Tag Archives: romance

Angel or Demon school?

It is common knowledge if you have been following my blog for a while now, that I do not like romance as a genre and I do not like gooey love scenes in my movies either; so this post is going to come as a surprise to you, because this is all about romance today!

No, don’t worry, I am not becoming a romance author and nor do I intend to start injecting more romance in my stories and poetry, this is purely about how I had a light bulb moment last night in bed about romance.

I realised there are two main types of romance and I decided that they are to be called “Angel school romance” or “Demon school romance”.

So what are they?

Angel school romance is the traditional, soft and sappy romance from days of yore; where there is a mutual respect between the couple in question, possibly sharing of love letters, poetry, gifts of chocolate or candies, wining and dining and true chivalry and serenading.  A mutual sharing of feelings and lots of soft sentimental emotion!  A simple pure kiss is a big deal and its hands off till we’re married types. Think of any Jane Austen novel and Mills and Boon tripe. 

Demon school romance still has the chivalry to a certain degree, but there is a defined power dynamic, intense fiery passion, rough play between lovers, mock fights, sometimes a love/hate relationship, tango dancing, sarcastic humour and a certain level of possessiveness and BDSM.  There are still gifts, but the gifts may be quirkier and less innocent and the love far deeper and involves a certain amount of acceptance of each other’s darkest personalities. Think Morticia and Gomez Addams, Harlequin and the Joker.

You can tell which school I attend can’t you?

Thanks for reading! 

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Filed under Defining myself

Romance with death

So many things are taking up space in my mind over the past few days; I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything but emotional presence, which is strange because I usually try to avoid acknowledging my emotions as much as possible, or at least as minimal as possible.

I don’t really know much about meditation other than what I have learned in books and on YouTube.

I have never had a guided meditation – so I don’t really know if the meditation I did a few days ago called “Who am I”? Has anything to do with it, but it’s a strange coincidence if it hasn’t.

When I am not drifting off into trance-like stupors losing twenty minutes a time, I try to sit and focus on writing something for my blog or towards my stories or reading a book, only for me to be absorbed yet again in my emotions.

There is a voice at the back of my head telling me that I need to go through this process as it is healing me in preparation for something big coming into my life.

If I want to cry, do it – but I still try to hold back.

I never did get into the crying yoga I said I was interested in – I kind of know deep down it is something I need… but I still hold back.

I often try not to be emotionally present so it is all new to me.  I try to shut away my emotions into a coffin, put it into a wardrobe and throw the wardrobe into a lake tied up with ropes and rocks so I don’t remember them… until a drought comes at least.

Not that I fly tip or anything, I am being metaphorical – some people can take things too seriously!

I think there are some readers out there that takes me too seriously too – sometimes when my depression kicks in and I make all these creative works of poetry, I sometimes sit back and laugh at how tragic I was for those moments and I feel stupid and slightly embarrassed by yet another emotional outburst. 

I think it is good for you to know that sometimes when I have got it all out creatively, I do laugh at myself – because of how pathetic I come across.  Some days though, I am quite serious and often think about death very seriously after writing such things… but a good third to near half of the time I find humour in my tragedy, like some kind of sad clown story.

I do see myself as a pitiful sad clown a lot of the time.  The kind of clown that will sit in the grey in dirty dusty clown clothes, with a black cone hat and grey pom poms on it, sitting miserably alone in their own grey tragedy – then suddenly opens the door of their house to jump off the cliff that’s waiting just beyond the threshold only he is saved by a rainbow bridge and whilst he is standing on that rainbow bridge he magically transforms into a colourful rainbow clown and laughs at his own sorrow and skips off down the curve of the rainbow to play with the faeries!

Well that’s how I visualise myself anyway.

Dark sense of humour at times!

But you have to admit though, the depths I go, the sarcasm at times, the irony etc. – I see myself as ironic, my humour is definitely ironic and I know because I have been told multiple times that my humour is lame – but you’ve got to admit, sometimes it’s funny?

Was never meant to be, but boy I can get too deep at times cant I? Its almost like a romance with death and despair!

