Slams and Other News (by sarah)

Tonight Friday 13th I will be performing in the Cheltenham Poetry Festivals Slam - Slam Burger. I will be swearing on stage, in a poem, this is actually an incredibly hard thing for me to do... I can just see all the little old ladies from the church of my youth frowning at me in my head - none-the-less the poem needs to be said and so it shall be.

I will still come last 🙂 I always do! (Except the time I came second from last!). But I do tend to get myself mentioned in news papers with poems that are "rants against the government", even if they can't spell my name right (newspapers never get my name right! or if they do they spell my kids or husband's name wrong!). The article is from last weekends Slam - a fantastic even of sparkling dark and joy.

It was the 20th annual slam and I think the longest consecutive poetry slam in the UK. I poddled down there with the lovely poet, actor and comedian Joy-Amy who unlike me came a fantastic and well deserved 2nd 🙂

In other news I am still uber busy with the colouring book visual poem A Stranger Dream: Love that a launched at the end of April. It is steadily selling and I have actually gotten around to sending out some review copies (yes I know it is supposed to happen before you release the book 🙂 ).

I sold out of the heart handled mugs with the art work Love on it - one of the pictures from the book. I have ordered more and they have now arrived 🙂 I am still sorting out the Normal Mugs with normal handles but will have them soon 🙂

Yesterday the first lot of artwork badges arrived and I have homed 3 of them already 🙂

There is a still quiet a bit of a to-do list to get everything I want to go with the book/be done with the art work 🙂

So far no bad reviews (that wont last but for now I am basking).

I am down to just two copies of the books I had to sell - there is another lot en-route, I will have them with me tonight at the poetry slam. Otherwise the next chance to buy the books and artwork stuff from me is going to be The Mini-Mall Con in June 🙂

(I may also be making Alaric dress as young spock once again which as those who came to my 30th know is a treat worth it's weight in jelly beans!).

Of course you can order it on line from Amazon.

I hope to be doing more shows, stalls and things with it and I will be seeing if I can make the video of good enough quality to maybe show at an event but we are looking at next year for that sort of thing 🙂

Stories and poems are starting to go up on the various Monster Blogs once more which has been a long time coming thanks to head bang stuff. However slight change... they now tend to get pre-viewed on my Patreon account for those who are supporting me financially - to be honest though it paid for me to launch and create A Stranger Dream I still do not have quiet enough to be replacing the tech I need to replace and to make the blogs ad free etc... So if you find yourself with monies and you want to see stories and art from me... (yeah I hate asking for money but you know it has to happen or I actually can't afford to be producing this stuff!).

Anyway.... my patreon.

Also - yes a lot of alsos 🙂 I will have art at Art in the Park Cheltenham this summer.

And lastly - I really liked working on A Stranger Dream colouring in book, about 2 weeks in I made a list of other colouring in books I would like to make both poetry and not poetry based. So last week I popped a poll up to narrow down which one to work on next. I only gave four options and the ability for people to suggest other things... the resounding favourite option was Myths and Legends so I have started work on that.

I have a couple of commissions at the moment so it has to fit in around them but it has begun!

.....

Opps I lied one more thing or maybe two!!!

I will be doing a set at Science Show Off in Bristol on Weds 25th of May at the Grain Barge - there will be stars and poems and possibly a puppet but hopefully no singing!

And there will be steam punk and science-craft workshops run by me at Wychwood Musical Festival 🙂

I do have a news letter...

I think that's everything but probably isn't!

Hope to see local peeps tonight!

Shakespearian Mock Tales (by sarah)

Last night we had the second ever Mock Tales - 2 hours of stories and writing creativeness with sticky non-alcoholic cocktails. They were Shakespeare themed as it was his 400th birthday at the weekend 🙂

I did 20+ pages of my comic book script/story board and now know how this story arc ends, Alaric managed 5000 words of our joint novel/series.

There were 3 of us so I was limited as to how many drinks I could make!

Above are Twelfth Night which was minty, Midsummer Nights Dream which was vanillary, The Scottish Drink which was fruity, and The Tempest which was Sugary.

