How long must I keep saving you?

Burgoise staggered up clutching the stick. In the distance she could see two people at the opposite sides of her vision moving towards each other.

The sky cracked. Clouds seemed to gather above her: grey and full of misery.

Burgoise squinted. The two figures kept walking in such a slow, steady fashion, that Burgoise fancied they had planned this. Am I in a play? she wondered, looking around wildly. No cameramen in tight pants wearing over-sized sunglasses while eating sandwiches, no light stands, no props of any kind. Just the thick prickly grass of this field, spanning out as far as Burgoise could see, trees lining the edges, the two figures moving like slinking cats against the dull backdrop. Why are they here?

She squinted harder. She had a funny feeling brewing in her gut. Something was wrong. The figure on her right looked like a girl wearing a long dress, her hair blowing out around her. She was holding something. The figure on her left looked masculine, wearing pants, some sort of top, short hair that was also fluttering in the wind.

Burgoise leaned forwards. There was something about that fluttering hair...

Burgoise's heard dropped right to the center of the earth, It started to rain. She gasped. They finally met, embraced.

"No!"

The stick fell from her hand as she stepped back, her eyes wide, her hands shaking, her heart pumping insanely loud somewhere next to her ears.

Rain drops fell silently in front of her face as if instructed. As if trying to dampen this mutiny by washing it away or packing it down.

"Clae..." Burgoise breathed, hardly daring to look but unable to tear her eyes away.

There he was, like a silhouette on a stage, kissing another girl.

"Oh no, no, no... no..."

She couldn't see it, but Burgoise thought she could make out laughter. The rain was so heavy on her face. Or was that tears?

The figures moved apart, Burgoise found herself leaning forwards once again, thunder crackled, there was a thin vein of lightning that illuminated the horrendous sight before her and she saw clearly the two figures who were smiling at each other. Clae and Mira.

Mira. The girl who had pushed her into the toilets and forced her to eat a rotten orange. The girl who had stolen her gym shoes, her pens, her mobile phone, and her sister's necklace, wrecked them all, then left them for Burgoise to find in her locker. The girl who had broken her nose with a soccer ball to the face, trailed a Bunsen burner flame down her arm, pushed her into a rose bush, cut a giant Nazi symbol into her only jumper, and set her backpack on fire as she walked home.

And Clae.

Clae. The Clae with whom she had bought ice cream and strolled along the pier, laughing at seagulls and kicking shells into the ocean. The Clae who had picked her right up and hoisted her over the log fence as if she was a bag of carrots. The Clae who had kissed her, once under a blossom tree and once outside the music classroom, as if she was the only one worth kissing, ever.

Another crack of thunder. The rain suddenly came down in earnest, much like how Burgoise supposed she must look. Torn down her chest and pouring out all her blood at once.

She could barely see anymore. A rage wild and ragged ravaged her entire body, rage as white as an after-spot from looking into the sun and as hot as a pot full of boiling caramel. It shot up into her shoulders, her brain, down into her fingers. She tilted a little to the right.

She opened her mouth and screamed. At the very same time, thunder grumbled overhead in a continuous melody, lightning streaked all over the sky in violent bursts, and sparks shot out of Burgoise's open hands like fireworks.

Trade you my knee bone for your Kingdom?

