Glory Fiction

Creating Into The Void Of My Own Indifference to Fit In

  • ViktoriaMaliar
    Art By Viktoria Malliar

    I am naturally an extrovert. I thrive around people, being social, being active, interacting and engaging with my surroundings and all that surrounds me!

    I love to host, I love to bring people out of their shells, I love to be the first one on the dance floor, sharing my creativity and inspiring others to do the same. I love to hear what other people are passionate about – honestly I don’t think there is a subject on this earth that could bore me if the person sharing it was passionate!

    I’ve always just loved bringing that kind of excitement out in a person, the kind that only comes when someone really gets or shows an interest and gives you their attention like you and what you love are actually worth something!

    Too often, I feel, that is overlooked. We are either trying too hard too get it noticed by the “right people” that we don’t think to just share it naturally, OR we are too scared of sharing it with the “wrong people” and being mocked or made to feel embarrassed or ashamed of what we love most that we just don’t share it at all.

    Perfection must come before engagement. One must be an expert before they decide to display their craft for fear of being caught out.

    Me I have many an interest in many a thing – and did I mention that I am just a naturally passionate person, I know, I know, what a surprise! – yet I do not claim to be an expert on much. I’m just a derp finding her kind of enjoyment in the things that make her giddy and filled up with the good stuff!

    I love music yet I would never claim to be an expert on it or any one I listen to for that matter! I’m not nor have I ever been one of those kinds of fans that has to know and follow everything. I’ve never been particularly obsessive when it comes to that type of thing – my OCD’s come out it other ways – but hey god bless that kind of applied knowledge! It’s just not in my own genetic makeup! I prefer to listen and let inspire. I prefer to paint my own inspired portrait of theme. I like music because it stirs something inside of me, and I don’t necessarily want to disrupt that feeling with the knowledge of its reality. I respect the musicians and their stories and inspiration, just like I would want any reader of my work to respect me and mine, but I think we put our art out to invoke reaction and feeling, to be interpreted by the consumer from a personal perspective outside of our own intention.

    The most important thing as a creator is that your work is inspiring something outside of yourself. It’s touching something inside those who experience it and that’s more important than exact conception…at least I think so.

    It’s fun hearing differentiating observations and interpretations from a multitude of varying perspectives. It’s fun to debate meaning and challenge your own point of view with another’s.

    I mean I’m a pretty perceptive person but there are times when someone catches something that managed to go over my head and changes the trajectory of a theory completely!

    This is what creates community among fans and generate even more creativity. Part of why I love to write is because I want to inspire that kind of unorthodox thinking, to set a spark and see what kind of fire it ignites in another. To challenge conventional thought and motivate others to do the same, to take it a step further, to spin their own conspiracies, suppositions, and speculations.

    When I have anyone reads my work what I want them to come back with is observation and opinion. What did it make you think? How did it make you feel? Not only because yes you want the general sentiment of what you were going for with a scene to come through – I mean who wants a tragic scene to come off as a tragedy? This either tells you something about your writing or your reading and neither interpretation would be particularly warming…- but you also want to see what else it generates within the readers own imagination, how it resonates and reflects to them.

    Let’s face it we all come from a place of personal. All we really have to go on is our own experience, our own intuition, memory, reactions, feeling, perspective, etc. It’s true that some are more intuitive then others and better able to read and gauge another’s personal response, but it is still based in the cerebral self. We can never truly know what sad feels like to another, what invokes that particular reaction for them, what other emotions its provocation might stir within.

    Therefore every new reader is a new impact to be made. A new way for your work to inspire, to engage, and be considered.

    When creating you are reaching out and touching more than a whole, more than a sum, you are touching individuals, and each and every one has their own story to tell through the invocation of yours!

    So never underestimate the power of your own impression and before throwing the age old artist tantrum of “they just don’t get me!” take the time to listen for one persons seemingly wayward interpretation of your work, their out there theory, or roundabout translation may prove to be the most flattering reciprocation your work could hope to influence because when passion begets passion magic happens and your creative world begins to expand.

    Creativity is bigger then the creator, we are just vessels meant to carry a message to inspire and to generate more creativity. To bring play and imagination into lives that would have us forget. That’s why our hearts bleed to tell the stories through the medium best suited to our desires. Because we were once inspired too, something touched our hearts and minds with meaning we alone decided to translate into our own.

    Creativity isn’t meant to exist alone. Isn’t meant to be controlled. It is to expand, to reach out, and build. It is passion personified.

    It is me, it is you, and ever always in the eye of the beholder to carry on.

     

  • Throwback Post Pick

    Throwback Post Pick is a weekly feature where I fling open the vaults of past works – no matter the naivete they reflect – and revel in the making of progress! So come, TBT with me!

    Time is a hard thing to grasp when living in the human now. Fate is not a linear concept, what is perfect for you on the whole might be hard to accept in the immediate now.

    We want success, we want love, we want happiness, and we want it all now. Desire should be enough, any effort given should be enough, we should be enough, and will use accomplishment to measure this concepts. So if the wishes remain unanswered we begin to believe that all is for not. Dreams dry up, we begin to run on empty and stop.

    Something must be out to get us. We must have done something wrong. Must be a bad person, not doing enough, not good enough, wrong, a failure, etc.

