Poem: …star corsage

 

a bouquet of roses,

of diamonds and baby’s breath

a few stars thrown in

to confuse over scale

and Satan peering from a black black hole

deep, deep, deep in the vase

a bouquet of roses

roses, foxes and diamonds

diamonds and baby’s breath

breath, and a few stars

the scale is confused

and Satan’s in there too

peeping out a black hole

gravity in the vase

down deep, deep

© Copyright Alex Ankarr 2017

Image – Vaughan’s Seed Company; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection, no known copyright restrictions.

Creativity, Pam Grout and a little divine ordering… Find time to create, in Week 9!

Week 9 (boy, these weeks are going by fast, ain’t they?) and Ms Grout is talking, in ‘Art And Soul, Reloaded’ about finding the time for your creative projects.

Phew.  Easier said than done, half the time.  Isn’t it?

Well, Ms. Grout’s first suggestion is not to just to stay up later writing, or to get up early.  In fact, she says, have a lie-in!  Daydream for half an hour!

Hey, I’m liking the sound of this!

Her second bit of advice: ditch the perfectionism, then that makes it easier to bang out a bit of your project without worrying about reaching some peak of creative perfection.  Ehh, I don’t think this one is so applicable to me.  In the midst of writing, I’m generally whistling, laughing my arse off, and holding a simultaneous conversation with the OH about whether Wyatt’s dead wife on Timeless is going to be re-animated via the wonders of time-travel, and spring out at him from a closet — giving him a heart attack in the process.

It freaks the OH the fuck out when I type and talk simultaneously.  Which is of course most of the reason that I do it.

Bit of advice, no. 3 from Ms. Grout – give up on self-sabotage.  Ehh, also not my problem.  I write lovely stories for lovely people.  Those other folks, ehh, not so much.

And finally – Pam says – in essence – do what you wanna do.  (Yes!  This is right in my wheelhouse!)  Including your projects.

Yep.  She’s a genius.  This is the proof.

 

And the main task for the week?  Give her 3 ideas for smartphone apps. Well, at least I don’t have to actually program them…

 

gif by Shane on Flickr, licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Poem: …star corsage

 

a bouquet of roses,

of diamonds and baby’s breath

a few stars thrown in

to confuse over scale

and Satan peering from a black black hole

deep, deep, deep in the vase

a bouquet of roses

roses, foxes and diamonds

diamonds and baby’s breath

breath, and a few stars

the scale is confused

and Satan’s in there too

peeping out a black hole

gravity in the vase

down deep, deep

© Copyright Alex Ankarr 2017

Image – Vaughan’s Seed Company; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection, no known copyright restrictions.

What I’ve been reading – ‘Art & Soul, Reloaded’ by Pam Grout

image – Matt https://www.flickr.com/photos/berger787/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ no changes

Yes, yes, I’ve only just begun working through the projects – but I actually finished reading the book itself a little while ago.  And I think it says something, that I had such a good time with it that I decided to actually put it to work and do the weekly projects.  Right?  How often does a book actually inspire you to action, including ones that are designed specifically for that purpose?

I have a print copy of the book (and it’s a lovely object, well-designed.)  It’s structured on a weekly basis for a full  year.  Each chapter has an essay linked to the main project assigned for the week.  Then there’s the ‘Zumba for the Soul’ section per week, three more random activities/tasks/suggestions.  And an inspirational quote/biographical tidbit to sign off.

I think – and Ms. Grout herself notes – that it would be easy to read the book purely as inspiration, to feel good and get lit up with enthusiasm and then…  move on and forget about it.  That would be a shame, though.  I forget who I’m quoting when I invoke the law of precession – Buckminster Fuller?  Things happen, when you take action.  Things you couldn’t have predicted.  Many more than you would have expected, all flowing from your original act like a fountainhead.

But it was pretty probably Goethe who said something about action having ‘genius, power and magic in it’, and how therefore actually getting off your arse and doin’ it – whatever magic act of creativity you  have in mind – was probably the best thing.

The results you get in life – good, bad, indifferent, astounding – depend on how much you engage.  Engage 10%, get 10% results – i.e. results that you’ve actually brought into being as a result of your interaction.  Engage 90%, get 90% results.  If you don’t engage – get out there, interact, create, ask, try – then you’re not getting results at all.  You’re just a null object, having no effect on reality whatsoever.  You’re a bit of flotsam, along for the ride.  You might as well not exist.

Lemme quote Taylor Parkes: ‘Activity is king’.

What would happen if you engaged 100%?  I’d like to find out, personally.

This book is terrific. But the results if you follow its prescription, if you treat it less like a pretty recipe book, and more like the actual contents of your food cupboards that you’re gonna cook and eat – could be truly astonishing.

Me and Pam: Week One, Day Seven

Oh!  You want more ideas?  What you think this is, an idea-shop?

Yeah, yeah it is.  You want fries with that?

a) Grab your crafting box, get out the beads.  If you don’t got no beads, break apart the necklaces you don’t like.  Voila!  Beads!  Make earrings, decorate t-shirts… make creepy little beaded voodoo dollies.  Do a little voodoo on your ex-boyfriend.  Not too evil.

b) Find something broken in your home.  Either throw it out, mend it, or use it to make something else. ETA: don’t break something just in order to have something to use!  Unless, you know… you wanna.

c) Go through your pile of to-be-thrown-out newspapers and magazines, make a collage.  Make a my-life-in-five-years collage.  Include a Tesla!