She came out of the woods like a disease: slow, unnoticed, and craving attention. By the time Celeste turned around with a slight feeling of unease, the woman was right behind her, half-closed eyes the colour of red-gum wood, wild green hair like mossy fern sprouting out from her scalp and falling down to her waist, and smooth, pale fingers flashing gemstone rings as they moved precariously in time with the wind.
"I didn't do it!" Celeste cried out horribly.
The woman closed her eyes and said softly, "They must not meet again. It has been foretold... of great..."
Celeste felt rage bubble up in her stomach. How dare this old hag seek her out here, in her secret spot, and demand things.
"I will not!" she shouted.
"There is no other way..."
"Leave me alone!" she took a step back and stumbled as her heel hit a root. Fuck the roots, Celeste thought angrily, the words flashing in her mind like a neon sign. Her bum hit the muddy ground. Fuck this bitch!
The wild woman gazed down at her with an expression of inhumane quality. Celeste could not make it out, but it fueled her rage further. She's just too green, Celeste wailed inside her head, too green to be human... She gasped out-loud. "YOU'RE AN ALIEN!" she screamed, pointing a finger.
The woman leaned forward and reached out a hand. "Only you can light the path..."
Celeste stared. No, this bitch glittered like Bucky- she wasn't an alien. The sunbeams poking their way through the gloomy overcast afternoon bounced off her hand, lighting it up like she had painstakingly glued a million sparkly stick-on diamonds all over her skin on a boring winter's day, and Celeste suddenly felt true fear.
She scrambled up, knocking the woman's hand away. There was a small zap upon contact as if Celeste had touched an electrical socket. The woman withdrew.
"You're a goddess," Celeste spat.
The woman drew  herself up, "I am a-"
"You're all the same!" Celeste shouted. "Stay away from me! And leave Fern alone!"
She turned and ran, glancing back only once to see the woman standing in the same spot, glaring, shoulders hunched, a darkness gathering about her that Celeste could not see but knew to be there. As Celeste looked up at her face, the woman's eyes flashed. Pain seared up her right arm. She stumbled, slipped on the mud, but kept running. She knew she couldn't outrun a Goddess, she had no magick yet, so she clutched her crystals tight and prayed for a miracle.

When will dinner ever be ready?

You know what?
I've been perusing Pinterest like a love-sick stalking mofo slash drug-addict ~c r a v i n g~ their next fix, and I have come to realise that my view of Alyssa, Frances, and Cate is bleak, dark, depressing, not to mention awkward and hollow. Like, do they not have good characteristics? I MUST dive really deep into their situations, I just must, because without focusing entirely on their whole beings I will never truly feel comfortable writing about them.
Are you supposed to feel comfortable writing, though? Surely whilst writing a mammoth of a novel you would feel all sorts of emotions and uncomfortable is one of them. However, I feel that you should at least be comfortable with your characters, at least comfortable because you know them inside out so writing them is not such a challenge, compared with writing about what they do.
If I know my character is a dick, fine, but I know that so it flows. Alternatively, are characters able to surprise you by doing something sinister or becoming someone sinful, and does this not, then, make you uncomfortable?
Ok! Enough with writing the word uncomfortable! For some reason I have spelled it wrong every single time.

Maybe so, and maybe not. The fact is: maybe my novel will actually have some really lovely bits in it that will make it a pleasure to write and not so cringe worthy to read.

I do believe that if one always goes around creased, unkempt, and with stains, that person will then acquire a life that is so. Therefore, the action of sweeping oneself, checking the mirror, attending to disarray when it should unfold- because it will such as life itself does!- would be the upmost importance and required at all times!

And a good day to you! Sir!

Holy crap the smell of food cooking is the BEST. FUCK YES. GIVE ME ALL THE FOOD. I AM AS HUNGRY AS A HALF STARVED GIANT.

~ This has been an update of the Novel Kind. Will Cerri ever continue with her random short stories? Is Avalon still part of her life, or has she been cast away in a fit of fuzzy minded blasphemy? Has Vincent found his true self, or is he stark raving mad as well as stark raving naked? Stay tuned! For more nonsensical nonsense..

How did you know it was your last?

TIDBITS
Being the cheapass woman that I currently am, I have not had and still do not have any desire to go back out into the big wide world to purchase the microsoft office package once again. That shiz is about one hundred dollars that I do not have on account of paying a mortgage and also moving house. Yes! I'm doing the delightfully fantastically thing that is moving all my possessions from one side of the city to the other. The Joy!
But it really is a joy. This new house is always slightly warm, which I'm hoping will be amazeballs in winter, but for now it just means that I wear hardly any clothes and try not to sweat out all the nutrients I put in.
And this carpet is THE BEST THING since sliced bread, and WE ALL KNOW how versed I am on the subject of bread. Peace. Love. Light be with you.

