Who says metal is depressing?

Posted in Metal, Music on August 28, 2009 by Woodsmoke

Yes, it roars and shouts, but the lyrics aren’t the dire, depressing horrific mess that horrified parents make it out to be. Minus, of course, the kid swearing. But we’ll ignore it this once, for the awesomeness of this song. ;)

Rebirth Of The Temple

Wake up and rise to live another day
Put on your gloves to fight society
Sedate your fears and build your train of thought
Stand up for your beliefs and never stop

Pushing hard each day
Keep our individuality
Elevate your mind
Strength within is what you need to find

Pick up the pieces we all make mistakes
Rebirth of self esteem ignore whats fake
Move on, your not alone
Stay strong, do not lose hope

A straight list of gripes.

Posted in Issues, People on August 28, 2009 by Woodsmoke

1) With age comes wisdom. Why, then, did I see an OAP of at least 70/75 smoking at the bus stop? Also, it seems that if you don’t gain wisdom, you also don’t gain consideration. Smoking away, stinking up the place. I hate cigarettes, but you’d think an experienced person would know better. THEY ARE POISON. So WHY do people still smoke them???

2) Same bus stop, now aggravating children and a mother who wont control them. Children are born to be free, noisy, naive and innocent, not possessed of the cares of adulthood. I was such. They were not, however, born to use foul language, elbow and jostle people or to refuse to give up a seat for a disabled person (who was in obviously BAD pain!!). Kids. Everywhere. Like this. Why? Aim blame at parents, tv, trash like BB, soap operas, which all tell kids that since it’s ‘normal’ for kids to act like that, it somehow also makes it ‘right.’

3) It is USELESS trying to talk sense into religious zealots. No matter what evidence you have, no matter what science backs up your side of the argument, they will not listen. Something inside their heads says No No No. And it’s like bashing your head against a granite wall trying to change that. It makes me angry, but even more it makes me miserable. Sad. Sad for the blind faithful who are pulled along on those religious strings. I have a whole family full of Christian believers. If ever there were a black sheep in this clan, then baa baa that’s me. I prefer it my own way, I wont sacrifice my ideals just to fit in. But I’d rather they see sense. I’d be so much happier that way.

4) Everyday, normal gripe: I HATE housework. ;) I like tidying, organising… but doing the washing up, clothes washing, hoovering etc all week on my own, empty as the house is of all but me… YUCK. A housewife, I’ll never be. NEVERRRRR!! I’ll get rich and hire a maid. ;-p

Facing the Veil

Posted in Issues on March 18, 2009 by Woodsmoke

Accidentally bumped into a 20-ish muslim mother today- she was covered up, wearing the traditional veil that covered her head and hair but not her face. Very polite, very smiley, accepted my apology for the bump. Lovely woman. Her little girl was with her, free spirited, (minus a veil/headdress) looking at everything with wonder in her eyes. Adorable, looked at me like I was some kind of giant, though. (I am rather tall for a girl.)

I wondered at this woman: How is it that you can suddenly, one day, make this free-spirited, laughing little girl cover up what she is? To cover her head as if she should be ashamed of what you believe ‘God’ gave her in the first place? How can you tell your own child that her freedom is forfeit, that she has to hide herself away?

I am of the belief that girls should wear what they want, while having respect for themselves and their own dignity. I believe that hair should be a glorious thing, uncovered- the ‘Boudicca’ or Artemis image of wild and free and that a woman should be exactly that. Religion quashes freedom- even the most basic type of it. Allow your little girl to grow up as she wishes; EVERY parent of EVERY religion… don’t tell your daughters that they should hide themselves from the world.

Old and new worries.

Posted in worries, writing on March 9, 2009 by Woodsmoke

I may as well start using this blog, even if NaNo may be a no-no this year. It almost wiped me out and it took me over a month to even look at my writing again without feeling a gut sense of revulsion come over me. But maybe it was just first-time of 50,000 wording that took some getting used to.  I was proud of myself for all of a few hours before I just started to wish I’d never started The Words Between. But there it is. I have my plot for next year’s NaNo, if nothing else. I’m saving a piece that’s been on my mind for roughly 3 years until then.

I do know that it will be in diary form- something tells me that ordinary prose is never going to be my forté. That is my main worry with all this. I can come up with plot and idea and theme and yet my focus having been on poetry ever since I was tiny, I have no idea what constitutes good or great prose. I love books, I would live in my own private library if I could, but I can’t lock onto the secret of how to write well. Exposition, plot etc is not the issue. It’s the wordiness, description of the physical parts of the story… everything that would be picked up on before plot even came into play and makes a novel either readable or trash-can fodder.

There. Mumbling worrisome stuff ranted.

