Science, Literature, Art and that is just the start (by sarah)

At the weekend I found myself in Birmingham using puppets I'd designed and my mother had made and drawings I'd done and a game Alaric had designed and I'd made and some basic DNA extraction with household chemicals... to teach very young children about science, or more over to show them what a fun and interesting world it can be.

It was over whelming and amazing and I need a PA system due to noise levels. I wished I could have stayed for the whole of the British Science Festival. I want to take Cuddly Science further - it was a project I created initially for my Science Communication course at UWE last year/this year - it needs to be so much more.

I am going to be spending this weekend at the Battersea Literature Festival, I will be reading a poem or two but mainly listening to some amazing poets who I admire very much. I have a list of things that need to happen to take the writing stuff further and I am excitedly awaiting the next writing challenge. There are box for the selling and I want to get out there and perform a bit more next year - I already have some bookings.

Art wise I have been pushing myself and submitting for stuff I really want to get but probably wont and that doesn't matter as it has helped me up my skill level allowing me to start producing manga style science colouring sheets for things like Cuddly Science... It's all looping around - all those different skills are interbreeding and producing... well stuff.

I still hope I get those projects.

The comic book is well into being created - it is sci-fi/fantasy and is part of what I call The Punks World. It will be lunched in Feb.

There are Christmas Presents to be knitted, preserved, painted, folded, harvested, papier mached and sewn before then. And Cheltenham Literature Festival where I will be doing fun writing games and activities and crafts with the kids.

This is all scarily starting to look like a career! There is more to come. At the weekend someone asked if I came from a Science or an Art background - I said Both. I was also asked what my career was and I was as always kind of stumped but they said that I'd reached the holy grail of "various" and yeah I think that is a pretty accurate description.

Art, science, craft, tech, singing, acting, improvising, working with kids, cooking, growing, explaining, knowing... all these things are becoming interconnected webs that I use to make workshops or books or a piece of art or to explain something in a way that will inspire or help. Sometimes it's hard to hold the shape of it all in my head at one time.

At the moment I tend to stuff like Artist and writer or the slightly longer... Artist, Writer, Science Communicator and Workshop Leader. I would love to say Creative but people think unemployed flake if you say that :/

Not really sure where any of this is gong but it's all exciting and should be interesting!

Procrastination… Good? (by sarah)

Most people think of procrastination as a bad thing. They see it as not bothering to do the work at hand or going of into a day dream etc... however recently I have found that procrastination is a good thing.

I think that some jobs actually require you to procrastinate, forcing yourself to try and think when you have gotten into a rut can be counter productive, like looking for errors in code for hours on end without a brake - you kind of become blind to what you are trying to do. You need a break - you need a mind reboot, you need to do something else.

The same is often true of the beginning of things, sometime the idea, the germ of a project is not yet ready and needs that little longer. Starting prematurely can stunt it's growth - deadlines are a problems and some of them need to be met but most of industry is actually soft deadlines which makes things easier - I myself manage much better with staggered soft deadlines than hard harsh big ones.

I see my performances and workshops and what have you as rolling deadlines - though there is stress there which I will come onto in a bit.

Back to procrastination, sometimes you need to procrastinate to re-fire the brain and sometimes it is your brain remembering something you need for your project but it can't quiet explain it too you.

For example: when I was doing my Science Communication coursework, I was desperate to include a certain concept but couldn't remember what it was called or who the lead educator was that was involved with it. In frustration I kind of gave up and in procrastinating found myself on YouTube watching Jason Silva who I find energising and stimulating (and yes he's my sort of eye candy but not that kind of stimulating honest!).

About two vids in and bam! The name I was looking for, mentioned as a throw away comment, in excitement I stumbled back and finished the work off in one sitting as it jogged my memory and the associated stuff all came flooding back in an accessible format for me - of course I am dyslexic and ADHD so this maybe a me thing but in that case it may well hold true for other like me of which there are many.

I have countless examples of stuff like this - being stuck with poetry and picking up a maths book and the words for the concepts of the numbers tumbled onto the page to make the poem that was stuck - and so on.

