#the amount of detail required for creative writing is something I really forgot about

[chaoticmessofmymind]

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work I'm realizing goes into creative writing, lmao.

I thought scientific research papers were hard.

I've written like 7 of those so far in college (probably more, honestly, I just don't remember). Never in all my years of research papers have I ever felt compelled to read the entirety of a 190-page glossary manual on the terminology of firefighting practices. Yet, here I am, in my first week of silly, for-funsies creative writing, and feeling like I might actually do it.

[coco-bee]

INSIDE OUT 2 AND ANXIETY

Welcome to Media and Topic where I discuss a piece of media and how they handle a certain topic either in the story department or the production!

Today I’m discussing Inside Out 2 and how the movie handled Anxiety!

!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!

(I need to scratch the itch this movie gave me)

So I watched Inside Out 2 in the cinema with my friends after not going to the cinemas for a few years now AND I LOVED IT!! Very entertaining movie and I can’t wait to rewatch it on Disney+ :D

I want to discuss more about the first and second movie sometime when I get to watch them again

For now I want to discuss how this movie handles having anxiety!

Keep in mind I won’t go as in depth as I would want because I only watched the movie once and I can’t thoroughly watch it to find stuff I missed so I’m going off my memory.

So to start off of course we can’t discuss anxiety without well… Anxiety!

I genuinely love the way she’s portrayed! Not as an irredeemable monster but just wants the best for Riley and goes about it the wrong way. The way the movie interprets Anxiety as someone who prepares for the future is really smart! (and makes me rethink MY anxiety..)

Most people personify Anxiety as a monster who takes over the mind that they would like to be removed. But in this movie- Anxiety seems like an overbearing mother that is just trying her best but goes about it the wrong way. (at least to me)

The movie doesn’t go into the direction where Riley has an excessive amount of anxiety that requires medication or therapy but more of goes into the anxiety you get when you’re a teenager but it shows a lot more in certain situations than having it be a constant thing. Which explains why Anxiety while not gone is managed by Joy so that she won’t go off the rails.

Anyway I first want to mention the scene after Riley does her first game at Hockey Camp and Riley hears the Firehawks talk about her (I love how Val defends her btw I love her sm ARGHH)

(sorry the ss is bad quality I can’t find more)

The way Anxiety handled the conversation so smoothly was a very interesting scene! It adds nuance to the idea of anxiety not always being a bad thing. Anxiety can help someone stay alert in case of danger, make them aware of risks and motivate us to solve the problem/find a solution and in my experience helps with quick thinking. It only turns into a bad thing when it’s taken over ALL the time.

Basically the message of the first movie but instead of having toxic positivity it’s having unmanaged anxiety.

But things go downhill when Anxiety bottles up the other emotions in order to make Riley look cool and make new friends with Val and the Firehawks

And also removing Riley’s sense of self as she plants in more self deprecating ideas in Riley’s head to make this new belief that Riley isn’t good enough and has to ALWAYS improve (heavy emphasis on ‘always’)

Which gets Riley to abandon everything about herself. Like lying about her favorite band.

And abandoning her friends in order to look cool and mature.

In my experience this is VERY accurate. When you get overruled by Anxiety you tend to lose your sense of self. You lose your core personality traits in favor of what is seen as cool. PEOPLE PLEASER ALERTT ‼️ (Me too Riley… me too<3)

I also notice how Riley tends to make decisions that are completely against her morals and the rules when she’s letting her emotions take too much control instead of thinking rationally like sneaking to the Coach’s office because she was fueled with not knowing if she made the team or not.

A similar thing happened in the first movie where she stole her mom’s credit card. So just a detail to point out.

There’s also the scene where Anxiety got these…thought artists?? (I forgot what they’re called) to write the worst possible scenarios for Riley before a big game while she’s asleep. THAT SCENE IS SO RELATABLE I DO THAT A LOT especially when I’m going through something.

Again very accurate and not to mention a creative representation of this kind of thought process.

I also remember when Joy is formulating a plan to get back Riley’s old sense of self, in her plan she says to Anxiety “Hey! Stop worrying so much” and Anxiety (in Joy’s mind) replies with “I didn’t think of that! Thank you”

Which is PAINFULLY accurate to how people respond to others that have anxiety. They just respond with “Don’t worry” WHEN LIKE… THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS 💀

We need a lot more than “Don’t worry” to be able to well..not worry.

For me I talk it out for me not to worry anymore because I prefer having someone with me instead of being stuck in my head. And other people have different needs when they have anxiety.

I just really like that detail

There’s also the panic attack Riley gets

I love how Anxiety rushes around the console trying to think of some sort of solution but she’s stuck in this loop and just couldn’t stop worrying and panicking and that just… it hit way too close to home. When you’re having a panic attack you tend to get stuck in your mind to the point where you need an outside force to get you out of it. Like how Grace went to ask her if she was ok while Riley was in the penalty box which helped Riley get out of it and finally open up and slowly be herself again.

