Tag Archives: Wizard of Oz

January 27, 2023 · 11:15

Fandoms? More like Fangdoms!

Here is the subject of fandoms.

I have been asked in social media a few times over the past few weeks about why (other than horror and vampires) my fandoms are not more widely shared and why I haven’t narrowed them down to specifics?

I haven’t the clue to be honest.

But it’s an interesting thing to think about sharing. 

I think I have made it clear in some of them, but there are a few which I think would even surprise some of my most dedicated followers here.

I think almost everybody knows by now that I have a huge passion for Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the looking glass books and anything pertaining to it, their adaptions and generally collecting stuff that has the characters on them?

This is because I have a huge passion for nonsense, nonsense rhymes, absurdism and surrealism and therefore this also means that I like those kinds of art, I also like abstract art and impressionism.

Another widely known fandom I love is The Wizard of OZ and the whole series of fourteen books and the adaptions of those too. 

I like Peter Pan and all their adaptions too.

But I like other things too, not just fandoms pertaining to classical literature, because I am also a fan of Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The Bronte sisters and their adaptions.

Everybody knows I have a passion for vampires, I love the vampire diaries but I am also mad keen on Vampire the Masquerade since a friend introduced me to them fifteen years ago because they felt I was copying them – which I couldn’t have been because I knew nothing about them before they told me!

Actually there was a lot of similarities that I had to rehash a huge amount of work for, because I too, was afraid of the coincidences.  This had meant that literally after I learned about Vampire the masquerade I had to totally re-edit about thirty whole books I had finished and stashed, waiting for the time I found my courage to send them off.  Luckily I didn’t, is all I can say!

Since finding them on YouTube two years back, I have been trying to watch Vampire the Masquerade L.A by Night and its so much fun! 

I’d totally love to be on that show!

I have only got through season 1 episode 10 so far, that’s an epilogue, so I have to finish the epilogues before I move onto season 2; I’ll get there eventually!

I also love Anne Rice, naturally.

Another fandom I like has been The Sandman Comics from Neil Gaiman.

I also like mafia movies and series such as The Sopranos.

I am a huge fan of Stephen King and have been since I was a kid; I started horror young, thanks to my grandma!

I also love anything to do with the Froud family, their puppets, their artworks I absolutely adore their works!

I love the muppets too and sesame street! I love puppets, but I am scared of certain types like the traditional ventriloquist wooden dummies and Pinocchio, Pinocchio freaks me out!

I’m huge keen on Queen, the rock band I got into them with another one of my big fandoms “The Highlander” movies, TV series and books!

I am also a huge fan of Batman, have been since I was 5yrs old and all their villains.

I like the original Star Trek too – one of my exes is such a big trekkie he is actually a famous lifestyle Klingon these days – seriously, he speaks fluent Klingon and works day in and day out purely entertaining his hobby with other fans, it’s his day job!  I am not such a huge fan to do that myself – but hey Star Trek is pretty cool!  I never missed an episode growing up!

I also love anything to do with the Lord of the Rings.

Both Henry and I are huge Lady Gaga fans as well or little monsters!

I personally love Monty Python and Mr Bean too.

I will never grow up either, so I love Trolls and Winnie the Pooh and I still collect things to do with them!

I also love musical theatre and operas as well, so I have quite a few passions for some of those – such as Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Witches of Eastwick, Carmina Burana, various Shakespeare plays too.

I am mad keen on anything to do with circuses, fairs and carnivals and I have a huge passion for masquerades!  With this being said, I love Pierrot, jesters, harlequins and these days clowns too – I used to be terrified of clowns and now I love them – go figure!   

I love anything pertaining to the occult as well, I do a lot of research in that and love learning new things about superstitions and other stuff – usually because I write horror and love horror.

I am also involved with several horror fandoms, mostly pertaining to Stephen King but I do like other stuff too, things from Susan Hill, Edgar Allen Poe and Max Brooks.

I like anything to do with fairyland and gnomes and things like that as well.

