Creative Prompt: Don’t Slip

Jul 16, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 6 Comments

When I was a kid I used to spend my weekend mornings watching the TV with my sister. On the UK terrestrial channels we used to get mornings of programming that included a range of different programmes and quiz shows, and these frequently included slapstick inspired cartoons like Tom and Jerry. We used to watch a lot of stuff, and much of it I cannot remember. But do remember moments from the cartoons, and it was not unusual for these cartoons to feature a banana skin and a crucial moment in the chase.

It’s been a long time now since I saw a chase scene in which a crucial moment depends on an unfortunate encounter with a banana skin. However I recently saw this actual banana skin on the road and felt compelled to take a photograph of it. I was very attracted to the bright warm yellow on the grey of the pavement.

Many good stories start with someone making a mistake, or slipping on a banana skin of a problem intentionally placed there for them by someone else. Perhaps this particular banana skin will be luckier for you?

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.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. 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 I also have a Patreon Page here.

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Creative Prompt: Green Dragon Court

Jul 9, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

I came across this street sign when I recently went for my Covid vaccination in Central London. It is very close to borough market. In the day you can wander among the stalls smelling all the wonderful cooking smells, and buy expensive hand crafted food stuffs.

At night the market is empty, but in non covid times there area a number of local bars and the customers spill out into the space. For me though this street sign reminded me of the brilliant Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (affiliate link). If you have not read this book and you are at all interested in fantasy, I strongly suggest you give it a try.

It kind of makes me wonder if in another reality there would be a resident green dragon who holds court here.

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Reasons to be grateful: fresh new potatoes from the garden

Jul 2, 2021Jun 30, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

Earlier this year I stumbled across a YouTube channel called Erica’s little Welsh garden which I like to dip in and out of on a semi consistent basis. My own attempts a gardening tend to be sporadic and poorly planned, but I have also gained great pleasure over the last few years as I have learned to grow a little bit of food. On her channel around Christmas time she spoke about having bought a bag of potatoes from bargain shelf at the local shop, and was planning to see how many potatoes she could grow in pots. At the end of the video she set a challenge for other people to join in, which became known as the #potatogrowingchallenge2021.

I didn’t exactly go out and buy a bag of potatoes, but as we accumulated a number of potatoes that were ‘on the turn’ in our potato basket I thought I would have a go myself. We had a number of large pots left over from our attempts the previous year to grow other things, and some peat free compost so popped a couple of potatoes in each pot with a generous amount of compost, and then put them outside. This was around February time, and the start of a long wait.

To my surprise they grew really well, despite being nobbled by some late frosts in April and May. My son and I finally turned out the pots a couple of weeks ago. I was delighted with the number of decent sized potatoes we got from this little experiment, and my son was delighted with running round the garden with handfuls of muddy potatoes and other beasties he found during the process. The final weigh in was 4 kilos of potatoes, which is pretty good for an experiment that didn’t cost us very much.

We have been eating boiled new potatoes with butter and sage from the garden this week as a family, and I am grateful to have been able to give this experiment at try.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. If you want 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 I also have a Patreon Page here.

Creative Prompt Mini-series: Making offerings to trees #4

Jun 25, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 3 Comments

I quite often see trees that people have decorated with one or more objects, and they always catch my eye. For this reason this month I have been running a mini series of creative prompts about trees and the way people appear to honour them. You can see the other three posts here, here and here.

For my final prompt in this series I wanted to offer you this photo of a tree I saw on the side of one of the Cotswold Hills near where my parents live. I was out walking with my partner, and my parents were looking after my son so we were able to get into places that were a bit too hilly or muddy for the pram.

It was a really hot day, and we mostly chose to stick to the cover of the woods, but found this tree on the side of a field on a hill near a local monument. The sun was very strong that day on my skin, and so bright that it was difficult to take this picture because of the reflection in the screen of my phone. But it seems I did manage to capture this arrangement.

