The Tangled Tale of My Career (by alaric)

I've been feeling a bunch of despair, boredom and ennui about my career lately; so I've decided to attack it in the way I know best - by writing about it.

When I was little, I wanted to be a scientist. Of course, that wasn't what I actually wanted - but popular media had created this vision of a mad scientist labouring in a lab making weird and wonderful things. I later learnt that what I wanted to be was called an "Inventor", which is a kind of engineer; the application of science to make things - the goal of building a fantastic machine is to get that fantastic machine, not to test some hypothesis. So it's definitely not science.

This was fed, in part, by the reading material I had around the house. My maternal grandparents had been an electrical engineer and a science teacher, respectively, so I had a mixture of O-level science textbooks and old cloth-bound tomes about electrical power distribution networks. Plus, my mother was a science fiction and fantasy fan, so I had stories like E. E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman books (epic space battles, written by an engineer so tending to linger on the technical details) inspiring me. I saw technology as a way of solving real problems, and I found learning about it fascinating, and the challenges were engaging - and what's even better, I found I had a knack for solving them. The future looked exciting!

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Finding My Voice (by sarah)

This weekend just gone I sang with The Folk Chior at The Folk of Gloucester for the Christmas Makers Market and then on Sunday I went and rehearsed Wintery type festive music shenanigans for the Steampunks Christmas Reveals event which will be this coming weekend. It was difficult as I had missed over a months worth of rehearsals and I don't know how to read music (yes still) so there were challenges for both endeavours but I really enjoyed it and everyone seems to want to include me in the music stuff. I have also been attending the Folk at The Folk jam sessions - normally I just watch but sometimes I bring one of my songs - this time sadly due to a funeral most of the people were missing and they were desperate not to just have the same few people doing songs and so I gave them camp fire songs which most of them seemed to like. I even got recognised by someone later on - an elderly lady who has designated me as The Lady with the Silly Songs - who turned up at the textiles group I have been attending on Tuesdays.

I've even went along to a song writing cafe and attended a song writing workshop in Feburary all be it that I didn't get to stay for most of it due to Mary but such is the life of a parent and I still came out of it with one song, one poem and a spoken word/beatpoem/rap thingy. All this is not exactly new for me - I have been telling people about choirs and groups I have belonged to previously and even about song writing awards and things I received. But I have also been telling people people about all the times I've been told I am crap and not a musician and to take all my music down and so on. It is important I express these things because being neural divergent I still live with the music teacher's harsh words of primary school (I wasn't progressing in recorder because she had started sending sheet music home and not running through all the notes in class especially as there were now multiple types of recorders involved - she hadn't realised I couldn't read music but my mum sent her a letter asking for some extra lessons so I could either learn to read music or be taught the tunes individually - the teachers response was to chuck me out of the group and to act as a bar to me being in the school choir too). I hold all these comments within me - it goes for the triumphs too.

So there is a huge element of finding the confidence and freedom to actually go and do these things - ie if there is an audition I am probably stuffed, and choirs normally charge a membership fee which at points in the past has been too much. The irony of having sung in the Royal Albert Hall but to have been unable to join the village choir... and am dram clubs sinking so the show I actually got through the auditions for never actually happened and I had a good part!

The lists go on but it is not just the confidence - I have had issues with my hearing throughout my life more so since covid and the head injury left me with permanent tinnitus. I have a slight delay with things as I am feeling the music meaning that I may react slightly after everyone else... but I can guess where songs are going and when I say I feel the music I very much mean that on several levels and it can consume me from the core of my bones - vibrating all the way through me. I think I am more aware of sound than many people even with being partially deaf and at a couple of points in my life nearly completely death. I was too good in fact and people didn't realise how much of a problem there actually was with my hearing.

Voice is an interesting thing - I have spent much of my life being told it has to fit in, that I had to get rid of the extra noises or that I sound like a man or conversely am too high pitched. Well I am learning to point those bits back in my voice - I am learning my voice all over again thanks to covid and the graves disease I lost my voice even for speaking for over a year and have had repeated sore throats and of course the ever present choking lump that I just can't quiet swallow past. I no longer have Frightmare to use the stranger aspects of my voice at and actually I want to sing with them. clicks and whistles and purrs and growls and two voices, the undulations and braids of sound.