We also had home made Pizza which was dairy and gluten free - Mary had opinions...

I remembered that when I was in secondary school I became obsessed with The Tempest as a story and drew the whole thing as a comic - I wonder if it survives somewhere? I loved the stop motion animations they did of the shakespeare stories I need to try and find them for the girls.

Jean tried a Tempest before she went off to best - she was a little horrified at it's stickiness - she still drank/ate it.

Recipes are being written down for Salaric Cooking before people start prodding again 🙂

A Stranger Dream – Virtual Launch Party (by sarah)

I am a poet, I am an artist, I am many things some of which seem contradictory - after the head bang last year the question of identity reigned large in my vision of self - not just my identity but everybody's and societies reactions to identity issues - so I started working on a series of images.

I was learning how to draw again and the ideas were appearing faster than I could create them, I spent 3 months working on the visuals for A Stranger Dream. And mainly I have had positive feedback though some people do hate the style and that is fine it is stark, it was meant to be.

But what is A Stranger Dream? Well for a start it is not A Stranger Dream it is A Stranger Dream: Love but it's not it is

Love: A Stranger Dream...

or both or neither or something...

It is a non-linear visual poem on identity, gender, our place within family, our concentric non-ecludian intersecting and exclusionary circles of all the cultures of us - it is the distorting mirrors within our own heads - the fitting and the not fitting - the fires within.

I know it doesn't look it but it was a hell of a lot of work.

Then someone said "it says colouring in book to me" and I thought... why not?! I thought people colour to relax, to sort thoughts, to just be themselves and that is fitting - plus colouring in book is on the list of to-dos and I have been producing colouring in sheets for my kids workshops for ages.

So I started by popping the images up as individual sheets for download and colouring - they are still there and they are free.

Then I made ring bound ones at home for shows and events... people far away started asking how they could get hold of them so I have created a colouring in book complete with purple spine and title box because... I am the Purple Poet!!!!

Here is a picture of the spiral bound ones at The True Believers Comic Book Festival earlier this year.

And this weekend (April 22-14 2016) I am having a launch party - sadly I am only running a virtual one but it is going to be epic!!!

I will be pinging around the internet - of course hoping people will buy the book but as I said don't feel you have to because I put the individual sheets out there for free download and I know times are tight (having said that I need to buy more art supplies... to you know produce more art!).

There is a Facebook Event, a Google+ Event, a twitter hashtag # astrangerdream and my patreon account (which will have hidden extras in it for patreons only). There are also the blogs namely this one and Turquoise Monster which is my poetry blog 🙂 So I think that is pretty much everyone covered - I am hoping to do a little film thingy too but we will have to see how the laptop holds up!

The colouring book is already up on Amazon and Book Repository etc... it is appearing as £10 odd - I meant it to be roughly £7 if you've bought the £10 copy let me know as I have a little goody bag to post to you containing some lovely tie-in items 🙂 (yes I am trusting people to be honest here! Thankyou 🙂 )

Oh and there should be a gallery unveiling where people can post pictures of their colouring in - if they wish 🙂

There are going to be give aways but there will also be merch for sale and special offers etc... (sorry guys I would love to give you everything for free but I do need a new computer!).

I am actually stupidly excited about this and am even making myself an outfit out of the art work! The poetry cards have arrived and are beautiful in a way I was not expecting 🙂

Most of all though regardless of weather you buy or take for free or just look - mainly I hope everyone will be enriched by the work itself, it was very important to me whilst creating it. It's kind of an imprint of the soul, maybe a darker one than people would like but it is... something - I'm not quiet sure what.

I hope you will join me for turning the starkness into a rainbow.

Park Run Issues (by sarah)

So a while ago now as in more than a year ago I went to the Ignite talks in Bath (part of a Tech festival I believe) to tell the world about why I designed Cuddly Science - the theme was Tech/Science for the wider good or something like that.