Usually if this movie was written by out of touch writers Anxiety would be “defeated”, Joy puts back Riley’s old sense of self and Riley is all happy again! BUT NOPE thankfully the movie doesn’t go in that direction because the writers understand how the brain works.

I like how even if Joy puts back the old self, it doesn’t automatically make things better. That sense of self was great for Riley when she was a kid.. but she’s not a kid anymore. She needs something else. So her new self is a mix of positive affirmations and negative affirmations about herself which is very realistic. Because as you get older you become a lot more humble and aware of your flaws.

I also like how Anxiety is not “defeated” in the end but instead becomes managed. When she starts spiraling, Joy helps her calm down and asks “We can’t control what happens but what can we control now? What can we do right now?” which is an AMAZING way for it to be handled.

It works a lot on me which helps me calm down and get my head back to earth and think rationally.

Overall this movie is very accurate with how it depicts being a teenager with Anxiety! And it really touched me as someone who tends to have it every now and then.

Please go watch this movie while it’s still in theaters (or available for streaming)! It’s worth your time!!

PIXAR HAS GOTTEN ANOTHER W

(also off topic I love how Fear is so fucking smitten for Anxiety it’s so cute I need a pixar short with them PLSSSSS SOMEONE DISCUSS THEM W MEEEE)

This is Coco typing… Thank you for reading!

[nehawriter16]

7th October, 2018 23:05 pm Average, Mediocre, Loser

For the longest time, I had myself fooled. I was on a secret mission – to study for all 8 papers even though I hadn’t done classes for 4 of them (the really tough ones) and there was hardly any time to prepare for them without sacrificing my marks in the others. I didn’t tell any of my friends or the senior who was mentoring me this. I just picked up the books and began to try to figure things out myself, going into panic and frustration when I couldn’t understand something.

I’d spent time drawing up timetables that required studying 300 pages a day, which was obviously impossible, even if I sat for 16 hours a day with barely any breaks. All of my friends were appearing for only 4 papers, which was the sensible thing to do because it meant passing with good marks and a part of me wanted to do the same, to make things easy for myself, because it meant I wasn’t going to have to resort to extremely unhealthy sleep/eat/social patterns such as alienating every single person I know, completely switching off from social media, and most importantly, sacrificing my creativity in terms of writing. Giving up everything else seemed like a small price to pay – and I have endured years of mental, emotional and social sacrifice for this course already, so I’m used to it – but writing is in my blood. Writing is the one thing that brings me immense happiness. I can’t give it up. Even if it’s not monetarily viable, even if nobody is reading what I have to say, it is as important to me as breathing.

But I wanted nothing more than to somehow pass. To wake up one morning in January close to my 23rd birthday and find that I was a Chartered Accountant. I knew that seeing that four letter word on my marksheet wouldn’t mean pride for having “made it.” It would mean giddy happiness for finally being DONE. Done with this course that I never wanted, would never be good at, would never enjoy no matter how hard I tried.

I just wanted to slap the degree in my parents’ hands, pack a bag, move to Bombay as soon as my articleship ended in March. I had so much to do – my unfulfilled creativity, a half written book to finish, a part time job in poetry waiting for me, and most importantly – the new-found freedom of being a young, single, self sufficient wild thing in a city where nobody knew who I was. It was a new beginning and when I was falling asleep every night, when I woke up every morning, and when I couldn’t force myself to keep going – it was all I would think about. I associated Bombay with the first breath of fresh air after being in jail for 5 years, because that’s how sickening this city, the course, and the people had become for me.

I knew I would never fit in the minute I walked through the doors on the first day of class for the first level. These people weren’t like me, and I wasn’t willing to change what I enjoyed for the sake of a 5 year period, or even for a single day. Words would always be my poison. Not law, not numbers, not the robotic ways in which the students around me seemed to be able to sit in one place for hours, learn things I couldn’t get myself interested in despite trying so hard.

But from the first day, I forced myself to study, because what choice did I have? I’d shunned science when my parents offered it to me, and arts was not a choice. I passed, faltered once, but landed a big four articleship and kept going. On the surface, everything seemed to be working out. Inside, I felt suffocated. The artist in me was screaming for release, which is how I started to get more involved in my Instagram account. For 2 years I spent all day at work, trying to excel in a field I was starting to dislike more and more by the day, but convinced that quitting so close to the finish line was stupid and out of the question.

There were only 2 things that kept me happy – a boy I was in love with, and narrating stories for my Instagram account. I relied on them heavily and hopelessly as reasons to wake up every morning and go to work, or class. I watched the girls I call friends do much better than me and began to develop a serious inferiority complex. They loved what they were getting to learn and wanted to be better. I was trying to chameleon their behaviour, and failing miserably.

