Anxiety induced writers block

Anxiety is a dreadful waste of the imagination. Something will happen,  usually something simple and rather insignificant.  Yet for some reason it will worm its way into your thoughts and alter events into every worst case scenario you can imagine.

The words you want to use are buried deep inside a thick layer of panic as the mind creates situations mentally that causes physical side effects,  your heart races, you feel sick, cold, you can’t eat, or eat the wrong shit… your mind is so wrapped up with imaginary ‘what if’s’ that you don’t even have the sense of logic to speak straight,  you’re on autopilot or simply frozen as the mind cripples you with a fear that does not really exist beyond your own skull …

And that in itself is your own personal horror story…

 

Anne Harrison 11.02.17

Writing Prompt, Part 19 and a Part…

Musing Mind Mould…

 

Sometimes you need to come across those precious snippets of information found on tumblr to spur you into action, to cast off the suffocating chains of writers block and find my spark again, but finding inspiration doesn’t always light that spark and creativity can wonder off in a world of it’s own and meanwhile my collection of characters are in story limbo land waiting for something to do. I almost imagine them playing cards or smoking a long clay pipe awaiting direction from my finger strokes…

My tangent has been a series of ten abstract paintings and two mixed media pictures… All of which have poems attached to them (or will have – three are written) … I’m not sure how I’ve ended on this path, but I have discovered a tangled route, barely visible, a little messy and altogether pointless! I’m no artist, I can’t paint an abstract painting any more than I can write a sonnet (which I tried once – I liked it) … I’m no artist, but I will paint… I’m no writer, but I love to write and here I am, sat at my desk once more, facing that blank screen and searching my mind for the words I want to share today…

 

…Writing Prompt, Part 19 and a Part…

The caravan ambled through the narrow city streets winding their way towards the Royal Castle that overlooked the land dark and imposing, vicious fangs of black stone reaching up to the sky, blotting out the low sun, high towers circled with birds of prey which roosted in the tall rafters. Onlookers regarded the troops with curiosity and forlorn broken expressions, a society broken by the news that had reached the city before the caravan. The child of prophecy had died, the King victorious, triumphant – His people numb, they lived in the hope that the magical spirit of the child would free them from the strangling grip of oppression, poverty and starvation. While fine Lords and Royalty lived in perfect luxury, separated by thick stone and a considerable quantity of armed forces.

The troops following the caravan home were indifferent to the scenes surrounding them as they marched in practiced uniform step behind the oxen drawn wagons. Those captured, those dragged along behind, met the gazes of the broken, broken resigned to be broken. The slaves, the citizens … little actually separated their fate …

Upon a filthy broken wall someone had chalked bitter words of contempt, the unknown author hung nearby from a rotten tree a bitter reminder for anyone who spoke out against Royalty decaying a putrid.

“Welcome to your Kingdom!” Hera said sarcastically to the Prince sat by her side. She had exerted her powers to healing the youth, stitching together the split threads of his sanity so he could present the stolen gem to his father, to be magnificent in the eyes of his people. Hera herself wore the image of a mature hansom woman of a ripe age and full of figure, thick auburn hair was tied up in elegant knots, she was the consort to the Priest and a wedding would be announced along side the Princes victory.

“Rejoice young Prince, you will be a hero to these people!” Her sarcasm grated upon his nerves, but he had forgotten how grizzly it was within the city. This was not the heroic return he had envisioned, he saw only hatred and with each step closer to the castle his growing anticipation of facing his father grew, until panic threatened to overwhelm his fragile mind. Hera placed a cold hand upon his arm, somehow easing his thoughts, a calmness encased him.

‘You will do the right thing one day.’ Her voice resounded within his thoughts… A promise he felt was too massive to fulfill…

 

Anne Harrison 24.01.17

 

 

Quotes and Pictures and Inspiration and all very Pretty Words…

Seeking inspiration to unblock the writers block … The Tumblr way…

… Sharing beautiful words I could find to light the way

 

 

Anne Harrison 07.10.16

*Screams Internally*

Dear Writers Block,

Could you please kindly leave me alone, I want to be creative but I can’t find the write thingies to describe the dowotsit in my head… My internal thesaurus is broken and thinking is painful. I would be so thankful if normal service can resume as soon as possible, or after the weekend… Yes, after the weekend… That would be nice…

 

Yours in Frustrated Meh Dally Day,

 

Anne Harrison  06.10.16

Finding Balance, Even when the Rope Sways…

Life can be a tightrope act and an impressive juggling act, mostly juggling as much as we can whilst also trying to keep our balance… I should join the circus!

However, before I dribble on endlessly about how to get through each day, getting shit done each day without having a major (or even a minor) wobbly regarding ‘issues’ I have touched upon in earlier blogs. I first need to apologise. To myself and to my friends here on this page… I realise I have not been writing as much as I would like to and that my rather maudlin blog last week was, well, rather maudlin… Though at the time I used this space to vaguely express my thoughts, yet instead I feel like I’m making excuses for failing to write.

Last week I also finished up by Boook-in-a-Blanket, this was my head space, where I collected all my mind vomit, ideas, wild outrageous plans and poisoned thoughts… I ran out of pages and I felt like I had ran out of a safe zone. Even though all I had written within these crammed pages was nothing more than nonsense, it was my nonsense!

Binder1.pdf Blanks

So between maudlin about ‘issues’ and ploughing on through life a day at a time, I then came across the short note I posted yesterday. A very simple few lines which consisted of nothing more than a list of events on a lovely sunny Saturday a year ago.