    We use time to measure our worth and feed self doubt, doubt in faith, in meaning, and what we hold dear.

    I myself have fallen victim to wanting something so much, loving something so much, knowing exactly what my purpose was, yet as time passed without seeing its fruition allowing disappointment to fuel insecurity and insecurity feed defeat and hopelessness.

    Me, the eternal optimist. I allowed convention and what I thought should be to reflect upon my self-worth and what I loved most in this world. I allowed it to stop me.

    I see now so much clearer, I know that nothing is out to get me, no invisible odds stacked against. I am not being left behind. I am forging my way on a path that is meant for me.

    Keeping on the theme of the week, change is inevitable in all things. Life goes on, keeps moving, time keeps ticking, and so many intrinsic details are being effortlessly put into place behind the scene to line up perfectly with what is meant for you and meant to be.

    We are on a journey and sometimes you think you’re ready before you actually are. We, like the seasons, have cycles that must come full circle before we can grow and move on to the next. It is so important to be present and to not fall victim to your own mindset. To not overly intellectualize what is meant to be felt.

    If you stop what is meant for you takes longer to get to you – trust me! It wasn’t the universe that made me stop, it was me thinking that I know better than what is meant to be.

    Flow with your seasons and show up for your dreams no matter their timetable, no matter the perceived notion of deadline. You can’t rush the process, you cannot rush mastery, so better to engage and keep partaking, growing, honing what makes you great.

     

    cora-sketch

    Change In Full Circle

    Still, Silent, Steady, Sound,

    Fallen, Frozen, Wanted, Found,

    A near by reject of all once held holy,

    Too close to let go,

    So forever am lonely.

    Wanting to pray,

    Scared of the failure,

    Of dreams once held sacred,

    Of hopes left unanswered.

    Changing of seasons,

    I see people forget,

    The flow of the motions,

    The changing sunset.

    For its natural,

    It’s ever been present.

    How solid the weather an eternal consent.

    Like the stars up above,

    Like burning hell fire,

    I see the selfish act of expectation and I wish to aspire.

    To thank for the little bits in each day,

    The rewards we are granted disguised as decay.

    What may seem dead in the moment can remind us of life.

    Can center a spirit and clear up a mind.

    The roses will blossom,

    Other flowers will bloom.

    It will all come full circle,

    Even us…if we chose.

    ~Glory Anna

     

    Charmaine Olivia is a wonderful artist! I particularly love her original wanderings in sketch. Plenty to enjoy and even shop here!

  • Writer’s Quote Wednesday is a weekly feature where I delve into famous writer’s words of wisdom and share how I have interpreted the meaning for my own creative endeavors to maybe help inspire yours!

    writerquotecharlesbukowski

     

    Understand me. I am not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.

    Nutshell. Me. This.

    Seriously though this Charles Bukowski quote resonates so deeply with me and my experience, not just as a writer but as an individual in general.

    We are all our own world’s floating in each other’s orbits to quick to judge substantial or lifeless based on assumed atmosphere. It can be so hard to find those who will truly immerse themselves in your world, to get to know the real you and the why and reasoning of your true and real point of view.

    Creatives have it harder in this career of subjection and almost instant opinion. People see with their eyes and judge with their minds our heart and soul. We put it out there to be so criticized but deep down hope that it will be at lease with as much feeling as went in.

    Emotional understanding could go such a long way in the world of art.

    I’m not saying we artist need to be coddled – far from it! – but it is important to at least try to gauge a considerate POV. By that I mean we cannot, and should not, always be coming from our soul perspective.

    We exist as individual’s among individuals and it is important to remember that what offends us isn’t always the case of intent. What makes us feel good may very well be another’s cup of poison.

    As I a talking about art in many forms I just can’t help myself from using the expression “different strokes”…;p

    I could write an entire dissertation on the importance of context…however I will spare you the annotated rant and, like a good edit, cut down to the meat.

    I can’t stand when people watch, read, interpret, and judge from sheer reaction. Yes it is great that said medium achieves such strong emotion – isn’t that what we artist are looking for to some extent? To move another with our art, to be able to invoke some type of emotional response? – but please, I implore you, save your complete decided sentiment for the end, or better yet why not take in the whole picture before you decide to disregard it completely based on a corner, one character, one reaction, deed, response, etc?

    I can’t say if people like watching things with me or not, because I’m always putting into perspective the bigger picture when they decide to go off because they hated the way someone acts. I can’t just sit idly by – even if I agree with not liking the character on the whole – I feel a responsibility to the creator to describe the motivation beyond the presented. To remind them of the necessity of certain plot points, arch’s, repercussions, and ripostes.

    A good case and point – as I just recently watched the original 1975 version – is the Stepford Wives. Now this novel and film are both presented as sci-fi/horror, that alone should indicate the speculative omen of content. I mean anyone who knows anything about sci-fi at all knows that they’re all really just cautionary tales about where the present leads the future if something does not change. It’s predominantly social commentary in fantastical settings and dubious circumstance.

    Yet feminists threw an umbrella at the director!

