Mary the Climbing Ballerina is Hacked Off (by sarah)

Mary loves climbing, Mary loves dresses, Mary will climb in dresses with a harness regardless of chaffing. Mary always has little boys try and tell her how hard it is to climb, and is told not to worry if she doesn't reach the top. Sometimes the parent joins in with telling Mary how little she is and how big the wall is. Mary always climbs to the top of the wall after telling them she knows how to climb, thankyou. Mary once climbed in her ballet tutu and has been climbing to the top of the wall since just before she was 3 yrs old before that she did not like the harness on over her nappy. Mary is already fed up and commenting on the fact this happens - Mary is six.

May’s Challenges 2017 (by sarah)

May is about my picture and children's books - there is a write a book/script a day challenge for the first week of the month. It's called NaPiBoWriWee and is actually more insane than the nanowrimo writing challenges 🙂

I have plenty of ideas for my picture books and zines so this is kind of a great way of actualising some of them 🙂

I am being slightly boring in that I am focusing on stories I kind of need finished for festival, workshops and my activity booklets anyway... but the plan is to kind of continue the challenge and actually spend this month working on my children's stories and picture books (and yes there is actually a distinction between the two groups - they heavily over lap but not completely - so I have kids books with no pictures and picture books that are not aimed at kids!).

So for those who want to know this means I am working on:

1) The Origami Story Box - this is a series so as long as I get number one done I will then work on it until I get bored 🙂

2) Scripts for the Paper Pals Theatre - same as above really only these are scripts for making the puppets act!

3) Folded Friends - again another series and yes it involves the origami and paper craft creations but this one involves humans too 🙂

4) The Little Books - there is lots of finishing up to do for The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry like finally putting it on Amazon and making sure the audio is out, same with The Little Book of Festive Poetry, then The Little Book of Easter Poetry needs to be put together and zined and The Little Book of Baby Poetry needs recording and zining. There are also many many more that are written but not edited or illustrated so probably going to get bored before completion here as well 🙂

5) City Scum (might be Scum City I can never remember!) - this is Alaric's role playing game and I need to finish the illustrations for it!

6) Activity Booklets - these are booklets I create to accompany workshops, they contain stories, games, facts and stuff to make and do. Main focus is Cuddly Science 2, Salaric's Arty Activity Booklet, Funky Folding, Spring Time Activities and Summer Activities.

7) Colouring Books - finishing off my Myths colouring book, sorting some sort of year thing for Love: A Stranger Dream, finish the Autumn Colouring In Booklet and make a Spring and Summer version.

8) Admin stuff - sort out Orange Monster which is my illustrations and kids books blog and in general sort out my art work and writing into easier archives for searching, sort more places to sell products etc...

9) Graphic Novels - I have unfinished The Punk Universe comics so getting them finished and planning out the other story lines 🙂

10) Zines and things - there is stuff waiting to be scanned, edited, printed, folded, stapled, and the Wiggly Pets blog needs some work on it.

This is obviously a lot of stuff which I doubt I'll get through but it gives me clear goals and shows me exactly what there is to do 🙂

My only concern is that there is no room for random creation - but then that does have a tendency to just happen anyway so maybe that's not a bad thing?

And that is just the writing side of things... so apparent from that little lot I am also having a finishing things off month again. So the aim is to try and finish one started project or work on a larger already started project each day - at the moment this is mainly things like candle making and knitting

Suppose I'd better get on with it all then 🙂

The End of Spring Camp Nano (by sarah)

It is the end of April - I have not reached the 50, 000 word goal that I set myself, instead I have just under 20 k. However I have also spent over 30 hrs on my poetry stuff this month which has payed off including workshop design, editing and typing up stuff in notebooks and sorting out events and performances - it even got to the stage where it was all so sorted I could just instantly hunt out a poem and submit it to a themed anthology 🙂

Also I have created the ground work for more graphic novels set in The Punks Universe and even scripted the first part - now I had wanted to achieve 100 pages of script but obvs. that didn't happen. And that is fine. Considering the restrictions of the head injury this is actually amazing as I am actually typing and not using voice recognition software or just writing long hand in note books 🙂 And typing is hard for me still.

It is an amazing achievement and I was making sure others I know got time to write as well. But it is also frustrating - for comparison: 60 - 100 k words is my pre-head bang normal whilst running one to two other challenges on the side. But you know the thing is the head injury turned out to be more serious than we'd imagined and the state I was in means that it is amazing that I am writing and performing and all the rest of it!

Big shout out to Mr Al who broke the 100 K barrier on Wojtek - a story we conceived together on our first date! (Ok it might have been the second but what ever it was we had the story line hammered out by our first Christmas 3 months later). He doesn't get much time to work on his projects so I have been giving him priority with the writing. This has now been a novel with more than a decade of making and it needs to get out there!

Second shout out is too my Dad Leonard Pym who has taken part in his first ever writing challenge 🙂 The results of which can be seen on [Yellow Monster}(http://yellow.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/).

Busy Poetic Times Ahead (by sarah)

Busy poetic time are coming up 🙂

Thursday 27th of April Villanells Gloucester Fountain Inn from 7-11 pm - I am running a workshop at the beginning of the evening followed by recording performances and interviews organised by The Gloucester Poetry Society

Saturday 29th of April ReneGade Festival 2017 3 -1:30 pm which is opening with Food For Thoughts Poetry performance

May 4th - 15th Cheltenham Poetry Festival, I'll be in the Slam Friday 12th May 8:30 but will be generally about the place 🙂

Saturday 20th of May A Pint of Prose organised by the Gloucester Poetry Festival

Plus as many regular nights as I can get too 🙂 Feeling very excited!!! (there might be another slam as well but it just depends on fitting things in!)