Well, if I didn’t laugh I’d cry and which one is better eh?

I’m trying so hard not to be a Sylvia Plath, not going down her route.

However, my depression is very real.  Have no doubt about that.

Thank you for reading… 

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Filed under About Me

My idea of romance

Is not what you find in the average romance novel, sorry, well, not the ones my mother shoved down my throat when I was growing up – ew!

Though I reckon my idea of romance is too way out there for the modern day too, a little old-fashioned or a little too fantasy based.

I have a lot of old fashioned values.  I believe man and woman has their place and this is hard to hear according to some of my friends which are super modern feminists or who know I am bisexual.

Here are my core beliefs about men and women;

Man is the protector and must have what it takes to physically and verbally defend his woman whenever necessary.  Unfortunately I have seldom come across anyone who fits the stereotypical protective male role; basically I’ve been on my own under confrontation from strangers whilst the guy I was dating was there.

The woman is the nurturer moral and emotional supporter of the whole family, not just the kids, but the man as well and must be patient and understanding with the man when he is having a bad day.

Basically as women, it’s our job to ensure that our husband’s day doesn’t get any worse – we have to cheer him up, we have to spoil him as it were with good food and snuggles and kind words.

Both the man and the woman should be completely honest with each other at all times, trust and honesty as well as a deep friendship are the keys to a longstanding relationship – if you don’t have that, then you don’t have a proper relationship in my opinion!

Whenever I hear my friends say that they can’t date their best friend I pity them, because relationships need friendship as its foundation, don’t you think?

I am also traditional in the sense that when you choose to have children, you need to have a career that works around them, not vice versa.  Your children’s well-being and presence in your life should be the priority.  I know it is hard for some women, especially single mothers – I understand you, but this is what I believe.  There are options for working at home, that’s all I am saying!

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that women should be able to have whatever rights they desire – but just don’t force your ideas on other more traditional women like me!

I have been discriminated against for my beliefs of being a stay at home mother before I got sick, because in the opinions of other local women, women like me are disgusting and lazy and are seriously damaging the women’s right campaign.

At the time, before I got sick, I was actually trying to hone my skills in social care and tried to fix the house up by taking Paul out of his hoarder’s paradise, to consider becoming a foster mother as a job.  Which I know I would have loved!

But for me – romance is nothing like Mills and Boon, choose any novel there you like! 

For me, my idea of the perfect romance is what Morticia and Gomez Addams have!

Seriously!

A partner you can listen to music with and randomly get up and dance with around the living room, smooching, swaying and snuggling and embarrassing your kids!

A partner who’d bring you a regular dose of flowers for the house so you can rearrange them around the house with maybe some of your own cut flowers from your own garden too!

A partner who wants to take you on one to one picnics occasionally, or sends the children away to friends or family for the night so we can have a homemade candlelight dinner with just the two of us!

A partner who isn’t stuck in a rut in regards to bedroom matters and is adventurous and spontaneous.

I want a guy who will teach me how to tango with him and maybe roleplay with him and silly things like this.

I like vain men who have big egos, especially if I know they like to look meticulous in public but behind closed doors he won’t moan at me when I scruff up his hair and give him cute nicknames…

I like to be very hands on with my guys, I like to give and receive massages and so forth and I am very good at reiki, I’ve been told I should be a practitioner, but I am not interested in that for a career.  I like to touch and be touched and I have a real problem with rejection when I put my hands on a guy in bed and they flinch or tell me to get off – when we’re supposedly engaged, you get me?

I like guys who don’t want sex over and done within thirty minutes if you are lucky – I like long nights, not just dip and collapse with no build up or tease, you know?

A big part of a relationship to me is talking… talk a lot… talk about everything, be open, share your day, share your ideas, play with ideas and make plans to ensure your life never gets boring together – always try new things, not just sexually, but in life in general!

I think that when you bond with a life partner, there should be a sort of effort to have an unspoken language between you or keywords, where you can communicate with each other privately but in public too – it’s a lost art for these times, but it was quite common pre-Victorian era.  Fan or hand language, language of flowers and little innuendos that only you and he knew the meaning of. 