Also after dad died writing was hard - I would go to cafes and write with him and we would read each others stories and poems we'd written and without that there I have been bereft and when I was looking after mum there was no energy or capacity either mentally or physically - my hands didn't even work properly - all there was was cleaning and washing and phone calls to argue with everyone from hospitals to family about her care. But I have been trying to write, trying to create once more - but who am I on this flip side of everything? I feel I have been shattered so many times I do not know, I don't know what I like, what I want to do and I am now in my forties so all those dreams of carers seem foolish and lost to the tragedy of circumstance. None the less I am trying, I am putting words on paper even if they are just lists of stories I hope one day to write - I am keeping a diary again - or at least trying - it is a chaotic thing but it is beautiful (it cost too much) and I am even adding stickers because I like stickers and they are accents to my feelings and hopes and imagery has always been part of how I communicate - even if it is only with myself.

I went to a poetry writing workshop - I haven't done that for so long - and the woods whisper stories of the wild wood and industries and peoples vanished in time and I want to share that with the world. There is something of a song there trying to form and I feel like writing when I am there.

I am Finding my voice - again... it is both the same voice rediscovered and something wholey new.

Gloucester Story Telling Cafe 5 – The Summer Time Special (by sarah)

It's that time again already! July was hectic with end of term and beginning of summer holidays events including The Gloucester Festival of Archaeology!

Now its Augusts turn and we shall be starting off with The Gloucester Story Telling Cafe tomorrow evening at The Folk of Gloucester - this is our monthly story telling night and is open to many and varied different types of story telling from flash fiction, to biopic, to traditional tails, to Crankies and probably a whole lot more!

What you need to know to come and see the show!

When:

Thursday 2nd of August 2023

(It is the 1sr Thursday of every month except January)

Doors open 7 pm for a 7:30 start

It is a pay what you want system - we have no funding currently so could do with some shackles to keep the night running but equally if you have nothing or little to give just come along and enjoy the night for free

End time is around 10 pm (we are aware that one site says 9 pm it is an external site to us so we can't change it!)

We have an interval where you can buy drinks and cakes at the Cafe and Bar, it is also open before the show

Where:

The Folk of Gloucester, 99-103 Westgate Street, Gloucester (just down from the Cathedral)

It is the old Tudor style wooden framed building!

Who:

This months guest story teller is Nick Brunger - check them out even if it is just to see the awesome photos on their website!

And music from Ed B

You:

We also have open mic slots capped at one story, three poems or 10 minutes maximum. Please come and share your stories with us or just kick back with a beverage of choice and enjoy the night.

One, Two, Three… Blast Off (by sarah)

Before covid we were running a story telling night called The Moving Story Telling Cafe but it was derailed and not just by covid - we sadly lost one of our trio to cancer. So last month we relaunched but this time without the Moving - The Folk of Gloucester have kindly offered us a permanent home and also house one of the other Legacy projects of Chloe The Midnight Story Teller... The Story Telling Library.

Last month was a special launch and opening of the library with lots of guest story tellers who all knew Chloe personally - that means the this month is going to be the first actual Gloucester Story Telling Cafe and it happens to fall on May the Forth. One of the reasons the three of us... Chloe, Jane and myself worked so well was that we are unashamedly geeks but perhaps not so obviously geeks to those with narrower ideas of what a geek is. We love our sci-fi and fantasy and I had a request from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society to have an event that geeky poetry would be welcome... well how could we resist such a set up.

So we are blasting off with a Starwars joke and a sci-fi author whizz reading a poem from their sci-fi novel!

