creative work

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

/ 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.

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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Learning to do self promotion, and a sale on Redbubble

/ 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

/ 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.

YouTube as a medium for long form storytelling

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

For someone who is really into reading and writing, I watch a lot of telly. Over the last few years I have found myself being more and more drawn into the potential of YouTube as a medium for long form storytelling. To begin with I was very put off by the prank videos and found the ‘five tips to…’ format of video particularly uninspiring. However, my partner is a bit of a genius at finding interesting channels to watch, and I’ve recently found myself a bit addicted to the stories that Morgan of Gold Shaw Farm tells (see his video above about his dog for a good example). Baby Magpie, who has just learned to wave, likes to watch the ducks and geese before bedtime, and to chat to them in a sing song voice. Sometimes he gives Morgan and Toby Dog a wave.

In my twenties I did a PhD in psychology and I was particularly interested in how stories affect us. It is an interest that still intrigues me in a variety of different ways, although it has been a while since a did any comprehensive research. However, during my reading for my PhD I came across the idea that a story, whether fact or fiction, needs to have an emotional truth to really move the reader. Of course what constitutes that truth will be different for different people. As a reader and writer of fantasy, I am fully aware that not everyone is able to identify with the perspective of an elf.

Which brings me back to Morgan and his stories about Gold Shaw Farm. I’m not a farmer, and while I try my hand in the garden now and then, I do not claim to want to start a farm. However, I still find my self wanting to know more about the ducks, and geese, and Hobo Barn cat. I think that Morgan is doing something really interesting with YouTube as a medium for long form story telling. In each video he picks up a different thread of the story of his farm, and he has an instinctive understanding of emotional truth in the stories he tells about his animals. While he delights in the new life that comes on to his farm during hatching season, he also does not shy away from the loss and sorrow that farming also necessarily involves. I know that some of the readers here are very interested in storytelling in it’s many splendid forms, and if that is you I would encourage you to spend some time with this channel.

As regular readers of this blog may know, I have a bit of an issue in being interested in too many things at once, and potentially diving into too many different types of media. The consequences of this are that it’s difficult to actually finish anything. My current fantasy work in progress features a character who is a YouTuber, and as part of that process I started a YouTube channel of my own a while ago. I imagine it will surprise absolutely no one to learn that it is now sitting, unloved, waiting for me to do something about it.

At the moment I am finding that the time I need to devote to my gorgeous toddler make it very difficult to maintain a film making practice, but I hope to return to it when the demands on my time ease a little bit. One of the ideas I’m thinking about at the moment is trying to interview YouTubers who I like for my own channel as a form of research to inform that character, and to understand what it is that people enjoy about making the films they do. Let me know if this is something you would be interested in and I will try and make it happen, when I have a moment…

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: The Journey

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 2 Comments

When we moved into our house a couple of years ago the previous owners had left a lot of things behind. Most of these things were kind of annoying – huge wardrobes that have been difficult to get rid of or broken ornaments in the garden. However, they also left this little guy in a large flower pot in the garden, and I really like him.

He’s made of some kind of ceramic, and seen from the right angle, looks like he is about to journey into the wilderness. Many good stories begin with the start of a journey, and in my own books (all works in progress unfortunately) there are several. Here on the blog I like to share photos of things that give me ideas, as sometimes I think they may give other people ideas too. What does this picture make you think of? What kind of tales does this picture inspire?

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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Parenting and productivity: what have I learned?

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 3 Comments

When my son was born last year a few weeks before we went into a national lockdown I thought that there would be time to do things. Long time readers of this blog will know that I have a habit of working on multiple projects at a time. We also bought a house that needs lots of work doing to it that we planned to do ourselves. I naively thought that I would be able to continue with this multiple project approach, but it turns out that I was very optimistic.

In the first 6 months, when my son couldn’t move very far, it was actually possible to do lots of things, but as I was recovering from a C section there was a limit on what I could do, so I mostly stuck to writing. Once he got the hang of moving about however, things really changed and I found I was able to do less and less. in particular I found he got really interested in my computer, which meant that my previous approach of writing when he was around became unviable, or I would soon have a broken computer.

There have been a few black days where I was feeling very frustrated and stuck, with the house needing lots of work and my projects sitting untouched on my computer. At the same time I have found that just spending time with him, watching him learn and grow has been a really mind expanding experience. Everyday he encounters something new for the first time. I didn’t want those moment with hime to be lost in my need to do other things and so I started thinking about getting more organised. My partner bought me a copy of Getting things Done by David Allen (affiliate link), which was helpful to some extent. I also read a copy of From Chaos to Creativity by Jessie Kwak, (affiliate link) which was really helpful and a much easier book to navigate when you don’t have much time.