I show my love by cooking for the person in my life, by asking them if they want help with something or by doing things they’ve specifically asked for.  I like to bond with them by writing out my thoughts and feelings and reading it to them and hope they’d tell me more about themselves too.

I like the idea of a relationship where we motivate each other all the time to become the best that we can be, we always challenge each other!

I even like a little mock fighting – knowing we will never truly hurt each other’s feelings, it’s all play and end up wrestling each other to bed or something!  This is why I love the tango a lot, oh and the paso doble! 

I have a lot of fire in me, a lot of passion and I need someone with a lot of energy and creativity and desire to be playful with me! 

I think this is another reason why I love the BDSM lifestyle a lot, there is a lot of fun light-hearted roleplay there, with kinks and spanks and other delights – it’s not meant to be vicious and bullying!

I want someone ready to take on my challenges with me and me with theirs!  Together we’ll ride the storm!

I have never been comfortable with this is their problem and these are my problems and we live separately like that – I believe in sharing and caring about each other a lot!

I really don’t like it when I know a partner is upset about something going on in their lives and they won’t tell me about it, because I hate feeling helpless and I hate not knowing and I hate not being able to lighten the load for them!

It literally kills me inside!

I have had exes in the past who hated the way I treat them at times, because I apparently smother them, mother them and sometimes I’ve been accused of babying them!

I don’t see it; I just see it as maybe caring too much?

Maybe I go overboard, but it’s just me!

So yes, I want love like Morticia and Gomez Addams… you get me?

Someone with all the above and someone to live in mutual weirdness with!

Oh and can match my libido!

Thanks for reading!

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Filed under About Me

Henry, dreams & things

Celebrating the fact that Henry has had two full days at school this week!

It’s becoming a rarity, but I hope it’s going to change a bit – Henry has come home a little bit anxious because a new supply teacher was rude and apparently mean to him and several other children; but Henry is a lot like his mum, in that sometimes in stressful situations we forget the words but remember the actions, if you get me?  So Henry can’t relay exactly what was said.

Thankfully nothing came of this meningitis presumption – I am so happy and relieved about that!

Henry is at his youth club tonight for three hours, so I have plenty of time to get to write something today, I am going to do it, though I had only three hours sleep last night and I have big dark circles around my eyes that make me look like I have been in a fist fight with a kangaroo!

I am having a lot of weird and heavy dreams at night in the past few weeks, even in short sleeping bursts like last night.

Two days ago I had a dream about three candles being lit that were a brownish colour, that had red and white wax melting inside of it, which was weird and on one of the three candles were two rings – like non gem wedding and eternity rings. 

There was a hooded red figure discussing what to do with the candles and they were slightly frustrated but still patient with me, because I kept moving the candles around and blowing the flames out and relighting etc. 

There were other people at the table, just one man and one other woman; they all had their own candles.  The man found me amusing somewhat and tried to advise me a little, but the woman looked at me in disdain and thought I was an idiot.

I remember taking the rings off one of the candles and I was told not to do that yet, be patient – so I put them back.

I was a little tensed and confused in the dream and felt like a naughty hyperactive child and ended up trying to sit on my hands or twiddle my thumbs whilst sitting there clueless about what’s happening – the other two, seemed to know what was what, but I didn’t.

I woke up and did a tarot and oracle reading about what the dream meant and like a fool I didn’t consider it had anything to do with a new relationship or marriage – but my cards dropped a marriage card, a ring card, a love card, as well as a diamond in my usual 3 card reading – these cards dropped on the 3 I had already chosen and I thought that this was weirdly significant and related to each other too spookily well.  The oracle cards I used have 200 cards and are the Tea Leaf fortune cards, so to get all the indicators for marriage or new relationship like that was just so random and weird to me!

The three cards I pulled out in the normal manner were the firecracker card, the handshake card and the broom card. 

The meaning of the above according to this oracle is;

Firecracker = Excitement

Handshake = A meeting with a stranger could be important.