Whilst there we came across a group who had made a system for timing people and getting people to run and train and do exercise together. Without it costing the participants a butt load of money because that is a huge issue with exercise - I know when I was younger and even now I never really went to the gym or swimming that much because they cost money.

In fact one of the big draws of working at the campsite was that I got to use the climbing wall, lake, rifle and archery ranges for free after work (which was teaching those things except lake stuff due to pathetic swimming abilities). At uni I wanted to take part in loads of things but it was all too expensive and had a tendency to mount up cost wise but I did manage a bit of caving and Kung Fu.

My own struggle with wheelchairs and walking aids has shown how much of a difference having access to equipment can make not to mention people to encourage you and kind of group learning when you are doing things wrong as well.

Part of my miraculous recovery resulted from me having enough money to get a recumbent exercise bike with back rest and large wide padded seat - with a busted pelvis there was no way I could even get on a normal bike. But the bike, pool, chin up bar, pedometers etc still set me back hundreds of pounds because equipment is not cheap and needing what I did meant I couldn't just wait for free cycle and though social services where brilliant in providing me with bedsticks and aids to get in and out of baths etc... they could not provide what I needed for my physio. (to be fair I have bought all this stuff over like a decade but I did kind of need it in one hit and the thing is that because I was going to have to get a taxi or something to the gym in the first place the cost of gyms for a couple of months was enough to get the bike etc... and I can use it whilst the kids play at home etc...).

I digress some what - the point is there needs to be free stuff our health is kind of dependant on it. People need to climb, swim, run, we need a variety of stuff so those with various injuries or medical conditions which the longer you go in life is more likely to be you, can exercise.

This did not used to be such an issue but it is with modern lives and yes we could argue about that for a millenia and not change a single thing. Bikes are expensive, bikes get stolen or damaged but... there are great projects a foot to refurbish old bikes so they are accessible to everyone - fit free clean transport for the win (just please don't moan about me and my kids being in the cycle lane when the vegetation has grown over our pedestrian bit of path and hey they are scooters anyway! and never mind there is a mobility scooter coming and we all need to navigate the hideous junction with the lorries and more lanes than I can work out).

Back home in Essex and London there is gym equipment in the playgrounds or rather in the parks just outside the playgrounds - for grown ups to use! And people use them - for FREE (except you know they are paid for by taxes and that is the sort of thing I want my tax spent on!).

So bikes good, walks good (whilst we still have access and the national parks to walk in 🙁 ), and we have basically already lost swimming and climbing as free accessible things unless you are really lucky - but running and pull ups etc... there are games set up to help walkers and runners, Bristol even has a playable city!

And that brings us to the reason that I am writing this post - Bristol.

They want to charge the Park Run runner with path maintenance - something most of them will already be paying for in tax. They are saying they can't expect the non-runners to pay for it equally - erm... but community, society, COMMON SCENSE!

Because yes people cause erosion - big problem with some areas of outstanding natural beauty and so on but there is a lot of wear and tear from just WALKING, from dogs scratching, bikes biking, kids scooting... also are they planning on charging everyone to just run? Regardless of weather you are with the Park Run?

Charging for the free sports and exercise that will help people lead fitter and healthier lives - which will drastically reduce the cost on the nhs (injuries costs are minimal compared to long term chronic conditions which exercise can help control (if you can and have access to the exercise!)).

This is more than short sighted - looks like I am not the only one who thinks so.

The same park seems to charge for the football club to use it on Saturday mornings - is that normal practice?

Now obviously we are angry - mainly because as geeks neither of us has liked sport that much - that is because we perceived it as aggressive and bully-tastic - this changed with the Olympics where we got to see it more as striving for personal bests and being the best you can be - a world of self improvement.

We did not see the climbing and shooting as sport they were activities we liked - again that barrier came down. We were no longer doing those things because - money. We spend too much on the kids clubs and activities but that is because we have learnt that a) confidence is important and b) they are both girls related to me and yes they maybe lucky and take after Al but.... they need their core muscle strength and they need good metabolisms and they need strong lungs and hearts.

But we are paying alot for that and many don't have that (we don't really have that and rely on people giving classes or equipment instead of presents for the girls).