Such power words hold, such magic in their arrangement. They can create relief from the darkest gloom, inspiration, motivation or even destruction… And they can even manifest the desire to build upon existing words, to trigger the reunion between pen and paper, with happily lifted spirits, my will to write has returned alongside all those mundane chores, ‘issues’ and juggling along the tightrope of life.

Evidence that it may be the smallest things which can make such a difference…

… Such as very tiny delicious cakes!!

 

Anne Harrison 09.08.16

The Orphan King … falling into the plot trap

Part II… Following on from Writers Block and St Petersburg.

I want to introduce you to The Orphan King, the story, the character and the concept which emerged in my little befuddled mind during my visit to St Petersberg …

As the title tells you, my main protagonist is a King and he is an Orphan, this already provides you with some unspoken information. Firstly his sex, apart from my use of the pronoun ‘he’ a King generally refers to a Male. (though I expect someone, somewhere has altered Regal gender roles in their literature).

In this case my King is male, he is described as an ‘Orphan’ … Now an adult who has grown up, sired children of their own and outlived their parents are not generally referred to as an Orphan… Hence my King is very young… The ‘Orphan’ title also suggests that a major tragedy has befallen our young King, instantly providing my character with a whole back ground story which has lead him to the position of a King… and how does one so young maintain a grip upon his precious position?

Intrigued? Hooked? Bored?  … instantly compared to ‘Game of Thrones‘… (Which I confess I have not read) but anything fantasy based with regal conflicts automatically appears to get referred to Game of Thrones… IMO… However this is always going to be a challenge for any writer, that their work is instantly compared to existing examples of literature within the same genre, usually the most famous names and most popular stories…

However, I was hooked by my own plan and spent any free moment I could grasp frantically scribbling down ideas, names, characters, place names, guild names, relations, countries, days of the week and even religion… My world development flourished as swiftly as I had a plot structure and timeline for my young King, his kingdom and closest companions, deadly enemies and love interest…

The pencil skipped across the pages in my notebook in a flurry, my handwriting resembling arcane hieroglyphics as my hand struggled to keep up with my flowing thoughts.

Then I hit a sudden horrible realisation in my work… I had reached a stage in my story where everything ‘classically’ goes wrong, that point where the whole kingdom falls down around his ears and everything I had built up, his trials and tribulations dissolves into chaos… The character ‘crisis’…

My pencil skidded to a halt when this understanding finally gripped me… I had fallen into a plot trap… as much as I wanted to create something unique and intriguing, as much as I thought, believed, fooled myself into believing… I had still hopelessly (and unconsciously) followed a classical story outline… I’m not sure how I had fallen into this trap… but there is was staring me straight in the face and I ceased writing.

How could I pull myself up out of this swamp? How could I prevent my story and my sweet young King from becoming another cliche?

Do I kill him? Or do I go with the flow and keep to ‘The Heroes Journey’?

Truth is, I don’t know – I stopped writing at this point and since then I have not written another word of this story. My young King as his entire empire is frozen in time, static and immobile trapped within writers block, as I struggle between complying with the rules that we are expected to adhere to, or creating a path of my own.

 

Anne Harrison 11.07.16

 

 

 

Writers Block and St Petersburg

You have all these great ideas in mind and none of which surface when you have time to write.

I have been watching both Penny Dreadful and American Horror Story recently to try and empty my head of swirling thoughts and negative emotions and within these shows I have started to see fragments of other works of fiction carefully woven into new tales. Like the infamous Doctor Frankenstein rebuilding life from lifelessness, I see two wonderful series’s creating a jigsaw of work from all other sources to develop new franchises.   I’m left with the lingering feeling that there are no more original ideas…

…News that Back to the Future maybe facing the reboot treatment, ignite comments which reflect my own thoughts, what really is ‘new’ anymore?

There are an astounding amounts of writers out there in the real world and here in cyberspace. I am always staggered by the amount of books I find to add to my never ending reading list. Yet the greedy chappies in Hollywood keep churning out the same old shenanigans, but there’s got to be some unique ideas right?

Or maybe the system is flawed, creativity regulated and the whole process from idea to publishing is so very challenging, that many would be writers give up and take up knitting instead!

When inspiration does strike you feel invincible! Words pour freely onto the page and in your mind you are already seeing your glorious characters wearing a celebrities face on a glowing big screen in Hollywood Nothing can stop you, this is it! The breakthrough you’ve been grasping for, the road to fame and fortune is within reach and you become obsessed to get the whole thing down on paper, these moments are fleeting you have to cling onto them before they drift away like a dream chased away by the mornings alarm…

… Once gone only gloom remains …

I had been stagnant, all ideas were all hollow clones of existing stories, written in an inferior tone and (as above) I felt like nothing was new and my mind was my own worst enemy. However, sometimes inspiration appears when you least expect it and sometimes triggered from the most curious sources…

 

My recent travels took me to St Petersburg, Somewhere I never thought I would visit! Yet here I was surrounded by a unique culture, by exotic palaces and a deep rich heritage. Laced with a history scattered with tragedy, betrayal, murder, revolution and conspiracy… I was inspired, my mind awoken by the garish colours, lavish gold, marble and tapestries, all next door to old crumbling apartments, neglected from Communist regime…

My pen flowed through pages with ease and grace as my story developed from the sights around me, days were spent in lazy sunshine, scribbling notes and playing through scenes in my mind. I never expected to visit Russia and I never expected Russia to inspire me so deeply…

… And how could it not?

To be continued…

 

Anne Harrison 07.07.16