Broom = New home, new attitude

The other fallen cards just speak for themselves, its weird how mindless I can be during dream time and interpreting things – I suppose it’s because it was a dark room lit by candlelight and the rings didn’t look like jewellery to me, they looked like metallic black, if you get my drift?  A little darker than hematite. 

Last night’s dream was weirder and extra spooky because of events that took place when I woke up.

I dreamt I was at a ballroom again, this is a common dream I have, it is in the same building and room where I have those sorts of dreams and it isn’t a real place I’ve ever been to or seen on TV.

Like usual in those dreams I seem to have a completely different family to my physical real family, they’ve been in and out of dreams for years – it’s almost like I slip into a parallel world when I sleep at night.

Anyway in that dream I was wearing a golden dress with a sun like piece of jewellery just above the navel, it was hooked onto the dress like a brooch. 

I was just standing around when a gentleman comes over – the usual dream guy in fact, though this time he is slightly different facially, not much, but slightly showing some facial hair like he is growing a beard and moustache but it’s the early stages.  He had red decoration on his chest and wore his black suit; though it was different it was far more formal than usual.

He took me to a balcony and we talked a bit, then he went to my dream parents and they exchanged to him some black scarf or wide set ribbons, unsure what they were really and they placed them upon a staff – I think it was a staff anyway.

Then he came to me and we spent time together and then the scarves were tied like bangles around my wrist, it wasn’t bondage.  But in the dream people who saw us when we went back into the ballroom started to become excited and throw confetti or something like that at us.

It felt very similar to a private 121 hand fasting experience, if you understand me?

A sort of mini pagan wedding that hadn’t been officiated properly yet – this was like the first stage, I understood in the dream.

As I am writing this there is a weird pressure on my third eye – very odd.

Anyway, when I woke up I found lots of small pieces of torn up paper around the bed and on the bed, like someone had thrown confetti on me in the night, in fact it’s why I woke up – I felt a piece hit me on the head, but no one in the house was a awake to have done it, I checked.

All I know is as I woke up, I heard a voice say – quick, she’s stirring!

I’m either losing my marbles or things are stranger than I thought about this world!

It’s weird because traditionally scarves and ribbons in weddings are usually red in certain cultures, but these were definitely black.  What is weird is the guy had something red on him, but not sure what.

This is one of the reasons I didn’t sleep well last night – because when I woke up and went to the bathroom the house started to wake up around twenty minutes later and I decided to stay awake until I got dozy and had a two hour nap in the late morning.

It’s really eating away at me all these strange things – but at least those last two dreams were more pleasant than other dreams I’ve had this past month.

I have had awful dreams before them – Warning content needed here…

There was a baby I found that looked weak and ill and I wrapped it up in a blanket to look after it, the baby spoke to me and told me how I could find his mother and so I took him to her and she was working at a food van.  When I passed the baby to her, she snapped at me and said, put him on the counter there, I will sort him out later.  When I put the baby onto the counter he turned into a huge burrito and the lady grabbed the burrito, cut it in half and offered it back to me, which I declined!

Another one was a true out and out nightmare, I was escaping from some sort of prison and I managed to get out with the help of the dream guy.  But he needed to act as decoy to get someone away from me, but unfortunately whilst he was away my mother crept up behind me and cut out of my kidneys and ate it raw in front of me. 

When I woke up my back hurt a lot.

Loads of other dreams similar to these, but there is a horrible dream that keeps repeating lately and that is my rabbit Ray, being turned out into the garden in a small tight hutch and it falls into a muddy pond drowning him or there is a flash flood that sweeps him away.

Don’t know why I am having a lot of disturbing dreams late; usually dream time is a sanctuary.

I am worried about my lack of sleep, my light sleeps when I do sleep and the fact that lately I am struggling to eat more than 900 calories a day.  I’ve had two days in the past two weeks where I ate around 1400 but it’s much less than that recently and consistently.