In June of 2017 I lost the boy. But like Nikita Gill and Rupi Kaur would remind me in numerous poems, he lost me, not the other way around. Either way, it was a loss, and my happiness took a monumental blow. I held on hopelessly to hope till my hands turned to scabs. I did things I’m not proud of. I resorted to reckless behaviour to replace the big, gaping hole that seemed to have opened up in my heart. But heartbreak was not a new concept to me, so I gritted my teeth, wrote some poems, and pretty much managed to put it in the past. I still had the writing, after all.

Still, emotional loss can leave you marinating in nostalgia forever, especially if you have the tendency to feel things deeply. As Pablo Neruda so beautifully put it, love is so short and forgetting so long.  

Writing kept me alive in those months. I began to compile a collection of poetry and stories that I would someday turn into a book. That people were excited to buy.

Work was getting worse and worse because I had been allotted to a team that was not welcoming at all. I travelled for almost 4 hours every single day. I got into several fights with my seniors, who were rude and callous and made me feel worse while I was already dealing with coming out of emotional trauma. The deadlines we were asked to meet were insane. I began to fall sick a lot. I would look out of the window and sob in silence every single day.

But I decided to put my health first and left. In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t. Because even though I didn’t realise it then, work, no matter how bad, kept me distracted from the terrible thoughts that were forming in my head every time I let it be idle for a few minutes. I moved into a smaller firm and suddenly had a lot of free time. The jobs I was assigned there were much more mundane, and the people working around me had no ambition at all. I stopped making the small but relevant amount of money that was guaranteeing my financial independence of sorts, and brought a completely self-dependent girl back to her parent’s allowance.

All in all, it’s safe to say that in the beginning of 2018, I walked myself into a mental trap. On one hand, my heart was broken and it was extremely hard to get over the fact that even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, somebody I was convinced would stick by my side chose to hurt me when I was least expecting it. I began to distrust people and alienate them as an impact. Lots of good, kind friends were lost. Romantic and platonic connections that could have been beautiful if I had allowed someone past my suddenly very high walls never got a chance.

Second, my workplace and academic environment was choking me with monotony. There was no incentive – earlier, at least the ping of money credited into my bank account made me show up and put on a show, but now I didn’t even have that.

Third, and most disheartening of all, was nothing to look forward to for the rest of the year but this endless tunnel of having to stay home and study for exams that were in November. I felt handcuffed all times of every day. The only momentary happiness I felt was when I was well sedated with alcohol or hanging out with two of my best friends, one of whom moved to London for the last year of his university and our conversations became limited to Facetime calls.

Writing got spotty because every time I opened a word document, this voice in my head would remind me that I needed to study. When I tried to study, I could never get enough done because I simply hated it. I fucking hated it all.

In April of 2018 I decided that if I kept going this way, I would send myself into chronic depression. I already felt like I was there – what with the self-imposed ban on writing. It made more sense to space out the papers, even if it took 6 months more than I had originally planned. At that point in my life, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Giving 4 papers in November and 4 in May of 2019 meant I wouldn’t be pulling 16 hour days for 6 months. This way, I could balance my dislike for the subjects with allotting enough time for social outings and just being a normal 22 year old. But on 20th July, the results for everyone else’s exams came out.

I found a seething jealousy begin to build in my heart because the girls and boys who were my age were now done and would be embarking on the life that I would have to wait a year for. It consumed me. I couldn’t sleep at night. I screenshotted their marksheets and stared at them. I would check their facebook pages and compare every little detail of their lives to mine, causing my already fuelled inferiority complex to grow. I completely forgot that CA was not my gift, art was.

It felt as though I was standing in a room of overachievers holding bulky files of their accomplishments, and the only thing I had was a knack for poetry. Except, nobody CARES about your knack for poetry in the Chartered Accountancy world. No one gives a fuck if you can write. And so I felt like the biggest loser in the room.

I still do. It is October now, just days away from the exam, and even though my secret mission was always impossible, I was unwilling to accept it. Even if I was able to sit for 16 hours, even if I was able to study for all this time like everyone else probably had, I would never have been able to complete the course by January. This is not because I am dumb. It’s because I put myself into the wrong race and I’m trying to compete with people who are in love with what they do. Put me in a room of poets and I will outshine most of the room (or so I like to think).

But all these 5 years – and especially these last 5 months – have done for me is cause my brain to believe its inferiority. Everyone else my age has either graduated from university, or is months away from getting a well paying job. Their lives are starting to bloom, while mine just looks dark till May of 2019. Till July, in fact, because that’s when results come out.

I am handcuffed to my identity, to this city, to my mediocrity, to my parent’s supporting me financially for the next 8 months, with absolutely no way out. I have no space for writing. I have nobody to call my own that doesn’t live oceans away.