There has been a strong theme of of pagan or druidic traditions in the area since long before I was born. At the time of taking this photo it was not long before the summer solstice, and I imagine that these symbols do have meaning for whoever placed them there. But it is not a meaning that I understand. Perhaps someone who sees this will understand it better and be able to explain it to me.

In my own creative writing at the moment nature plays a strong part of the belief system of the shadow world I have been trying to build. I like seeing things like this, particularly when I don’t actually understand the intention of the person who made the decoration, as it sparks my imagination. I hope that this picture of symbols on a tree may spark something for you, too.

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Creative Prompt Mini-series: Making offerings to trees #3

Jun 18, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 6 Comments

I saw this tree in a street near where I live over a year ago. It’s not a great photo, as it came out a bit dark. Fiddling with an edit seems to cause more harm than good by bleaching out the image, but I’ve managed to enhance the range of woollen decorations hanging in the tree.

On the actual day the weather was quite gloomy and cool, and it was spring but not really near Easter or any other festival that I know of would explain these objects hanging in the tree. They really stood out to me as a bit special. Someone, or a group of someones had spent a chunk of their time hand making these decorations for a tree in the street.

This is the kind of thing that really sparks ideas off for me. Who would spend the time to do such a thing? What meaning might these objects hold? Are they left over from a festival, or just there because someone simply wanted to honour the tree?

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Creative Prompt Mini-series: Making offerings to trees #2

Jun 11, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 6 Comments

I imagine that someone decorated this tree around Christmas with these sparkling snow flakes, but it was some time after the end of the holiday season when I took this photo. It was a bright crisp winter day and the snow flakes stood out more brightly than the photo does justice to here.

I have spoken before about my somewhat romantic relationship with a snow and ice. In the UK the summer has just arrived, and our final frost is long behind us. The trees are growing green and many plants are in full flower now, so perhaps it was a little odd to include this picture in this mini series, but I felt that it was an oddly good fit here. I often find that some of my better ideas come from seeing something familiar in a different context, where it suddenly sticks out as a poor fit.

The decorations on this tree seem slightly wild to me, like an offering made to the local tree nymphs, left out in the wind, sunshine and rain. They remind me of how humans have celebrated in the depths of winter with feasting and gifting long before Christmas was established as a Christian festival. I hope that they will provide inspiration for someone, what ever the weather.

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Creative Prompt Mini-series: Making offerings to trees #1

Jun 4, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 2 Comments

One of the things that really catches my eye when I am our and about is where people decorate or otherwise mark local trees. I frequently find the way they do this to be interesting and mysterious, and it allows my mind to wander into spaces that are both ancient and mystical.

This tree is close to our house, and has been marked with this ring of stones for some time now. I frequently walk past it, and wonder who may have put these stones there. What do they mean to the person who placed them?

In my own work in progress (Feeding Jasmine Valentine) natural cycles, and plants and trees play quite a big part in my world building. One of the things I want to do a bit more with this blog is to share some of the things that are feeding into my ideas for that work. So over the next four weeks I’ll be sharing some photographs of trees that may spark your imagination. I hope that this mini series will provoke new ideas for you, too.

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Learning to do self promotion, and a sale on Redbubble

May 28, 2021May 29, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

When I started this blog several years ago my plan was just to be able to blog about my creative stuff, and maybe connect with other creative people too. Once I got going I found that while I enjoyed the writing side of it, I really didn’t enjoy the self promotion side of it. For a long time I didn’t really push the blog, and for much of 2019 I didn’t blog at all.

A friend of mine once told me while I was pregnant that I would probably feel a lot less concerned about what other people thought about what I was doing after my son was born, and she’s been pretty spot on on that account. Over the last year l’ve spent a bit of time getting the hang of promoting myself on twitter, and have been a bit more comfortable in pushing myself. The one thing I am still finding difficult to do is to find the time to connect with other bloggers, to read their blogs and to join in with commenting. But am trying to do better with this.