    How utterly ridiculous and tone deaf…and I say this as a loud and proud feminist! I mean if anything this movie was pro-feminism. It took toxic masculinity and exposed it for the  corrupt and pointless evil that it is. Is shoved sexism and that bullshit concept of what a women’s place is in the face of the viewer, but in the most brilliantly subtle of ways, but for the robots, it was all so relevantly normal. This was a necessary tactic for it allowed the theme to crawl under the skin of the viewer and make them uncomfortable because it was so easily recognizable as the norm, and maybe they were even guilty of perpetuating it themselves so they would have to look at that discomfort and change as not to become a proud member of the creep-o man club who’s goal in life is to make it with a sex doll who acts like their mommy.

    How could you not get that? I mean how could you by any stretch of the imagination and perceiving mind take any of this as condoning unequal gender roles? It real blows my mind that people base opinion on sheer reaction and rarely bother to take the time to understand the message beyond.

    We don’t create to be obvious but to push limits, to expose truths in artfully deceptive intrigues, subtle plotting, and conspiring subtext. This takes too much time and effort to have it be judged unfairly by a blatant folly or surface intent.

    If I could I would go around shaking people – however that is frowned upon – reminding them of the importance of context, subtext, and reading between the lines, and not just in art but everyday life!

    Rare is the person, the encounter, the exchange, or engagement that is exactly what it seems to you. Humans are vast pools of depth and feeling. We may try to train ourselves differently but we exist as creatures meant to feel. This is where art is so necessary because not every one knows how to naturally go there.

    Many don’t want to, don’t like plunging into the depths of there souls. Surface is safe, but I don’t think I have ever played it safe a day in my life.

    I go there and want to take other’s with me into my world, want to go there with them, into understanding theirs as well as my own, but not everybody likes that — even though I would never dream of pushing or forcing another to go where they were not comfortable just don’t expect me to wait for you for I refuse to hold my own self back.

    I am intense. I am passionate. I am a lot, but after all I am an artist. speculative

    Understand me. I am not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.

  • CharmaineOliviaartsunflower
    Sunflower by Charmaine Olivia

    With Monday came fall – though the stores would have one believe it’s time to herald in Christmas…I mean don’t get me wrong I love me some Christmas, but I also love me some Halloween.

    I love the atmospheric resonance of all things fall. The rainy days, the crunchy leaves, the vibrant last burst of life reaching peek. I love the haunting mood that’s invoked with the changing colors of all that abounds, not only in nature but in the heavens themselves as light casts different shadows, days getting shorter and darker.

    I love that it makes me think of Poe, of cigar smoke and rich libraries entrenched with old books and scents of ink, paper, and history.

    That with every ice laden breeze – the kind that cuts through the warmth the sun casts upon skin and into the very marrow of bone – comes a memory provoked of the last time I felt its spine tingling presence, of the best times.

    I think of windblown hair and plaids, leaden skies and all things lost.

    How stories, following the same course of nature and life, create a cycle, a beginning, middle, and end to all things and themes presented. Not always in the form of farewells and fallen bits, but in growth, set backs, change, and meaning. Every living thing is born for the purpose of continuing life yet each adds its unique interpretation of the same cycle given.

    There are no real differences to be had when it comes to individual purpose, we are very much equal in our presence reasoning. That reasoning being to continue, how we choose to move it forward is wherein lies the interest.

    Seasons are constant, life repeats, but in finite variations. What on the surface appears the same deserves dissection and inspection. There is no such thing as ordinary, just a lazy mind. Intricacies exist in the every day, in what some may deem “ordinary” and “normal.” In every action and reaction, however minute or outrageous, lie a billion differences.

    That’s why observation is one of the most pivotal skills in a writer’s arsenal. It’s important to see the wide range of diverse psychologies out there, but also to be able to in some form or other experience them to a point. To be able to transport themselves into a feeling, a moment, and state of being.

    Daydreams lead me to create new worlds, to think in new ways, and challenge the capacity of my emotions.

    What does it feel like to watch as the the home you’ve always known fades into the background of lands horizon? To live without the love of your life, the love who’s loss you alone were responsible for? What made you love, hate, betray, corrupt?

    What does if feel like to be the loveless, the scorned, the damned, or devilishly triumphant? To be the hero, the villain, the loser, the dying or dead?

    To me there is nothing better then to embrace the changes in the world around me and use each – the subtle and profound – to inspire a scene, a feeling, a memory or anything else that you can use to influence the depths of your characters, their worlds, and motivations.

    I love to put myself in a moment and allow my importuning senses to tell me a story. To add substance to every look I describe, every movement I detail, or desire I relate.

    They tell you to write what you know so I say why not use the world, the seasons, every smell, and sensation to help get to know what you write?

  • Throwback Post Pick

    Throwback Post Pick is a weekly feature where I fling open the vaults of past works – no matter the naivete they reflect – and revel in the making of progress! So come, TBT with me!

    This old post is one that I did back in 2016 on International Women’s Day. I was inspired by the artist’s (Daphne Oude Geerdink) own reason’s for making the piece –

    The definition of the soul is something different for everybody, I think. I’m fascinated by it and that’s why I wanted to make this. It’s your soul that makes you, you. Not your body or your pretty face.

    When it comes to things like gender etc. I always take the status of equality. We are all equal. It is our actions, not our organs that define who and what we are. That, not organs, is who we fall in love with. What defines our strength and our character. Individuals. Souls. Humanity.