I wanted to be great at something. I wanted to be doing well in at least one thing, you know? But it seems impossible now. I am not good at anything. I feel mediocre at best.

The voice in my head does not fail to remind me that I am standing in a room where nobody sees me as competition or a threat. That they never will. Accept it, she says to me incessantly, you are average. You will always be average.

What do you do when your self belief in your own failure is so deep rooted, your brain is mocking you constantly? How do you fight your own mind?

[dannissa13]

NaNo, day 28

So as it turns out, I was wrong but that’s not a surprise to anyone at this point. My evaluation is today and I’m a mess, honest to god fucked up mess.

Let me start from the beginning. I really thought that no one will touch me before my lead comes back from vacation, which would have been next week, and I’ll get a metaphoric “get out of jail free” card for now at least and I’ll figure out what to do next later this weekend. I’ll have plenty of time to think things through and will definitely be ready for anything that may come. Boy oh boy was I wrong. First of all - I would’ve procrastinated the actual living shit out of this “getting ready” period and wouldn’t have been ready at all, second - I was fucked the moment I came to work. So as it turns out, my psychic powers are at it again - the previous few days I had this strong and reoccurring feeling that this thing was coming and it would be earlier than expected. Which came fucking true. And even though this clairvoyant premonition came upon me (it was definitely just my logic telling me “bitch get your shit together, the doomsday is coming and you’re not doing shit about it” so yeah, I’m joking about it like it’s some kind of divine revelation) I did nothing about it, just wasting my time and nervously chilling - it’s when you ignore the impending problems instead of solving them and just do nothing while dilly-dallying your time away until that shit from before inevitably catches up to you and it’s suddenly a big surprise when you get a bite in the ass from your responsibilities that you’ve neglected. I’m a pro at this.

So, I wasn’t preparing myself in any way, shape or form for this and I truly wasn’t ready to find a notice email in my inbox about that evaluation that was going to happen today, at the last hour of my work day and everyone’s invited (except that one person who’s out of the country). That was fucked up. They should’ve warned me 24 hours in advance like they are actually obligated but no, it wasn’t even 12 hours of time before my execution. I’ve panicked immediately as I saw the text and I’ve stayed in panic mode for the whole morning.

The thing is, knowing what was about to happen only made it worse. If I had to go to that meeting immediately it would have been so much better and so much worse at the same time but ultimately easier on my nerves. I was so jittery that I honestly had to go to the bathroom and coaxe myself into a state that resembled anything close to being able to function for about fifteen minutes which is both worthy of praise and ludicrous. So, not only I needed to calm myself down, I’ve also had to have some help from the outside so I’ve called my mom who had basically recited back to me all those things I made my mind on about this work situation, reaffirming me and supporting me through a crisis. That helped a little, I’ve stopped catastrophysing for a moment and had some clarity for a brief period of time which I used wisely and frantically texted my best friend all about the situation. She listened and supported me too, which carried me through the threshold of panic back to the realization I’ve had some time ago - the world’s not gonna end if I loose this stupid job, my world is not going to end, I’m not gonna die immediately or anything, I’ll be okay, it’ll be fine. So with that though I’ve decided to do the best thing and started a boring and mind numbing task of comparing different legal requirements in two different documents. That calmed me down real fast, I was so focused on figuring it out that I’ve honestly forgot about the time.

Well, the thing is, I saw and heard the omens of my future firing all day long and became both pissed about the situation and impatient to finally get a clear answer, some resolution to this whole thing. I was pressed for so long I just wanted this to be over no matter the results. So I did my job the best that I could and today was no different. Just before we were supposed to head out to the same meeting room I was interviewed for my job the last time (when I got it, how fitting, it was going to end where it’s started, like a cycle coming to an end and I like those clear endings, when everything comes to the beginning) I have finished my task and sent it to my nine boss, mentally braced myself for the worst and got ready to be fired.

Spoiler alert: I got the job. I’m fully a part of the team now. That was, honest to god, a surprise for me. I didn’t actually believed it for a second when my asshole boss started with “you’ve passed”. I was so ready to just filter everything they were going to say that I was barely able to hear what was actually being said. So, he started with kinda praising me but in a condescending way, which is perfectly reflective of what kind of person he is. Than, a lot was said about my performance and other stuff that was actually legit and real this time around. Like, none of the personal attacks I received the first time around. Mostly because our main creative guy, who’s my mentor here, spent an entire month by my side and saw with his own eyes how I work. It’s hard to bullshit a person who knows what’s up. And I was really trying, so nothing could have been said about this aspect of my performance at this job. And my asshole boss had to be sorta nice to me and talk to me like a person. That was fun. All of them said things to me that hurt, not because those were attacks but because the issues they’ve brought up were true. That’s what made it so hard to swallow, they knew all about my flaws and put them on blast. I’m not a perfect person. That’s shitty but I always thought that was only my problem. Not anymore though, now I have to deal with people who are allowed not to like me and I have to be okay with that. I’m so used to being surrounded by people who love me and support my worldview, my mindset and everything I stand for, that it’s now incredibly difficult to comprehend the mere existence of people with different albeit incorrect and unjust opinions and not only do they exist but that I’ll also gonna be forced to coexist with them and deal with their shit. I know I need to work on myself and I have a lot of issues I need to confront, but knowing is a one thing and hearing it from the people you can’t stand to the point of despising them is the completely other. The fact that I hate these assholes and them being so right about my flaws is a punch to the gut. I was disheveled after the conversation ended even though in my head I made snarky comments about everything that bugged me even a little bit. I put on a hard exterior even though I’m all bark and no bite. That’s pathetic really but I can’t help it.

