Changing times mean changing priorities: We’ve no idea what’s coming…

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My son, who is only just three, got hold of my phone the other evening and took this photograph of me while I was trying to settle him for bed. I was not winning, as you can see. I’m pretty tired at the moment and not exactly light on my feet any more, but we are near the end, or the beginning, depending on which way you view it.

It won’t be long now before I’m in the hospital having my twins. I’m looking forward to having a body that can move around more easily, and that doesn’t get out of breath just walking up the stairs. But as in my first pregnancy, I’m also feeling proud of what it was able to do, which was grow two little humans to the point where they are ready to emerge into the world.

In both pregnancies I had delusions about how much writing I would be able to do in the last few weeks, when I was off work but not yet caring for babies. I thought I would be able to write lots of posts and lots of fiction. But instead, both times I have ended up sitting in bed watching crime dramas and batch cooking meals for the freezer.

But I’m not sorry, it important to recognise when you need to rest in preparation for challenges to come. I’m hoping to pop out a bit more writing before I pop out these babies, but I’ve decided not to hold myself to it, or to give my self a hard time if I don’t manage another word.

During my last maternity leave I was trying to write and make films and make art. This time, knowing I’m going to have so little time to myself I’m going to prioritise writing in those moments. It feels sad to be setting down the other media for a while, but I’m confident I will come back to them sooner or later.

I’m also going to try prioritising one writing project. I’ve been working on a fantasy novella for a while and I think it has potential. I’m about 45,000 words into a first draft at the moment, but it all needs development.

It started out as a little side project to another big fantasy project I was working on, as a way of practicing writing scenes and chapters that had a bit of momentum. But it’s a nice self contained story and would probably be the easiest thing I have ‘in progress’ to develop for sending to agents or for trying the self publishing route, so I’d actually like to get this one finished.

I’m still going to be putting out posts here on the blog and over at Medium, but over the next few months my output won’t be predictable or consistent. I have no idea what parenting twins is going to be like, or how much time I may end up having to do writing in at all, so it feels like the best compromise I can make with myself right now. I’m looking forwards to hearing from you all, and hopefully will see you on the other side.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Photography: If walls could talk

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I’m getting to slow to walk about as much as I was, so my street photography opportunities are limited at the moment, but I have been finding other things to take photographs of. I’m aware I’m not posting consistently now, I’m just too tired. Hopefully I’ll get some of my creative energy back in the weeks after they arrive.

We’ve recently been doing a bit of decorating in our house. I’ve hit the point in my pregnancy where ‘heavy’ is the only appropriate descriptor for me, so I’ve not actually been doing the work, but various relatives have been arriving at the house to strip wall paper and entertain my toddler. I am greatful for all of that help.

Recently we removed layers of wall paper in our hallway of a colour scheme too hideous to take photographs of, and underneath it we found this. It’s the ghostly imprint of a previous generation of wallpaper on the plaster, although none of the actual wallpaper remained under the current woodchip.

I live in the UK and have been involved in decorating a number of old houses in my time. Often peeling back layers of wallpaper reveals yet older layers beneath, and it is sometimes sad to have to strip back the history of a place to be able to paint and clean things up.

I often wonder about the people who choose the ancient styles of wallpaper, who they were and what there lives may have been like. They put me in mind of the kind of ghost stories that are set in old, secluded country houses.

The pattern here is floral, and given the way it left an imprint on the plaster it must have been strongly textured. I imagine it was good quality paper, maybe bought by people who hoped to give a good impression to their neighbours.

Who do you think choose the wall paper?

What happened to them?

If these walls could talk, what stories would they tell us?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

New lessons about my Dyslexia: Neurodiversity, mental health and managing people

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A distant diagnosis

I’ve written before about having dyslexia but I don’t often write about the impact of it on me personally. I think in part this is because I was diagnosed more than twenty years ago at university, and while research and understanding have moved on since then, I’ve not been keeping up. Dyslexia is commonly understood as a learning disability that predominantly affects a person’s ability to read and write, but I think recent research is beginning to show it’s more complex than that and comes with an array of advantages too.

I’ve always thought some of my odd quirks were just that, personal oddities that were unique to me, and not the consequence of structural differences in the brain. For example, I’ve always found it easier to read reports and documents I’m working on off physical paper rather than a screen, while this seems to bother other people a lot less. When we moved in my day job over to mostly remote working I didn’t get a home printer as part of my setup, and I think it took me a lot longer to adapt than others.