    I don’t stand for prejudgment of any kind. Stereotypes sicken me, and the fact that we are a society being programmed to lead with this kind of bias has never sat well. I will always stand up for the right to be you and prove before any kind of discriminatory opinion can be formed.

    You cannot say you know before you encounter based on any physical or sociology-economical standards. “Standard” is just subconcious propaganda manipulating people into what they should think is better/best anyway.  Form your own impression not based on assumption but the human experience. Not what society deems as conventional but through your own involvement.

    I form my own opinion through being open to all things, people, situations no matter their standing reputation as one thing or another. I don’t condemn or condone before I have experienced first hand.

    We would all do better to lead as an example for what our own insecurities, doubts, fears, etc would want and need if roles were reversed, because if popular belief has shown us anything it’s that we change on a dime and tomorrow the minority might just very well be you.

    Would you want a chance to speak for yourself? Compassion? Understanding? Or would you want every interaction and precognition to be based on an manipulated assumption of who you are and how shit will turn out/go down?

    Just think about it and activate the only thing we can on – humanity.

     

    Daphne Oude Geerdrink
    Art by Daphne Oude Geerdink

    Humanity’s Equal

    Strength has found her,

    Where sorrow betrayed,

    The end of conformity,

    In the land of the brave.

    I stand on my own,

    In a room full of men,

    Distinguished and proud,

    On the wings of my kin.

    I know I am ready,

    That it’s time to stand up,

    Stop trying for something,

    Which I never quite got.

    So I’ll do this for me,

    For I know that I’m ready,

    Screw history,

    Screw slow and steady.

    We all come from the same beginning,

    From something begot from the passions of plenty.

    From warmth and from nature,

    From that meeting of powers,

    So standing here with you makes me not want to cower.

    There is nothing between us that defines our cells.

    DNA is but a part of the atoms of self.

    So let be what is,

    For I’m willing to change,

    To dive into the depths of something you think still so strange.

    Mighty and strong for I am who I am,

    Breaking the bonds of that sex organ scam,

    To be something that surpasses the boundaries of just women or man.

    ~Glory Anna

     

  • Writer’s Quote Wednesday is a weekly feature where I delve into famous writer’s words of wisdom and share how I have interpreted the meaning for my own creative endeavors to maybe help inspire yours!

     

    image urlWritersquoteAnneLamott

     

    Very Few writer’s really know what they’re doing until they have done it.

    If seeing is believing then for a writer being must be conceiving.

    I mean can you really ask anyone going about living their life what’s going to happen next?

    Sure they could make a guess or have a plan, but really it can only ever be a generalized idea, because there are any number of things, momentous and subtle, that can change the entire trajectory of their answers outcome. You can never know with complete certainty – no matter how well you may map out every detail – where anything is going to lead you until you stand at its destination.

    The same can be said, and should be considered, when conceiving a story. I mean the more real you can make your story for the reader the more it will take hold of their imagination and engross them in your world, making your characters more then just fragments of description but as flesh and blood as anything else that relates, invokes, and resonates as realistic response.

    So in my opinion it’s imperative that story should unfold like real life and that means making it come about as organically as possible. Too contrived and it comes across as too…well…contrived!

    You shouldn’t try to account for all of your stories – or characters for that matter – twists an turns until walking they’re winding path yourself.

    That doesn’t mean you have to go out and do the very thing you are writing about – let’s face it that’s just plan impossible for many genres – and, after all, that would be your life and your experience, and that doesn’t always translate into the characters. If every writer based every character on themselves, well their protagonists would get damn repetitive fast!

    I’m talking more about emerging yourself in the creative process of storytelling by allowing your characters to tell you their story themselves.

    Why not look at your writing as an immersion sport, a creative exercise in improv where you are given the bare basics of what makes up any story:

    Purpose, Placement, Situation, and Action/Reaction of endeavor.

    Let’s break this down, shall we?

    Purpose – you have a reason for doing anything that you do, no matter how benign or banal, you have a reason for getting up in the morning, brushing your teeth, walking your dog, etc, etc. but let’s face it your tale is going to be a wee bit more entertaining than that…I hope.

    Placement – each of these tasks takes you somewhere and once there anything or nothing could happen, i.e. right/wrong place, right/wrong time.

    Situation – well a catalyst ensues, however loud or subtle, thus beginning the incidental fate of your story.

    Action/Reaction – no matter how insular a being you try to be you are in a world with more than a billion other free thinking individuals who’s actions and reactions, however big or small, will effect you in one way or another. This is the butterfly effect and where the real magic of not knowing comes in.

    When writing a story all you really need to have is your main character, let’s call her Tina, who they are, let’s just say she is a struggling actress, what they’re doing, looking for a part-time job well she tries to land an acting gig, and why they are “here” – let’s say a magic shop – doing it, she wants to distract herself and always liked magicians. That’s it.

    Now play with it. Put your character there, in this very situation and see what unfolds. It may turn out that Tina is just a catalyst to a bigger event, or the long fated soul who houses an unknown power of the universe that will reveal itself in the form of some immortal treasure in the next week because the planets are aligning and some crazy warlock after it so that he can become the supreme being but it’s a good thing she came to this shop because the man who owns it just so happens to be the wizard who is going to help her discover her destiny, or maybe – just MAYBE – the shop is just cover for a secret society she stumbles upon and overhearing some nefarious plot gets caught up in the middle of international intrigue that goes all the way back to King Arthur’s court! Who knows!

