I'm not afraid of anything; be it mountains, water, dragons, dark or sky

Yes, it has been a while since a blog post, and the last one does not really count as I only posted a video and barely spoke at all. My apologies.

Now onto the hottest topic of my life at the moment!
Firstly, I would like everyone who reads this blog to lend their support to my friend's blog, who will soon be travelling and posting numerous goodies and bits of information about cool places to see overseas. So get onto it now because it's sure to find a lot of success! So you'll find this wonderous blog at this location:
http://katherineelizabethvs2010.blogspot.com/
It is also in my little sidebar thingy of friend's blogs. Go become a follower ASAP!

In other news, I'm not sure if I'm mentioned this already but my book is out in the world of editors and publishing companies being perused; mind you that doesn't mean it's getting published. The editor reading it now works for a publishing company that does mainly non-fiction, but she's getting me started on some more tips and how to get it out there, so who knows? It's quite exciting, but terribly frightening.

Which brings me to my next topic. I visited the library the other day and saw an interesting looking book that, after reading the blurb, I discovered to be a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories. 'Why not?' I say to myself. I mean, as a writer I should be reading as much as the classics and iconic writers as possible, so I borrowed the book and am over halfway through. As well as his most famous stories, the book has little chapters written by mystery writers who were someway affected by the genius of Poe. And they all say the same thing, mainly how terrifying and spine-tingling and horrifying his stories are. But for some reason, I disagree.
I'm not at all saying that Edgar Allan Poe's writing wasn't ground-breaking stuff, it's just that it was written in a time when the wordy suspense of it all only heightened the horror of it all, but that being said, it just doesn't have the same effect nowadays. That's a bit sad really. Why aren't we frightened by the same things? Don't be fooled by the son lyrics of my post title, I am definitley afraid of things, and I am afraid of the things that are weaved into Poe's stories; loneliness, death, insanity, helplessness and above all crazy axe weilding murderers. I think it's just that today, we although we are frightened of the same things, we can't be given goosebumps from allusions and suggestions and many long words. We need direct descriptions of the bloody horror of it all, we need to see what monster lurks behind the mask, we can't just see the mask and be satisfied.
So are we dessensitised to subtle, more intelligent horror (if such a genre can be intelligent)? Look at the horror films released nowadays and you can only say yes, really. We can only get thrills from the unbelievably gaudy, unrealistic but incredibly obvious productions, not from a ten page story in which the scary part is only in the last sentance. That doesn't leave us with the same uneasiness that it used to.
So, in summary, we're afraid of the same thing, we have just become less good at recognising them. As many Poe fans would say, our generation probably wouldn't recognise true, genius horror if it danced in front of us stark naked with bells on. Although if true genius horror is dancing in front of me stark naked with bells on maybe I don't want to recognise it.

Sand Art

Hey there,

I saw some of these videos on youtube a while ago and thought you might appreciate them as well. Basically it's sand art, done by this one artist, and I think it's pretty amazing. I'll put a video here, but check her out on youtube because there are more than just this one and they're all fantastic.

Just Me and My Cage

"But you're here in the dark in a little box with a fellow who might know less than you,
Then you'll hurry home and lock the locks, another box to climb in to. "

I was listening to some of my music the other day and heard this line in a song from one of my musicals (challenge to musical lovers: can you tell which one it's from?) and started to think. It's a sad image, don't you think? Our home being this box, probably that we create to protect us but just ends up blocking us out from the rest of the world. It starts off as a box and ends up as a cage.

Metaphorically speaking, we cage ourselves in all the time. Mostly from fear. Why else do we create locks? Why else do we build walls that we hide within? From fear, essentially. From fear of what might be past the locks and outside the walls that could hurt us. And the cages we place around us are much the same thing. We are afraid of what might happen if we let ourselves out of those cages. And so we all manage, somehow, to survive in this big wide world by keeping ourselves close within protective walls.

It sounds stupid, doesn't it? When you talk about it like this, it sounds like some existential poetry. These big metaphorical cages seem ridiculous. But as much as you might say "I wouldn't cage myself in like that. What's the point?" I could bet good money that you still do it, out of doubt or worry, in some way or another. Maybe you just decide that you don't want to try something new, or maybe you don't let yourself get too close to someone, or show people your true self.

