Hello everyone! If you remember one of my previous blog posts, a while ago I was thrilled to be cast as a character for a silent short film, based on one of my favourite comics (tick that one of the life goals list!). If you’d like a taste of what’s to come, I give Melisandra of Hopeless, Maine a voice in a short monologue on Saturday the 22nd!
There are so many talented people involved and I cannot wait to see everyone’s contributions! Please tune in during this dreary January for some eldritch mystery, wondrous strange creatures, live music, an interview with creators Tom and Nimue Brown and much, much more! Meanwhile, the Hopeless, Maine graphic novel series is well worth checking out. It started out as an online serial, which is how I discovered it and has since grown in popularity and tentacles.
Art by Thomas Brown
🦑🌊🐙🧜♀️🦇🥄🐚🕷️🧿🔮🌊🦑
Originally posted on Druid Life: On the 22nd of January, there will be an online Hopeless Maine festival, which is an exciting prospect. I’ve already…
This is what I wrote yesterday, expanded a little, because I’m not restricted to 280 characters here!
“I wrote a new poem. That’s a much bigger deal than it sounds. I haven’t dared to write anything truly new in four years: since I was nominated for a BSFA Award in 2017.
In hindsight, I found the sudden sense of scrutiny crushingly intimidating: it juddered me to a slow crawl, during which I made many notes and obsessively squinted at poems/fiction I’d been writing already. I barely submitted anything. What I did submit bounced, usually with encouraging noises attached; two publications that did accept pieces sadly folded before they could bring their project to life.
Looking at that, it was my confidence that was shot (by getting an award nomination.. the irony), rather than my work lacking, per se. Not that I saw it that way, I was my own worst heckler. But considering no one else at the time went: ‘Your work stinks, Suna, give up!’, I was definitely getting in my own way. I did an interview here, a blog post there. I could talk up a storm about my WIP’s. I just omitted they’d been ‘IP’ since 2011 or thereabouts! I knew intellectually it’s fine if you’re not prolific for a while, or at least not as prolific as you feel you should be. To not beat yourself up on top of everything else. Easy to understand, harder to break. Especially since words and concepts swam opaquely around my head but I just didn’t seem to have the whats to capture them with a pen.
I never entirely stopped but my heart wasn’t entirely in it, either. I just dribbled occasional words into notepads or my writing app. Then something did change. As insidiously as my confidence leaked away, my will to write crept back. I’d love to say I made a conscious choice to grow a spine, but it grew over time.
A drabble prompt clinched it: short enough to not be daunting, challenging enough to make blood flow back into places I thought I had only tar. It got accepted almost immediately. The validation, the sense that I am doing something right after all, helped enormously, too 🙂
I felt excited about writing again. There was movement, albeit still a bit uncertainly. Then I read Matt Dovey’s thread. A long heartfelt sharing of his difficulties, obstacles both internal and extrnal, his doubts: his honesty and vulnerability were so moving and galvanising, it helped stoke up the fire in me. Yesterday, I used another call for submissions to write an entirely new piece. What made all the difference: I spent no time fretting about The Gallery of Scrutiny, its nameless judgements and the shameful sense I should pander to it. It was mine.
I still lack structure. Music is partially responsible, but really, it’s discipline and I am inconsistent. But I’m writing again and I’m happy about it. Matt’s post really yanked my chain in the best possible way, it helped me to nail my courage to the sticking place and I’m so grateful he shared it. I’m excited for his newfound fuel as much as mine and I look forward to reading his upcoming work.”
Afterthought after having posted the thread: “Maybe I’ll hardly publish actual fiction again. The most important and liberating thing is that the shouldism and self-judgement are gone. I play music, I perform. It’s an infinite luxury to have a creative career at all. When they flow, there are words. I’ve made amazing friends through writing. If you’re still reading, you are probably one of them, so: thank you.”
Seldom do I post (for regular updates Twitter is best), yet now I have many excitements to impart. Please make like the tiny turtles in Finding Nemo and scooch together, my kind followers.
2017 ended on a high note with big gig conformations for Erin Bennett: Planet Rock’s Winter’s End Festival, (we play on Sat 24/02) plus Hawkwind’s Hawkeaster Happening, in Morecambe. Krow, too, has an epic gig confirmed – announcement coming soon! New album releases are pending for both. (For those of you who followed this blog fairly recently; I sing backing vox in both bands, which is how I make a living. I write in the gaps.) The Cherry on the Christmas Cake: invites for contributions to two new anthologies & a speculative poem for a third.
2018 started with a bang because oh, my goodnes; My short story ‘Unmade‘ (featured in Steampunk Writers Around the World) has been nominated for a BSFA by the British Science Fiction Association! Many congratulations to all fellow nominees & my open minded publishers at Luna Press Edinburgh.
For the full list of nominees in all categories, see the BSFA website.
Via The Clockwork Watch: The Transmedia Experience comes this missive, hot off the press:
“We are printing a limited edition of our fictional newspaper ‘The London Gazette’ for those coming to ‘The Tinku Diaries’, next Thursday, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
This will be our new immersive theatrical experience, and it forms part of the museum’s Clocking Off Late series.”
Meanwhile, the Tinku Diaries themselves are to reveal many underlying secrets…
Suna Dasi 
You must be logged in to post a comment.