be patient enough with my poetry that I could actually write a poem as long as Shakespeare, Christina Rossetti and Edmund Spenser.

I have often thought about creating a large poem which is a story like Edmund Spenser’s Fairy Queen – that would be amazing if I could do something like that.

That would take me months, could I do it on an emotional level? 

I have often thought about challenging myself to do it!

I originally wrote the first chapter of a fantasy story in rhyme, with that very intention; but I couldn’t hold it throughout the story – it’s still in progress after nine years, but I haven’t added a thing to the project since 2015.

It’s about gargoyles protecting the heart of a young maiden who lives in the house they protect.

It’s a dark fantasy and very macabre, it’s sort of like Edgar Allen Poe meets Hans Christian Andersen.

I have a couple of online friends who have made the suggestion that I should go on stage and read my poems out there, but I won’t do that.

Why?

Because hilariously as it sounds, I don’t actually regard myself a poet yet!

Yet this is probably what I am best known for.

At the moment I am having a very poetic night – I am thinking about poetry a lot and I am frustrated that a book I have ordered from EBay is two weeks late in the post and I had to put in a complaint about it.

I want to finish the book and do the essays in it to learn what I am doing.  Unfortunately the library is fed up with me re-borrowing that book, I’ve had it a total nine weeks this last borrowing session and it’s the second time in a year I did that, having it for about eighteen weeks in total for the whole year!

I wish it would come soon!

It’s where some of my poems I’ve posted on here has been inspired by, such as “Grief”, “Brent Cross Shopping Centre” and “Lessons from life”.

Anyway, if that’s bragging I apologise!

Thanks for reading…

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Inspiration in the air

Any progress towards any project is good progress in my opinion, even if that progress is only around one paragraph a piece – this is how I am doing things these days!

Today for example, I struggled to get into a creative mind-set, I told you earlier what I did and the results of that – well that wasn’t the full story as after I posted that post other things occurred.

I did a little bit more towards one of my previous projects, the Steampunk 1 project to be precise.  This hadn’t been worked on since Easter 2022 and after I posted my previous post I started to draw up a map of a new area within the story.

I had also had a brainstorm of what happens in the mid-section of the novel, an area I was struggling with for months.

After I did this I had yet another entirely new idea for yet another story and once again it is another horror idea although I would say this is more of a psychological horror than a dark fantasy and no sign of any animal distress in this tale at all, thankfully!

This story will be known as The Hermit Horror story and you’ve guessed it, there is a hermit in the story.

I wrote the synopsis to that already and I know the beginning, middle and end which is unusual for me as it usually takes me months or even years to see all the three sections pieced together appropriately; which got me starting the project immediately and I am halfway through the first chapter already – again, highly unusual for me!

What is concerning is this story reflects quite a lot of my personal life as the main character had a life of isolation and has a similar health problem to me and well… let’s just say I can really identify with her!

So by “How to write” books this book is destined to be a bestseller then?  With any luck, though I am not holding out!

I have also added paragraphs towards the Anthropomorphic Dystopian project too today and I have to say this has meant that today has been my most productive day since September – which is something I didn’t think I would do this morning because of how difficult it was to get into the creative mind-set initially!

I don’t think I have finished yet, yes I am having a break – but technically not because I am still writing… well this post for you right now – so that’s not a true break is it?  But to my brain if feels like one!

I feel poems coming on, so I am going to wrap this post up now and I am pretty sure later on tonight I will do more Project AD snippets as well as Steampunk 1 and even more towards the Hermit Horror… I can feel inspiration in the air!

Thanks for reading!

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New horror project

I was struggling to get into a creative mind-set today and so I decided to try and awaken my creative brain, only to regret the result!

Three minutes into warming my creative brain up via fantasy pictures on Pinterest, it made me revisit a project I haven’t touched since Easter 2022, after brainstorming for that project I decided to go and eat some lunch.

A toasted scrambled egg bagel and a banana to be precise – not that you’re interested!

Whilst eating the lunch I looked up and saw something on TV “They killed a man’s best friend” and it set off an idea in my head – I hate stories where dogs are killed, but this is unfortunately going to be part of the new project and that’s going to be a difficult write up – but it gives us the catalyst for what’s to come in the story and it’s a much needed one that is justifiable!

Just that simple thing gave me a dark fantasy or maybe a horror idea which is fast flowing in my head – this has pissed me off because I did the creative warm up for my at least one of my current top three projects only for me to be interested at first with the fourth project and a completely new idea!