Ok. So there's the Word problem. How do I go about writing out the stories and ideas that I do not want published on here without actually buying Word, or slaving away at the public library, where privacy is nil and the computers are as slow as they were when dial-up was a thing?
Why, pen and paper of course!
Pfftt! Wrong! I can tell you now that my handwriting is so atrocious I should have been a doctor, in fact, I may actually still have time to study and graduate and do the whole lounging back on the office chair with a stethoscope around my neck and say things like 'the test results were inconclusive' and 'the bathroom is just down the hall, only half of the cup needs to be filled', while gazing serenely over my steeple fingers or gesturing calmly to the door with a bowed head.
It's not the path I chose, but it is the path that I can and probably should not fill. I am grey enough already.
Not to mention the cramp-hand I would get from all that writing. Weeks down the line I will squint at my notes in a fit of despair, scratch my head, and most likely toss a million dollar idea down the drain.

@__@

Yes! Apart from using my failing ipad that has a keyboard setup akin to a sensation of dragging your fingernails down a chalkboard or rowing a canoe while scraping your knuckles on the hard edge every time, I have decided to use this blog as a way to calm my swelling tide.

Without further ado! I present...

THE NOVEL
It's been 12 years since I lugged this folder around with me to math class and science class. I'm sure my classmates thought I was super studious, but the fact was I just hid my pages of novel notes on graph paper, and I LOVED it. I simply adored carrying this folder class to class with ideas swirling around in my head like a melting rainbow paddlepop. I felt like this folder contained my life work and I never imagined for one second that I would leave it on a shelf for TWELVE YEARS.
I'm almost (almost huehue) heartbroken and deeply ashamed.

In the sleeve of this folder contains pain sample cards, really old, from a paint shop, with names like: Pink Orbit MID
Orange Fizz W
Ice Needles
Peach Portion
Candy Time
Rose Relic

I fancied I would incorporate those names into the novel. I believe Peach portion, candy time and rose relic all relate to one of my characters called Rose.

CHARACTERS
My favourite character and one featured in many short draft stories is Eden. I love the name and her theme is Faeries. She is obsessed with them. I feel like I based her on myself, and that she is maybe particularly easy to write, or was easy to write back in the day.

Next is Brandi- the girl obsessed with becoming a Water Goddess. She meets a gnome when little (a real-live tall man who looks gnomish or otherworldly who says he comes from the caves) and he promises to turn her into a water goddess if she commits a real act of sin. It's horrendous, but she is in the right frame of mind to do so. Things become really tricky and nasty afterwards. I enjoyed her as well because she had more going on. Eden was perhaps a little boring as a character, even though she has a lot of elements I like, but Brandi has this cool plot and twists, darkness, a real fine detail to her. She meets Eden when they share a class together and they both sort of faun over each other. It's very cute.

Alyssa and her younger sister Frances are both witches, or really into witchcraft. They start off with some amateur spells from books and do some rituals, but soon they notice things happening and I must say, their story is the darkest of them all. I shy away from writing about them because I don't fully understand them. As a result of a family tragedy, they have their younger cousin Cate, who is about Frances's age, come and stay with them so the girls get her in on it, too. Their story saddens me. I think it's going to be the toughest emotionally to write.

Last is Rose! Rose is the fun one. She has the misfortune of becoming cupid, or the messenger in which love can travel through. Rose must run all over the place creating love and magic, while trying to sort out her own life. Her story is chaos, and I have a hard time getting it together. I have elements I like but they all seem to be different, which makes it hard to flesh out an actual character and situation without it seeming childish or silly. Cupid, love, and potions are tricky because it can go one way or the other. Also, Rose is about three or four years older than the others. She doesn't have the dominating figure of parents, so I have to be mindful of that and hopefully some of the scenarios show her maturity.

So there is the faery, the witch, the cupid, and the goddess.

All of them interweave. The younger girls all go to the same school, and Eden and Brandi meet and become friends, the other girls notice each other in a 'background character' way. Rose is the only girl not in school. I envisioned a scene where they're all on a train and they all unite when it crashes or something, but that was around the time I stopped writing to focus on my 'real world goals' of getting a job and being a normal woman of society. Life gets in the way.

Aside from that! It's all running on a shell of a novel. The outer structure is there in place, I have the colours, the general gist, the beginnings and the endings, I just need to fill it all in.

>I admit, I feel quite anxious about writing due to the fact I have matured over the years. A decade has passed, I have new memories and experiences, and even though I have not changed much in appearance or character, I feel like this novel represents an age-old me with a naivety and ideas that will be hard to replicate.