So I would say my fandoms are broad, I do spread myself thinly – but I am mostly just horror, vampires, batman, absurdism and that sort of thing.

I would also include dogs but do they count?  I think they do!  Also goats and guinea pigs, but hey there you go!  People don’t acknowledge those as fandoms!  LOL

I love Rome Total War and Warhammer games too, but I am too poor to enjoy them when they are new out and that sucks!

I like war games and anything to do with strategy – I also love learning about ancient warfare.

I also love Victorian or regency dramas.

I really love Discworld too!  Terry Pratchett is amazing!

I liked, but didn’t want the whole thing – Once Upon A Time a TV series, that was cool too – just didn’t have the time to see all of it and then the DVD player broke down halfway through the box-set in fact right at the part they first met Captain Hook!

So sucky – I loved it and I want to know what happens – but NO SPOILERS PLEASE!

So, yes that’s me in fandoms… I wouldn’t say I am hard-core in much except vampires and Alice in Wonderland though.

Thanks for reading! 

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November 28, 2022 · 02:39

Dorothy is acing it!

I am dancing in the winds of change

I hear the storm is coming

Like Dorothy to another world

I hear the spirits drumming

I will be taken up in the clouds

And thrown to a different place

A place where I will feel at home

And it’s going to be ace

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November 14, 2022 · 21:55

Top 10 obsessions, hobbies and collections

It’s top 10 time again, today I will be talking about my obsessions, hobbies and collections – things that I don’t just like but really love and love a lot!

Top 10 character/people or story obsessions

Anything pertaining to Alice in Wonderland and its world– this is a huge one for me!

Anything regarding The Wizard of Oz or the world of that!

Anything about the concept of Candyland in any way shape or form, such as Charlie & the chocolate factory, Easter bunny etc;

Anything about vampires and the mythology of them, especially the Karnstein trilogy & Dracula!

Batman stories and villains

The Addams family

Anything pertaining to Peter Pan

Anything regarding muppets and puppets (but not traditional ventriloquist dummies) so anything like The Muppets and Sesame Street I love as well as Fraggle rock, The Froud’s and Jeff Dunham!

Anything to do with Jurassic Park and dinosaurs

The minions!

Top 10 things I love in general

Anything with dogs on it

Anything with any of my favourite characters on it

Zebra print

Anything fluffy

Crystals

Perfumes

Plant life

Anything with dragons on them

Anything with butterflies on them

Anything with peacocks on them

Top 10 lazy hobbies

Painting with watercolours

Ink drawings

Jigsaw puzzles

Tarot reading

Reading

Practising a musical instrument (proficient in nothing)

Writing poetry and songs

Board games

Junk journaling

Online or console gaming

Top 10 energetic hobbies, things I used to do and miss

Training and walking dogs

Swimming

Tae-bo

Netball

Air hockey

Walking including power walking

Belly dance – when I lose weight I’d be more confident doing this again, needs to loosen up a bit

Rowing

Trampolining

Bowling

Top 10 things I collect

Crystals

Dragon ornaments

Books

Tarot cards

Oracle cards

Perfume

Soft toys & cushions

Fairy ornaments

Poster art I keep in files

Hardback notebooks

Upon conclusion… yes I know I am a big kid – get over it lol.

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October 15, 2021 · 11:00

My brain takes me here…

They say that the books you love to read, the movies you love to watch and the things that stick with you the most can be seen in your own writing. 

What you love is often reflected in your writing and once you know yourself well enough you write better.  Once you throw yourself into all of your passions and are writing things based on your passions or similar to your passions unashamedly, you will develop your style and you will therefore come across as unique and fresh in the genres you write.

As long as you stay true only to yourself, do not write for the market, write for you!

I hope this is true.  If it is, then you can more or less guess from my likes and dislikes what could end up being in my novels.

I don’t like to be predictable though, but it is true that there is a little of what I love in everything that I do

Below is a list of stories, books or movies in which I mentally visit and live in a lot, for some reason or another, I am dragged back there to relive scenes or add new ones in my mind.  However, I never write those reimagining’s down through fear of becoming a fraud!  Though I have sometimes thought about doing fanfiction!