Regular Poetry events in Gloucester and Cheltenham are:

Buzzwords 1st Sunday of every month in Cheltenham

Speakeasy 1st Tuesday of every month in Gloucester

Waterstones Poetry Night Monday evenings in Cheltenham

Poetry Cafe 2nd Wednesday of the month in Cheltenham

Food For Thoughts variable but during the afternoon once a month at the weekend in Gloucester

Villanelles last Thursday of every Month in Gloucester

Cheltenham Poetry Societies Kickstart Workshops 1st Tuesday of the month in Cheltenham

Jam Back at the Tav every Wednesday evening primarily music but accepts spoken word in Cheltenham

Wobbly Eyes and Ear Crystals (by sarah)

Yesterday I turned up for a physio appointment - I wasn't sure what it was for but thought it might be for my eyes which seemed weird but turned out to be right - of course reception were confused because I said physio and tried to direct me to the physio department - turns out it's under neurology and then they couldn't find my name and then found (once hyphen was sorted out) and then they asked me questions about number which I couldn't answer and felt stupid. I can say my birthday because I know the sounds but they pulled the numbers out and not the months name and I couldn't process it 🙁

To be fair I was pretty tired and struggling slightly when we arrived as I'd had to do double admin that morning. Then it was asking for house number which I also failed at though I do know my address honest! And then they asked me if I was the mobile ending in .... now I could have recited the whole number because I've worked at that and have a story that builds the numbers but I couldn't fathom weather my phone number had those numbers in at all!

So Al had to answer for me and I was already upset because it was his birthday and we were at the hospital and it was his birthday and I know I'd gotten him a card and present but I couldn't remember where they were or even exactly what they were! And he'd missed the coach for the kids school trip due to stupid traffic and so had been really upset that he'd caused the kids to miss their trip (he drove them to the first place they were supposed to be going to and met up with the school!).

But the appointment was more than fine though I seem to spend my time after appointments there leant up against walls trying not to fall down.

This was the FB update I made on my return:

And at today's hospital visit we discovered that just flicking my eyes from side to side can make me sweat and feel like I'm going to hurl! I have a pronounced eye wobble at the corners (it had a name I can't remember) so they are going with gaze instability and I have exercises to do which will make me feel sick and there is a slight possibility of a crystal dislodged in my ear - seriously - who knew we had ear crystals?

Couldn't do all the tests because oh my god dizzy-vertigo-pain! But on the plus side this is fixable! Just going to take a while. And also this is all kind of normal head bang stuff which is a relief!

The physio asked lots of questions which kind of hit the nail on the head - near misses whilst crossing the road, struggling with supermarkets, crashing into people in crowds, motion sickness in cars and whilst trying to watch films and play computer games, being uncoordinated ie the landscape is not quiet where I expect it to be.

Part of the issue is that though I can tell this is different from my chronic labrynthitis I didn't really register it as proper dizziness and feeling sick because that has been how things are a lot of the time anyway (inflamed middle ear that crops up as a side effect of the glandular fever I had in my first year at uni).

So they think it is mostly gaze instability - I assume that is to do with knocking my optics out initially in the fall? My eyes can't track thing properly and as creatures that rely on hunting this upsets our brains and mine is desperately trying to compensate which makes me really tired when I come a cross lots of information/visual stimuli. That's why reading makes me feel like I am falling, why the travelators make wobble, why railings drain my ability to walk. And worse it means you are likely not to notice things... like the damn van that all most splatted me the other day - how I could have missed it in it's enourmousness I don't know - but I did.

There is a chance of a loose crystal in my ear but they think it unlikely but we couldn't do my balance stuff because I was feeling sick (plus it hurt - I know weird! Moving your eyes shouldn't hurt).

On the grrr side it is going to take weeks/months to sort the eyes and the same then for the ears if it turns out not to all be visual. The exercises make me feel ill, they will lit take a minute a day.

On the good side - hey!!! This is fixable, treatable, sortable and no operations or drugs are involved!!! WHOOO Who!

No seriously that is amazing!

We are taking the treatment one thing at a time as I still need to be able to function as a person and if we are not careful I could end up at the hospital all the time (I HATE hospitals - really would rather not be anywhere near them - don't get me wrong I also love them for repeatedly saving my life but I do associate them with pain and loss).

Also last week I had another nurology appointment - this was the result of that (as posted on FB):

Apollogies for not letting people know how the appointment went - I was a tad tired! Basically there is a huge and positive improvement but still no end time - so still on rests etc... On the plus side most of the fatigue/brain drain appears to be part of an eye issue ie my eyes aren't focusing on things properly and there is stuff they can do about this 🙂 Physio is go a new set of treaments will begin soon, have to go back and have seizure etc... stuff looked at again even though I've not had one for a while ie since really getting to grips with the resting stuff. So tired still today that I had to be helped using the self check out, couldn't work out my money for the bus and tripped over my own feet. Also Cheltenham Costas failed at having GF savoury and I had to have cake for lunch :/

So it is all good which is why I am uber frustrated at not moving forward more quickly but I am trying to be ok with it all. Also the thing of the only things I can eat safely being cake when out is an issue as I've buggered up my sugar levels and need to sort that out too as that wont be helping ANYTHING.

Conclusion: things are improving, things have already improved pretty damn drastically but there is still a long slow path ahead and it is like picking up pieces of myself that I did not know were lost.