Ha, think I’ve got the hang of this…  oh no, that was the last one of the week!

 

image – ~Dominic Tootell https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominictootell/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ not altered.

Random Quest – 11/12/2017

And I meant to get back to this new project straight away!  Oh well, three days, not bad.

To recap from my 08/12/2017 post, then:

In this series, I’ll take a random element – words out of a random word generator online, out of a casually grabbed book, a snatch of conversation on the radio – and interpret them.  Or possibly interpret the results of inputting these few random terms into the searchbox of a website – Twitter or Youtube or any one of a number of others.  Interpret, in the sense of give meaning to them, a nudge from the Universe, a voice in the (tinfoil-hatted) head, a prod between the shoulderblades.

And the words that a roll of the dice – metaphorically – got me, that time?

soup, ant, knee.  And knitting.  I always want to add ‘knitting’.

OK, let’s looka these.  Soup, ant, knee.  Yeah, I love soup, love making soup, love eating soup.  It’s a BIG LOVE.

Ants, ants mean community and hard work to me.

And knee?  Uhhhh…  knees are a fragile, misconceived design flaw in the human body, that tend to start picking up wear and tear and breaking down at 40 or so.

So… I think the Great God Random Word Generator is telling me…  focus on your Big Loves, your Big Big Loves.  Work your arse off, work like an ant works, don’t even pause for breath.  Build community, participate, be glad to do your bit. Remember all things must pass, and you gotta love and appreciate what and who you got, while you got it.  And them.

Then, fling knitting into the mix.  Knitting vids make life better.  So, make life better.  Do it.

image – Linus Bohman https://www.flickr.com/photos/bohman/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/, no modifications

Folks, I present to you my random interpretation of the mysterious messages of the universe, 11/12/2017 style.  /bows low, flourishes.  Boshes a top hat on head, bunny scarpers off stage left.

Random Quest – 08/12/2017

image – Jan (Arny) Messersmith https://www.flickr.com/photos/boogieswithfish/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/, not modified

The inaugural post in an occasional series!  (I was going to call it Random Element, and then I thought no, let’s honour the fantabulous sf short story by John Wyndham.  Excellent, recommended, go forth and read it!)

image – Holly https://www.flickr.com/photos/strangefrontier/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ not modified

In this series, I’ll take a random element – words out of a random word generator online, out of a casually grabbed book, a snatch of conversation on the radio – and interpret them.  Or possibly interpret the results of inputting these few random terms into the searchbox of a website – Twitter or Youtube or any one of a number of others.  Interpret, in the sense of give meaning to them, a nudge from the Universe, a voice in the (tinfoil-hatted) head, a prod between the shoulderblades.

image – John Keogh https://www.flickr.com/photos/jvk/ licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/, not modified

Hey, it’s every bit as valid as friggin’ astrology, ‘kay?  And it keeps me amused, out of trouble and off the streets.  Where’s the bad?

Today’s random quest – soup, ant, knee.  And knitting.  I always want to add ‘knitting’.

 

hello darkness*

http://rcdow.org.uk/vocations/blog/a-novena-for-peace-and-renewal/

This is one of the first page results I got from a random-word Google search today.  It’s the one that sprung out immediately and caught the eye on the page, although not the first result as such.  Interesting, huh?  Got to admit, I’m always picking up signs and interpreting messages.  I blame Pam Grout.

This, though?

Sometimes, the universe just needs a kick.

 

Image – Alex Antropov https://www.flickr.com/photos/51686021@N07/ licence https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

*ya know where it comes from.  you oughtta.

 

 

look what you made us do

During prayer today – yeah, I pray, the full on-yer-knees-eyes-closed-surrender-to-the-universe procedure – I was asking for lovable people in my life. (I got lovable peeps already. But who couldn’t use a few more?)

And the answer I got back –

(Yeah, I get answers back when I pray. I talk to God all the time. Me and the big guy, we’re like that.)

What? Oh yeah, the answer. What the Holy Dude whispered in my ear – quiet, subtle, only slightly snippy – was, ‘Everyone is lovable. Not a soul will be counted irredeemable, in the final weighing-in. Love all of them.’

Damn.

But fine. Fine. God is so annoying when he’s… right.

I’ll get right on that, then. Loving each and every little fucker – ahem, each radiant soul – that I encounter on a daily basis. No matter what. No matter what.

I’ll love those little fuckers into the ground.

 

Image allenran 917 on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/allenran917/ under a Creative Commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Post-Life Options, A, B and C – Paranormal Gay Romance

Buy Post-Life Options A, B And C by Alex Ankarr!

Cole is in love, but it doesn’t do him a lot of good. That’s because he’s in love with the ghost who’s haunting him, the ghost of his fire-fighter neighbour Sam, who died six months ago. If only either of them had admitted back then that they were in love with each other, how much simpler things would have been…

Image – Duncan Johnston on Flickr under a Creative Commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode modified as book cover.