So my asshole boss had to acknowledge my attention to detail as well as my writing and narrative skills. It was difficult to not comment on the fact that I know I’m good at it because I’ve had to work for it. Of course I would be great at that stuff because not only did I already have a talent for it but I’ve also put an immense amount of time and effort into getting better and growing said talent to be something bigger. Like, dude, I know I’m good, I’m doing it for three years now, tell me something I don’t know. And, sadly he did, they all did, but I’ve already talked about that. Still, being recognized for something you do best felt good. It felt right, it felt like it should’ve happened and when it happened everything fell in the right places. It was correct.

It didn’t feel like a victory though. I felt like I’ve been smeared with shit, like actual fucking disgusting shit, and was left to marinate in it. When the meeting ended I was uplifted and okay, somewhat angry at them, but ultimately holding it together. But on my way home I just bursted into tears and couldn’t stop. I’ve cried on an off again for hours, discreetly, like a wounded animal, hiding from my family members because I didn’t want anyone to see me this way. I like being in control, I like being tough and in charge. On that goddamn meeting I was told that people want vulnerability from me but I cannot give them that. I won’t give them this pleasure of seeing me be weak. I don’t trust people because I have my reasons and I don’t want any of them to get an easy leverage on me by exploiting my low moments so I won’t give them any. I might be better off just gritting my teeth through it than acknowledging that it’s hard and it’s getting to me. I’m surrounded by people who won’t miss a chance to mock me. I can’t just give them this.

I felt really dirt-low and I know why now and I’ll need therapy after all of this to properly process everything that has happened but overall it wasn’t a catastrophe and ultimately I’m fully okay, fine and functioning. It was a tough ride though, not gonna lie, I felt every emotion possible in a span of one day and I was fully exhausted. Ended up crying myself to sleep. What a winner, right?

Understandably I didn’t do much in the writing realm, but can you blame me? See ya later, I guess. I’m out.

[drake-the-incubus]

I went through my old school notes from grade 9. I have found out several things I didn’t know about my high school experience.

1) I had to keep reminders to myself on how to ask questions, and worded them horribly to myself. Like, genuinely I worded something as to be like, “hey so if you go into detail about your question and what you need explained, you’ll get the right answer, but if you’re being vague, you won’t get the answer you need.” This fucking hurt to read over because I still struggle with this, and I’ve found out why, but it’s still upsetting to read that in my own writing.

2) my writing never changed, I still chicken scratch as I write, but I’ve come to the conclusion that if I slow down, I have really nice and legible writing for other people. I was always slow at note taking and making me write faster didn’t fix the problem, it just meant I had to rewrite my notes over and over until I stopped taking them because they didn’t help and caused me stress. I still don’t take notes, but somehow I retain more information- oh wait it’s because I listen to music and read it over and keep the information on hand if I need it.

3) I constantly got 100s in subjects I struggled with for easy assignments where it was instant reactions, but when it came to thought out responses I would get penalized.

4) I used can’t instead of cannot and had marks taken away in an essay, one that was well thought out and explained, and even went beyond what was needed. I can’t tell you the annoyance I feel that a fourteen year old got penalized for a contraction and not using “well thought out language” in two other placed. I went from 100 to an 87. Fuck you Language Arts teacher, I learned fuck all from ya.

5) My creative writing was fucking trash. I hate looking back on it, but instead of being mad at myself, I’m mad that for all my marks in LA, I failed the provincial exam that year (62% I think) and I absolutely couldn’t write properly. All my work fell short.

6) Asking me to memorize a quote, page and line for said quote, was a dumb exercise. That’s not a skill needed in real life, because you can read the book on hand and quote it from there. Instead it made me so incredibly anxious I failed to write the essays that required said quotes.

7) My takeaway from To Kill A Mockingbird was, “the entire town is fucked up and racist” and I was told, “no that’s not a valid takeaway on why that happened”. Thinking back, 14 y/o me was incredibly aware that no, that was racism and I learned nothing more from the book expect that nothing changed from that time period to now.

