The Blank Doll (by sarah)

I have wondered about sharing this before but it is a silly memory really... it's about a rag doll, sort of, not a mookie made from scraps of old cloths and not a rag doll like my Jack and Jill/Gamima - no this was another sort.

It was stuffed with sand, made of a coarsish cotton but not hessian, it was off white or at least that's how it started. It was never a fine linen. It ended up frayed, and mottled, I think it maybe in this house if not possibly still at my parents.

I sadly lost the accompanying bag long long ago, it was filled with amulets or totems or my treasures - fossil shell, pink iridescent turtle bead, blue plastic mermaid, a red stone, an acorn cup stains with a circle of elderberry juice from the school field - you get the idea. The doll would nestle in these things and I'd carry the bag around.

My nan gave it to me, my nan made it, I was being bullied... badly, I'd been very ill... very (as in blood transfusion going wrong), and so on... one nan tried to stop the nightmares with lavender; the other gave me the blank doll. It had a circular head and segmented arms and legs, a shapeless, featureless thing.

"It can be anybody you want it to be" she told me. It had no eyes, no mouth, no nose - nothing. It scared me, it was a vulnerable, powerful thing. It was mine, it belonged to no one but itself. It was kind of flat and 2D.

It was me, it was my enemy, it was everyone, or so I decided. If it could be anyone then why not everyone... and so I cared for it and looked after it and put it in the bag of things that were special. In the way of a powerless child as all children are - I attempted to make the world a better place.

Using a blank doll my nan had made me. Sometimes I sprayed it with lavender so it would not have nightmares or be eaten by monsters or I got lucky heather from the gypsies in Romford Market - they would never let me pay for it, those ladies in their black long skirts and crinkled eyes.

The Blank Doll who had no other name seemed to move about - a quirk of memory or childhood or both - it was rarely where I'd left it. But I lived no horror movie, there were no blood stains, only coffee splotches turning it a brown in places. It yellowed with age. I did not draw on it, to do so would have somehow defined it, imprisoned it, make it something and nothing rather than nothing and everything.

It scares me and I love it. The Blank Doll filled with sand that my nan gave me.

When I was sick with Jean's pregnancy a lady in at the same time asked me if I believed in voodoo, I hesitated and I could not answer - she thought I was maybe the victim of voodoo, with the problems I was having, she had many scary stories of women over Ilford way having their unborns stolen from their bellies. I thought of my blank doll, I think my dad found it for me - and I felt better, it's hard to admit with the science background but when I am emotionally stressed I fall back on the old superstitions and the comforts and so if there was voodoo I had my blank doll and it could be counteracted because my blank doll is me, it is my enemy, it is everybody and I love it and I care for it and that is a shield and a net.

I told you it was silly, just a little memory that got sparked by something today and I thought... I should share this before I lose it again.

Colouring Book Poll (by sarah)

Obviously I have only just launched A Stranger Dream: Love a non-linear visual poem as a colouring book but... well people have been asking about other books - now I have a long list of other potentials but thought I'd see what people want

Trying to decide what type of ink style colouring in book to draw next - so here's a poll! tweet me "other" too

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 6, 2016

Yes it's on twitter - I'm not quiet sure how this works but if you can't click the options on there then just comment Also I am happy to consider other suggestions

Thanks muchly

Bathroom Laws (by sarah)

I've been thinking about the bathroom law thingy in the US and I'm starting to think I actually wont be able to visit the US because as any who's known me for a while will know... I kind of sometimes end up in the mens loos - mainly due to being completely ditzy. We've tracked it down to the signs - it doesn't happen when there are written signs but does when there are the figures - I have to stop and think - I tend to not wear skirts. This started at nursery/pre-school because I remember getting into trouble over it and my little friend giving me a scooter and informing me it could be my willy so there wasn't a problem - it was the 80's I wore dungerees, my infant school had no uniform so skirts outside of party dresses came late though my track suits were often "girly".

I still get teased by family because I would cry as I didn't have tail-all (penis - I thought it was a tail you weed out of).

Roll forward to sixth form college where I spent a whole term using the boys toilets to be fair this is because I thought they were unisex loos because that made sense to me. University being male heavy had more boys loos than girls... car workshops had one loo for everyone which was frustratingly why I wasn't allowed to go and have work experience there because I'd have to share a loo with guys :/

There are countless examples the most recent being a pub here in Gloucester - I spent an entire arts festival using the guys loos without realising - everyone thought it was hilarious. And now because they are wedged in my mind as the loos to use I wonder in every flipping time I go to that pub... "oh I'm in the wrong loos again!" and general then turn and trip over the doorway step thing straight into confused looking drunk guy who then panic and check they are going in the right loos.

Of course having been a cleaner and a steward doesn't help - you shout you are going in and then you go in - to ALL bathrooms/toilets and you clean them or restrain the attacker or help the sick person depending. I'm kind of notorious for this now. But from what I understand this is now a crime in the US?

I don't really understand why - they are saying it's to stop attacks on girls?!

But as you may have caught above I have stewarded a lot of events and venues, I have been clubbing and...

a) as a teen/early 20's person I and my friends got barred from a series of clubs because the staff had a sex assault thing going on, they didn't care what loo was what - they drugged drinks and then followed the girls into the loos - we stopped this happening to one of us and had the audacity to call the police and take it further - bathroom laws are not going to protect from that, nor being dragged into a bathroom at random (in this case a female (me) being dragged into a college toilet people saw it happen so came and stopped what ever was about to happen however my left arm didn't like being squeezed so hard and took 3 months to heal)

b) most of the responses to the panic alarm I attended as staff where women attacking women, a few where men being the victims of sexual assualt and yes they were put in to stop rapes (as in unofficially they were called the rape alarms) but mainly we broke up fights and did first aid on drunk people who'd passed out and hit their head on the sink.

c) I've been told women wont be able to ask for period help if there are people who were born men in the bathroom... ???? you see this really makes no sense to me as someone who has had many many "womens problems" with bleeding etc... I will ask the nearest avalible person for help reguardless of gender.

One of the things working at the campsite taught me was that boys have period stuff mostly hidden from them - they are scared of it, it is foo, it is DARK MARGIC... the campsite was brilliant with this sort of thing and stamped out any notion of sani-bin emptying being a women only job, infact everyone had to clean everything and yes this means I was scrubbing urinals and clearing the poo-bergs but it also meant the boys had to empty-sani bins, deal with messes left by 8-18 yr old girls being caught out by their first periods whilst staying with us ie blood covered climbing harnesses, ruined matraces in the sleeping dorms, little girls complaining of stomach cramps.

And that's the way it should be, they in the most part have mothers and sisters and quiet a lot will end up with daughters and wives and... well ok transwomen do not have wombs so can't bleed but you know med tech is moving on and that is only a matter of time and even if they don't go for body alteration/modification/transition... where is the problem? Humans have this thing called empathy, humans help other humans out when they are in distress.

Menstruation is just one more thing used by society to make women feel dirty and isolated so breaking down that barrier is a good thing. Personally due to queuing etc... I would get rid of toilet gender completely, in fact when I was having gut issues the clinic told me... "if theres a cue for the women's use the disabled loo if there is no disabled loo just use the mens. Better that than pooing myself in public - I mean you weigh that one up and see what you would do!!!

So yeah America - I want to come and visit you and see your fab cities but I'm kind of concerned I'll get arrested for accidently wondering into the wrong loos.

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.