I am getting pain whenever I eat anything bigger than half a sandwich which makes me stop eating a full meal.  I don’t eat breakfast and rarely have lunch, I have one or two snacks in a day, with a quarter of a plate for dinner if it’s a good day.

Paul is more than a little worried about it.

Yesterday was a goodish day, I had a tuna bagel with mayonnaise and chives and I had a ham & cheese salad sandwich and a packet of crisps for the whole day.  Unfortunately that’s too much gluten for my body, so my abdomen is a little swollen today, but it’s not painful.

Sometimes my chest gets bad the next day after I have more than a little of gluten and sometimes depends on how much gluten I have, my abdomen will swell like I’m pregnant or something, weird. 

It’s much worse with soy and mustard, because with those two my spleen swells as well as my abdomen and there is intense pain!

Right so, an hour into writing this, I have warmed up enough to get back onto my project AD for the evening, I still have an hour and twenty minutes before they come home approximately.

Thanks for reading!

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Filed under About Me

Tropes and scenes loved and hated

Some writer friends have asked me to list what I definitely will not include in my stories and what I am likely to include in my stories in regards to themes and tropes and just general stuff.

Apparently it is a thing that’s going around where writers are starting to share that sort of thing?  Ok, here goes…

Too many romance scenes (sex scenes in my adult works possibly but not romance, gooey eye rolling load of old trollop nah huh ) – this is not for me and won’t be in my stories much if at all!  But do expect sex scenes frequenting some of my adult works! 

Unless the story has historical scenes, it is unlikely there will be silly gossiping women, I hate gossip!  The only time this is acceptable in my works is at the ladies cream tea afternoons in a Victoriana setting, but I do find writing these things cringe worthy, being a gossip is generally cringe worthy as it is! 

Technological explanations and scientific terminologies – I don’t have the brain for it – it will be basic stuff!  Oh this big blue square button does that and this round yellow one does this, character pushes said button and hey presto, that’s as nerdy as I get! 

Helpless women who lose their mind over men and forget to defend themselves because their love is in danger – the women in my stories generally have their heads together!  I mean I know for sure if I was a character in some of these books I have read, my reaction would be “I have my own problems, wait you wuss”!

Stereotypical monsters that just do evil because… hey… they’re monsters!  So overdone and totally unfair!  Not to mention, highly discriminating and endorsing discrimination… just saying! 

Emotionally bland or emotionally devoid scripts – I have read hundreds of pages of emotionally dead characters who keep on telling me about why they need to do something and get somewhere, but there is no real descriptive emotional output at all – it’s like, it’s their duty to have to think this way because it is expected, but generally there is no real feeling behind the words… you get me?  If you get me, you’ll see that I mean to say, that the character makes you feel like they are lying to both themselves and you as a reader! 

Mindless barbarians bonking heads for no other reason than they’re simply bored or want to be barbaric.  There is always a motive behind an action, tell me about it… not just the mindless violence! 

Slow paced stories, there has been books I have read where nothing at all moves the plot forward more than six pages at a time and that’s being optimistic!  I need something to happen on every page, it’s not hard to do!  No one wants the second scene to happen fifteen minutes later!

Repeating scenes already seen in the story or having characters lull over past memories again and again – yawns, boring!

Constantly reminding the readers how emotionally affected the person is about so and so, it is OK to mention it around three maybe four times in the whole book but please don’t take us back there in every single chapter!  We know, we read and understood it – doing this makes your readers feel like you think they are idiots who just do not understand – don’t do that to them!

Other than generalising height as short, tall etc and the build of the person as well as the colour of the hair or skin, please leave other things to the imagination unless those other features deeply affect the story in some way – like an eye patch or a scar on the chin which is why there is a revenge plot or something – but generally, let people use their own imaginations about who they want to play the part in their heads based on who they know with general outlines.

I love to write very descriptive body horror scenes because I love grossing people out, I understand this is not everyone’s cup of tea – but it’s what I do in my adult horror stories!

I love found family tropes and close family tropes, I love tropes where there is a small team working together towards the same goal!

I like write historical scenes and be descriptive about the environment and landscape around the character!

