I think three problems with writing are firstly that I’m positively biased towards my own writing, secondly, I know how I want it to come across when I’m writing it and thirdly, writing can be a lot of work. So as well as feeling personally sensitive to criticism as any human does, if the criticism…
Sometimes I’m prob’ly a bit stubborn for my own good. Before the lib’r’y turned pay-as-you-go and, let’s face it, heh, after it turned pay-as-you-go too, not that the fuzz ever copped – geddit? – on to that one, I read that you should exercise. ‘Eah-nah-yeah, I knew you c’ld j’st take the pills and end…
Berry – 10,000 BCE, Banks of the Yellow River, Present-day North China – Berry renders the fusing It was rain time, not that there wasn’t always rain. But now there was rain. The trampled earth between our caves bled red and pus-yellow. Chickens took to the lower boughs for shelter. Pigs rolled in mud ‘til…
As is my wont, being both ahead of my time in that I haven’t owned a TV for years (decades?) and rely completely on on-demand streaming services, and simultaneously (apparently) an insufferable luddite in my refusal to illegally obtain content, I finished watching Game of Thrones about a century behind the rest of the world….
Aroha embodies (or doesn’t!) a lot of ideas. First and foremost, she’s lost her mind but crazy people are as unique as everyone. How she’s gone mad is rooted in a number of inspirations. Firstly, early in life she struggled to break free of a family background that was violent, unloving and underprivileged. Her life’s…
Tristian is slightly narcissistic. This means he has made to feel such shame for the person he was, for a long period during his early years that he has been left with a great lack of certainty about his own goodness and ‘lovableness’. Tristian needs, more than most people, to feel liked by people he…
Joanna was traumatised as a child. She has mild PTSD which has made her an anxious person. Her anxiety in turn has prevented her from becoming a rounded emotionally mature person even if she is highly talented. Her tendency to retreat from human company has probably also helped fuel her talent since painting is known…
To the right is pictured a place I recently visited in Guangdong province. It’s a great example of the kinds of places I like to think through writing ideas. Most of the characters in Aroha are troubled souls. Their strengths and weaknesses are all rooted in a combination of the inner anguish that has lead…