8) I had so many notes to myself basically treating myself like shit for not being better, and for not being fast enough and shit. I’d have all these things planned out for reading and writing j never got to because- what a surprise- I was immensely depressed, undiagnosed and received no support from my teachers.

9) I kept telling myself I’d stay organized at the beginning of the school year and could never keep to it as I struggled to even do school work.

10) This System, which I hated so much- and it fucking shows Jesus Christ- was better than my home life and I’d have rather been at school than with my parents. Like I knew it, but the immense amounts of fucked up I experienced at school is like, yeah that’s a litmus test of what the fuck went on at home I forgot it.

I’m looking back and going, “yeah hey, I don’t miss school actually”. Which is a revelation to me. Anyways this came out of wanting to write by hand and going through old binders.

Idc if this gets reblogged but this is a very personal post so it’s nice if nothing got started on it.

[kingsofeverything]

Hi! You don't have to publish this! I wanted to say I love to read about your homeschooling journey with your kids! I live in the Netherlands with of the best schoolsystems in the world (they say....) but homeschooling is very difficult here. I investigated but it was so difficult and my husband wasnt convinced. Anyway, my boys are 5 and 3 and I had to force my oldest to school. He is doing ok now. So keep writing about everthing homeschooling, love to read it! And you're doing so great!

One of the positives about homeschooling in my state is that it’s fairly easy to do. They used to only offer 2 options - one through the state where you’re basically doing the same school work as the public schools and you report to them and/or have a teacher from the school system teach your kids at home. That’s generally for kids who’ve been really ill or injured and will be returning to public school eventually. My sister did this her senior year because she had surgery and couldn’t attend school. 

The second option is through a specific homeschool association - we were going to use that one because it’s the easiest option BUT when I printed out the paperwork to sign up, they literally make you sign some homophobic bullshit form. I was shocked (this was 7 years ago, so idk if they’ve changed it since then). 

Option 3 is what we do. It was basically forced upon the ed system here by homeschooling parents who refused to do the first 2 options – and I am so thankful for those parents. So we are members of a really awesome association. 

ANYWAY I know that was long and rambly. Homeschool laws vary by state – some schools literally require NOTHING in the way of reporting to anyone (Texas, I think?) and some schools have very strict laws about curriculum, testing, etc etc (New York?). We’re in the middle, I guess. We have to fill out forms about our curriculum, we have to do a certain amount of time per day and days per year. We have to keep records, fill out midyear and end of year forms, etc. High school is different and we have to keep very detailed records (ugh that’s coming soon). I already keep EVERYTHING just because that’s the sort of thing I do anyway. 

I honestly don’t know what I’d do if it was more difficult to homeschool. I’m thankful that it’s something that my husband and I have agreed on from day one. The only person who has ever disagreed with me is my dad and that’s just how he is – annoying as fuck lol. It’s so funny to see the disconnect with him too. The whole “if they don’t go to school, how will they learn to act like people?” lol! Like, people LOVE MY KIDS. There is a woman who is friends with my sister who has said repeatedly “I don’t like kids, but yours are different.” and hung out with them almost daily at the beach over the summer. My kids (generally lol) have manners, are polite, are kind, know how to interact with people of all ages, etc etc etc. They play sports, have piano lessons, my daughter is a girl scout, they go to chess club and lego club and book club, my oldest volunteers at the library, blah blah blah. 

Sorry, idk why I just said all of that, but there it is lol. With my twins (they’re 5), I’m not pushing anything. They’re not into learning to read right now and that’s cool. They ask me math questions, we do them. They fucking build shit in the yard (forts and stuff) and are incredibly creative – drawing, etc. So I let them. I will have them reading before next xmas, just because I do want them to start piano lessons and they need to be able to read for that (they don’t, really, but it’s easier). 

Okay, I’m going to stop now. lol

I wanted to add that I’m happy your oldest is ok with school now! I forgot to say that. When I was little, I struggled with being around that many people. I would walk around hunched over and my teacher thought I  had scoliosis because of that! One of my sisters cried every single day for like the first 2 months when she started 1st grade. I’m really glad your oldest adjusted well!

[celticmythpodshow]

Another Writer's Journey

Please accept my apologies for writing about myself. I generally try and avoid this as I feel I am nowhere near as important as the stories I tell (and those that we tell as far as the Celtic Myth Podshow is concerned). That having been said, let's plunge on in!

When I moved from Primary School to Secondary school (after the now legendary 11+ examination), one of my favourite lessons was the English class. At 11 years old I was far too young to understand much about Grammar or story/poem analysis, but I loved the act of creation involved in summoning imagery and meaning from words. Plain and simple words that when strung together could create pictures in my mind and feelings in my chest.

