This is the poll I posted to twitter - and here are the options of the slightly more in depth one that I posted to Facebook:
The Beginning/Deep Time
Present Day
Space/Interstellar
The Beginning of Human History
Upload/VR/Singularity
Post Apocalyptic Near Future
Pretty much I've had equal votes for everything plus some pointers on what individuals like ie no excessive flash backs/forwards and no huge storyline dumps etc...
The plan is that in 2019 I will begin rolling out the edited finished versions of stuff in The Punk's Universe for the reader... but I don't know where to begin the story for the reader. There is a hell of a lot of stuff written which I am currently editing and finishing and re-writing and in some cases still desperately researching.
2019 will mark the 10 year anniversary of me starting my first NaNoWriMo - a month long writing challenge. I have taken part in all the writing challenges I possible could since and most of those have been set in the same universe. Initially I thought it was a sci-fi version of the scififantasy story I'd been writing and world building since I was 13. Then I realised that no - it was in fact the same universe and the "magic" was all just the nanotech and the like. It was a pretty strong contender for scifi to begin with because I fail at sustained fantasy worlds ie I can manage maybe a short story and then scifi will start creeping in.
Anyway the issue is that there are 100, 000's of words written and about a 1000 pages of comic book scripted in the universe and only a few short stories of it are out there and this needs to be rectified!
Seriously I have now been writing this for what 2/3rds of my life?
So yeah - ideas, feedback etc... would be useful 🙂
This is tonight - me and a host of other poets who happen to have a connection to Gloucester will be performing at St Mary's DeCrypt in Gloucester. The building is ancient and being restored - I'm really looking forward to seeing inside it actually 🙂
It is being compered by the wonderful poet and comedian Angie Blecher. It's gearing up to be a cracking night of poetics and fun 🙂
Do to the heat I am letting the chickens roam around the garden meaning that they come to see us when ever we are in the garden or stupid enough to leave the kitchen door open. Jean has declared I am an embarrassing parent for calling them Dinosaurs - especially when I do so on social media - parenting achievement UNLOCKED!
Today is the Solstice - it is also a heat wave here in the UK - my attic was getting up to the 40's when I realised that the heater I have up there is the aircon unit we got when I was pregnant with Jean and couldn't breath properly etc... so that went on complete with pipe to the outside - it got the temp down to high 20's when I switched it off this evening - cooling the attic is important as it is a) my art studio and b) it will have a knock on effect with the rest of the house.
I am warm enough - starting to get a bit too warm - mainly worried about kids, cats and chooks!
Means I get to sit in the garden and draw and read and write - re-reading Women in Roman Britain at the moment which I read nearly 20 years ago for my Classical Civilisations A'level course work. I also made myself iced coffee with decaf filter, coconut milk and sugar free dark choc syrup. It tasted pretty good to me 🙂
Writing little snippets of story ideas for The Punks Universe and a kids story and researching the Middle East via podcasts and documentaries.
Jean got to Scouts, Mary had a bath, I cut down and pulled up stinging nettles - remembered to feed everyone - so winning at life.
I found this podcast which explores the refugee crisis etc... through poetry and musical expression. It contains an amazingly beautiful and sad Wade in the Water which has been cleverly adapted. For those of you who don't know the history of Wade in the Wader it was part of the Slave/Freedom Train in the US before the full abolition of slavery (and in some cases even after it). It was a sung code as were a few other songs.
This is something else that has been breaking my heart over the last few years - when we were trying to adopt (on hold now due to head injury) I felt I was doing something to help because we'd been told that refugee kids were the largest group and I don't care where a child comes from a child is a child and I just want to keep as many safe as possible weather from here or abroad. But obviously that didn't happen and now I sit in my house with spare rooms... and all any one tells me is that it would have been dangerous for my kids :/
I wonder if the households that took in the evacuees and the jewish kids in the second world war had the same sort of issues?
A few years ago Neil Gaiman made this video whilst visiting a refugee camp and highlighted the efforts that are being made and also the plight. He like many in the UK is descended in one branch of his family from refugees - pretty much anyone is going to find foriegn links if they actually bother to look and investigate and just ask. Many families have tended to keep that sort of ancestory secret but not all.
You can read his write up about here on the UN Refugee Agency website.
Currently I am putting together some more political poetry pamphlets/zines just my poetry at the moment - within which I have a few poems about refugees. This one is called The Journey and shamefully I can not even remember which group or news report it is about because there have been so many - so many little bodies and big bodies and just people - washed up along the shores - lives gone and wasted.
A Journey
The journey was across the water
And was flimsy with grief
The crowds swarmed
Desperation palatable
In the tang of stale sweat
Grey waters ebbed to black
Hiding those who could not make it
Or were Unwanted
Thrown to the cold placid stillness
Breath gone
Bodies bloated and rotting
Effluent choked to the fish
So they could no longer
Nibble the corpses
And still the people came
Fleeing, frightened
Seeking sanctuary
That so many of them
Would never reach
The waters filmed with grief
.....
Years ago now I remember sitting in the Wilson Museum and Art Gallery at an event where the guest poet was a refugee - I wish I could remember the mans name - he was seeking asylum at the time - in many places poetry is outlawed, poets especially political poets are actually risking their lives for something that gets seen as "a bit prissy" in this country.
I think that for next year I will try and get the Gloucester Poetry Society to organise an event.
Sat 22nd Jul 2017 8:09 am | 
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