Supposed to be generating notes and plot order for Script Frenzy. Not sure now if I will be doing it or not, given that I will be doing very boring job-stuff from 23rd March. Yuck. Damn reality trying to drive me insane. Most annoying. Would prefer to stay in my dream worlds forever and live with my characters through all their ups and downs which are FAR more interesting than mine.

The physical world is not my friend.

In the mood in the moonlight.

Posted in Music, NaNoWriMo on October 19, 2008 by Woodsmoke

I have a mind to write my entire NaNo whilst listening to nothing but Glenn Miller and Oingo Boingo. Would five CDs worth of Miller magic cover 50,000 words? Add to that nine (downloaded- don’t tell!) cds of Danny Elfman howling down my speakers and the mood is pretty much set.

Roleplaying with NaNo characters is amusing, especially when the opposite RP-er is using her sex-crazed succubus to tempt my repressed character into wickedness.

Attempting to organise all my poetry into three distinctive categories: Static Cats, Pagan Prayers and Unusables. Unfortunately, more of them are in an unfinished state than I realised, being scribbles torn from notebooks. A Static Cat is written on the back sheet of a Pagan Prayer and the unusables are thrown about all over the place. Give me six extra right arms for the copying up, because I don’t EVER want to lose the originals- not just original scribblings, but original feelings, often lost in the edit. I’d much prefer to keep them for future reference.

Honour the glorious poets. Their shades that left us are now returned.

Natural oppressor.

Posted in NaNoWriMo, writing on October 17, 2008 by Woodsmoke

Is it wrong that I come up with the way my main characters die before I get the rest of the plot done? Or that I had it in mind that at least one of the five characters had to be deceased by the end of the book? It’s a common plot-point, in many many hundreds/thousands of books, I know, and people die in literature all the time: But to enter into a plot with the determination to kill off a character right from the start?

Oppression is in the author’s nature. It depends on how far you go… how they die, how many people die and are all those deaths necessary? Well, with the characters in question, at least one of them really is. My poor boy just wasn’t looking after himself, and even this modern world can’t beat the sickness caused by obsessive behaviour and reclusiveness!

Playing the bad guy when writing is only fun when the characters get to counteract it at the end. This time they don’t and though I’m not one for writing schmaltzy endings, this one would be better for me personally if it had a happy finale. But we sacrifice our wish for what needs to be written.

In other news, I am reading again! I can’t put down the His Dark Materials books at the moment. ^.^;;

Honour the glorious poets. Their shades that left us are now returned.

Lobster Lullabies and napkins.

Posted in NaNoWriMo, comedy, writing on October 13, 2008 by Woodsmoke

Influence? Watch Stephen Fry either performing acapella as a musical instrument on Nevermind The Buzzcocks, or putting lobsters to sleep (rubbing their backs and singing a lullaby O.o) in Stephen Fry in America. Random at the least and disturbing at the utmost.

Itching to get November 1st over and done with. I can’t do anything more to my NaNo planning and I want to get typing! But while I can’t start my NaNo, my poetry has hit a wall, as well. I can’t get on with it!

Just because. *instant cheer-up*

Posted in comedy, emotion with tags on October 7, 2008 by Woodsmoke

Muscling Muses

Posted in NaNoWriMo with tags , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2008 by Woodsmoke

A main-character that I don’t want to write about at this time of year will not turn a mute button on herself! She is non-NaNo and is therefore nothing but a pest right now. She muscles in on the writing space in my brain and wont let go. Egotistical tramp.

Suddenly my enthusiasm for writing my NaNo novel, The Words Between, is either down so far in the dumps it can’t be seen, or has taken itself for a very long and dangerous walk. I have a feeling the previously mentioned MC may have played a part in its’ disappearance- holding it for ransom in some steel-locked room in my deepest subconscious? The payment is three whole chapters in her story. TOUGH LUCK. My playstation2 is partly to blame, I know, so on Saturday I’ll be carting it over to my grandfather’s flat and leaving it there, so I don’t get tempted to play Final Fantasy instead of working out plot points.

Even this blog counts as procrastination, but at least I’m WRITING something, rather than staring at a tv, pressing triangle-x-circle-x-square-triangle-down-left-R1 oops Gameover!

Perhaps the Snowflake method will work for this book. We’ll see.

Honour the glorious poets. Their shades that left us are now returned.

When all else fails, try insanity.

Posted in NaNoWriMo with tags , , , , on September 29, 2008 by Woodsmoke

Tres amusement, the lunacy known as POTC: Dead Man’s Chest bloopers. When tears are coming from the eyes, you know it’s brilliant comedy. And completely off the cuff!

KILL HIM!

I will now stop procrastinating and write up my character bios. AHEM. Writing letters from the POV of five different characters doesn’t strike me as being easy. Authorial schizophrenia maybe a fascinating new brand of psychological disorder…

Honour the glorious poets. Their shades that left us are now returned.