I write a lot about isolation and abuse, because it is something I have experienced a lot over the years, therefore I feel it is easy to write in a believable way.

I am very good at understanding the hidden aspects of society, the things that people can hide from others, the secrets, the lies, the behind closed doors of Mr and Mrs Ideal-Citizen, the underground stuff, the dirty nitty gritty aspects of life.

I am very good at writing different points of view because I have had a very rich life regards to socialising with different classes and types of people just by being moved from relative to relative.  I have lived with rich aunts and certain members of the aristocracy because on one side of my family we have a very old family – on another side of my family they are gypsies and farmers – another side were refugees, lots of different religions and class systems.  The list goes on! 

I find it easy to write from the perspective of a social worker and a teacher who is worried about their abused pupil/client and then write from the perspective of a junkie about to lose their child – I have seen these things unfold right before my eyes time and time again growing up!

One thing I have experienced time and time again from lots of different people and classes is suicide and sudden loss due to murder.

I have a huge interest in environmentalism, so pollution and innovation is something I like to put in most of my books.

Because I love comedy and prefer books and movies with comedy aspects, I do tend to like to throw in humour whenever I can, including in my darkest horror stories – I can’t help it; it always gets in there somehow!

I do love vampires and I have to say at least a third of my work will have some kind of vampire in there!

I love animal companions and so that will be a thing – particularly fond of anthropomorphic animals pretending to be human or whatever.

I like over the top comic hero and villain tropes, so that is another thing that will be seen a bit in my works.

There is likely to be someone who is rather off key in my stories, a batty old aunt, a batty young aunt, the green juice hippy weirdo and the generally bonkers type of person – or the harsh out of touch with their emotions type who is learning to soften themselves down a bit.

There will be women who save themselves and maybe even male characters! 

There will be lots of free range children living independently and causing chaos or massive changes in their communities.

There will be a lot of subterranean places too; in fact this is something that is seen in half of my stories so far!

People who are incredibly lucky when things aren’t really going for them!

Also, I will always end up being just ever so slightly corny…

So that’s what you can expect from me… I won’t say anything else on the matter, so please stop poking around…

Thanks for reading! 

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Filed under About my work

My views on Mr Perfect (not the wrestler)

I have mentioned before and I will probably say it again, I am not like other women, I don’t go in for too many romance scenes and weak female roles in my stories.  Yes, there are some love scenes in a handful of my works, but generally it isn’t all googly eyes and sweet nothings, it is usually love in a deeper sense or some kind of strange dynamic and understanding between the two in question.

I have never been a romantic person and in my own relationships I tend to fall into a sexual relationship with those who I have a deep friendship and connection with, because we understand each other and accept each other.  I don’t go around chasing for the perfect man in the perfect scenario and drive myself crazy with how perfect everything must be!

I don’t believe in chemistry in the usual sense of the word, I believe in mutual respect and understanding and a close friendship where you can be completely open and honest with each other – if you don’t have that, I really don’t understand why people waste their time bothering with each other, because the relationship is likely to fail eventually without those things!

That’s just me I suppose, I know my ideas about relationships are not popular ones, especially as I am so open about being bisexual and involved in an open/polyandrous/polygamous relationship.

I have never been a person who chases trends and normality, I am very bohemian in my ways and I truly believe the spice of life is variety.  Yes, I know, I have said it before – my stories have taboo themes in them, now you are beginning to get the picture – but those scenes are reserved for my adult audience pseudonym.

I have this belief where nature never intended for any creature to be monogamous, so why do we cut ourselves up emotionally when we try to enforce an unnatural law onto ourselves?

It doesn’t make us any better than the other animals in the world – it just makes us more stressed out and unproductive – literally!

Life is too short to be picky and waiting around for Mr. Perfect, life is too boring not to take advantage of the fun that is out there!