1922 By Stephen king – this story in particular has actually influenced a horror I am writing, which is based around a well in a garden too, funnily enough.  But the story concept is poles apart besides the setting of a well. 

Spider By Hanns Heinz Ewers – Every time I see a spider I remember the story.  Every time I see a woman working at a loom or spinning yarn, I think of this story.  You would think that wouldn’t be very often then, but I know a lot of prepper, homesteading type ladies who do this regularly.  I have wanted to do this myself; I have always wanted to make my own felt too. 

The complete collection of The Wizard of Oz By Frank L Baum – So many imaginative things in all the stories, living china dolls, servant monkeys, it’s absolute joy!  The landscape descriptions, oh my word, they are divine, I just can’t help but bring myself back to those scenes. 

Smoke and Mirrors By Neil Gaiman – So many lovely stories and poems in this book, I presume they are poems in any case?  I see them as such, I love the prose, I just love the way he writes!  It is very soulful writing. 

The man in the picture By Susan Hill – This is the only book in my entire reading history, of such length, that I have read and could not put down even for a toilet break!  It is just so gripping and I loved it, it had a similar air to Dorian Grey, but in my opinion much better executed.  I love Venice, never been, but still, always wanted to, love with a passion masquerades and carnival life. 

Matilda By Roald Dahl – Ever since I was little, since Victoria Wood read this on TV I have loved this story and nagged my mum in buying me the book, but she never did.  I must have borrowed this book a hundred times from the library before I became an adult and bought it as part of a trilogy compilation.  How I wished that my soul got angry enough with the people in my life that I could play with the supernatural like she did!  It may have solved a lot of my childhood problems, or created worse ones, who knows? 

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – Very alike to Wizard of Oz, the scenes are great, but I also like crazy characters, madness or at least the descent into it ideas.  I love kooky takes on animal and plant life and this was such a joy to behold.  The artwork etc, I love everything about Alice in Wonderland and I have an addiction to collecting Alice in Wonderland novelties.  There were times I pranced around in life hoping I fell down a hole where things were very different too. 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – If you can actually manage to read the whole book and get past the awful main scene, you will actually find this book very deep on an emotional level that is not just traumatic, but beautiful too.  If you read deeply, push past the horrible stuff, it is very meaningful.  How the dead view the living, how the living cannot move on until the dead does, what dead children do in the heavens.  Living out their wildest imaginations; yes, a lot of it is weird and sickening, but I urge you to try and edit those horrible bits out of your mind and read it without those bits.  It takes strong stuff to do that, I know!  But honestly, it is a lovely book besides. Try to skim the nasties.   

Confessions of an ugly step-sister by Gregory Maguire – I love Cinderella anyway, but this plot was good and more to the way that I thought it was behind the scenes.  I love how I learned real history in this book too, the bit about the tulips in Holland.  By the way, that’s another addiction I have – tulips.

I.T By Stephen King – I used to be scared of clowns, big time, before I even learned about Pennywise, but it is funny to actually say that I loved the character Pennywise so much it lessened my fear of them.  Weird I know!  In the past two years in particular, I have lost my fear of clowns entirely and now enjoy them, in fact, they are becoming the main projects for my art!  I just hate the scene of little Georgie.

The Mad Max Movies – I have a thing for life on the road, roguish living, post-apocalyptic tribal societies and the general chaos of survival as whole societies descend into madness.  For this reason too, I think I like the next movie;

Reign of fire movie – I love subterranean settings and when you throw in dragons in a post-apocalyptic world I am in my element. 

Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins is another subterranean setting I love, full of gothic elements such as bats, rats, roaches and gore with an edge of the apocalypse feel to it. 

