Here I am, back again. I think Saturday's post was a bit self indulgent, so now I'm going to make it worse by adding more! :D The thing that I didn't say, which is probably the most interesting, is that whenever I feel down (breaking apart, smashed up kind of down) I feel most aware of my inability to communicate. This, for a writer, sounds extraordinary, but I suspect my drive to write came out of this personality problem. I don't know why I am so bad at communicating. (If I did I probably wouldn't have a problem!) Maybe it's because I say too much? Or maybe it's because of shyness and low self esteem, which make me say the wrong things? Maybe it's because my perspective on the world is unusual? Or maybe it's a result of my head injuries (was I this bad before them?) Or maybe it's simply because I don't have much practicality about things?

What is certain is that people always get the wrong idea about what I am trying to say. I don't want to ramble on too much today, but I'd be very interested to know if other writers have the same issues.

Next time, I promise you, we're back to my work. In fact, here's a virelai ancien to keep you going. (It was of course written during the very dark time I spoke about on Saturday):

A Bubble

In air that gives me lift
I poise, as is my gift;
A bubble on the top
Of dark that seems to shift
To catch a spirit's drift,
And pull it to the drop:

I rise again and stop
And shimmer still, but not
Without my load of light:
And once again I flop
And tremble to a stop
In soul of awful night.

The sky is sometimes bright
But horror stalks my flight
And stable things I miss.
I hover out of sight
And wonder if I might
Break up in the abyss.


If you like this it can be found in an anthology of Winchcombe poets which has just come out, and also has several other of my poems. It reminds me of another thing that I think must account for a lot of my communication problems: I think in metaphor and symbol a great deal. For me the truest level of communication is the symbolic. I know this is unusual. Someone once told me I was a True Poet as I experience all of my life as poetry. I suspect that it's just because my grandparents were cousins and something unusual must have doubled up. (Haha, just inbred then?!) So... this is me being brief :D. I wonder if any of this makes any sense to anyone? Am I communicating?...

Love, grief, poetry

Hi everyone,

This post is about the difficult times in a writer's life. Everyone says, 'Oh, what a lovely job! Aren't you lucky?' but it takes so much grit and sheer determination that I don't think many people would keep it up - unless they'd been born into a wealthy family, with everyone in it in amazingly good health. That has not been my case. Many of you will know I was disabled for over a decade, with a simple thyroid problem, which took eight years to diagnose, and several more years for the dose of thyroxine to be regulated correctly. I was also a single parent, on benefits because of my illness, and had suffered minor brain injury which affected me in all sorts of strange little ways - primarily visually. I still regularly walk past people I know and don't recognise them - although I like to think I'm much better than I was.

So, this is me. A bit of a disaster, but also, a writer who has had a powerful sense of vocation from the age of three. (Yes, I had a light-bulb moment when I sat up in bed with excitement, knowing that THAT's what I'll do when I'm grown up!) Yes, sometimes it is heaven. You can disappear into worlds of your imagination. I regularly make myself laugh, and sometimes make myself cry. Well... just like in life really. Speaking of which...

Life this year has been a pig. I love life. I'm like Zorba the Greek, I sing and dance whatever life throws at me... or try to... but this year really has been one hell of a stinking pig. My sister was diagnosed with bowel cancer at Easter and is treating herself with vegetable juice and reflexology. (No, please don't comment...) I spent a month in a very dark place, and developed an extraordinary compulsion to go and sit near somebody who I guess I'd fallen in love with. It was the only way I could keep going, and I sat and wrote poetry because my mind just could not revert to the novel I was supposed to be writing ('Investigation: Haunted House', the children's novel to go with the play). The poetry wasn't particularly good but I experimented a lot and it must have helped my development as a poet. (I have published poetry fairly regularly over the years but I am really happy with only a handful of poems.) I also now have a lot of raw material... raw being the appropriate word for what was pouring out of me. It took huge self discipline to do anything at all. The absence of a workplace, which can be a perk of the job, became almost unbearable. I needed a place to go where I would see people I knew, who might feel at least a moderate affection for me.

I surfaced. I always bob back like a cork.This is the good thing about being a writer. You keep plodding on and suddenly you find that you have done something worthwhile, and created beauty and fun, as a result of pain. For that I would never never change my job, but, if I didn't have a sense of vocation I know I couldn't do it. It is not an easy option for anyone.

Love to all,

Pippa xx

PLAY 'GOES DOWN A STORM'.