One of the things I’ve not reflected on is the impact my dyslexia may have on my mental health, specifically the sometimes crippling anxiety I’ve had in the past around work and ‘being productive’. I had always assumed that I was one of the people who had adapted to their dyslexia, after all I have completed a Ph.D., regularly write, and have a job as a researcher in mental health in the charity/ non-profit sector. However, this week something happened that demonstrated to me that the two things may be far more closely linked than I had realised.

Visio-spacial memory and text editing

I did know that there was a link between dyslexia and strong visio-spacial memory, but I didn’t really draw the link across to how this would affect the way I work with text. I’ve always put that in the ‘why you like arts’ bucket of understanding myself and didn’t really think it was relevant to my writing, which I also like to do a lot of.

However this week an incident happened that showed me very clearly how I use visiospacial memory when I work with text-based documents, and how that can go wrong in collaborative endevours. I’ve been working on a project with another person. I think that person is a bit worried I won’t finish before my babies come, and while I was poorly over the holiday they decided to try to help by doing some work on the document.

We’ve moved over recently to working on a shared digital document, rather than having individual drafts that we share after the fact. I think this is really common practice for many people, but we are a bit behind and still getting the hang of it. So without talking to me about what would be helpful, this person went into the document I was working on, re-wrote sections, added sections and moved blocks of text about.

It turns out that for me, having a clear visual map of where the text is on the page in memory is key to being able to progress a piece of work. When I returned to work to find my document changed so significantly in its visual layout, I actually couldn’t remember what I was meant to be doing or what I had planned to do anymore.

I think the worst aspect of this is that because we had been working on a live document, there wasn’t a previous version to go back to in order to catch up with myself, and the other person hadn’t tracked their changes either. For at least an hour or so I felt truly stuck.

Personal links between neurodiversity and mental health

Even on a good day, my anxiety levels are probably set a bit higher than the average person, and in the past, I’ve suffered from significant anxiety, both in relation to work and my personal life at times. At the moment I’m full of pregnancy hormones and riding a bit higher than usual with my anxiety, so emotional regulation is proving to be challenging.

Being confronted with a document on an important project that didn’t seem to be mine anymore sent me into a panic, and within about fourty five minutes I was having a mini breakdown in my bathroom.

I think overall I’ve been set back by a few days as I’ve tried to retrace my steps and get back to where I was before Christmas so I can work productively again. It’s probably taken longer to settle my anxiety back down to a comfortable level again too.

Learning

I guess my big learning from this is that if someone is going to help me write, I need them to agree ahead of time on how they are going to do that helping. I don’t think this is controversial and probably applies to anyone with some form of neurodiversity or work-related anxiety.

I think for people who have some form of neurodiversity, workplaces or creative projects that are set up by people who don’t have those experiences may be more stressful, and contribute to more mental health challenges than they would for a neurotypical person. This is because processes that work well for those people may often have the opposite effect for someone whose brain just works differently.

I know plenty of people who would have been really pleased that someone did some of their writing for them, but for me, it was disorienting and completely disruptive to my thinking and creative process.

It’s certainly helped me think about how I ‘help’ some of my own staff in my day job. I know that several of the staff I have line managed in the past have some form of neurodiversity. Do I always agree with them ahead of time what would actually be helpful? I think I do most of the time, but there are probably moments where the pressure of deadlines and workloads mean that I have fallen short of my own advice here, so that’s been helpful to reflect on, too.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: The Hideaway

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I’ve had this photograph sitting on my computer for more than six months. It’s of a den my partner and I found in the woods while we were out with my son in the summer. At the time I found it enchanting, as I always do when I find these secret places that so strongly remind me of childhood. 

I don’t normally like to put photos of my son out on social media, mostly because I feel he’s too young to understand what it means and so too young to ask permission from. But you can’t see his features in this photo, and he has changed a lot since then anyway. It’s helpful to have a little figure in the picture to get the scale of the thing.

Later in the summer a wild fire swept through the entire area where we saw this little den. We’ve not been back since it happened so I do not know if it survived the blaze. 

I’m writing this as we prepare for Christmas, another time that is intimately bound up with the excitements and disappointments of childhood. The picture reminds me that some of the most alluring mysteries of childhood, some of the things that may make the best fuel for a good story, are fleeting, and rapidly lost to time and events beyond our control.

Who do you think built this hideaway?