The Blue Bird starring Shirley Temple – this has been in my mind since I was a very small child, a lot of things about this movie can be seen in small snippets of some of my work.  I have mentioned Old father time and I have cats and dogs which can take on a human form, children trapped in dream time in a couple of my stories to date so far.  No Spoilers, because they were just passing things in the plot, not the actual plot at all.

The Karnstein Trilogy – I love this much more than Dracula, I love the movies and the books they were based on.  I loved it so much that I had been heavily influenced by this trilogy my whole life; I have had to be careful when writing my vampires in fear of coming off as a plagiarist.  You may see what I mean with what I mentioned in “The Blue Bird” paragraph.  I have had to learn to chop up everything I love and move them around genres and different stories, like some experimental stir fries. 

I shall write about the tropes and scenes and types of characters I like in future posts – keep eye out for those!

Happy reading! 

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January 15, 2020 · 12:30

Fan Fiction, Alice in Wonderland scene 1

I often like writing things in my own style and image which are already published; I suppose this is called fan fiction?  I prefer to do this with old classic fantasy and horror rather than anything else, particularly my many versions of various scenes from Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, of which I am entirely devoted to as a fan to the extent of being a collector of anything about those wonderful creations.  I even quote from them a lot.

Alice was leaning against the big oak tree in her parents stately garden, it was a warm summers day with bright blue skies above and no clouds to be seen, she was thinking about life and pondering strange and wonderful things, when her eye caught a movement in the blue hyacinth bed. 

Through all the commotion of rustling leaves and flowers bobbing around like they were coming alive, out popped a little white rabbit who rushed across the garden at full speed. Alice was amazed and excited there was a white rabbit in the garden that was very unusual as wild rabbits are usually brown and drab, but this rabbit was even more astonishing than that. Taking a quick second glance Alice realised she had saw right.  The rabbit was wearing a silk embroidered waistcoat and holding a golden pocket watch, running about on two legs as though it was human.  She shot up and ran after the rabbit that seemed to be muttering something to him-self.

“Oh, no, no, no, this can’t be, it can’t be” groaned the rabbit as he was running towards the bluebell wood. 

“What can’t be Mr Rabbit”? Asked Alice, hoping she could help the poor creature.

He turned around instantly stopping for a moment looking as shocked as Alice did when she first saw him.

“I am too late to explain, please go away, no time for socialising, goodbye, I am late, late, late, late, late” and he ran off again.

Alice ran after him again, wondering what on Earth a rabbit could be late for?  She ran and ran after him so fast that she tripped over a branch that was on the floor and fell with an almighty thud onto the ground.  This made the rabbit stop once again and turned around and he frowned with irritation at Alice and took a few steps towards her.

“I am too late for all this funny business you know!  If you follow me one more time, I shall have to get the law onto you, you know?  It is not seemly to stalk strangers.” He said.

“I do apologise” said Alice.  “But I was eager to find out what you were late for”?

“Mind your own business” said the rabbit and with that he was off again.

 

 

 

 

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November 30, 2016 · 00:13

Rediscovering Vampires

I love fantasy and yes, there are many popular fantasy TV series and books I have never ever experienced in any format; they include ‘The Game of Thrones’, ‘Season two of Once Upon a Time’, ‘Grimm’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Shannara Chronicles’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and episode four and beyond of ‘The 100’ to name but a few of those missed experiences.

Along with those television series there are several books I have never read too and they are; all the above that have novelizations.  Book four and beyond of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ series of books, the third book and beyond of Anne Rice’s ‘Vampire Chronicles’, ‘The DragonLance Series’ and ‘Goosebumps’ to name but a few there too.

Now, I am currently trying to make amends for all of that.  I am currently re-reading the first book of ‘The Vampire Chronicles’ by Anne Rice with the aim to read right through all the chronicles by this time next year – next week this will be put on hold right after I have finished ‘Interview with a vampire’ because I have ordered from my local library a trilogy from Michael Moorcock ‘The Eternal Champion’ because I am curious about a symbol I am rather fond of which apparently originates from these novels.