He’s now toddling, and into absolutely everything making and while you would think things would be even more difficult, actually I feel a lot more on top of things now. Here is what I have learned:

  1. It helps to have a system – Both of the books I suggest above recommend developing a system to mange all of the things you have to do. I’m still working on mine but have found Trello and a series of physical white boards helpful in organising my time.
  2. Get used to making the most of small, unpredictable pockets of time – I find that I frequently find I have small pockets of time in which I can do something that come at odd moments in the day. In order to make the most of this it really helps to work out ahead of time what little jobs or tasks I can do in ten minutes or half an hour and keep a list of these. For example I have managed to do quite a lot on our garden this year in thirty minute slots here and there. I have also made some good headway on the second draft of my novel in twenty minute chunks of time.
  3. Switch devices – my son is obsessed with my laptop computer and I can’t really use it around him as he just grabs it off my lap the whole time. But I have found I can write a lot of bits and pieces on my phone and then tidy them up on the computer later when he is napping.
  4. Switch media – I’ve recently signed up for an audible account (affiliate link) have found this really helps me – I can’t read and look after my son, but I can listen to an audio book while I’m cooking or something like that. This has been transformative for me.
  5. One thing at a time – I have had to put some things on hold, like pretty much all of my film making and art work so I can concentrate on one bit of one creative project – the first book of the Feeding Jasmine Valentine Project because that’s all I can do.

Thank you for reading. I also make art and films. 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.

Sunday Funday’s Creative Prompt: Lost in Croydon #3

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

I have just started on a third draft of the first novel in my fantasy series (called Feeding Jasmine Valentine). More than one of the characters starts the book feeling more than a little lost.

While I was out walking with my son a few weeks ago I found myself being attracted to objects around the place that seem a little lost. This is the third in a mini series of creative prompts. This week’s prompt – a single glove on the pavement.

What does this picture make you think of? What kind of tales does this picture inspire? Ideas or flash fiction welcome in the comments below, or turn it into a post on your own blog and let me know.

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 them.

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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Sunday Funday’s Creative Prompt: Lost in Croydon #2

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

I have just started on a third draft of the first novel in my fantasy series (called Feeding Jasmine Valentine). More than one of the characters starts the book feeling more than a little lost.

While I was out walking with my son a few weeks ago I found myself being attracted to objects around the place that seem a little lost. This is the second in a mini series of creative prompts. This week’s prompt – a pair of glasses on a bench.

What does this picture make you think of? What kind of tales does this picture inspire? Ideas or flash fiction welcome in the comments below, or turn it into a post on your own blog and let me know.

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 them.

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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Reasons to be grateful: 2020 wrap up

/ The Magpie at Midnight / Leave a comment

I’m already a couple of days late with this post but I figure given the year we’ve just had, that’s ok.

It’s been a strange old year and I know many people are glad to see the back of it. Given how tough it has been on many of us it would be insulting to start getting preachy about how everyone should be taking stock of their reasons to be grateful, but I do find it helpful to take stock of mine.

Here in the Magpie nest we have been some of the lucky ones. After a couple of years of fertility treatment, early this year our son came into the world. While we didn’t have the best time in the hospital, we all made it home unscathed and he continues to grow, and astonish, and amuse us every day.

We had been home with him for just a few weeks when the world went into lock down and all of the mum and baby groups that normally populate the lives of new mums shut down. While this sounds like we may have missed out, we are lucky enough to have a garden, and so we spent much of those early days with our new baby in the garden, quietly getting to know each other. I feel like this time, where it was just the three of us, was a bit of a gift now I am looking back on is from a cold December. We were able to get to know each other a bit before the outside world was able to intrude. In those heady, sleep deprived days it was possible for most of the lock down to drift past us, and it is only now that we are beginning to miss the bright lights of Central London.

On the creative side, while we may have missed out on many of the groups and visitors that are a normal feature in the life of a new born, I did have more time on my hands and was able to finish a draft of my novel, Feeding Jasmine Valentine. Since then I have been able to ask some friends to read it and get some feedback. In 2021 I will be working through it, my main aim for the year being to develop a draft that is good enough to send to agents.

While I do feel we have been very lucky this year, and have slipped through it mostly unscathed, I am very aware that there are many people who have not been as fortunate. I hope that 2021 is an all together kinder year to everyone, and wish everyone reading this good wishes for the year ahead.

Thank you for reading. I also make art and films. 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.

Sunday Funday: Creative Prompt

/ The Magpie at Midnight / 1 Comment

I’ve been very much enjoying the kind of atmospheric weather that autumn and winter bring to the UK. On a recent walk I saw a number of these spider webs bejewelled with dew and I thought them wonderful. I find this time of year to be very inspiring from a creative point of view, and enjoy sharing the odd little things I see when I am out and about.

What does this picture make you think of? What kind of tales does this picture inspire? Ideas or flash fiction welcome in the comments below, or turn it into a post on your own blog and let me know.

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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