Farewell; I may be gone for some time

Sailing into the new year and working extra shifts, grumbling all the way, but I suppose the money will help cover some expenses and get me on a level path again...not that I've gone off the path or fallen down the pipe. Things are cool in my world, though I have taken out a teeny wee loan with my credit union to treat myself to a new phone. Number 1 son got the old one yesterday so now I am phoneless, and have to go out into the world on Monday to work and be incommunicado for a change. The lovely new phone could arrive by the 31st so let's all pray I have a new gadget to play with on Hogmanay.

Now that xmas is over my next project is to put up new art in my hall. I took down all the postcards from my mad world hobby the other year but have chosen some to keep and find a new nook for them - maybe behind the kitchen door. So now I will have to sort out the printers - they only need ink and to be reunited with the laptops. I've been buying photo paper because I've got some fabulous doodled pics I want on my walls...captured a couple of pieces from Lesley too, and, demanded something creative from the boy Spencer.

As I clear and clean these neglected corners of my life and home I should be able to slip myself, my legs, into the hole in my desk - actually there are two desks in my room, and they are almost tidy, nearly ready to be put to work. I don't want to make empty promises again at this time of the year; it's time to do without quibble, to finish what's been started. In the last week I have found snug homes for lots of the jewellery-making supplies so the place is looking much more business-like and less like a mad poet's place - maybe that's because I'm on a prose-spree.

Next year I plan to read more paper books, prowl through what's on my Kindle, and write some reviews. I think that should be my only resolution...there's no point me saying I will try to be healthier, to lose weight, to go out more, I will just have to hope all these things happen accidentally, as by-products of my other obsessions.

TAROT TALES

Speed does not exist this month - time is full of essence and I am smelling all the roses, feeling languid, rested but itching to get up and go full pelt for December. I've got all the makings for most of my Xmas presents and am now clearing the desks (again) to begin with all the creativity...or I was. The other day I had a great idea to write a collection of stories around a tarot reading, but one set of cards wasn't enough for this project - I used 8 packs of cards, pulling out the reading from each one and laying them down in a grid so I could snap a picture for future reference. So, that has captured me for the last few days...I even taught myself a few new moves on Scrivener.

It's only been four days but I think the marriage of Tarot Tales and charm bracelets will do well.

The first story is inspired by the cards in the top row - they are all 8 of pentacles but the difference in the images is incredible from a writing/creating point of view. I've got 8 lines of description or character or place, and 8 names to choose from. Each card in the original reading sits on a position, which gives me a base-line for the story and characters...and the whole story of the reading is yet another level in the tales. It has turned out to be a fantastic exercise, so I'm hoping that the good first drafts of all of them might be ready to rest over the holiday season.

A VISIT TO THE SOUTH SIDE

We are all terminal but Linda is the only one I know who has a measurement in weeks or months – nobody is able to give her anything more definite than that, and she seems to feel strong, apart from the pain, so all the signals are mixed. When we left she looked pale and tired but happy to be part of pretty good crack between me, her two cousins, and Angela; the laughter spilled all over our table in the massively packed, busy restaurant on the first floor of the brand new billion pound hospital wing.

And now I've just finished eating flame-grilled cow with cheese in Burger King, waiting for my movie to begin; I can't pass up a trip to the city and not catch a film, get my money's worth from my yearly ticket; £16.40 a month, and the cinema is way out of my way...and I'm such a lazy bitch I can't get myself out of the flat on my days off. The year is up at the beginning of December and I won't be renewing it – I'll be rich!

Money will have to be spent in The Works; I can almost see it, along the road from where I'm sitting. Acrylic paints have been bought from Lidl's, and new brushes...I'll be creating a lot of my Xmas presents; Tibetan silver pendants and beads, and finger and hand puppets are winging their way towards me from all over the world. I love Ebay...and am itching to get crafting and arting.

Last night I was listening to a bit of Isabelle Allende's biography and it made me think of returning to mine. Linda's news enforces that, and again I find myself thinking that I must tidy up the pile, leave proper files and instructions behind when I saunter off this pitch. But now I want to wander a few yards of Sauchiehall Street in the late summer sun before the rain returns, and before the shop shuts.

LUCINDA

Oh, my eardrums echo with her white noise;
she's a ghost of herself, carving her desk
into a monument of waiting. Long
weeks hoot like quiet owls. Cancer doesn't
whisper: it growls deep in her bowels.
Surgeons cut and thrust the necessary,
bagging her like a take-away...and we
are left to wander. Memories, pale nights,
and three of us discussing possible
properties of money-oil – and how to
cast a spell to decimate financial
dyspepsia. Her laugh, like a cartoon
dog, wheezing in, and out of damaged lungs
reminds us to howl at the bloody moon.