    That’s the fun of this kind of immersion storytelling, and because you are allowing it to develop in real time you are allowing for a more human experience to unfold. Real reactions and more natural transitions.

    Yeah I know it may sound crazy and like something that could get out of control, but if you have a basic understanding of story development, of plot, and structure then you will find yourself naturally adhering to its condensation. I can remember going so far when starting up and establishing this style of mine – which involved physically enacting the story, as the characters, in the situations, and from multiple points of view – as setting things up for specific audience reactions, as though I were already filming! It’s part of the fun, I mean who doesn’t imagine their movie trailer even before they’ve written the book it’s to be based on?

    This is what the first draft is all about. It exists as a playground for all of your ideas. As the template for the magic that will become your third or forth! In the second you can tie all the strings, tighten the dialogue, add what was missing, and gain a bigger picture overall perspective, but it’s the synchronicity of the first draft that will see you through the “I think I can” phase and straight into the “I know I can!”

    Not only does it lend authenticity to your skills it lends vulnerability and excitement too! The reader takes out what you put in, and if what you are putting in is the thrill of your own unknown, well then they’ll just have to keep up until they reach the end…

    After all you did!

    Action begets action to inspire reaction, interaction, and creates a story to tell! And most come from something happening to us that was out of the blue that takes us out of our normal, and we rarely stop to ask ourselves whether or not it will make a good one when in it, it kind of just happens.

    So start your story and let it just happen. Let it take you for a ride…let your characters tell you their story so that it can make one of yours!

    Very few writers really know what they are doing until they have done it.

    So revel in it!

     

     

     

  • Throwback Post Pick

    Throwback Post Pick is a weekly feature where I fling open the vaults of past works – no matter the naivete they reflect – and revel in the making of progress! So come, TBT with me!

    Identity crisis.

    This is something that I have struggled with since I was first in my double digits. Perhaps it’s because I was a well behaved middle child second girl that made me predisposed to feel a need to establish a strong identity.

    I’ve always had personality, but what I wanted was presence, something to remember and not just be entertained by for the time you are in my company. I wanted to feel solid within as well as without, but alas this is where the crux of the issue lies.

    You see for a long time I struggled with marrying my inner reality with my outer identity. The people I seemed to attract were the ones who only wanted to acknowledge one or the other, never both.

    There is nothing like an imaginary world. As a writer I am often immersed in fantasy worlds and lands of make-believe that can only come to life through my engagement and I absolutely love it. I honestly don’t think that I would change my brand of crazy for anything, I thrive on imagination and play!

    I even created a whole method of creation that is based on losing yourself in your created wonderland where story boards and outlines are done away with completely, all you have is the most basic of concepts from which you are set loose in that realm and made to choose yours adventure as you go in the sheer personification of creative improv!

    That’s how I got my start and it’s where I found my heart…

    And who wouldn’t yearn to share that?

    The problem being that those that I choose to share it with somehow always turned it around into a negative.

    You mix some abusive relationships with teenage hormones and chronic illness and you have a recipe for disaster.

    Yet I was also a fierce mama dragon and would do anything to protect and defend my world and my characters to the end. It was hard at the time to see just what that meant.

    I almost felt like I was going all “method”to get an inner perspective on the superhero duel identity crisis!

    Everything was so contradictory! After all if it hadn’t been for my creative I would never have discovered my voice – the voice of who I was at my core essence and not just what others wanted to put on my personality. Yet I was still having to co-exist with that persona, still having to interact with the perception of it, and I grew to resent that.

    It is a tedious thing to feel as though your true voice is falling on deaf ears constantly. It didn’t matter how much I spoke up for my wants and needs, they were never met in these settings, but the only way out I had was through my inner reality. – If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? Enter the break down.

    It was a hard time in my life and you will find in my portfolio exist many a piece dedicated to its expression (you know how I feel about expressing after all!) and today’s piece is no different.

    Featuring the art of Patrick Palmer I give you Introverted Extrovert!

     

    Patrick Palmer
    Art by Patrick Palmer

    Extroverted Introvert

    Beaten,

    Broken,

    Weather worn.

    Tired,

    Scared,

    Somewhat forlorn.

    Never knowing what comes next,

    What will thrill me or upset.

    A basket case,

    I’ve come undone,

    Inside my head I am someone.

    When all else fails,

    When all seems lost,

    I lose myself in inner thought.

    Alone I’m free but lost somehow,

    Can see the sun,

    Yet still I cow.

    For brought to light I seem to wither,

    Untamed,

    Uncouth,

    And somewhat bitter.

    Where is the sweetness of my escape?

    Why can’t it exceed this inner quake.

    I come forward only to be set back.

    To be forgotten and thrown off track.

    It can not be that mine is to be lonely,

    That I am forever my one and only.

    I cry myself to inner sleep,

    For it’s only there that I may weep,

    What is it I truly feel?

    And which one is the ghost?

    With humble prayer and heavy heart I bow my head and kneel.