How did they build it and why?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Baby Doll

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I frequently see lost things belonging to children when I’m out and about. It’s probably because my life mostly revolves around activities for toddlers and home working that I end up in places where lost shoes and lost toys accumulate.

I always think there is something a little forlorn about a tiny lost trainer on the pavement, but at the same time I see these objects so frequently that I seldom stop to photograph them these days. 

I actually saw this doll on one of the few days I’ve had recently that didn’t revolve around entertaining a toddler. I was walking from the train station to the physical office where I used to be based all the time, but now only visist about twice a month on a hybrid working arrangement. 

This doll was laying face down on the floor near a block of flats, I imagine forgotten after a hard day of playing. I stopped for this photograph because for me there is something a little sinister about the way it is positioned, and how the doll is face down in the dirt.

When I went to look closely at the photograph I found that face to the doll is out of focus, despite my best intentions to get the eyes, and that only adds to the sinister appeal. 

It reminds me of the set up of a lot of those serial crime shows that were popular in the early 2000’s like CSI and Criminal Minds. Maybe the loss of the doll is the beginning of a thriller type story.

How did the doll come to lay there like that?

Who did it belond to?

Where are they now?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Reasons to be grateful: A suprise pregnancy

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 2 Comments

Fertility difficulties…

I’ve been wanting to write, and simultaneously avoiding writing, this post for a while. I’m not quite sure where that reticence comes from, other than I normally don’t get quite this personal in print. Perhaps I don’t want to jinx it.

I’ve not written about this here before, although it’s no secret to people who know me. When we were trying to get pregnant with my son we struggled. It took more than a year of treatments, invasive tests and finally one lucky round of IVF before he was conceived.

I was 39 when he was born during a difficult delivery, and at that time I felt so incredibly lucky to have one baby. Since then I’ve never felt our family was incomplete. In many ways I felt like we’d had our bit of luck, surely we wouldn’t get more. My partner and I talked about going back to the fertility clinic but we hadn’t quite got to the point of spending the money.

…and big surprises

I had heard stories of people who had had a child through IVF, and then been caught by surprise by a second, natural pregnancy. But I thought they were just stories. I certainly did not think that something like that would happen to me.

Then, a few months ago that is exactly what happened, and now I’m expecting twins. I’ve known for some time now that we’re hoping for not one, but two babies at the end of this, but I’m still getting over the shock of it all to be honest.

‘Take it easy’

It’s been a funny time. The first three months were rough with constant nausea, and now, just as that has subsided, fatigue has settled in instead making it difficult to be as productive as I would like to be.

On top of that my toddler is getting more lively and more sure of his own preferences by the day, so the well meaning advice I’ve received from many people to ‘take it easy’, is difficult to follow.

When I tell other people they are almost always more excited than I am. It’s not that I’m not really pleased about what has happened, but I can also see the challenges ahead too.

When we found out I was pregnant this time we had just got to a point where things were feeling a little easier with a young child. Now it feels a bit like we are resetting the clock on sleepless nights and feeding problems, only at twice the intensity and with a busy toddler too.

Not all gifts are simple pleasures

I’ll not pretend I’m not daunted, and sometimes worry about whether we’ll be able to manage, both from a practical perspective, and a financial one. Sometimes I worry about my son, and how we will make enough time for him so that he can continue feeling secure and loved.

But I am enormously grateful too.

It feels like the universe has gifted me a last minute chance for a bigger family than I could have hoped for when we started our fertility journey six years ago.

I’ve been reflecting recently that not all gifts are simple, uncomplicated pleasures. Sometimes the gift itself is in the challenges it offers you, and how you respond to those challenges. I’m hoping that our family will be able to embrace those challenges, whatever they may be.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Through the Mirror Crack’d

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When I saw this mirror on the floor among some wet autmun leaves recently I was really drawn to it. I was on my way to work, it was raining and I was in a rush so the photograph is a little blurry, even after I’ve tried a couple of filters on it. 

But I don’t think it matters. The image itself still has an attractive power for me. When I looked at it I kept thinking of the phrase ‘Through the mirror crack’d’ but I wasn’t sure where it came from. 

A quick search on wikipedia reveals that it is the name of a British film from the 1980’s, based on an Agatha Christie novel, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (this is an affiliate link — if you buy this book through amazon I’ll recieve a few pense as a referral fee — but I’m not suggesting you should, I’ve not read it!).

