Screnzy, Poetry, Comics and Science (by sarah)

A new month has snuck up and begun on me - this sadly means I missed a couple of deadlines for poems and stories and that, that I wanted to submit. But it also means I am in a month of exciting challenges.

Number one is Screnzy or Script Frenzy which is a spin off of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the idea is that you write a 100 page script in a month. I have been focusing on comic book or graphic novel scripts and so that is what I will be focusing on again this year. You can follow the progress more closely on Purple Monster. I will also be doing the script for my puppet show, which is part of my course work - I basically plan to spend 30 hours working on these types of project - priority has to go to my Ada Lovelace script as I have a deadline at the end of the month. (Ada is the science part! and has drawings to go with! Though I may also be running some science camp activities over Easter).

Number two is NaPoWrimo, this is another poetry writing challenge - again the idea is that you write a poem a day but I plan to spend 30 hours on poetry stuff in general this month. You can follow the progress of this on Turquoise Monster.

Number three is that I hope to release The Little Book of Easter Poetry audio for download - I will probably rope this in with the NaPo stuff. I also want to do some work on my game design stuff but I will have to see how things go especially as I am starting the month off event managing and comparing at the Jordans Cheltenham Poetry Festival 🙂

Identifying, Identity and stuff (by sarah)

(found amongst "drafts" and backblogged to the date last edited)

Due to stuff I have been studying, to help with inclusion and the broader reach of say Science Communication, I have been thinking. Who do I identify with?

This is interesting for me as during a debate with a poetry friend I discovered that other people have these groups they feel part of and those groups give them a sense of identity. I do not have this; there are groups I dip in and out of, that if I really tried I suppose I could become properly a part of. But often that seems to be a trade off, i.e. losing the other parts or ignoring them or pretending they don't exist.

I am a mishmash, there is no culture or identity for me, other than that that I make my own. I can pass for white middle class but, in honesty, not very well. I have the resources of the middle class and am sort of shell shocked to find myself in such a position, but attitude and behaviour can be vastly different.

When I left school I thought I'd left pettiness behind, such as people cutting your clothes with scissors as they are 'pikey' cloths, or setting your hair on fire as you've obviously stolen it from someone with darker skin, or having stones thrown at you for being a witch and a bible basher, or having your school bag nicked repeatedly so people could copy your homework and get better marks than you because they can spell and on and on. But it doesn't actually go away, as an adult I have had comments about my diction, my clothing, my hair, my childrens' hair (one incident 'do you not brush that child's hair? She looks like a ghost golliwog' (Jean's toddler curls are now gone - something she is sad about)).

I am 'white' for those who don't read the blog lots, I am in fact PALE as a pallid thing, I do however increasingly have a problem with my skin pigment trying to change and patches of skin are dark, they are mostly hidden and are the reason that I stopped wearing bikinis as a teen. It would be fine if all of me was that colour but I am not, so they look like dirty patches or like I haven't washed - I remember this being a real issue with my neck which is a slightly darker pigment, people would scrub it for me but it would never get 'clean'. Just to confuse things further I also have a skin condition/infection that acts up when I'm stressed that leaves red/brown/white brown patches on my skin and some of them are more visible especially on my arms - the difference is marked as they go scaly and itchy.

Of course if I had the figure I had as a teenager I so would wear a bikini, I don't now as I am Miss Mummy Tummy and that is a whole new identity crisis for me (or not that new as it's pretty much been the case since I had Jeany at the age of 24 and am now 33).

Interestingly I realised the reason I wasn't getting the anger over micro-aggression and stuff was because I myself had filtered it out. It just is the way things are... I still think that the correction/adaption/change is being gone about in the wrong way and being aggressive back rather than leading by example or reasonable debate and talking (What I call opening the dialogue) - obviously open aggression is another issue. There is also the thing of people getting offended on other people's behalf, there is standing up for people and then there is a patronising them in assuming they can't deal with it themselves but on the other hand calling insidious stuff out is important too. It is a huge minefield and, my policy is to treat every one like human beings.

I am in danger of derailing the post into other matters!

What I am really wondering is if other people feel this way, I have always got the impression that other people seem to feel like they're part of one group or another.

As a child people would always comment and play with my hair, even within my own family it is unusual though it is on both sides - the genetics of curly hair is still a bit confused, it is supposed to be dominant with straight hair as the recessive but people with wavy hair can have a child with full blown curls etc...and they haven't actually isolated the genes that cause it yet! Also populations with curly hair range from 'celts' to 'afro' to 'hawaiian' etc... I remember my mum's friend having to show her how to sort my hair out as brushing it was becoming a nightmare, mainly the solution was me nicking my Nan's special comb and getting leave in conditioner and not actually 'brushing' the hair except with the conditioner in etc. It is not the tight tight curl/frizz though bits of it are and if put in micro braids/dreads it stays there with now hair bands etc...

I brush it out most of the time and still get comments on my curly hair 🙂 I love my hair by the way even if it is a pain. I get called pre-raphaelite, get asked if I'm from Hawaii, get people approach me and on one occasion shouting at me for denying my heritage (what ever that is supposed to be), I had an old man in Bruge cry and say (via his curly haired daughter) that the Nazi's took all the curly haired people away when he was young. Is curly hair actually that unusual?