I am also watching some of the above mentioned television series, back to back, one to three per night – the ones I have started with is the box-set I have bought of ‘The Vampire Diaries’.  You are probably wondering why I have bought something that expensive if I have never watched one of the episodes first.  Well, it’s about vampires; I know I will love it.  Its touch and go in regards to Twilight but I guess because it has vampires I might find it tolerable, who knows… Twilight is another vampire movie I have never watched and I am a die-hard vampire fan, go figure.  Well I was too busy to keep up to date with my vampires for about a decade, so I am forgiven right?

The vampire Diaries has me hooked by the way; I have watched five episodes this week so far.  I am scrutinising the whole thing because I specialise in vampires in my novels and I don’t want to clash too much with anyone and I was nervous at first because something in the vampire diaries has clashed with my novels (the corvid) and the fact that a few of my vampires have the ability to roam the day too.

I am also hooked because Damon gets my hormones going… but let’s not talk about that, we’re talking about vampires in general and fantasy, not my hormones on some women’s health site. 

So, yes, I am happy to find that this series hasn’t brutalised vampires too much for me like True Blood has, I feel True Blood went too far in de-romanticising vampires.  I was distraught about that.  In the True Blood series you couldn’t tell the vampires apart from anything you see in a normal human to human slasher movie, werewolf movie or zombie movie, vampires in my opinion are much more far removed than those other movie types and I found it hard to chew.

Although being a horror fan I did love the brutality, but I was too angry that it was caused by vampires drunk on blood, dripping with blood and acting like psychotic corpses.  A lot of people will argue with me that vampires are just that ‘psychotic corpses’ but I will deny that is what vampires are, vampires to me, love very deeply and have a gentle demeanour about them, they are not rabid animals.

So, yes, I am returning to vampires.  I am returning to my love for them and with this reunion come rediscovering my hidden identity again.  I feel like I am filling up the hollowness in me and I am feeling more like who I was meant to be, rather than some obscure faint shadow.

I don’t do short stories of vampires unfortunately.  I linger too much on my vampire novels that I am ashamed to say they are epic sized.  I can’t stop adding things to them.  I think ‘War and Peace’ will have nothing on one of my vampire stories.

So that’s it for today, more to come tomorrow. 

Thank you for reading and do post a comment below. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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July 1, 2015 · 16:25

My fantasy knowledge

My to read list is huge on Goodreads.com, and I have one book left from the library that I must read before the 4th of July, it hasn’t been read thoroughly yet because I tend to borrow the maximum each time I visit the library, note bibliophile present. The last book I have from the library that’s half read at present is “H.P Lovecraft’s book of horror” an anthology of 21 classic short horror stories which includes with my personal rating;

Supernatural horror in literature essay/introduction by H.P Lovecraft 9/10
The signalman by Charles Dickens 8/10
The house and the brain by Edward Bulwer-Lytton 8/10
The body snatcher by Robert Louis-Stevenson 2/10 (low rating yes, shock horror)
The spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers 10/10
The foot of the mummy by Theophile Gautier 9/10
The horla by Guy De Maupassant 8/10

The rest have yet to be read and they will include;

The fall of the house of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
The dammed thing by Ambrose Bierce
The upper berth by F. Marion Crawford
The yellow sign by Robert W. Chambers
The shadows on the wall by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
The dead valley by Ralph Adams Cram
Fish head by Irvin S. Cobb
Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
The double shadow by Clark Ashton Smith
The mark of the beast by Rudyard Kipling
Negotium Perambulans by E.F Benson
Mrs. Lunt by Hugh Walpole
The Hog by William Hope Hodgson
The great god Pan by Arthur Machen
Count Magnus by M.R James
Followed by the afterword by Lovecraft and the literature of cosmic fear:

Yesterday I finished Coraline by Neil Gaiman and other stories. Which were very compelling reads and I am what a readers quiz calls a polygamous reader, therefore I started reading H.P Lovecraft’s anthology before Coraline’s anthology, but I was so much more taken with Neil Gaiman than I was with H.P Lovecraft’s compilation, that I literally abandoned H.P Lovecraft until there was no more Neil Gaiman to read.