I don’t know the story but Agatha Christie has a well earned reputaion as the queen of cosy mystery novels, so it made me think a little about the mystery involved in this picture. The mirror is shattered almost from the centre, giving it the appearance of rays of sunshine.

How do you think it came to be broken in this way?

Who broke it?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: Ribs

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We’ve had some really stormy rainy weather recently, and I’ve seen quite a few umbrellas lost to the elements, discarded on the street here and there. The autumn weather in the UK is always a bit unpredicatble, but it does feel like the winds are getting a little stronger, the storms a little more frequent and severe.

I picked this one to take a photograph of as I was really drawn to the way that the canopy had been almost completely stripped away from the internal mechanism. 

The different struts and wires remind me of the rib cage of a strange animal, like the abandoned umbrellas are some kind of odd sacrifice to the weather gods.

Stormy weather is often used in various forms of creative work to change to mood, to indiscate things are about to get bumpy, or that something sinister is about to happen. 

Who do you think may have discarded this umbrella?

Where were they trying to get to when the weather turned so furiously on them?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing Prompts from Street Photography: The Stack

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I saw these chairs the other morning when I was walking home from dropping my son at his preschool. It was one of those gorgeous bright but crisp autumn mornings and when I initially saw the chairs I thought they were new because of the way the light fell on them.

It was only when I got up close that I noticed signs of age. The chairs are dirty, and some of them looked in need of repair. Someone probably dumped them in the night hoping that someone else would take care of them, and they are gone now.

When I saw these chairs they gave me a sense of an ending, like at one time they had been used in a school, or a dining room that was once regularly filled with cheerful guests, but is no longer needed. I don’t know why that feeling struck me, but it did. It’s funny how these thoughts come to you sometimes.

In my psychology studies I have come across the idea that the human brain is arranged so that thoughts and ideas connect through an enormous web of associations, and that the way one thought leads to the next is not linear or predictable, but peculiar to the individual.

My partner, who works in IT, tells me that this is why it is so difficult for computer programmers working on AI to find creativity difficult to crack. It is not a linear or predictable process, but one that is unique to the individual. Personally, I take comfort in that.

I may write a longer science-based article on this if people are interested. (please let me know in the comments)

So, how do you think these chairs arrived on this bit of pavement?

What has come to an end?

Could it also signal a new beginning?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.

Writing prompts from street photography:What’s the combination?

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I’m sorry not to have posted for a few weeks, I’ve not been well. Hopefully I’ll get back on track in the next few weeks.

I saw this the other morning while I was rushing home from the local shop in the rain. Someone had left a black plastic bag of rubbish on the pavement. A fox had visited in the night searching for tasty morsals, and had torn open the bag, leaving the rubbish spread liberally across the street.

In the middle of all that rubbish I saw this key pad, glistening in the rain. I probably looked a bit odd, crouching over a load of someone elses rubbish to take a photograph, but the obejct itself grasped my curiosity (I have a short article on the science of curiosity for writers here for those who are interested).

It looked to me in that moment like the kind of keypad that may be attached to a safe or a panic room, and I began to wonder how it ended up on a rainy pavement in a slighlty run down suburb in outer London.

I don’t actually know how common it is to have a safe or a panic room in the UK, but it feels like to me like only the really wealthy would have such things, and we do not live in an area where the really wealthy live.

But I could be wrong. You never really know what the ordinary looking front doors of your neighbours houses may conceal behind them. It’s entirely possible that some of the modest semis in my area conceal all sort of hidden wealth or criminal undertakings.

What do you think the combination to this keypad unlocked?

Why do you think it was torn away and discarded like this?

Could it have been an emergency, or a robbery gone wrong?

I’m not a huge fan of creative exercises, so it’s not my habit to tell people what to do with these prompts. There are lots of options – a scene, some flash fiction, a short story, an idea for a short film or a physical piece of art. If you do have a go with this one and would like to drop the result in the comments please do so. I would be very interested to see what people make of these so please do link to blog posts or comment below.

If you like the photos featured in these creative prompt posts you may be interested in my latest collection of prints and other things on Redbubble which feature a small selection of my best shots.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. You can read my short fantasy stories here on Simily. If you like these prompts and want to get a copy of a free short book of them I wrote, and to hear more about my writing projects please join my mailing list here. You can see my films at my YouTube channel here. You can see things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying. If buying art is not your thing, but you would like to support what you see you could buy me a KoFi, and I also have a Patreon Page.