Hi everyone, I have just got back from Hull. I went to see Laura and Loretta of Double Take perform Investigation: Haunted House - and I was delighted by how well they did it. :) It has now been done in three schools and has been a real success with the children, who, of course, wanted to try some of the experiments that the children did in the play. Dr Mark Lorch did workshops with them. They built models of DNA, made rockets with bicarbonate of soda and vinegar, and experimented with electro-magnetism. It was all fun, and very different from the stuffy science lessons I remember. At the moment the play is touring in the Hull and Bradford areas, but it is expected to go south at a later date. I have finished the first draft of the children's novel to go with it, and Mark is writing an appendix for this, with details of the experiments. The whole project seems a great success. It has been described as having 'gone down a storm'. I am so tired I can hardly stand, so won't write more, but thank you all for following this. Pippa

Meeting some important people

Hi everyone,

As usual I'm writing this in a hurry, in the library. I just wanted to tell you all that I have been up to Hull since I wrote last, and that I met Mark Lorch, the research chemist who is acting as my science advisor on the plays and novels. He was originally put in touch with me by novelist, Ann Lingard, because he wanted to do a Harry Potter type story, with real spells (ie. science) and I was looking for a scientist to collaborate with on my fiction ideas. We teemed up and Investigation: Haunted House was the result.

I hadn't been to Hull since I went to a pyjama party there, as a student. I remember walking up a street with my friends, all wearing our pyjamas... but not much else, so it was interesting to go back! I was slightly disappointed when Double Take (the theatre company that are doing the play) said they'd like to meet us in a service station, but we were okay as there was a Costa coffee there, and it was so interesting and exciting to meet them and to talk about the play that I forgot about everything else.

We decided that the play would start to tour schools in the Hull and Bradford areas from late May, so this means I am going to have to hurry up and finish the novel... Speaking of which... Argh! See you all again soon.

Hello,

I have a whole hotchpotch of different things to tell you about today. One piece of good news is that Hull Uni have found a theatre company to do the play Investigation: Haunted House. They are called Double Take Theatre Company and they will be taking the play into schools.

The second piece of good news is that the novel to go with the play is very nearly written. Mark and I are hoping to start sending it out to agents next week.

A third piece of good news is that The Cotswold Listener, a CD for the blind, will be featuring some of my work, and also my grandmother, Effie M. Roberts's poems.

Finally, on the health level... Some of you will know I have lived a lot of my life with varying levels of disability. I have seen a doctor today who said she hopes to cure me. Watch this space! :)

The Staged Reading

Hey,

I promised a longer update this time, but am not really sure what you would like to hear about. Firstly I should report back on the staged reading of my script, "Things you can do with Chips". I was disappointed that the seating was very poor. Half the room was full of low settees, and there were high chairs in front of these. Half of the audience said that they couldn't see anything at all, and had to treat it as a radio play. This was a real pity, and it meant that many people must have gone away with a completely wrong impression at the end when the terrible Megan suggested to Bill that they should run away together. Everyone who could see the stage was in no doubt of his reaction, but those who couldn't see - or at least one of them - assumed that it had happened! (With hindsight I should have marked in the script that they both went out on different sides of the stage, but lack of experience had made me unaware of this.) Everybody who could see (and hear) gave me wonderful feedback. The consensus that seemed to be emerging was that it was easy to follow, 'unpretentious' and it made people laugh. Some particularly liked the satire in the scene with the Prime Minister, some the robots... but I really couldn't have asked for any better comments. I'm going to try and enter the one act play in a competition (when the right one comes up)- and write a version for TV as well. (Don't know how I'll get on with that, but watch this space!)

Sensual Scarlet

Sensual Scarlet: A Vampire’s Story

For my daughter

Yes, I am part-vampire, my daughter, and it seems that I have passed on this heritage to you. When the midwife first put you in my arms I saw the sensual scarlet of your strong lips and I knew it was likely that you too had this blessing and this curse. When your teeth pushed their pointed tips through your small pink gums, almost before you had drawn breath, I knew beyond all possible doubt. You are part-vampire, as I am.
All through the pregnancy I had tried to delude myself that you would take after your father or one of your human grandparents. It would have been so much simpler for you. As it is, your life will be very hard. You will be always holding yourself back, trying to emulate the meekness that men still look for in women. You have in you, quite certainly, all the power and passion that I have, and the lust for a man's blood. These are things which a mortal woman is not permitted to feel.


The full story, 'Sensual Scarlet' was published in Issue Nine of 'Title Goes Here' (print edition), a couple of weeks ago. (Apologies for the delay in posting this!)