Then there is the stress - I am a stress bunny, I always have been and I think always will be, if I get stressed enough then meditation wont work as I'll feel stressed about wasting the time and so on. This is the point at which procrastination is kind of a saving grace. I can pass the work with reading books, watching films, knitting, painting, writing essays, going for a walk to photograph swans, having a bath, writing a song, playing the guitar, hugging the girls, tickling Alaric and so on.

Obviously most of this is only an option as I work from home/at events but it is something that has been working really well for me. It stops the nose bleeds and the burning skin that warns another out break of shingles is in the coming.

I am far more likely to make a deadline - even a hard deadline - if I procrastinate. It also works really well with the non-focus then hyper-focus thing I have and sort of bridges the gap between the two.

Now to my current stress head - I think I am being successful or the beginnings or something but this means people are now expecting stuff from me, a certain standard et... and that makes me stressed - I can't stand letting people down.

And so I was feeling too nervous and stressed to start on stuff I needed to do to sort my little play out, most of the work is done it just some admin pieces but it makes it all seem rather real and what if my stutter comes back or I am having a bad fatigue day or I'm just rubbish and it's naff and I'm being paid.... and I'm not GROWN UP enough for this.

My procrastination led me to pick up the comic book / graphic novel I got out of the library yesterday - another Neil Gaiman Sandman book. This one is called Fables and Reflections.

The first story is called Fear of Falling and as if made for the situation, it is about a play write panicking and trying to pull out of producing his play. Needless to say it was exactly what I needed.

So I am going for procrastination is good.

Finally I Get One of My Dreams (by sarah)

This week has been harsh - I am not going to lie about that - there have been Drs trips for Mary (she's fine and her skin is responding to the cream but really - two skin conditions?!), finding I had missed the deadline for the resubmission of course work that had been done the first time and I accidently submitted the wrong piece due to muppetness etc... BP seeming to be actually quiet high from the monitoring I've been doing and pulse perminately at about 100, someone kicking our door and egging our house and visits from the police and yeah - so rough week.

But I always wanted to be a in a band, I always thought it would be with my Bro and then when I got to uni I discovered that everyone else was an accomplished musician and I could play the first part of a Tori Amos song badly.... and erm... course work and medical stuff and yeah well...

I always dreamed of jamming and making stuff up as we went cos it sounded right.

Today I was downloading and printing forms to apply for various things (mainly art and science stuff today) when Jean appears with her guitar - it is not the pink one she got around when Mary was born as she wasn't really using that as it was PINK and Mary claims it as her's as it's pink but a few weeks back one of the parents in the play ground just asked Al if we had use for a child's guitar and he said yes.

She loves it and has been faffing about with it and Mary is happy as now the pink guitar is officially her's. Anyway she looks at me and says 'can we record a song Mummy?' I almost said no I am too busy as it is I told her I had to finish what I was doing, she sat and she played what she wanted to have as backing. I gave up and set the laptop up to record.

I am so glad I did!

The tuning is her own special tuning where the top E (the thin one at the bottom (yes I know!)) is actually an F and the G is an A but the others are all standard tuning. She then wanted some wind sounds over the top which we recorded in a separate channel, she added filters and that was that!

She is now making plans for an album and musical future for us both - so at 33 I think I may have just started a band with my not quiet 9 yr old daughter! Who musically I think is much better than me 😀

As far as the singings concerned I think I was channeling Jim Morrison or Nick Cave or someone - Jean did point out that I almost started singing another of my songs in it. Jean was desperate to share this piece but worried people wouldn't realise it was her work, she was really pleased to see her name on it.

Comic Books, Cuddly Science and Music and More (by sarah)

So I've been a busy bee but I kind of forget to blog about stuff which is stupid as then people don't know it is happening. Anyway I have just finished writing another 50,000 words in a month as part of the summer CampNanowrimo - a variant on the Novel Writing month challenge. Everything was based in the Punk's Universe which is now epically big and pushing to get out there to the public but apart from a few flash fictions and short stories which you can read here, it simply is not yet ready!