Most of my recent blogging has been about my writing, as it’s been difficult to do much visual art or film making because the setting up of things takes so much more time. I’ve been thinking a lot about the ‘indie’ route for my writing, and recently realised that I’m already an ‘indie’ with respect to my art, and have quite a ‘back list’ available on Redbubble.

I received an email today from Redbubble to say they are running a sale this weekend on the website, so I thought it was a good opportunity to engage in a little self promotion. One of my favourite collections was a series of pieces of paper cut and mixed media art that were set across all four seasons – The Forest Kiss Collection. I look at them now and find that similar ideas are informing my writing, with my current project also featuring cycles and seasons.

This weekend, if you were interested in getting yourself some new art, take a look at Redbubble, which features art from over 700,000 independent artists, and use the promo code FINDYOURTHING grab yourself a bargin.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. If you want 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 I also have a Patreon Page here.

On not having a niche: diverse interests and creativity

May 28, 2021May 21, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 2 Comments

When I first started blogging a number of years ago now, I spent a bit of time looking at what other people said about creating a successful blog. There is lots of advice out there, some of it sensible, some of it conflicting. I tried to build some of it into my blogging, with various degrees of success (if you are looking for a good site on this is suggest taking a look at Female Blogreneur here). Most were easy enough. Include pictures. Check. Include pictures of cats. Double check.

But the most consistent piece of advice that came up was to find a niche and stick with it. This is where I have a problem. My blog and website started off as a place to talk about my writing, films and art. But over time I found myself wanting to write about other things and other ideas. This is mostly because my magpie brain is attracted to lots of things, and you know, life happens. So over time I have written about the flowers in my garden, interesting sentimental objects, open water swimming and IVF.

It’s not a problem to have diverse interests, but it makes it a bit more difficult to describe what you do. ‘I write about art, writing, and lots of other things’ is a bit vague. One of the other bits of advice that is out there is to ‘build a community around what you do’. If you are at best vague about what you do, that also gets a bit tricky.

Over time I’ve been thinking about this and what it all means. There are definitely groups of people out there ‘like me’. Emily Wapnick calls us multipotentialites. Barbara Sher calls us scanners, and urges us to ‘refuse to choose’ (affiliate link). There are several existing communities that exist around this notion, but somehow the idea of joining one doesn’t scratch the itch. I think the closest I’ve come to feeling like I’ve met ‘my people’ is when I meet other artists and writers, particularly the ones who deal in science fiction and fantasy.

On a number of writing shows and podcasts I have listened to recently I have come across this idea that as writers we need to fill the creative well. I feel my creativity is a bit more like a river with multiple tributaries that derive from many different sources. I can identify a variety of influences in my current work in progress, Feeding Jasmine Valentine. I actually think that my ‘niche’ is creativity itself. The things that inspire creativity, the processes that are involved, and the many splendid expressions of it. But the niche of creativity is so broad, and has so many possibilities that it is almost no good as I niche at all.

And I don’t think that matters.

Thank you for reading. I also write, make art and films. If you want 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 I also have a Patreon Page here.

Creative Prompt: A crack in the wall

May 21, 2021Dec 28, 2021 / The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

When we moved into our house, pre pandemic, we were aware that there was lots of work that was needed. At the time we weren’t daunted by that because even though I had a big baby bump, we thought that we would have lots of help from our family. Unfortunately we then had a global pandemic which forced us all into a series of lockdowns, and our DIY has progressed rather more slowly than expected.

Upstairs in the room that is meant to be our bedroom, but that currently functions as an office/ dumping ground, I’ve been taking off the wallpaper a little bit at a time. There was a thin crack, and a lot of crumbling bits in the middle of one of the walls. I had to cut away and clean out some of the plaster before I could fill it all in again to make the rest of the plaster secure. In the middle of the process I took this photo of the crack, which I think looks kind of spooky. It has a whiff of MR James about it.

I thought that it would make a nice creative or writing prompt for somebody who has spooky tastes. Drop your ideas or flash fiction welcome in the comments below, or turn it into a post on your own blog and let me know.

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