A horror one to boot!

Going back into horror it seems, well to be honest, it never really left me!

I am still doing the cat ghost story and a bunch of other stuff!

Yes, I haven’t abandoned the cat story S.

So this makes this story code name “Dog story”.

Thanks for reading!

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My themes & project AD

Here are the main themes I love to write about and I know it has been published in another post before, but I thought it would be good to have it as a post all on its lonesome as a sort of reference post.

My first favourite theme to write about are vampires and their perspective on life and existence, their lifestyle, the drama that goes on in their societies etc.

My secondary favourite literary choice is stereotypical fantasy stories based on dragons, battle and magic! 

My third one is anthropomorphic animals or seeing things from an animal’s perspective and explaining their lives through adventure or almost journalistic storytelling. 

My fourth favourite theme are anything pertaining to childhood wonder, Christmas and Easter stories, Santa, The Easter Bunny, nursery rhyme worlds, toys coming to life, that sort of thing.

My fifth favourite theme to write is stories about inventors and gadget creators in a post-apocalyptic world or perhaps even a steampunk world!

My sixth choices are giants or little people and how they see the world around them and what their stories are. 

My seventh favourite theme is stories about descent into madness or haunting memories or even haunted places, ghosts of both the mind and the ethereal.

The eighth theme is anything with regards to circus performers, carnivals, fairgrounds, fortune tellers and clowns.

The ninth favourite theme to write about is stereotypical war between gods and the underworld and the battle of control over mortality and or power, I especially like gas lighting stories or stories from a twisted perspective.

The tenth theme is stories about magical water/sea creatures or sea life, such as pirates, mermaids, kelpies and sea monsters or travellers of the sea.

Many of my stories will contain at least one of the above in order to keep me interested in writing them, sometimes they may have more than one theme going on for example; my project AD has five of the above themes in it.

There is a small vampire scene in it, with anthropomorphic animals in a post-apocalyptic, steampunk world that experiences a huge gaslight to their existence and in one characters case a descent into madness and a fight for reality and a real battle as well – along with this there are inventors of gadgets and a new way of life for everyone involved in the story!

It’s a project I am really excited about and this particular project has saved my creative life – because without it I very nearly gave up writing altogether.  It is rare for me to have more than two themes in any story, so when I get one that has this many themes in it – it really gets my heart singing!

Thanks for reading!

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My forsaken vampires

One of the most painful things about being a creative is the idea that you love to write things that the world tells you time and time again, they are sick of seeing around!

I love writing stories about vampires and for the past five years there is a lot of discrimination against vampire authors.

I join new creative communities and as soon as I mention that vampires are a third of my creations, well, let’s just say the respect is dropped greatly, shall we?

So, around five years ago I lost my confidence in writing about my vampires, which put a huge hollow in my heart virtually overnight – I used to write my vampires with excitement and pride and now when I do venture to write them I kind of do it with apathy and shame.

I mean why bother writing about vampires when you know the majority of the world is growing sick of them?

It hurts, it hurts a lot because up until this realisation a few years back, my vampires meant everything to me – I mean the reason why I wrote anything at all was because my primary focus was my vampires and I have been writing them since I was ten years old.  I know them, like long lost family, it is part and reason for the emotional experience I have known as “Hiraeth”. 

Hiraeth is Welsh for a longing or a home sickness for a place that doesn’t exist or a place you want to find in order to feel emotionally whole again.

I spent a third of my daily daydreams in my vampire stories, trying to ignore them and think of something the world would like.

It has got so bad my avoidance of writing for them that I have forsaken the movies and books I used to consume pertaining to vampire mythology in order to train myself not to want them anymore.

It is a huge upheaval and it is a little emotionally damaging as stupid as that sounds!

Literally, vampires were everything to me growing up.

It was more than an obsession, is there a stronger word for that?

Since last month, the urge to write anything pertaining to vampires has got out of control – yes, I have a children’s story I am working on where there is a small vampire scene so I haven’t completely given up on them – but I miss the focus on vampires as a whole theme.

Today in particular is really bad, today I have the energy and the emotional space to write and potentially write at length, but all I can think about are those vampires I have abandoned.

