Posts

The PolGnomes and the Vile Grumble - a new children's story in development...

Image
               The exposed floodplain stretched out to the horizon. Wet and icy sand dunes were peppered by rocky pools full of scuttling, claw-snapping little beasts. They pot-marked the rolling plateau that unfurled endlessly into a misty grey forever. A cold wind blew in from that great distance, salty, bitter and aloof. It rattled the twigs of the trees that stood on the valley sides, and pushed the leaf litter too and fro, like an idle child bored with its toys. Why Combomble held onto his hat for fear of it being snatched away, looking over his long snout at the empty vista. The steeply sloped Valley at his back, usually lush and green, was white and grey with snow and stilled life.  “Something is coming.” He said to the wind, which seemed to agree, as it tugged at his scarf. Winter held a frozen hand over the Nisse Valley. Usually lush and green and smeared with the colourful paints of summer, Why Combomble thought of those days as if a lifetime ago. He had a simple rod and line
Post a Comment
Read more

Once Upon A Lockdown!

Image
A new volume of satirical and topical fairy tales will soon be hitting the digital book-shelves. Once Upon A Lockdown by Paul Magrs, David Richards and myself. Here is a sneak peek! My short story 'Hide & Seek'... She loved playing games. She played fair, of course, and though she knew it was the ‘taking part’ that counted, she loved to win. She was very competitive.  And golly, was she winning this game! Hiding in this deep green cave had been a stroke of genius. She giggled, covering her mouth. ‘This is sure to be the most incredible game of Hide And Seek in the whole of recorded history! ’ she thought to herself. And she waited! And she waited. And she waited... And she... And… “I’m bored now.” She said, “I have been hiding for a very long time, and no one has even come close to finding me!” She peeked out of the cave, casting her big amber eyes around in the dim light. There wasn’t a single person about! “Where is everyone?” She asked herself, and she pushed
Post a Comment
Read more

Postcards From Castle Dracula

Image
  My darling! I arrived at the Castle yesterday morning. Yes it deserves a capital letter. Awfully grand place, this is. The journey was long and through very dense forests. There are several other guests, all arrived on the same day. None of us met our host until late into the evening. He’s a bit of a night-owl apparently. No wonder he’s so pale. Needs some sunshine and a decent meal if you ask me! Wish you were here x Dearest darling! I went exploring the Castle yesterday. Got a bit lost. The other holidaymakers seem to travel about in packs, huddled together and talking in low voices. Very peculiar bunch. Our host loves a knees-up. Lots of red wine and lively chatter. He seemed particularly keen on one young lady. Come to think of it, I’ve not seen her for a few days. Not since they slipped away together, canoodling. Weather fair. Food good. Wish you were here x Darling my darling! A new arrival! A new guest has arrived amongst the holidaymakers. A famous scientist. Or an adventurer
Post a Comment
Read more

Treasure Memories.

Image
     Memories are funny things. They can be vivid and bright and sharp, or they can be diffuse and nebulous. Some that are intangible and fleeting like feelings and sensations will linger, while faces and voices become undefined, eroded by the distance of time, then brought back into sharp relief, briefly, by a photograph. Memories are fickle things.      This is what I've been pondering in the last few days, as my sister has been digging into the archives to piece together our family tree.       My parents have been excavating layered old albums full of faded and yellow, and grey and grainy photographs. Each one they unearth brings back a surge of nostalgia and comfort; The same happy contentment I felt as a child when around the people in those pictures. Those people whose faces, now much altered by age, or long gone, swam in the air above me as I played with toys, or prodded at frogs in the pond, or imagined what the snails were thinking about; Having conversations that didn'
Post a Comment
Read more

A Different Kind Of Permanence

Image
     We all hope to leave our mark on the world.     With the written word, I hope I leave a small mark on people's imaginations, and a fabulous, glittering, colourful smear across their inner world. It is a way of leaving a legacy. A way of having a life longer and more complex than simply a number of years. We all crave it in some way. Many do this by having children. I do this by way of words and art.     Aside from an author, I am a tattoo artist. The tattoo also creates a permanent change to a person, though much more tangible than some minute internal alteration. A vivid, striking, bold alteration to someone's physical presence. As a tattoo artist I help to show on the outside of a person, a little of what's on the inside; That ineffable and inexplicable surge of chemicals and firing neutrons we call thought and feeling.     I leave my mark on the world between the pages of paperbacks, and on the open book that is the human body. Both can be read, but in remarkably di
Post a Comment
Read more

Fambles 2020 : YEAR OF THE ZOOM!

Image
Extract from my contribution to FAMBLES  2020 : THE YEAR OF THE ZOOM!      Fambles, the zoom era.      May you live in interesting times, someone once said to me. I thought they meant it as a kindness.      Interesting Times, these are indeed, but not the jolly japes and mischief-filled escapades I had imagined the word ‘interesting’ referred to. There has a been a tsunami of change sweep across the world, and I have been finding it hard to keep treading water, when the media is a awash with great tides of social movement, cultural upheaval, public disapproval, and malicious political buffoonery.      Keeping up to date on the latest developments is a task unto itself!      Fambles began as a way for writers to come together, talk openly, discuss contentious topics, offer support, and give creative drive to other writers.      A vital connection, when we often write in isolation, shut away from other creatives in our field.      Now we are writing in isolation, in isolation.      Zoom
Post a Comment
Read more

An Expanding Universe

    Where do ideas come from? Where do they go if not caught hold of, and pinned down like a beautiful moth in a museum collection? Do they flutter away into some other head, to be caught hold of by some other collector? Or do they simply fade away, unused, unappreciated, as if they never were?     I can not let any idea pass me by. I snatch a hold of every single one that flashes its brilliant wings in front of my eyes. I have notebooks of doodles and sketches and story ideas and poems and odd  phases, that I one day might do something with. Then again I might not.     But from these ideas I have been able to cobble together universes in which my creations and characters can connect, enjoy a fuller and more realised existence, and explore. One story leads indirectly to another, and characters that I have enjoyed writing might soon find themselves on their own daring adventures, or engaging in mysterious shenanigans.     Having a vast sand-box of my own creation, actually, having sever
Post a Comment
Read more