In essence, I feel a bit boring. When I first looked at this novel a couple of months ago I became overwhelmed with nostalgia. Life is better for me now but in every character I saw pieces of myself or my life back then.



~
We're going home

If we make it or we don't
we won't be alone

When I see your light shine I know I'm home

*💝*

But where would I get one?

Today I woke up rather abruptly with thoughts of chocolate, coffee, and cats.
Coincidentally that is the name of my second novel. I know! How will I ever have the time to complete two novels by my 40th Birthday?
Well.
I'll actually have quite a few years to play around with it all, but still. Also, the novel title has the word 'coincidentally' in it instead of chocolate and it's just a really fun project to work on but I feel a foreboding sense of doom as well, because a thing cannot be too fun if it is to be taken seriously.

The other day I bought a can of corn and was, like, SUPER excited to use it in some pasta. Like, stop the clocks now, or just wind them forward to when it's pasta-eatn time, because I wanna chow on this delight stat.
It's like going to bed feeling really excited and content at waking up in the morning because coffee. Coffee is everything.
Sometimes I'm annoyed or scared to go to sleep because it's such a short amount of time that it seems wasteful. It seems to be over in a flash. And yet you're at your most vulnerable, so many things can happen, so many opportunities for disaster that it's almost the worst thing you can do.

So fast-forward a few weeks later when I was singing a tune of rainbows and adorable parakeets, just standing in the kitchen ready for some corn time, and what should happen? I put my finger in the ring-pull, peel off the ring-pull and need to then use a manual can-opener, only to discover that my corn kernels are INDEED, corn of the cream kind. I had inadvertently picked up Creamed Corn. Corn of the Cream. Creme a la Corn.
And I WEPT into my canned abomination.
Or did I?

Cream Corn is not a great product. The world could have done a better job handing out food varieties than creaming a vegetable that has no right to be creamed.
A fellow named Caspian who is always full of congestion is the only person who should be trusted with the job of farming, picking, canning, labeling, stacking, delivering, and even consuming this product.
"It's all I've ever known!" Caspian would say earnestly- a little too earnestly, if you ask me. The world does not need such earnest people. The world needs more deceivers, more unwilling participants, more people rising up to declare FUCK YOU AUTHORITY! WE DESIRE UNCANNED FOOD, FOR WE ARE UNCANNED PEOPLE.
Right they are.
Caspian would look shocked, and I would lean in close and mutter, 'Fellow, if there were ever such a time that an escape was to take place, now would be that time.'

And we would escape, me taking Caspian into the wide world of the City and Caspian showing me how to make a daisy chain that I have NO time for, but patiently sit through anyhow. He will no doubt show the classic signs of corn withdrawal, and I will be made to hand over my hard earned pennies so that his appetite can be sated, all the while eating an increasing number of red and orange foods. In the end, I will cut Caspian loose because the price of having him near has made me extremely adverse to any yellow food of any kind, including banana caramel pie and rainbow sprinkles. Not to mention the insane build up of mucus in my sinus region. I have never known anyone to need six boxes of tissues in the bedroom. EVER.


   ( )
  (   )
,\(   )/,
0 __ 0     # more than corn

Was it getting real?

Yes!

Life is all about being crazy and taking chances.

You must do what you fear. Do what you dream. Look ambition straight in the eye and say "I am coming for you."

Then stop off at the local bakery and buy a double-decker chocolate cream cake because life is hard balls with a LOT of curved ones.

You must Take The Chance and do The Thing!

What do you dream of doing?

I dream of one day building a house. From scratch! I want to see the concrete slab with my own two eyes and walk across it in a walk only those who dared to make their dream come true can do. I want to see the sweat, feel the sawdust, hear the hammers, taste the tears, be victorious! I want to watch a door being put in, and narrow my eyes in a suspicious fashion because that window looks a bit too big guys, who's in charge of the window fitting??? Let's get the sizing done, ok, I want numbers and I want shinyass glass that makes me squint in surprise and awe and wonder.

I dream of working on my dusty old novel. Raising chickens. Making Amigurumi. Sewing, knitting, drawing with a light table... actually being that artistic mofo I see in the mirror. 