Finishing their stories, seeing new scenes, writing stories for minor characters within the books and just generally getting them out there; I am trying so hard to ignore it and as dumb as it may sound to you, it brings me to tears to think it would be a waste of time writing them like I really want to – because nobody would want them and I only write because I want my stories to appear on TV someday – there is no other motivation for it, other than the pleasure of it.  I can’t waste three hours a day on my vampires if it were to affect my writing for other things that would be published and adored.

Because I would hardly write towards those other things, so I have to choose my secondary and third loves.

But my secondary choice is getting to the extent where people are getting tired of those too – dragons.

I will now share my main ten themes with you, that I enjoy, the first and second have already been mentioned above.

My third one is gaining popularity right now and I am hoping that society won’t be bored of them before the series is published and that is anthropomorphic animals.

My fourth favourite theme are anything pertaining to childhood wonder, Christmas and Easter stories, Santa, The Easter Bunny, nursery rhyme worlds, toys coming to life, that sort of thing.

My fifth favourite theme to write are stories about inventors and gadget creators in a post-apocalyptic world.

My sixth choice has never really been a hugely popular theme, giants – but I am hoping my style will change that.

My seventh favourite theme are stories about descent into madness or haunting memories.

The eighth theme is anything with regards to circus performers, carnivals, fairgrounds, fortune tellers and clowns.

The ninth favourite theme to write about is stereotypical war between gods and the underworld and the battle of control over mortality and or power.

The tenth theme are stories about magical water/sea creatures or sea life, such as pirates, mermaids, kelpies and sea monsters.

Those are the themes I love the most to write.

Before I got self-confident about writing my vampires, I would write my vampires a third of the time I wrote per day and I wrote every day because I really looked forward to spending time with my vampires and it was what got me up every morning!

Nothing else excites me in the same way anymore and it’s really disheartening.

As idiotic as I may sound, to me it is like I have betrayed my whole existence and theirs by not paying attention to them (the vampires) anymore!

My vampires in my opinion are sort of unique to the world of fiction, but sort of already done in other parts too – but I can’t help but think that they are getting old-fashioned or they are overdone and that not many people would want them.  My vampires are not violent enough or are too unethical to be wanted so it leaves me in a state of overwhelming confusion.

I am fortunate enough to have friends who love vampires and demand them from me, but hey they are friends and they are gothic, of course they would – but I am not dissing my friends, but just how many people would want these vampires?

I know the vampire fandom is pretty big, but the vampire fans that are occurring these days are less and less about traditional vampires and more and more into what I regard the slasher kind of vampire and I am sorry to say but my vampires are far more refined than that and romance with mortals is rare or unheard of in their world.

So there it is…

I have said what has been on my mind for months – I want to write vampires.

But they will have to come after Project AD and the Easter project now.

Thanks for reading!

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Things you shouldn’t say to a vampire!

I like you, up to a point!

You’re a bloody nuisance!

Fancy a steak?

Bite me!

Fangs for the memories

You need to go out and catch some sun!

You’ve got bats in the belfry!

Have you seen yourself lately?

Whatchya fancy to eat?

Once bitten twice shy!

Stick it to the man!

I want a shish kebab

I think I’m bleeding!

Bloody Hell!

Fancy a bloody Mary?

I’m cross with you!

Have you ever been baptised?

You’re my wing man!

Occasionally I find you a bit loopy!

You look like death warmed up!

You’re cold hearted!

Amorte!  “to death in Italian”

Should I open the curtains and get a bit of sun in here?

Do you fancy a nibble?

You suck!

Lap it up!

You’re very hypnotic

Blood is thicker than water!

You’re my battle companion! 

It’s of a grave concern

Tomb it may concern! 

I love you to death!

I’m going to break your heart!

Neck and neck!

You’re pulling on my heartstrings!

I’m bored to death!

Upon reflection isn’t a sigh of relief for you to know that my vampire stories aren’t comedies!  My vampires are part of my dark fantasy and horror works, they were not meant to be humorous, but me being me, I can’t help but think of fun things regarding my vampires from time to time – but this stuff doesn’t really belong too much in my personal vampire series. 

I have thought about having a separate comedy vampire series I’d like to write, but I really am unsure of taking that plunge due to the amount jokes already in the genre – many I have used above!

Thanks for reading!

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Romance kills the strong heroine

I was recently told by some other aspiring authors that they truly believe that I will never become a published author and that if I did; I would never be a successful author for the simplest reason that I reject romantic scenes in my stories and being a fantasy author, romance is usually always crucial to the plot in some way – so I have made a list of all the fantasy novels that have become classics and inspirations for modern storytellers, which contain little to no romantic scenes whatsoever!