And the thing is it isn't just me - Alaric is actually the one who takes part in the park run as part of him sorting his body out - for years he had bad back pain but it got worse and worse - its siatica, he's lucky the Dr spotted the problem - we had to pay a physio to sort it as though it would have resulted in him needing a hip replacement in 2 yrs time the nhs could not pay for the preventative yanking the leg back out of its socket but they would pay for the hip replacement :/ So obv. he had loads of physio ad stuff to do afterwards - it's acting up again which is a bad sign but it is more than the 2 yrs on now - he is working on his general muscle tone and stuff.

He does Krav, that costs money... but he also does park run - he was running by himself but motivation is hard - but park run... that is different.

It's free, it's all together, it's mildly competitive but mainly supportive.

I was/am looking forward to running in it but am still struggling with getting round the block - but hey I am getting round the block and now mainly not weeing myself in the process (yes literally and yes probably TMI). We are planning on including the kids which is another thing taking kids to gyms doesn't work - it used to when I was a kid - I remember sitting at the edge of the gym whilst my dad and uncles weight trained but that doesn't happen anymore - so what do you do with the kids whilst you use the gym?!

So we plan to run as a family but that has to wait on Mary levelling up with Ballet as the times currently clash.

I hope Bristol does not set a trend - it would be a shame and a tragedy to loose something that is designed to help everybody.

(p.s. written whilst Jean was at her pre-school free running club which is fab but not sure how wide spread those are!)

Ok so I side tracked myself a lot but basically park runs make running and exercise accessible to everyone allowing a reduction in the impact poverty can have - it is a good thing why break it. (or course you also need access to tech so we need the libraries as well for people to get the full goodness of the thing and sadly also the foodbanks :(.) Also positive impact on health, attitudes.

Here is the petition.

Mock Tales (by sarah)

Last night we had the first of what we hope will be a roughly fortnightly event - that can not be set in stone because we are just too busy.

And that is part of why we've set it up - Mock Tales is literally a night of tales and cocktails except there is no alc. this is an important factor as pubs are great but not always productive or helpful for creative works. People work in different ways.

So we created a creative zone of 2 hrs ring fenced for writing projects specifically and made sticky drinks with bits of fruit, gold lead and coconut!

We started by sharing tales with each other (see what I did there!!! SEEEEEE) around the table with a share alike curry. Then we took our second round of drinks into the living room and wrote...

I had plenty of writing stimuli incase people got stuck including a new deck of tarot cards with amazing art work, but as it turned out everyone had their own projects and were typing or scribbling away like mad 🙂

And Alaric broke the 90, 000 word barrier on his novel 😀 This is the novel he's been working on every since our first date really. We got into a conversation and... well discovered we both had a similar world story line mapped out in our heads and that it would be easy to make them be the same story from two points of view. We decided he'd write his bit first but what with me and illness and babies and floods and storms and roofs and so on it has only inched along with a little blast everytime we managed to have a holiday (which has not been every year).

So that is big achievement UNLOCKED 🙂

There was only 3 of us last night and that was fine and great 🙂 I only popped the fact we were doing a mock tales evening up on Facebook on Sunday (I think), which lets face it - is not much warning!

Basically if you are a writer or would like to try and write that book which has been languishing in you, then you are welcome to join us.

Also money!

Ok so Al's new job pays less than the old, it shouldn't be a problem but... for the cost of one drink in the pub I produced:

2 Decadent Coffee Pots (photo above)

2 Raspberry Fizzes (pint glasses and complete with frozen raspberries)

1 Mint Lush

1 Vanilla Lush

1 Vanilla Coke

They tasted as good if not better than the ones in the pubs - to be fair I this only works out cheaper because I have big bulks syrups that I use for my coffees etc... but by amount used the most expensive thing was the silken tofu that I marinated with coffee. And the chocolate was a bonza reduced find which I was very lucky with but even so...

And don't worry these are not instead of Creativi Tea - and yes I know I should organise the Spring one 🙂