In my experience the more open and honest you are about your most deepest desires in life and talk about them without shame, the more likely you are to find your tribe, which think like you, the more likely you are to find your peace and your true love.  Just because I am in an open relationship doesn’t mean I value any less the people I am involved in, it just means I do not burden them all the time with making them my one and only.  That can be stressful on your lover, to make them feel that they are the only one for you, it is a big responsibility to live up to and it can put a strain on your relationship in itself.  Best to spread yourself around a bit, as long as you are open about it to everyone you are in a relationship with… don’t want heartaches and jealousy do we?  Be open!

That’s my two cents on the matter.

Happy 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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Favourite genres to read

Reading is something I do often, but in more recent years I have noticed a decrease in reading fiction for non-fiction and I am starting to miss reading fiction as a whole.  I am trying to increase the fiction that I read, but a lust for research usually gets in the way of it.

I miss fiction a lot and I want to share with you the genres or types of books that I enjoy the most;

I obviously enjoy vampires, but they seem to have a broad genre rather than just slotted into one and ironically they don’t often get found where you expect at libraries and bookshops.  I expect to find them at the horror section, but oftentimes they are found in the YA section or even romance!

My favourite genres are fantasy, horror, YA, dystopia and graphic novels.  I love anthologies too and tend to read more short stories than full length novels and I love novellas too.

I dislike romance or having too much romance in the stories that I do read, I tend to skim past scenes like this a lot, and I am not at all a romantic person!  I think it has something to do with the fact that my mother consumed fifteen mills and boon a week as I was growing up!  If there is one thing I can say about my mother, is that she read faster than I ever could!

For a small time during my youth I did kind of get into some of her romance books, but the naughtier ones which made her laugh a bit but also side glanced me in concern as I was becoming more and more an adult; the silhouette, blaze and historical/regency ones I liked best.  But there are only so many gooey eyes and passionate forays in the bedroom you can read before you need to get a grip on your hormones and stop reading that sort of thing for sanities sake!

So for mental health reasons I avoid romance, not because I am a prude, far from it, but there comes a time when one gets tired of a constant sense of nonfulfillment, as it were.

Right anyway, enough of that!

Bitter about a misspent youth of being such a good girl and obeying her mother and never dating anyone until she was twenty purely because of the fear of the scene that would unfold just because I suggested that maybe I am old enough to go out on my own now mum?  Is it obvious?  Well… of course… it wasn’t normal back then and it isn’t normal now… well… Covid19 might have made that sort of thing normal now, but generally it isn’t normal is it?

But yes, I love horror and fantasy and I love humour too!  Those are my genres I love to read and even write.  Christopher Moore, Susan Hill, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, Ransom Riggs, Roald Dhal, David Walliams, Frank L Baum, George McDonald, Edgar Allen Poe, Max Brook, Anne Rice, Brian Froud to name but a few of my favourites.

There will be more in depth posts in future about what I like and even why.

Happy reading all!

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Ideas and the life of them

Having lots of story ideas is an author’s dream, well I guess I have the dream creative life then, because I have more ideas than I can handle!

But it is not nice to be like this, having more ideas than I can reasonably write!  How do I manage being like this?  I have noticed there is not much literature on people who are overloaded with ideas, but there is plenty literature on how to try and get them! 

For me personally, I have learned that I can’t write enough to get every idea down on paper, even writing more than one paragraph about the idea is a challenge at times! 

How I manage the best ideas;

I keep a bullet point journal about the general ideas; usually just one sentence per idea as a trigger to remembering, so that later on in the day, usually just before I go to sleep, I write a further paragraph or two in an ideas folder.

I have to say, I am often brutal with my ideas, ideas come and go quite quickly for me and not all of them are worthy of note!  Weirdly enough most of the ideas come when I am on the toilet, in the bath or at a busy café!

I have ideas that are not even for my favourite genres to write, many times I discard ideas because I feel that their plots are too complicated for me or requires much more research than I am willing to do on a new subject I know nothing about!  Believe me, I am not in any need for further research material, I read mostly non-fiction these days as it is!

This past week alone I have had six entirely new ideas come and so far, only two have survived further summaries.  Those two were of the genre I write, three of the others were not of my genre and one other was way too technological – as we all know technology is not my strong point!

