Spring Fever (by sarah)

The rabbit has... erm... spring fever or twitterpation or what ever, he is now official an all grown up and not the little baby bunny abandoned on a snowy morning in a cardboard box. The only issue is that unlike Blacky who got a crush on me and did dances around my slippers - Fluffy Obsidian has his eye on the chickens and is attempting to be a little more physical.

So I have separated him and he is being booked in for the snip which probably should have happened a while ago. I was kind of interesting to see the normally passive chickens just frustrating him by ambling away but not the one in the nest box laying - oh no she was defending the nest and he got a deserved peck - I was attempting to oust him at this point.

Normally they all get on fine and I find rabbit asleep in with the chickens and chickens laying in the hutch and so on but I'm worried he will cause them a mischief or they him as they have beaks and claws.

He is now bouncing around the garden whilst they are shut in the run - seems the wrong way round somehow!

He is punching the air like a female hare - something Blacky never did. But then Blacky used to turn cart wheels and this one doesn't. Helium went out earlier and came back in quite rapidly so I think he may have a thing for pusskins too.

International Womens’ Day (by sarah)

It's International Womens' Day and I sort of didn't make it to the festival in London nor meet up with friends or celebrate another's birthday or any of the other things we had planned due to homework and sick kids.

I'm kind of in two minds about this sort of thing - part of me wants to say it is not needed and is just highlighting the divide but then I look in the history books, and notice the names that are not there, the ones we did not learn about in school, and the pay gap in this country between men and women, and watch the news and see girls being stoned to death for having opinions and I think... yeah this is needed to highlight those things.

I've been grumpy with the feminism stuff lately - for a start for me it is the wrong word and in general words ending in isms cause schisms. But I'd always said I was a feminist then recently I've seen talks being shut down because there was no female speakers even though the speakers and bored, were not chosen as such but came from people putting themselves forward - the issue there is that the women need to feel empowered to put themselves forward and that needs to be pointed out but not in a way that results in the shutting down of the whole event - due to the main backer pulling out for fear of public backlash. It was a pointless waste.

But that was just a bit of over kill and I understood where it had come from. However now what I am seeing is something far more insipid and down right nasty. And that is a sort of, 'your not a woman or not a woman exactly like me therefore your opinion is not valid.'

I have seen this applied to men, people of different ethnic origins/religions and economic classes and sexualities and orientations. And it makes me sad, angry and sick - how dare you say someone can not have a voice because they are not the same as you - you can disagree and debate with them yes but not crush them beneath your heels for not conforming to what you think a woman or feminists should be. This is mostly women to other women.

This attitude has highlighted for me exactly why International Womens' Day is important still, the term woman covers just over half the human population and within that there is a beautiful range of diversity and natures and stories to explore, not to mention potentials to be fostered.

Rant over... for those of you still reading I have a little favour to ask...

For next year I wish to release a little e-book of poems about inspirational women but I don't want to just use the ones I can think of so if people could nominate in the comment fields below - maybe with a link to wikipeadia though just a name is fine - that would be fab!

I've done poems for various events around International Womens' Day before and just want to create a little collection.

Thankyou!

World Book Day 2014 (by sarah)

Today is World Book Day - Jeany is sick and not at school but I hope she'll get to go in tomorrow when her school are doing their celebration. She has opted to be a Marsh Wiggle this year, from the Narnia books which she has just finished her second read of. We love World Book Day at the household Snell-Pym 🙂

So far Jean has been Aladdin with a little papier mache lamp with a home made fairy doll in it, Moppet out of Beatrix Potter , a dinosaur from Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs , I think she went as Hermione or something one year - I recall she wasn't really dressed up but I had to plait her hair and she had a stack of books as part of the costume and she is a Harry Potter nut, last year she went as a Dwarf from The Hobbit .

If she is feeling well enough we are having a read-a-thon today instead of films and I might do some book cup cakes if I get my college work to an acceptable level of completion. Although her glands are up so she maybe sadly be on soup and smoothies instead - cakes can be frozen 🙂

coughs technique for keeping my children occupied whilst I try and do the homework/tidying/work!

p.s. the World Book Day website is a good look for parents but a better look for those interested in writing especially for children.

p.p.s. Jean is also reviewing books she reads over on Orange Monster for those who are interested in either Jeany or a child's opinion on the literature out there.

Graphic Novel/Comic Here We Come! (by sarah)

As anyone who follows me on social networks will have seen, I have been promoting a kick starter for a Comic Book Convention in Cheltenham. Today is their last day - they have reached their funding goal and are ready to roll but there is still time to book a ticket today and get all the fun extras 🙂

For the kick starter click here.

I am quiet excited about this - the convention will happen next year and there will be a comic book/graphic novel show casing on my stall 🙂 There will be The Little Books and prints of my art work and stuff like that, but the thing I am really excited about is the graphic novel/comic book I have been working on for the last few years.

The whole series started as The Punk In Pink and was a seat of your pants writing madness I did for NaNoWriMo. I started the graphic novel in the April after my first NaNo as part of a script writing challenge run by the same people - I decided to go for a graphic novel script but as always found that doing a straight story board worked much better for me than scripts. The novels started off in the middle of the story where as the comic starts at the beginning of Punk's story or as she is known then Punku.

Since then the stories have grown and there are three stories series plus the graphic novel work and short stories and flash fictions set in the same universe which I have been posting on Magenta Monster.

Anyway - basically I am going to be working on getting the art work sorted for the first 'comic book' Revolations which is the first part of Babbel (which is the story arch and will make up the nice hard back graphic novel type thingy).

I will be doing my own Sponsume (like a kickstarter - I did one for my sci-art thing a couple of years ago), to raise money for the initial printing run. I know a few of you are desperate for me to do more wiggly pet stories but I'm not sure it is fair to do two such projects at once but I am open to suggestions!

Exams and Nature and Crazy Ideas (by sarah)

Today I had my exam or timed assessment for college - we could take a sheet of notes and the case study in with us. I had extra time for breaks due to the ME and separated pelvis and a nice chair to sit in, but the dyslexia stuff (due to me not getting stuff sorted (or paid for) in time) was not taken into consideration - so there was no easy writting extra time nor use of a computer which will impact my results.

The break time was needed as my stupid arm decided to go into spasm about half an hour in, the break time allowed me to massarge it and get it sort of ok to continue writing. After each break I could write again and the stretching was needed in order for me to not be in stupid amounts of pain at the end. I had also taken pain killers and stuff to help me through.

That over I began to reflect on the day and the course etc... I had arrived early and went and sat down by the campus lake and watched the birds and took some photos on what I keep thinking of as a PDA but is actually a tablet computer. It was lovely and carming and I took some accidental arty shots and looking at the birds it reminded me of the 100 birds in 100 days challenge I did last year and I suddenly thought - ooo I could do a flower one!

So that is what I have decided to do!

Starting today!

I'll be posting them over on Orange Monster.