I find the reception differs drastically on the colour I dye it as well, so:

red = celtic
black = gypsy, Italian, Jewish and in one case arab
blonde = assumed perm? or celtic or Hawaiian (though I was asked why I had bleached my hair)
brown (natural colour though it has obvious other colours in it (all of the above) - I don't like the mash up hence the dying) = South African, Hawaiian, Australian, celtic, pre-raphaelite
Multi coloured pink, blue, purple = hippy, artist, druggy, scrounger

I have used the words that were used to me.

Do other curly haired people suffer from this? I know my accent gets confused too - it is ESSEX! Ok so I am social chameleon and accidentaly pick up inflections so there is a bit of South Ken (BBC English) and some words apparently now have a Gloucestershire twang to them especially if they are directed to the children, I also say some things with an Australian accent - blame my Dad, he was always saying stuff he'd picked up there in an accent. Also my spine is a dynamic spine (afro-carribean) and not the European (static) spine so maybe I just look odd?

I spent a lot of last night thinking about this which is stupid as it doesn't really matter, or rather shouldn't matter, mainly due to comments yesterday as I hadn't bothered to straighten my hair. They were complimentary and lovely, it just struck me as a thing after some of the accessibility lectures and debates I've seen going on recently.

There are silly things as well, like I never realised I wasn't a 'typical English Beauty' until several of the girls where marked as such on our undergraduate course. I remember feeling left out as everyone else was classified as various types (including dusky and pale etc...). And that is really stupid! But this post is about identity and indentifying and really a matter of belonging. I didn't belong to any of those groups - not that I really wanted to, but we are back to the school playground exclusion and being picked last for PE, aren't we? (To be fair I was later classified as 'natural, wild and classical' but sort when it was realised I'd been left out - this was girls talking about girls by the way.

So then I got on to thinking - well who do I identify with then?

Being a story writer and performer myself I of course turn to fiction and it has been a long time coming but of course there is Merida from Brave with her lovely curly red hair (I have waited so long for a curly haired animation!) and her tomboyish nature, then there is Diana Troy from Star Trek the Next Generation who is empathic and gentle, there is Saffy from Ab Fab who is the geeky science girl (and my nick name/twitter handle) and then there is Kaylee from Firefly - she is the only one without curly hair I note.

The others are male characters - mainly Sherlock and Sheldon (from The Big Bang Theory). I like Hermione but more in the books, her hair just was not frizzy enough in the films 😉

A lot of this stuff does come down to respecting people and not assuming stuff about them due to their looks etc...

Still wondering how rare curly hair is and what reactions others get. I asked Al and a couple of others if they had people randomly ask them in the street about their origin or ancestry and for Al it is only ever an issue if he is introduced as Alaric.

A Special Kind of Stupid (by sarah)

So I have basically failed my course due to a stupid stupid mistake. After being so proud of not submitting right at the deadline, it turns out I submitted the wrong file - W00t go me - and of course UWE is really strict about deadlines so I can't just submit the correct file now. It was the last piece of course work for the module as well.

Issues were three fold 1) I had made a file naming system to nest all my UWE stuff which unfortunately meant that the file names where really similar and next to each other, b) I am dyslexic so my brain saw it as the correct file, c) I had little Mary on my lap snugging whilst I was trying to submit.

It is completely my fault but at the same time I feel that if I had been able to just submit old school and had a sheath of paper in at the office, the mistakes here and the issues with the files I had with the previous lot of course work, would not have been issues. Electronic submission is great especially for distance learners etc... but for me it means there are more potential mistakes to make.

So it looks like I am on for a resit and being very angry with myself. It is such a typically me thing to do - like ending up on the train to the wrong city or getting lost in a one road village. How is it that I produce prize winning work and have a zillion ideas and understand stuff that others think is too complex and yet I leave the house with my jumper inside out?

If I didn't know the damage it would do, I'd be banging my head on the brick wall right now!

GRRRRRRRRRRR - I am an IDIOT!

On the other hand I am now comparing some events at The Cheltenham Poetry Festival and I drew / wrote / created this and lot of other stuff last night.

Domestic Sunday (by sarah)

When we are not away doing events, we are trying to have a whole day focused just on domestic stuff. In reality I am often slopping off to catch up on work I can't do with small people around me but I still aim to spend at least the morning on domestic stuff with my family.

So today we did some house tidying that needed doing, sorted the chickens and rabbit out, fixed some door handles and I got stuff ready for the allotment. In the end when we saw how time was going it was decide that Alaric would not take the seedlings I've been growing or the fizzy drinks bottles to turn into mini green houses, as I needed to get some work done. So he just dug the plot and planted the marigold seeds in the tyre with the girls (I say just but that is huge work). And tomorrow after school I shall go down there with Jean and my dad and plant things.

Alaric took eggs to his aunt and attempted to sort her printer out and the girls came back with play dough and a pick nick hamper, which they love!