If I am having a good day with my health on the days I visit my work advisor I usually treat myself to a book or three at the local charity shops on the way home, it’s a habit I can’t get out of; unfortunately yesterday there were quite a few I liked, in fact, I would have by choice bought home five books, but I only had enough money for two. The ones I found and bought home were books three and four of the Eragon series (the inheritance cycle) by Christopher Paolini. I have never watched the movie Eragon and nor have I ever read the books. I had the first two books at home, never read and abandoned on the shelves until I could get the complete set and now I have them I am thrilled. Unfortunately, knowing me, it will probably be 3+ months before I start reading them, because I am currently reading 26 books according to my goodreads.com currently reading list.

That doesn’t need to get any longer does it? I am I have to start on the fifth to fourteenth book of the Wizard of Oz series before I can think of moving onto another series, also I have the last book of the Fifty Shades of Grey to read as well.
Oh the life of a bibliophile is far too short!

It’s stupid to think that I get through an average of 1 to 4 books a week and that my “to read” list is currently 4647 and that expands by no less than 20 books per week. It’s ridiculous, even if I was immortal and glued my arse to a chair and read 24/7 I would never ever catch up in reading unless there was a total ban for thousands of years of new material being published!

I hope in the future there will be a little chip inside people’s brains where you can download information immediately by the press of a button; I would opt to be a literary and historical know-all and I would also want to be proficient in all creative mediums and telepathy.

I get huge bouts of depression because I can’t do more than one thing at once. I want to read, but I have to go through a painstaking process of choosing which book gets my attention at that precise moment; but then I want to paint or write and I am sitting back thinking, well one things has to be put on hold, which will it be? What shall I do? I have so many things to write about and so many ideas, that I can never knuckle down and write them, because as I am writing I am being flooded with too much future work, that I surrender and do nothing.

I don’t suffer from writers block, I suffer from writers flood and because of that, I don’t write a majority of the time. Because it sends me mad, I write gibberish and I lack focus, because I think as I concentrate on other things, many things at once.
You can probably see this problem in my updates here.

I am a huge fantasy fan, but I don’t know much of the most commonly known fantasy books and movies because I refrain from watching or reading them if they’re popular, because they normally end up being frustrating commercialised entities that are constantly pushing out new material every few months. When I sit down to read a book and it’s a series, I like to think I have the whole series ready on my shelves before I start. If there are more books in that series coming out months later, it infuriates me, because I don’t always remember what happened in the books in great details and I do not like re-reading books if I can absolutely help it; (too many books and so little time).

The books I have not read and the movies I have not watched so far, that are popular in fantasy and family genres.

Eragon series books and movies
How to train your dragon books and movies?
The books after Harry Potter’s Goblet of Fire haven’t been read yet
The movies past Harry Potter’s order of the phoenix
Once upon a time TV series
Supernatural TV series
The lion the witch and the wardrobe book
Narnia books
Final fantasy games
World of Warcraft games
Game of thrones TV series and books
Blood ties TV series
Twilight movie and books
True blood TV series and books
Nanny McPhee and the big bang
The Terminator movies
Maleficent movie

So as you can see, I have not watch nor read the biggies; but I do know a lot of fantasy that gets people scratching their heads at me and wondering what the hell I am talking about.

Those include;

The Gor series of books
Diary of a wimpy vampire books
The Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman (though they are becoming popular)
The weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
The play your own adventure books and fighting fantasies of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson
Nightmare TV series
Raven TV series
Highlander TV series
The fact there are 14 stories of OZ from the Wizard of OZ and that nobody knows the world completely, that is a complete bafflement for many
The Deptford mice books
Troll movie 1986
Critters movies
Tremors movies
The Disney movie – the gnome mobile
Shirley Temple’s movie – the blue bird
Angels in America movie
Dogma the movie

So, go feast yourself on these so-called unheard of books and movies.

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