    For the thing I want to know the most,

    Is to know what’s truly real.

    ~Glory Anna

    Patrick Palmer will never cease to amaze, delight and truly awaken my heart with his modern figure art pieces! He is truly a new master of the human forms invocation of emotion! Lovely always!

  • Writer’s Quote Wednesday is a weekly feature where I delve into famous writer’s words of wisdom and share how I have interpreted the meaning for my own creative endeavors to maybe help inspire yours!

    Writersquotevirginiawoolf

     

    In its entirety this Virginia Woolf quote goes:

    Some people turn to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.

    And though I am a very spiritual person (though, you guessed it, not conventionally so) as well as an extroverted friendly sort (don’t let the predilection to talk to myself fool you) I chose to focus instead upon the first half:

    Some people turn to priests; others to poetry.

    To muse upon. For I find it is more or less what had inspired the whole of my existence; creative and otherwise.

    As far back as I can remember I always used some art form or another to express what I otherwise couldn’t seem to translate in any way that left me with a piece of my mind still intact instead of given away.

    Through art, through creativity, I was able to channel my emotions in a clear and focused manner that took me out of them and myself. It gave me subjective clarity so not only was I able to understand myself better I was better able to figure out what I needed from the lack.

    Half the time I barley even realize that I’m doing it!

    I can remember that there was this one story line in-particular where the lead – a strong and courageous woman/ex-hooker/reluctant hero – was going after her injured friend who had been kidnapped by a rather insidious character trying his best to lure her into being the star of his S & M fantasy world…anyway, in a nutshell there were two others – professional heroes and all around “good guys,” the kind who on the outside you would think morally above this kind of deplorable underbelly shenanigans – who came across the situation – new to her world and friendship – but without hesitation went after her, in desperate want to help so that she would not have to do it alone.

    Again, long story short, she still went through every obstetrical on her own – though unknown to her they were right on her heels the whole time – fully capable of doing it herself. She got to her friend, saved the day just before they showed up. The whole point being that even though she could she didn’t always have to. She now had people she could depend on, people who wanted to help, to show up and be there for her.

    Well ironically enough this just so happened to mirror something that was going on in my life/relationship. I didn’t realize this correlation however until I began writing it up, realizing – oh duh! – that’s what I want!

    I’ve always been the strong capable reliable responsible one. I take on any obstetrical and work my way through it, it doesn’t matter if I have absolutely no clue or experience I figure it out, i take it in stride, I get the freakin job done and with very little if any complaining of freak outs. I love this about myself and so do others…however in turn I’ve found that most people don’t want to know that the person they think and want to believe can do everything can’t.

    Everyone wants a rock-steady and they don’t want to see that it is indeed capable of crumbling too. It’s that Manic Pixie Dream Girl syndrome. Some people make us feel so good about ourselves, make us happy, inspire and elate us so much that we forget they to are humans. That they need that kind of energetic jive fed back into them every once in a while. That a rock sometimes needs a shoulder. That a smile sometimes has to frown, has to cry and break down. That sometimes the hopeful turn hopeless. The happy get mad and the optimist cynical.

    It has been a theme in my life that people want me around so they can feel some type of way about themselves, the minute I might want something from them in return they peace out. the minute my humanity exposes my vulnerability they want nothing to do with me.

    Astrology tells me that I am an intense person. History also tells me that I am an intense person. I am passionate and exceedingly expressive. The theater loves me! I get that it can be too much for people. What I don’t get is that it only seems to be too much when it is not doing something for them.

    It has led to some insular times in my life. Some crippling depression and breakdowns – which for future reference for any of those who face similar situations, hermitage is not the answer!!! The worst thing I ever did was give up my worlds outlet for that of the world of man. To seek from others when I was running on empty to help, to ease, to fill me up and help understand. There was no perspective to be had in that only projection, assumption, more confusion and isolation.

    You must forge the ground on which to be ground in and on. Others can take it away to easily, can cause it to fracture and break apart. At least for me I needed to be solid and filled up before I could reach out. Sure it can help to talk out loud but only if the right listener exists in your life. One who can read between the lines of your words and meaning. Who hears you for you and what the words you speak mean in regards to who you are at the core of your essence, but that is rare.

    The only thing that I find that makes any of it better, that helps to put it into your perspective is finding the commonality in music, in books, in poetry and other forms of art, where people like you felt only to capture the feeling in a piece of proof that will show others they are not alone. To gain perspective through expression by absorbing it through others creations and purging it through my own.

    Confession in the form of physical expression, putting it out there for all to see, exposing yourself in the safety of something that is like home to you. Something that to exists in the core of you but as a strength, using this momentary weakness as a form of motivation, to turn it into beauty so that it may be looked upon as experience and taken back in as pride.

    Words can ring so hollow when only spoken and taken for their flat effect definition. Adjectives can only do so much, it is where they are coming from that needs to be heard, seen, and addressed. Between the lines of defense and hurt lies the pain that needs comforting. We overlook cause and only treat the symptom thus perpetuating the cycle of pain, the pattern of reaction, and poison of deflection.

    Round and round we run from the truth for rarely do we know the words to speak the it reality it needs to express. We need to express, but the freedom to has been bred out of social acceptance and convention. So we turn to things unfulfilling that will only kill us faster. We try to pray it away, pray for assistance without effort, for some magical answer to form out of the blue as we hide our faces from the truth.