THE CHANGE OVER

My new Tivo box was delivered from Virgin in January - it's all still in the bloody box! The very idea of interrupting my wireless is anathema to me, but now I suppose it's time to get it done so that's what is planned for tomorrow. It looks simple. Ha. I've skimmed all the booklets...and how exciting does all the choices make life? Ah but, I don't watch telly...not the ordinary kind, but looking at the promised entertainment maybe I'll find something to attract my attention. All I want is access to my Netflix account on my lovely big telly - why else would I need to sit on my sofa when I have a very comfortable bed with a big telly at the bottom of it and an HDMI cable?

I may well be back on here tomorrow night ranting and raving if things don't go my way - and then again, if I can't get online then I won't. They told me that my set-up was ancient and slow, and they wanted me to have the best of the super-highway...and they're right; when the grandkids are here wireless is always going off because of the strain. So, wish me luck and intelligence tomorrow.

A MUST-READ BOOK

On opening Catherine Czerkawska's historical novel, The Physic Garden, I know immediately that I will have to plan ahead and read it chapter by chapter because it is so beautifully written, with each chapter encapsulating a thought, a question, a time. You want to stop and think, relish what you've just read – also, life has to revolve around work and shopping and cooking/consuming meals...there will be no housework done until I have finished this book.

Half-way through and I am still captivated by the interesting detail, the characters and the hook – I want to know; what happened? I'm a city girl and really interested in how the writer has stuffed every crack in the floors with knowledge...things I want to know but have been too lazy to find out for myself, so far. When I'm reading I'm immediately immersed in these characters' lives, and it's so annoying when real life interferes and I have to stop.

Oooh, there's a fabulously disgusting passage 85% of the way through, describing some of the poorest places in Glasgow:

'...I found myself peering into rooms that never saw the light of day, stinking bug-ridden rooms and passages...in a drab and deadly succession, all leprous with damp, I thought that I had found myself in some hellish labyrinth, an underground warren where only troglodytes might live.'

...and, several hours later, I have finished reading a wonderful tale. I don't need to tell you what it's about – you can read that on the book blurb. This is not a genre story; anyone, with particular likes and dislikes would love it. It is set in the historical past but is fiction, and such an imagination has conjured up a place and a time that will leave you spellbound.

A FANTASY LIFE

I'm reading, mostly with my eyes shut – I do love audio books. So far this year I've gone back and listened again to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Dresden Files, The Walking Dead, and am now on the fourth book in The Game of Thrones. It's hard to explain why I keep returning to all these, but it's probably because there are so many characters and stories to love...I must be a saga-gal! I easily fall upon series, including TV versions, and often re-read True Blood and watch the dramas re-envisioned where killed-off characters live again. I love the differences.

My reading taste changed because I wanted to write fantasy so began reading lots of it...and then I found audio versions of Asimov's Foundation series, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth and oh the feeling when the right voice reads life into those characters is beyond fascination...it's a drug, and I became addicted so now am obsessed with listening to books, so much so that I hardly ever switch on the TV. It goes on for me to watch one thing and off again. I can't watch normal programmes, only drama. I don't live in the real world.

It doesn't matter that I'm not in the real world and I'll be gone from it soon enough I suppose, so why should I spend my last years trying to interpret the reported news and politics? I enjoy every minute I spend alone in my cave; I love the flashes of time with my many grandchildren; and I refuse to become a Moaning Minnie like the old woman I meet on a Monday morning at the bus stop on my way into work – if that's how the world bends us then I'm opting out. I can easily deal with the tension created on pages of text because I can turn the page to find out who did what when and where and to whom...and more than likely the why of it too...and yes, I believe in fairies.

Have I written my fantasy yet? No. Gestation is a bitch, but something is creeping out now and after years of working with Tarot cards I'm splashing some of it all over my pages. So there's a short story almost finished that will appear in an anthology, and some kind of magic has appeared in poems, some of which have been published. I started working on world-building a few years ago so that is always in the back of my mind when creating characters..and there are more than a few novels lazing around waiting for my attention. I'm drowning in fantasy...see the bubbles coming up?

THE RETURN

I am thinking, of a revival, of the road ahead so I must bring this old head to bear on blogging again, turning my mornings into pages and communicating with the world. At present, I know nothing about what goes on outside of my hermitty circle/cycle/phase...is it a phase? Shall I really enter the wide world again? I won't be reading its newspapers or watching its crap TV - who needs that when you can live in fantasy with Netflix and listen to someone reading books to you on Audible?

Apparently I haven't set foot here in four years - eek! I often see Time flying around, and let me tell you, that butterfly can change its spots all right. I am officially old now - hit the number 60 last year, and as I'm Scottish, have a lovely wee free bus pass - but I'm still too young for the pension. Writing-wise, there's a lot of it going on and I have three Kindle projects slowly building: Poetic Forms, Reading Tarot, and Writing Prompts - so I'd better shore up the platform, hadn't I? I will need some fencing-in, a shepherd to pen me into a small timetable, then maybe, just maybe, I'll perform nicely, like a good writer.