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

The wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The feather boy by Nicky Singer

To name but a few examples, just to show you that it can be done.

Please, when disputing the above, please make sure you have read the non-adapted original novels and not adaption novels or watched movies of these mentions, because you will then understand the genre more and what I am trying to get across here!

I have never read a Brandon Sanderson novel, but I have been told they do not contain any romantic or sex scenes either, so he is someone I should pick up and read some day!

My fantasy books are usually aimed at family entertainment and will have comedy in them, so I want them to be clean for a younger audience.  I am however no prude and I do write dark fantasy, which will not be for a family audience and there are indeed romance and sex scenes in those stories, this will be part of my horror pseudonym too.  You see I will be an author of both dark and light, family quality and shock factor quality as it were. 

I am not saying for one moment that in order for the romantic scene to take off in a book that there must always be a sex scene too, no, no, no – I fully understand that you can have clean romance, but I don’t enjoy that in family entertainment and neither do the majority of modern day children that I have associated with!

So to the naysayers which say I will fail before I have even started, please read more and stop trying to sap the confidence of other writers who do not have to agree with you, because the fact of the matter is… the entire world isn’t in love with romance, there are people out there who hate the stuff!

I for one hate true romance in books, because it kills great and strong female characters, because even the most hard-core feminist hasn’t got it into their thick heads that you can be a strong female and not fall apart when you are in love, you don’t have to lose yourself and melt just because you looked into your lovers eyes! 

This is what ruins fantasy for me, because it is always the woman who is considered the weak one when in love and yet I have known many men to fall apart too – why is it always the women that loses their minds and can’t work efficiently towards their goals in a story, just because of love?

Get it together people!

Happy reading!

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Nox Arcana Art Influence

Another task I am setting for myself this week is to try and find as much art from the Nox Arcana albums I can throughout the internet and perhaps put it in Pinterest, because a lot of the songs and art of Nox Arcana inspire me a lot!

I saw two pictures quick-fire today and they melded together in my mind, I made a crap picture myself based on those images and a story is forming in my head.  I really don’t need new story ideas, but the artwork was beautiful, not mine, theirs. 

They have influenced a lot of my stuff, particularly the dark fantasy and horror stuff.

Also to do the artist of these pictures justice, I really need to find out who they are, that’s one thing I haven’t got around to doing yet. Shame on me, really! I think it’s Joseph Vargo, but I don’t really know.

Happy reading

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A tardiness update

Hello everyone, long time no writes, I know, sorry about that!

I want to say that I have been having a lot more infections than usual and a lot more chest and breathing problems which are not Covid related; I have not been infected with Covid luckily.  I have completely self-isolated since March 2020, I have only left the house twice in that time for dental appointments – I have been scared of Covid especially as I have a history for chest infections and pneumonia anyway!

Other than dental appointments I must admit I have steered clear of all doctor clinics and hospitals because I think that if I go, I am more likely to get infections – now this is frustrating because before Covid the doctor could care less for my health problems and whilst Covid has been a factor I have had to turn down huge amounts of appointments because the doctor is now ready to try and solve them… it is like the world is conspiring to trap me to get Covid lol!

I think there is one good thing about the fact I was isolated all of my life by my mother, that is, Covid19 isolation is literally a doddle for me as I have always learned to cope with what I have and make the best of being at home.  But it is also deeply depressing that again, I feel like the world is conspiring to keep me cooped up for all of my life!

I have mental health issues because of my past and so many people have been concerned for how Covid isolation may be affecting me mentally.  But they don’t understand that it is normal for me, I have been so used to it for so long that it is second nature.  So unlike the rest of the world that has always had some kind of freedom, I don’t go stir crazy just because I can’t leave the house for a time.

Staying at home or even cooped up for prolonged periods inside a single room really doesn’t bother me as long as there are things I can do.  If the room was empty, that could be a completely different matter, I may go crazy after a few days, but I would make do with meditations, visualisations and if I were not causing trouble to do so, singing and reciting poetry etc. 

The thing with me is, imagination is easy.  Imagination is my friend and I have learned to harness it on command for any situation.  I do meditation and visualisation so well, that there has been times I have been hungry and I have visualised eating a meal and I have come out of meditation not feeling hungry anymore!