There's a big bright beautiful world out there (another musical reference for you guys and gals) that hardly any of us actually see. So get rid of those bars and look at it.

That's my word of wisdom for the day anyway.

In other news, draft #4 of The Twelve is finished and is now being read by the assistant editor of Murdoch books for another review and perhaps some advice on how to go about getting it published. Fingers crossed! I was thinking about posting another chapter of my book here, so leave a comment if you want to read more and I'll post chapter 2 next time.

Until next time...

(added note: I just realised that I never actually posted all of chapter one, only a snippet, so if you want to read the whole thing I can post that as well !)

Just Another Day

I know I've been doing some more topical posts lately, but I decided just to tell you all about the day I had today. Monkey and I have been planning a city trip since the holidays started, and we had it today. It was great fun. We caught the train in this morning into the city, Monkey getting train-sick for some unusual reason and me perfectly fine, which is usually the reverse on car trips. After we arrived at Flinders we walked down to Degraves and had the most delicious crepes in the WORLD at this little Creperie that also does french baguettes. Yum. Chocolatey, creamy, crepey deliciousness!

After we scoffed them down we trammed our way to IMAX and saw 'How To Train Your Dragon' while eating popcorn that was (apologies, Village Cinemas) better than anyother popcorn ever eaten. And we got to wear very trendy 3D glasses at least twice the size of a normal pair. The movie was really great - seriously you cannot go past a good kids animated movie sometimes. We super enjoyed it.

The next instalment of our a

mazing adventure was to walk around Carlton Gardens which was very lovely. Saw a beautiful fountain and made wishes with one dollar coins.

We then went on a wonderful horse and carriage ride (something monkey had been wanting to do for

years) and went and bought some well-deserved lollies from Suga. We got a present for Xena, who just didn't feel well enough to come and felt very sad about it so needed some cheering up! We then went and bought at least 10 delicious cupcakes from the cupcake store on Degraves. Mmmm.... They are incredibly goo

d. I recommend that you all go! Get the strawberry one. :)

Monkey had never seen the church, so we went in to have a look because I think it's such a beautiful building. As non-religious as I am, I really love churches, the big old ones with the amazing high ceilings and stain-glass windows.

So after that we heade

d home.

Sitting here now with my noodle yum yum after having such a great day makes me wonder who and where I'd be without my sisters. I think I would have to be a different person. And life would be very different. There would be far less laughter I'm sure, less inside jokes and quotes. Probably a little less frustration at times but also a lot less happiness.

Sometimes I think my sisters are me and I am them in a sense, and without them I think I'd only be half.

Doubt

After talking in length in my last post about the wonderous topic of waiting, a thought occured to me, and that was how quick doubt is to spring to the surface of our mind. Even more so when waiting. In that moment when all you can think of is what ever you're waiting for, you ask yourselves questions, and most of those start with 'what if'.
What if everything I want happens?
What if I'm hoping for too much and things will be fine but not great?
What if I'm actually completely deluded and insane?
The last one is often the one you settle on.
There's an expression: to plant the seed of doubt in your mind. I can't think of a better metaphor for it. Because doubt does nothing but grow once it's found a nice cosy little spot in your mind, in the back where it can't be examined too closely but close enough that you can hear it's pestering little voice. And in the end, when that seed of doubt has grown into a monstrous and incredibly time-consuming tree, you tend to doubt things that you know are ridiculous, but that you cling onto as if feeling terrible is actually the hip new thing.
Everybody doubts. Over things like their hair, their looks, maybe even their personality. And everybody doubts their own talent at one point of another.
So what is the point in doubt? Maybe it's meant to build our character, because I suppose if you doubt something about yourself, you work on it until you don't need to second guess it anymore. Until you've passed that stage. But most of the time you can't banish doubt on your own. When we know the doubt is ridiculous, we can solve it ourselves, but when we truly believe it we seek someone to argue it. Someone to give you confirmation.
Oh the curses of doubt.
On another note, moving from that topic, I stumbled across this blog. This guy does some pretty amazing drawings. I hope he doesn't doubt his talent because he's got plenty of it.
Have a look:
http://questforanimationglory.blogspot.com/search/label/character%20designs