One memory that sticks in my mind as significant because it told me, even at that tender age that I had an intense desire to write, was a class exercise that progressed over an entire term. We were each asked to write a single-page, short and concise  story and then read it to the entire class. I was in heaven! I wrote an adventure story involving a dangerous trek in the jungle and eventual possible rescue. My story stretched the limits of our allotted time as I had filled well over a dozen pages of the small A5 exercise books that we used to be given at school. After I had finished - I don't remember exactly what the teacher said - my fellow class-mates were asked to give their feedback to the teacher and they all asked for more detail about my story and for the tale to be completed. The teacher, perhaps bowing to popular pressure, asked me to complete the story and for the next couple of weeks I wrote continuing episodes and read each out in turn to the class. The joy I felt in entertaining my peers with my my writing is a joy that has never left me. To give pleasure with mere words is something that can never be underestimated.

As my relationships with my school-mates developed, I played many games and don't remember writing much other that the allocated tasks that we were all set. Our play-ground games however were rapidly becoming increasingly complex. A small group of my intimate inmates decided to each take on the role of a particular leader/hero/ruler on a planet in some imaginary Science Fiction universe that we had decided upon. My own planet of bio-mechanical inhabitants acquired technical drawings of the transport system within its major cities, biological descriptions of the alien inhabitants (vaguely resembling cones on wheels as I recall!) and each city having its own history mapped out. Hours and hours of work. It never got used in our games of course, but for me the creation of back-story was as essential as the game itself.

Writing after Leaving School?

As my school-years were coming to an end, my close-knit circle of buddies discovered the very first 3 volume box-set of an imported game from America, ridiculously named "Dungeons & Dragons". The game was what later came to be known as a 'role-playing game' with one person acting as a story-teller come referee come guide and the other players taking on a role of a character within a Fantasy-based universe.

The big difference between this and other traditional methods of story-telling was that the actions that the players decided to take determined the future course of events within the story. The Fantasy universe moulded itself around us as we played. We were living in the story! I had come home! What an amazing discovery.

It wasn't long before I, myself, took on the part of the Dungeon Master (as the referee was called) and was creating my own interactive stories with a group of players. My own game had maps (based on hex-paper) that were filled in as the players explored the world I had created plastered all over one wall of my very small flat and the remaining space in my flat taken up with as many chairs as I could fill into the space. At one stage, our story had over ten people meeting weekly to continue their adventures and the whole story arc carried on for over a year.

That was something that required almost constant attention and a vast amount of time and energy to complete. Something that I would never advise anyone of even half-sane mind to contemplate doing!

Turning to Myths & Legends

Coming into my early 20's, my daily reading consumption increased and although I didn't put pen to parer at this time not only did my love of fiction grow and evolve but my love of mythological and religious stories also grew. My interests spread into a more academic and factual direction in order to find out where these stories came from and to seek answers as to why some versions of the same story were different and why there were similarities between stories from widely different cultures around the world. This was a long time before I discovered Joseph Campbell! My love of story, mythology and comparative religion eventually lead me to study ritual and magic - which, in my opinion, is yet another variety of living story. But that is really a different tale that I shall save for another day.

One of my greatest loves from my first days at Secondary schools was Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the whole Middle-Earth mythos. To be fair, it is a love that I carry with me to this day. Back in 1977, I found the Silmarillion to be hard reading at my first attempt, but I fast grew to love it. In particular, the Song of Creation found in the first part, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of Eä, the "world that is" struck a deeply resonant chord within my soul.

What happened next is something that I look back on with great awe and wonder. Without realising it, my next actions were to act as a prelude to the type of story-telling that I was to take up again 30 years later! I recorded myself reading the Ainulindalë accompanied by music by Tangerine Dream (I think the album was Phaedra) and loved every minute.

It was only when I listened to the cassette recording that I was over-whelmed and the hairs on my arms stood up and my heart raced with some form of excitement that I had never felt before. Something magical had happened. When I was reading about the Horns of Ulmo, resounding in the Deep Waters, there were horn blasts in the music. So much synchronicity happened in this reading whose true significance I missed at the time. This was something unique and wonderful. But hey-ho! - I was 18 years old, and forgot all about it in the rush of rapidly expanding teenage hormones in the following months.

Time for a Quick Break

Let's take a small break in the narrative here, while I grab a glass of water, you get to wonder what on earth you are doing wasting your time reading the drivel that I have written and I skip forward in time. As we go, we can jump over several failed attempts at both fiction and non-fiction writing, and arrive at the point in my life where my long-suffering wife (the gorgeous Ruthie) and I decide to start a podcast about Celtic Mythology. The Celtic Myth Podshow was born at Imbolc, 2008 - it seemed to us a suitable birthing time. Reading the complex Irish myths out aloud seemed to us an excellent way of learning them, understanding them and perhaps help other people out with the same tasks. It was only natural that eventually we would want to cover all the stories of the Celts that we could find.