What if there were hidden cities all around us just waiting to be tapped into?

We must uncover the magic all around us because soon the time will be gone, and we will be gone, but no matter! Someone else will come and do the uncovering, for there will always be secret worlds existing around us.

Isn't that creepy af though?

Where I am sitting now, in my bed with the window open, someone else could be walking to that exact window this exact moment and closing it. Or maybe we both stood in the same place at the same time and I opened it while they closed it. But I didn't notice a thing. Am I out of touch or just not in tune with the layers upon layers of worlds that overlap ours?

What if when you hear a baby crying while having a shower, there actually is a baby crying in the other plane, and your maternal instincts kick in or moral instincts/good Samaritan/decent human-being/ tuned-in-aura is in full ON mode?

Like sometimes if everything is quiet in the house, I swear I can hear mumbled talking as if the tv in the other room was on. But it's not. Is it my hearing, or something better?

Do we not make spontaneous occurrences, believe in serendipity or fate and good luck? Nearly everyone believes there is something going on around us, either through God, or the universe, or spirits, fairies, aliens, and there are miracles happening everyday, tragedies ripping our responses right out of our bodies, delights and things being created that were thought impossibles, daring theories proved right, normalities proved wrong, all around us all the time we hear of things changing. What is extraordinary if not something entirely ordinary that no one ever thought of, was, did, discover, or invent before?

All I am saying is: I went for a walk the other day and I realised how plugged in everything is.

So I am going to build my house.

I am going to C L I M B out of this sinkhole I have somehow crawled into, and I will throw my magick in everyone's faces  wake up  because life is about cats and shawls and glittery balls and falling asleep with hot cocoa instead of trepidation and coffee in cafes and running for the bus and trying not to lose that sudoku book with all those personal notes written down the sides  since when did I *learn* to fear almost every single thing I see?

Just you wait

# A tribute to a very special time in my life. Bittersweet is not just a persimmon. 💘💞

Egg shells or custard tarts?

On Tuesday I thought I was a ghost.

I drove to work like normal, but when I turned down the street to work, I thought 'is this how it always is?' 

The air seemed foggy and I had a weird sensation as if I was the only person alive in some kind of different plane. Everything was quiet. Eerie.

And when I arrived at work, the woman who is ALWAYS parked in the SAME PARK wasn't there. I checked my phone. Same time as always. Or was it?

I hurried inside, made my coffee, cursed the early morning once again because, really, why do shifts start at 6am? What is the actual purpose? As a form of torture, I'm sure.

SO, the rest of the day went as smooth as the only type of peanut butter allowed, except that almost every conversation I had seemed to operate as if I was either too fast or they were too slow. As if the recipients were receiving information from the other side and there was a delay in delivery.

Example:

Woman: 'Hey, Cerri, how are you?"

Me: 'Yeah not bad, you?'

Woman: 'How's your day going?'

Me: 'Oh not bad, and-'

Woman: 'I'm good thanks'

Me: 'Oh, sorry aha-'

Woman: 'No go on, sorry-'

Me: 'Oh! I just noticed that there's a new pink car today, and I was wondering who's it was, it's very bright.'

Woman: 'Tell me about it.'

Pause. Woman wrings out a mop.

Me: 'Well, must get my stores, have a good day! It's-'

Woman: 'You too-'

Me: 'It's hectic-'

Woman: '- have a good day.'

Me: 'Thanks!'

Woman: 'Oh, you saw that pink car, too, I wonder if so and so bought a new one?'

~

And much of the same. This made me assume, once again, that I was somehow only existing as half a person. Maybe something glitched while I was sleeping? Or I had walked through a fairy veil from the front door to my car?

This new neighbourhood is certainly magically quaint. There's always a bird chirping, a group of birds splashing about and fluffing around a puddle, fat birds waddling around not pecking at the grass because who can be fucked bending down so low? There's cute little red-brick houses, and lots of trees with flowers that fall onto the cars. The grass is green, children laugh and wail every hour, and there seems to be a lot of homeyness going on.

I have to wonder sometimes. And to the faeries with their veil strung up in such a common, highly used area, I say: welcome. What took you so long?

     .^.

   ../  \..

*U__U