Chris Hemingway is a poet, prose writer and musician from Gloucestershire. His book “The Future” was published in 2016 and was described by Cheltenham Poetry Festival as ‘darkly witty, like “The Man Who Fell to Earth “ meets “The Office”’. He has also had published two poetry pamphlets ‘party in the Diaryhouse’ and ‘paperfolders’. That’s a lot of ‘p’s’…

I have used a picture of my dad dressed up an explorer of space when he was a little boy - my Granddad took arty pictures and with my Nanny loved to make outfits for my dad and I am so lucky that copies of this one still existed in Australia and that a cousin kindly sent a copy to me.

Doors open at 7 on May the 4th 2013 at The Folk of Gloucester 99-103 Westgate Street Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 2PG

There is a cafe and bar. Entry is free but we will have a pay what you want pot out!

We are open to all story telling types from traditional to memoirs, to flash fictions, to novel extracts, to oral and of course narrative poetry!

Our Moto is "story telling for all/everyone" and as such not only do we have some fab guests lined up as well as music but we have an open mic were we would love people to come and share. Open mic slots are a max of 10 minutes.

This is the years itinerary - first Thursday of every month except January as lets face it - it is nearly always going to be too close to New Years Eve for most people and I can't be dealing with that!

Here is the Facebook event for tomorrows: One Two Three... Blast Off! and May the Forth be with you!

event

I am very excited about where this is all going - Story Telling and Gloucester have a long history and I hope a longer future!

WoPo – And the Poetry Reboot (by sarah)

Many years ago I set up a poetry writing group for a group of student writers who I met at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and so of course this manifested as a month of writing poetry and the first year there was a pledge sign up and a private forum and the website with prompts and all the social media and so on. I had guest poets and so on and it was great but a lot of work. I tried to pay others to do some of the work whilst I was pregnant with Mary but it just didn't really happen and so I scaled the event back. Then the physical group all finished university or drifted away and others couldn't do feb so I started doing it as a more year round thing and dropped the specific URL and tried to go with just World Poetry rather than a month writing drive.

But...

Turned out some people like the month drive thing so its ended up as a bit of a miss match and half forgotten project which is a shame as when I went through the archive for its tenth anniversary I realised there was a lot of writing prompts and exercises and lots and lots of awesome poets stories and of course many of the poems written from the prompts have indeed gone on to be published.

Last year the prompts when up on Instagram mainly because I was dealing with hospitals and things and it just wasn't going to happen any other way. But this means I need to think about where this is all going? I feel February just is the main thing but other bits through out the year works fine - I might even manage to do some physical meet ups this year. This has already prodded me into sorting out a little poetry outing last week at The Folk Gloucester to be inspired by Cedric Titcombes work - it is amazing and I wish I had all the money to buy some of those images - each one is a liminal space in and of itself - but that is another story for another time!

Basically I can not run the sort of this I did in the first year by myself - it just isn't possible but covid did impact us as a family in drastic ways plus obviously the bereavements so the site is a mess, stuff is spread over multiple platforms and so on.

So there will be prompts and I will share them - they may not be exactly daily (I do not want a repeat of the year the scheduler did not work) but I will try and I am also trying to get myself back out to some poetry events. I want to take part in the zooms and things but the clipping and things is quiet exhausting so like with the physical events I am reserving my energy for the ones that have asked me to perform - it is purely an energy thing - I would love to attend so much stuff but I just can't.

And that brings me onto the fact that I am just having to take it all slowly and build myself and the projects back up slowly - I suck at this aspect as I want to do everything NOW!

In summary - if anyone does want to take part here are the links - there is loads of archive material so you don't have to wait and if you meed or want the prompts in another format please just say ie there are little booklets for the older prompts and so on.

insta

website

Facebook - there is also a group but it is reserved for people I know

Twitter it was under TheMonsterBlogs but twitter has broken many things including the tools that let me switch accounts easily so if anything goes up it will be just under my own account Saffy.

Lastly I feel I have failed slightly at the World part of the WoPo - I do have participants from all over the world but I had wanted lots of articles on poems from other languages and cultures etc and that just never really happened even when I had a budget to pay people to write articles - so I don't know weather I should be changing the name or not. Also on that note a lot of the prompts get used by writers for stories and things too which might be a stretch of the poetry bit but what do people think?