Transition Girl

Why transition girl?... Best answered by a quote from the Iliad....."The soul was not made to dwell in a thing; and when forced to it, there is no part of that soul but suffers violence."

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Silence

(poem penned 10/10/11)

The night cocoon tightly wrapped.
Full moonlight shadows crisply carved.
Skin shroud securely stilled.
Windows to the soul welded shut.

Two tiny yellow sponges stuffed in
to soak up every sound.
Barely a shield to border intrusions.
A futile barrier to attacks from the heart.

An erratic breath’s whisper.
A moment. Paused.
Suspended in the air.
No echo can escape
to whistle to the darkness
to envelop it.

The beating drum, it has no rhythm.
It pounds then taps.
Sledgehammer then feather light touches.
It gushes then trickles.
Waterfall, stream, dried riverbed.
Waiting for the splintered cracks
to shatter the silence.

Monday, October 10, 2011

three streams

I was under doctor's orders last week to have "complete rest". It was four days into meeting that demand when my body reached the stage where it could handle more than sleeping and watching DVDs and, at that point, all I wanted to do was write.

I have been becoming a writer almost all my life. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first starting scribbing imagined ideas onto paper as a twelve year old but I suspect last Friday was another one of those defining moments when I realised just how much being a writer meant to me.

When my body (and mind) was physically capable again, I wrote for three straight days. I wrote three scenes of chapter two of novel number four. I was so happy when I was done. It washed away (albeit temporarily) what can only be described as a major distraction created from my rebellious emo body that has put me in and out of hospital over the last month and given me a whole new perspective on the phrase "be still my beating heart". [Aside: granted the paramedics at the hospital could have been an external trigger that could get the blood pumping such was their talent but sadly environmental factors were not the source of my pain.]

Last Friday I thought I have three streams of work in progress at various stages of development. The first story in the series is close to being published with final formatting near complete. The second is drafted and has commenced the long haul that is editorial with comments due back at the end of the month. The third is now at the substantive drafting stage (to add to the confusion it is actually my fourth novel referred to earlier because I have one book already published). It felt like quite an achievement.

But I also thought, having been reminded of my mortality so rudely while in my hospital gown, all I wanted was to complete and publish these three books (which will be collectively the Panopticon series) as my legacy before I am no more. I just need to survive to the end of 2012 for the above streams to flow out into the world (though I suppose it is "the end" on a Mayan calendar and no one will be around to read the stories). It was a depressing thought.

Guess I better write another scene to purge the gloom out of me.