    But we have to face it. Not over intellectualize it, over think or analyze it, we need to express it. To feel it in order to see it for what it really is. The truth, pain, disappointment, upset – and any other emotion you can think of experiencing – it is never as scary, as awful, overwhelming or intense as the monsters we are convinced we need to protect ourselves against.

    In truth an emotion only tends to last about 90 seconds – that’s science – it is out minds that take over from there, the id, ego, or whatever it is you want to put it to.  It is us lashing out from a wound we would rather play victim to than accept, but no one ever signed up to life wanting to believe themselves the fallout of their own story, that shits ingrained, taught, programed, and beaten in and down. We all want to be the hero, the star, and stalwart center of our saga.

    So I say funnel it. Don’t think, just do. leave the deprecation, the doubt, and the blame for another day, get down to business, look that darkness in the eye, and express yourself and your feelings in their raw form. Bleed into the page, upon the canvas, into the music, the movement, the scene, or wherever else feels the provocational ecstasy that is voice without narration or dictation but pure emotion.

    Do it so that you might look upon it from the outside with understanding and compassion for it is not just a part of you but now is made physical to stand as yet another testament to time and proof that no one is ever alone in what they are or what they do.

     

  • Throwback Post Pick is a weekly feature where I fling open the vaults of past works – no matter the naivete they reflect – and revel in the making of progress! So come, TBT with me!

    This week’s “piece” of good news is Silver Spoon Consumed. A piece who’s style – at least to me – reflects that classic type of social commentary that brings to mind black turtle-necks, small round frames, plenty of floor pillows, plums of smoke, and the Greenwich Village of a bygone era.

    I feel that its message still holds up to the social heartaches we feel even to this day where people are judged by their class, their color, how much they make, what career they choose, whether or not 2.5 children are had and picket fence secured.

    We base worth – our own as well as others – on such a surface value. We think that we can judge each other on what’s indicative to a “certain type.”We put emphasis not on striving for more out of the existential but for more out of the fleeting.

    We work ourselves to death keeping up with the Jones’ unfulfilled and set up to fail. We can’t get feet over head out of the debt we inherit from a system that is as broken and corrupt as the people in charge.

    We are berated and bullied for speaking a different truth, loving a different way, living a life outside of the box whose corner they would see us all pinned against. A people whose back this country was built upon doing just that! Thinking in new ways and expressing by means unheard of!

    Freedom isn’t the second amendment. Freedom is the power to believe, not in what they tell us to or how they tell us to but in a way that reflects and shines our truth in a peacefully co-existent way.

    America wasn’t made so that one way and one power could reign supreme, but so that many could live as they choose – as long as it is within the law and respects another’s right to do the same. So that those persecuted could seek a kind of sanctuary in the security of individual rights. (Of course in order to build multiple atrocities were inflicted in the name of hypocritical conquering…but if we’re just debating the most basic of dogma from which our country was based you’ll bear with me…)

    There is a social standard of acceptable, what is correct and what is trash. What is rich and what is poor. What is honest and what is good for nothing. And these preconceived notions are ingrained early on. You’re born, you’re innocent, you stop playing with toys, you hate your parents, you date, you get a license, you go to collage, you move out, you find a partner, you find a job, you get married, you start a career, you have children, you get a side hustle, you make family time, you work over time, you pay into retirement, in to social security that they keep robbing, insurance that every day gets more and more sketchy, cost of living rises but pay doesn’t, you still haven’t paid off your student loans, they just eliminated your position, you have to go back to school, change career, retire early, have a midlife crisis, get divorced, get a health condition from the poison they put on our food, because you have no time to be healthy, to know what makes you happy because you followed a path instead of following your heart and now have to find a way to put your own kid through collage so that the cycle can start over, can continue, well the rich get richer and tax your soul…

    You see how vs the man this kind of beatnik flow can inspire? I’ve always been a bit of a renegade – in my youth an anarchist some might even say! ;p – let’s just say that early on I challenging convention and suspicious of standard.

    Now those institutions are falling. More and more social, political, natural, and man-made disasters are rising up to say PAY ATTENTION! Find another way! Choose a new path, the old is worn out and will only breed more of what is no longer working.

    Stop falling for the same old tricks of trap. Rise up, baby, Rise!

     

     

    ZhangWebersilverspoonconsume

    SILVER SPOON CONSUMED

    Fear it seems would stalk the seams of a society caught up in greed,

    Condemned to possess,

    Obsessed to be the possessor,

    We put ourselves in boxes,

    In levels of rank,

    The good and bad,

    The greater the lesser.

    Falling through cracks and breaking the system,

    We define ourselves by the grand ultimatum.

    We see ourselves for what we do,

    Yet lost, it’s said, are the ones that stay true.

    For who we are it matters not,

    Wrapped up so in what it $ costs.

    We seem to build our hopes on gain.

    Financial, physical, means of the made.

    Spiritually, wondrous souls,

    Laughable to others,

    Stereotyped as a life of mad woes.

    For when they “wake up” it is said they’ll unravel,

    Not able to coup in the real worlds means of survival.