Second there has been great progress with Cuddly Science thanks to help from Mum and there will be an unleashing of more puppets soon plus a website etc... this next month is going to be about really pushing that project forward which is really exciting 🙂 Though I have to confess Ada puppet has managed to scare a few house visitors especially when I forget to move her out of the guest room. To fully realise the vision of Cuddly Science though I now need to be looking for some external funding and also kind of finish the very last piece of my Science Communication course. For those of you who don't know Cuddly Science is a series of scientist, engineers, technologist, medicine and maths peeps in puppet form who can either run shows and/or interact with kids showing and helping them through games, experiments and sci-craft activities. Using their own stories they explain the wonderous discoveries that have been made and show just how much there is still to find out whilst giving the children a gentle taste of some actual science.

And Universe In A Box has arrived to help run Cuddly Science workshops and a few other bits which I am very pleased with 🙂 And also part of the money I spent on this fab kit will help poorer schools and things get hold of the same kit on a global scale which can only sit well with my idea of science for all 😀

I have also been working on music and have produced a song called Somebody Please which came about as I was so distressed to learn of the children from the single mother's homes that were neglected and disrespected even in death. It was a song that had to be - it isn't a happy one and it reminds us that there are still children that can be rescued - it was one of those that had to be written and also has my first ok attempt at guitar.

I think I kind of forgot to blog about the last few songs as well - so here is I'm at the Bottom of the Sea - were I attempt to play the Temple drum out friend Seth gave us.

And Little Ghost of Parade.

Then we get to the comic books, I have discovered that Gloucester Library has lots and lots of comic books and graphic novels which I think I mentioned before. Well I've started taking them out of the library rather than flicking through them whilst in situ as it were. When I was little the library in Hornchurch did not have such things and I couldn't afford them. This week I read Neverwhere which I loved but kept kind of remembering bits of it in a very specific voice. I know it is a novel as well but I think it must also be an audio book or radio show that I've heard before. Anyway I really liked it.

Hmmm amazon has a BBC series so maybe that is what I am remembering!

Anyway I have also been working on my own comic and due to feed back etc... I now have two covers and am toying with the idea of there being a black and white version and a colour version.

I also have the light core of the optronic super computer which is a mix of water colours and computer jiggery pockery which I worked out and did all by myself without asking Alaric how to install stuff etc...

I have also drawn the Punk walking - this picture looked better before I inked it in and rubbed out the pencil as the pen splodges so I need to look at materials again - maybe different pens or paper or both. But it is supposed to be a fusion of the "traditional" DC/Marvel comic book styles and the Japanese Manga and the old old cowboy comics and fantasy art stuff.

I'm still mucking about with how I'm going to colour the pictures but feel I am making great progress!

I also painted a flamingo as a last minute birthday present for Al's aunt. It was one of those wake up at five in the morning ideas - I have really only just started with the water colours but it seemed to work.

So as you can see things are busy busy especially if you add events and life in on top! But I think it's all going well - though sadly at the moment due to health stuff I'm only going to paid gigs which has made me feel like I am slightly letting people down but I can only do so much stuff at the moment 🙁

There is a lot more fun stuff I need to blog about - the girls and the chickens and what not so hopefully I'll get a chance to catch up soon!

A Lovely Forgetting (by sarah)

Last year I went for a walk with Alaric, just the two of us as my parents were around to look after kids, it wasn't anywhere fancy just around Gloucester especial they area around our house. There was a kind of urban fairy tale about it - so I wrote him a song which I then recorded initially with guitar but that bit for some reason came out mangled so I took it out. And I posted it to FaceBook and gotten his feed back on the guitar bit etc and blasted it around the internet in various ways whilst I was working on it and then... I kind of forgot about it.

And it also turns out I forgot to tell Mr Al that it was written for him!

Yesterday morning whilst sitting in a camper van visiting family in Essex I mentioned it too him, realising that I had never actually presented the song to him I played it and explained about the photo and where I'd taken it (down by the rail way with the sun behind the Cathedral - near his work place).

It made him smile - it's cheesy and naff and about us and were we live and so on. Alaric was so happy and the fact I'd told the world but not him and he'd missed it made him laugh as it is typically me.

Last night he said that one of the things that attacks him to me is that I am always creating something - he sees this as amazing. I kind of see it as scatterbrained ooo shiny. From his reaction I'm realy actually glad I forgot to tell him 😀