It’s amusing really that I am overweight; when I consider that I can do this.  But I will be completely honest with you; I am overweight for only three reasons.  As part of the abuse I have been victim of, a large part of that was being fed constantly, my abusers were feeders.  I have lost a huge amount of weight since being away from them, but not enough to be of healthy weight.  Secondly, I am addicted to caffeinated sodas such as cherry cola and Pepsi, but still, not as bad as I used to be.  I have gone from a 5 litre a day habit to only 1 litre now -still trying to fight the addiction.  Third reason – the biggest one of them all is.  I lost a majority of the weight I had because when I moved in with Paul and got away from the abuse, I started to religiously walk 9 miles per day and I that was doing the trick with normal eating.  Since becoming sick back in 2012 I then walked only twice a week for about 2 miles and since Covid I walk nowhere at all, except around the house.

In my humble opinion I need to lose a lot more.  I have tried to go on a diet, but diet alone is not working at all.  I have stuck religiously to a diet for 3 months and I haven’t lost a pound!  It’s only going to go via exercise, which this body just can’t cope with right now.  Every time I try to exercise I get weird symptoms of lower back shakes and unsteady shaking legs and hands.  I am residing myself to the fact I can’t garden anymore, not for longer than 15 minutes a time.

I have to make do with trying to think about what I want to do versus what I can realistically do these days.

I love gardening, but short of sitting at table with pots, that is something I can no longer do the exact way I love the most – which is to kneel down with my hands in the dirt, pulling and pruning and chipping and replanting from ground to ground in true food forest garden fashion.

I have to reside myself to the idea that someday, if I get a little money, I can get someone in to pull my whole garden out for  me and make me hip high raised beds with seating around them, so I can sit and garden the lame man’s way.  Sorry, but to say I don’t feel bitter about not being able to do it the usual way, would be a lie!

My disabilities are affecting my creative crafts too sometimes.  Hand shakiness (presumably not Parkinson’s) are sometimes affecting me using utensils when eating as often as once a week, as well as hand cramps and so therefore drawing and painting on those days is a no go. 

My writing can sometimes be affected on bad pain days; sometimes pain is so bad I misread things, miss-type things, mispronounce things and even have spoonerisms coming out of my ears!  Hand shakiness and pain can affect how much I read in a day too as well as depression.  On a good week without much pain or shakes I can read about three books, if the depression isn’t there.  I think I mentioned this before.  You can more or less tell how I am doing by how much I am reading on Goodreads.com

But don’t be overwhelmed with sympathy for me not getting down to my art and writing however!  There are other factors besides health which leads to my tardiness – the phases I go through.  I tend to find it hard to narrow down precisely who I want to be.  So I go through weeks at a time being so involved in one thing or two and then move on again. 

For example; Between October and April, I have got into the phase of watching around 3 hours a day of YouTube videos from people who are homesteaders and food forest permaculture gardeners, as well as food preservers and artists.  February and April 2021 I have gone through another spiritual soul searching phase.  I have read books based on spirituality and cosmic ordering and I have been thinking about my self-definition a lot.  Since the start of April I have re-established my love for The Sims 4 and have been playing that daily for literally 6 hours a time.  Disgusting I know.  But I have still been practising my art approximately 3 days a week for an hour a time, which is becoming a record now, because that too, used to come in phases!  If this is an unusually long phase, then I have been in this once since last summer!

Writing is on a severe back burner, I am writing about 90 minutes three times a week since March, whereas I wrote a lot more, before then.

On a very positive note however; my art practises are for the very reason that I have decided to make a children’s picture book series and I am practising my art to get the same characters right in several different poses.  Now I know, you are all thinking that I am not a children’s author and that would be very true!  But something happened in my mind, where I just have to have this children’s series about a dragon in true infant picture book form.  I don’t know why this is happening, but I am going with the flow!

But I will tell you now; my main genres are dark fantasy and dystopia that will never change!

Until next time, thank you for reading.

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The shadowlands part 2

To me the shadows blanket me from the woes of mortality

I can watch, but I won’t feel

It is a blessing to be what I am

A creature of the shadows

I sit and watch in anticipation as the shadowlands cover the world to sleep

Babies cry in their mothers arms, cradled by helplessness

I could almost pity them

But I do not

The city falls slowly to sleep

As the shadowlands bite its way to my door

I open the door eagerly awaiting an embrace

The vines of darkness coil around my body mind and soul almost crushing me

But they know their own

Their grasp loosen and I feel kissed

Come play with us the shadowlands call

And I heed them

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