    True to the human experience is insane.

    But not when that experience is caught up in the gain?

    ~Glory Anna

    Zhang Weber is a wonderful artist you can find on Behance! I was particularly drawn (tee-hee – get it!) to his line & sketch portfolios. How marvelous his features, how intriguing their sculptural essence. Such a great source of inspiration!

  • Writer’s Quote Wednesday is a weekly feature where I delve into famous writer’s words of wisdom and share how I have interpreted the meaning for my own creative endeavors!

    writersquoteAtticus

     

    She wasn’t bored, just restless between adventures.

    That’s me in a nutshell when in-between projects or when a project is in transition. A perfect example is my novel…or should I say novels as what started out as one book lead to three or else a very hard sell to perspective agents/publishers at over 300,000 words.

    I mean that’s a lot. A lot of story, a lot of characters, a lot of interwoven sense making perspective, intrigue, and continuity mathematics, not to mention time and effort!

    It was a process that took a little over a year to complete, from a beginning that wasn’t even sure what it was I was embarking upon. I came back to the half started lead-in to a story that petered off as other projects caught my interests because – you guessed it – I was in-between projects having just finished the final – time to step away – revision/edit of a screenplay I had been immersed in for months. It took 80 pages for me to realize I had something that I wanted to see through to completion. To admit to myself that I was about to commit to something that I always said that wouldn’t be able to do, write a book.

    That’s when I sat down and painstakingly wrote out a basic outline for the beginning, middle, and end.

    *side note* I don’t really like to outline, I much prefer the synchronicity of allowing one’s characters loose in their situation with a goal in mind. That tends to be how I storyboard on the whole, I have a goal in mind, something that needs to be accomplished, I then set the characters in the situation to get it done and from there they tell me who they are and how they’ll go about completing said task. Even the moral and emotional journey can come as a surprise to me in the end. Hell there have even been times when a romantic pairing surprises me, I’m like WHAAAAAAAAT! I see you, characters, I see you. It’s great because not only does it fully bring to life the individuality of the characters, but the realistic sense of life happening to the story.

    However with this being my first book I felt that I needed to at least form some kind of boundary or else wind up having to edit the speculative fiction version of War and Peace. I mean I know they say that sci-fi is granted a little extra wiggle room when it comes to word count but there is such a thing as over capacity!

    Well soon after I felt like I at least had an idea where it all was going the process of getting it there became a part of my daily routine – and on weekends pretty much the whole of it!

    I was excited, it was new, like a new relationship when everything is all butterflies and eager can’t wait connection! It was exhilarating, confusing, frustrating, thrilling, and utterly fantastic!

    Even when it became normalized it was exciting to always have something new waiting for me on the page. Waiting for me to interact with and write. Waiting for me to tell its story. Every day engaging in creating something from scratch, from nothing, just me and my imagination set loose!

    Then finally one day came the end.

    The end.

    Interesting how it can be the best and worst sentence for a writer to see. In many ways its like giving birth, you’ve just pushed the baby out, the entity you’ve been nurturing inside of you for the past five months, then the umbilical cord is cut and connection severed. It exists fully now without you. Separate, and though it still needs you ( hello editing!) it is no linger dependent on your bringing it into existence.

    Creation is over and now comes the real labor.

    Don’t get me wrong I am always over the moon to see a project come to fruition. To see my hard work made tangible. To see living proof of my art, of what me dedication, perseverance, and good time got me. I love to know that it all came full circle and I wasn’t just spilling words off into a void but really weaving a story with a fully functional point and purpose.

    It’s just that when you throw yourself into to something so completely – your time, your energies, your emotion, etc – and it comes to an end, even if it is the best possible end you could dream of, there is going to be a feeling of loss. Of empty, like there is something missing that you can’t quite put your finger on.

    You will wander around a bit aimlessly, adrift, and even somewhat distracted. Even if there is still work to be done for you are in transition and with transition comes the scattered remains of having such a solid focus suddenly taken away.

    Every day I showed up like Steven King to write more of my novel, to meet my muse at appointed time and create. Suddenly when I don’t have to do that any more I feel as though I don’t know at all what to do with myself.

    Don’t get me wrong the process of editing is an adventure all its own, and one that I love, loath, am motivated, dispassionately impassioned about, and can appreciate all at once and sometimes not at all, let’s face it it’s going at your child with a machete and that doesn’t quite compare to immersing yourself in new and constant creation!

    Sure at any given time on any given day sure I’ll be inspired, a hundred times over I’ll think of another story, a new set of characters, another mystery or focus to amuse and entertain, but like J.J. said a few weeks ago, you got to push those away. Ideas come and go, what holds your interest, what won’t let you sleep or eat without thinking about it, that’s where you need to put your energy.

    That can be hard to hone in on. You start and stop. You drift between projects waiting for it to strike, the one that will keep your interest and inspire more, and that doesn’t always happen right away. Again its more synchronistic then our desperation to be doing, you have to allow chips to fall and then get organized.

    I stay busy, keep at the grind, I start and I stop tinkering and toying with this and that, engaging in testing the waters and retreading the old knowing that it will happen, just as it has happened a million times before, but until that time…

    She wasn’t bored, just restless between adventures.

    WriterquoteAtticus

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