I mean while sat and drew pencil sketches with construction lines - female manga heads and worked on my comic book. The comic book and my last assignment for college mean I need to remember how to draw and illustrate. So I am steadily working my way through my how to draw books. I think there is a marked improvement from the line drawings I did earlier in the week.

People interested in the design and/or creative process, I am using the Complete Book of Drawing Manga at the moment but have a stack of other drawing books and more in depth updates will be happening on Purple Monster.

In the evening Alaric cooked a wonderful stir fry - though sadly we couldn't use the funky sauce he had bought as Jean noticed the ingredients included the chillies that kill me and fish sauce, meaning it wasn't veggi for Al 🙁

On the other hand, him and Jeany made cinnamon swirls which we ate warm and drizzled 😀

Sometimes I hate being a Jack (by sarah)

Jack of all trades... master of none.

Over the last two weeks I have been booked for four festivals and half a dozen workshops, I have submitted articles about science, created a little hand drawn poetry book, created a new raft of upcycling projects, been asked to perform, knitted a sparkly bag, and have started work on the art for a comic book I wrote about about 4 yrs ago. I have also written poems, flash fictions, posts on gardening and taken photos of things, harvested potatoes and sold a few boxes of hens eggs and so on.

As great and as wonderful as all this is, I ran out of money last Wednesday as I hadn't noticed it was half way through March and I had not checked if invoices had been paid etc.... I was 40p short for my lunch - they were lovely and let me off. It has also resulted in another booking which is always a good thing but...

I do a hell of a lot of stuff but it is so diffused! If I could focus on one of these things, I would get a profile for that thing but I can't - so for the festivals I am being a performer, events manager, photographer, craft and/or writing or science workshop leader and the writing and craft look the same. I have pictures of kidneys next to pastel rabbits upstairs next too abstracts, I have poems about war and politics and kids books and on and on and on and sometimes I can't think for it all.

It is fun and wonderful to be able to do all this stuff and in some cases to be able to mash it all together and come out with something that is amazing but... I am not brilliant at any of it. I am ok or good at it all (except the guitar playing and singing which I am naff at but do anyway). I know I have moaned about this all before but sometimes it feels like I will never achieve anything because I am doing everything.

The solution is obvious and one that just is not viable for me. I can't give up things because they are not just activities that I do but they are aspects of me. I know some people love the fact I do all of this stuff and it appears in blog posts like this one. But most people are interested in only one aspect of what I do and all the other stuff is annoying noise, risking them being turned away or not seeing the stuff they find relevant.

It is one of the reasons I've ended up with so many blogs - trying to split it out for other people. The issue is really that I don't have a brand or thing to be know for other than say - being the person who can pull some solution out of the hat for an event in crisis etc... That isn't actually that useful a trait as obvious the event will not be telling people they where in crisis so it only works if I've saved the bacon for them in the past and they need something again.

These musings coincide with a confidence crash - last week I was all like - hell! I am MASTER of ALL, but this week I am attempting to remember how to draw characters and am struggling. I know I am capable but I'm not happy with the pictures I've been working on for my college project - and I am also working on the comic book and really want both pieces of work to be fantastic. But I can't even stick to one style of drawing :/ I am surrounded by how to draw books which I am flitting through, drawing bits and bobs. I have an idea of what my projects need to look like and no one else seems to draw in that way but I need to see how to shift the bodies I've designed around, how to map the features to different positions and expressions and it is an incredible amount of work

IF... I had spent all the time since my GCSE's working on my art skills then perhaps I would be of a level I would feel happy about (rather than wondering if I can get the computer to map textures for me and taking swaths of fabric the 'move' in the right way).

I also got the marks back for my science writing and got a good/ok mark and am so angry with myself as there was stupid stuff like - I cut the excess 250 words from a 3000 word assignment and the feed back was that that stuff should have been in there - and then I find out that there is a 10% buffer meaning that I didn't have to cut those words at all and I spent a DAY on that. Missing simple things like that and not having had the time to get it in for a check before submission are stupidnesses and just so typical of me ( *coughs tax returns ).

But at the same time I can see that it is finally all starting to fuse together and be something. All the art, craft, science, environmentalism, music, writing - it is a dirty snow ball that is causing a career avalanche. Part of the issue is I am trying to up my game again - I seem to be doing this every two years at the moment. And the dam goal posts keep shifting - like I thought I would have "made it" poetically when I had performed at the Cheltenham Lit Festival but I've done that and there are other things I have my sights set on now. The fact I once thought there was a "made it" line you could cross makes me laugh now as it just isn't that way - once I thought completing my degree was "making it".

And so the goals keep shifting - I think the main issue for me at the moment is the pain, it is a low level but is niggling away but I can do things so I am trying to ignore it. Muscle fatigue has been interesting this week including not being able to get myself out of bed but again it has been alot worse - however I am avoiding going to the Drs as last 2 times I've been this close to completing post grad stuff, I have gone in with what I thought was minor things, only to end up with stays in hospital and no completion. Also the stronger pain killers stop me thinking and that is the last thing I want at the moment.

I think I just need to remember that ADHD is the Polymath Dream.