For two years, I scripted the ideas we came up with and along with friends and family we recorded and released shows every fortnight. There was no way in this or any other universe that we could maintain this pace and were it not for my becoming seriously ill and requiring major surgery due to Cancer at the end of 2009, I think I/we would have burned out and never carried on making any shows or telling any more stories.

Health is something that when you are healthy you can often take for granted. I certainly did. Without it, each physical movement initially and later any focus or concentration became something that rapidly drained my energy. I learned about Spoon Theory very quickly indeed. Google it - it's worth it.

Life events (family, career, housing, finances etc.) began to overtake us in 2015-2016, and the rate at which we could produce shows dwindled as more and more of our focus and attention had to be placed on far more immediate concerns. I think we only managed to get out one show in 2016 and another in 2017. Early in 2017, I discovered that I had Leukemia and we were again forced to focus on health and the need to rapidly find a new home.

Patience, Pacing and Priorities

It is strange that no matter how important your writing is to you, or how much you value your creative work and no matter how much pleasure you get from seeing or hearing the joy that other people have from hearing or reading your work, there is no way that the inspiration will flow when your life's basics are under threat. I thought that writing and creating would be a great distraction form the more serious problems in our lives. I was, however, totally wrong. It just wouldn't happen. It took time - a long time - for me to even begin to accept this. Starting a new podcast, Celtic Tomes, was my refusal to accept that I could do nothing creative during this time. Eventually this podcast too had to come to a halt as life's needs escalated. This was a frustrating time that I am glad we seem to have passed through. It is over and I hope I have learned some very important lessons about patience, pacing and the priorities in our lives.

At the height of the Summer heatwave in this year (2018), we moved and began to unpack and settle. I could feel the relaxation beginning to seep into my bones. Despite the mountains of boxes around me, the presence of inspiration began to make itself felt.

For me, inspiration works in a very strange and yet defined way. It seems I have to make space in my life and my head, start the process off by moving a little way towards an idea and then whatever it is that comes from outside of myself, from the wider universe, from the Realms of the Fae or the Gods or whatever (be it Awen or Imbas or just plain Inspiration), I begin to feel its breath rushing into me towards a new creation. They say the word 'inspiration' comes from from the Proto-Indo-European root *en "in" + spirare "to breathe". Breathing in the Spirit of creation from the cosmos perhaps? It is interesting that the word 'spirit' also has the same roots....

Flexing My Muscles (as if!)

I felt I needed to flex my writing muscles again. "If you don't use it, you lose it" is a common expression, but I am not sure it means you forget how to write, but I think it may mean you lose contact with that flow of "spirit" or whatever that brings a creation into life and full being. I had been listening to podcasts about the Craft of Writing for some time and as October was approaching, I began to hear more and more about NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for the "National Novel Writing Month" and it always takes place during the 30 days of November. In this time you do your best to write 50,000 words to create a novel (novella perhaps?). Success or failure is not strictly the main goal. The main goal of #NaNoWriMo is to get you writing.

So I made a decision to write a novel. Research and preparation of that novel has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding pastimes that I have encountered in the last few years and I am incredibly excited to start writing on November 1st. My novel is going to be a ghost story set in the middle of a disaster zone at a place I know well in Hastings - the town where I was born.

It's only 10 days away now and I find myself 'itchy' to start writing. As I can't start on my novel until November, I found my mind drifting to other projects. Perhaps I could start thinking about the next book for the Celtic Tomes? So, I totaled the votes cast for the next book and started some preparation. Fantastic!

And yet, still the Universe had not finished with me.

Unfinished Business

Last week, I woke up wondering where my work period that day could be directed, opened my laptop and found myself opening up the Script for the Branwen story! The Second Branch of the Mabinogion is the next story to be told in our main podcast, the Celtic Myth Podshow, and the script is about half-way completed and stands at about 22,000 words. I found myself re-reading and editing what I had already written, suddenly aware that I was mentally preparing myself to finish the script. I sent my prayers of thanks up to the Gods or whoever was helping me with the inspiration and went to bed a very happy Gary.

A few days later, the realities of the situation began to sink into my dense, Neanderthal brow and I realised that if I were to avoid the same burn-out problems that I had hit before then I would have to heed the lessons of Pacing that I had tried to learn previously. I would have to take things very slowly indeed. I would have to work in tune with Life and not separate from it.

November is, for me, fully booked with NaNoWriMo and Life events, but after that, in the New Year, I can turn my attention back to the Branwen story and do some editing of my novel, some recording for Celtic Tomes and any other project that leaps into my mind. The important thing I have to remember, and I really must drive this home into my thickest of heads, is that I can only focus fully on one major project at a time. To do otherwise would be to tread, stagger and eventually fall on the stony path to a barren plain where nothing gets written.

Thank you for listening to the story so far.

Check out this episode!