The ideas that remained were another dragon story and a comedy vampire story. 

The ideas I discarded were an Italian romance story, a story based on the life of a rabbit, a story that seemed too similar to the plot of a recent book review I watched on YouTube and the complicated story was a space opera.

You can’t hoard all these ideas if you are sure you are not going to write them!

I firmly believe in Elizabeth Gilbert’s idea in Big Magic; ideas are alive, they have souls, they are like ghosts of stories that want to exist, they flow from person to person seeing who’d write them and if they decide not to write them, they flow onto people they know who might.

This doesn’t mean that a person steals another person’s idea; most of the time people don’t even know that those ideas are in people’s heads – because a lot of creative people are closely guarded by what they merely think about.  Especially if they do not know that they are not going use those ideas. 

But it is strange how many times a person has claimed that a story their friend has wrote, was weirdly an idea that they had had for a long time but didn’t take the plunge.  I too, have found this! 

In fact the more creative friends I make, the more ideas I seem to get and it is not because of a feedback of ideas they talk about (because most of them don’t), it is usually about the ones they don’t talk about!  Elizabeth Gilbert explains this phenomenon in Big Magic, if you haven’t read the book I strongly recommend it!

Because of this book, I have learned not to get so uppity and upset when people write things I wanted to write, but didn’t – it’s not copyright theft if they really genuinely didn’t know that you thought of it first – the ideas just got fed up waiting on you as an agent for their life!

However in the past I have got upset over this, purely because ideas were shared with trusted members of the family and they were literally sold to the highest bidder – usually for a crate of wine or a new computer and then I get to see my books on film after all a couple of years later.  Missing out all of the time, Bitter?  Of course, because it happened a lot through that relative!  Some of those ideas were actually near the point of being sent to agents, it was the last draft when I discovered the damage that happened yet again.

Thankfully those people are out of my life, but unfortunately it has made me afraid to share too much with anyone.  I say only vaguely what my stories are about, but I am not inclined to go to writers clubs anymore, in case strangers do the same thing.  I can’t lose my hard work again and again, it is soul destroying!

My ideas folder is thicker than a dictionary. 

I get ideas flooding me at intervals that happen as frequent as every six months on average, they come for two or three weeks completely disrupting my life like some violent storm and they can come at first in around five the first week and blow up to be as many as twenty near the end of their flow, generally totalling around forty to fifty ideas by the end of the event. 

How many of those ideas do I actually write? 

I write towards approximately six to ten stories a season, but finish them entirely, usually not… I tend to pause for a year or two at chapter seventeen; there is something about chapter seventeen that seems to do that to me.  Because my pauses are lengthy, most stories take an average of three years to write, because pauses like that are necessary for me. 

There was one very rare occasion, I think it was 2017 – 2018 NaNoWriMo, I can’t remember which, where I was approximately five chapters away from finishing a novel in a month, that for me, was record timing!

It is a habit I am trying to get into, have been trying to get into since 2016.  I want to write all of my novels in one month, they need life.

I feel like some sort of literary Dr Frankenstein, these books must have life, life you hear!  LIFE!

I haven’t recounted my unfinished works since 2017, back then my unfinished works were seventy six with a further two hundred un-started, synopsis stage other works.

At present there are four near to finished works and two finished works that are pending an extensive review and potential rewrite. 

I am far more organised than I used to be and funnily enough, I believe that I am becoming a faster writer when I do write. 

I haven’t written much lately because I am beginning to get apathetic about everything regarding life as there are some serious health problems cropping up where I am unsure of my future at present.

I am determined to do NaNoWriMo this year for my sanities sake, but I can’t tell what will happen until those emergency hospital appointments are done and dusted and another health problem is confirmed or denied… hopefully denied, or else, well… let’s just say; I won’t have much of a career in writing if it’s confirmed.

Happy reading everyone!

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My vampires 1

My vampires are what makes me, me

They are a part of me, you see

There are not unkind or something to fear

To me they are something to cheer

They are me

My vampires are mine you see

I will love them from here to eternity

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