Friday Feature - Margret Helgadottir

This Friday is another guest post by an author, this time Margret Helgadottir. It is about writing her character Iselin from her short story Shadow, self-harm and The Moomins and is part of the Impossible Spaces Blog Tour (if you click on the button you can read all the other posts in the tour - I shall be contributing two guest posts very soon too, though I'll tell you more about those as they happen).

Margret is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who has travelled all over the world and has just started to write fiction in English. She mainly writes speculative fiction and is very much inspired by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Shadow is about a young woman called Islelin who thanks to both nature and nurture has always felt isolated and different.When she meets freedom fighter of sorts, Berge, she is flung into an alternate, desolate world where lizard creatures, not humans, are the apex predators but could it be that in this hopeless future is where her salvation lies?

Margret with her copy of Impossible Spaces, one of the many publications she has stories printed in.

"I’ve had the image of Iselin in my head for a long time. Iselin is an old Norwegian female name that means dream or vision. Originally I wanted it to be more a chaotic and confusing horror story that travelled through visions and dimensions, with Iselin as the key factor. Then, as I started to write, a different narrative wanted to be told. This often happens in my writing. I’ve started to spend less time on the planning of my stories, because they often seem to have a life on their own. You asked me to take pictures of my notes. For this story I only had five small sentences, in Norwegian, and the only thing that I used was that Iselin entered an elevator on her way home late one night.

 

 

I’ve had the image of a scarred young woman who hides from the world, too scared to pop her head up, for a long time, and I’ve also played with ideas of how an outsider would react if suddenly almost all the people were gone and the person had no society to avoid. Would this encourage the person to take up more space in the world, and no longer fear being visible? You know, like plants do when you give them a larger pot and more earth. Their roots will stretch and they will grow larger and blossom. But if they’re forced to stay in the same tiny pot forever, they will remain the same size until they die, and maybe never blossom fully.

 

In hindsight, I see that the story about Iselin is a sad story about self-preservation. Iselin is a young woman scarred mentally and physically by her childhood. She’s been raised to not be a burden to her parents and has always managed on her own. As an adult, she’s been sucked into a vicious spiral: she shuns contact with people and they in return avoid her, leading to her feeling even more isolated and misunderstood so that she redoubles her efforts to stay away from people, and so on. Getting stuck in such a self-reinforcing spiral is much easier than people think.

Street art by C215 in Oslo that inspired Margret.

Iselin learned to keep all her emotions on the inside early on, so she wouldn’t provoke or disturb her parents. This has stuck with her. The emotions are locked up inside her and someone seems to have thrown the key far away. She suffers, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She tries to ease her pain with substitutes, like many people do when life gets unbearable or they want to escape their heavy thoughts. However, she does not resort to starving herself, drinking large quantities of alcohol, losing herself in drug-induced highs, or throwing herself from cliffs. No, Iselin works until she drops, and when that doesn’t help, she cuts herself with razor blades. Numb and exhausted, she drags herself from day to day, hoping no one will notice her, yet secretly longing to be seen.

 

The world sees only a stone face. Iselin has not only become a shadow of herself, she’s also a shadow in the world. She is like the shy, scared little girl in Finnish author Tove Jansson’s story The Invisible Child, from her book Tales from Moominvalley (1962). Because an adult made sarcastic comments about her, this girl became totally invisible. Under the kind care of the Moomin family, she became secure enough to act spontaneously on her emotions and this led to her gradually becoming visible again. The story about Iselin spins around the same ideas of invisibility. The guerrilla soldier Berge is Iselin’s tolerant, accepting and generous Moomin family. Berge is an old Norwegian name that means “to save”.

Ninny and Moomin play hide and seek in the 1990 Moomin animated series.

But Berge has his own scars and is in many ways a shadow too. Rachel, you pointed out that the idea of fate is very strong in the story. You said that when Berge rubs the glove he wears to hide his scales over Iselin’s scars, it feels as if they were meant to save each other from themselves. Thanks for this. You’re right. Berge and Iselin are both miserable and lonely lost souls who live in the shadows of their own worlds. It’s only when they follow their instincts—Berge when he goes to the office building, Iselin when she chooses to follow Berge—that they find the solution. Shadow is all about Iselin and Berge helping each other to come out of the shadows, but on a macro level, the story is about something else: lost souls and a mysterious helping hand from another dimension that responds to their unvoiced cries for help. At least I hope it became such a story. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide whether I have succeeded in this or not.

Street art in Oslo by AliCe Pasquini

So, Shadow evolved from an idea for a horror story to a tale about hope, about how it can be possible to spot the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, regardless of how lost you feel. Follow your instincts; follow the good guys; be brave enough to step out of the shadows. There are many kind-hearted lost souls walking the streets, scarred from their own battles, who’d like to meet you."

Send Margret your love via her blog http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com and also on twitter @MaHelgad.

Also if you are a goodreads user / reviewer you can win a copy of Impossible Spaces here!

A to Z book survey

I saw The Perpetual Page-Turner's book survey on On The Shelf so decided to give it a go myself! I hope you guys join in too - being a writer I love to know the kind of books my followers read :-)

Also I have a Goodreads account - let's be friends there too!

Author you’ve read the most books from:

 

Haha this shows my age! R. L. Stine, who wrote amongst other things the Goosebumps series.

 

Best Sequel Ever:

 

Phantom by Susan Kay which is theoretically the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I remember crying as I read the end.

Currently Reading:

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Drink of Choice While Reading:

 

Cranberry and raspberry juice. I live off it.

E-reader or Physical Book?

 

Physical! I like touching and smelling the pages :D

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Actually Dated In High School:

 

Back in secondary school I was madly in love with Anne Rice's vampire Armand (and maybe even more so Marius). Out of teenage characters I imagine I would have been horribly in love with Rafael from Alisa Kwitney and Joëlle Jones' Token and Utena from Chiho Saito and Be-PaPas' Revolutionary Girl Utena series. These days it's obviously The Riddler XD

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance:

 

kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich

Hidden Gem Book:

 

Café Nervosa: The Connoisseurs Cookbook by Julie Fisher - café style recipes and excerpts of Frasier scripts all in one book! Heaven!

Important Moment in your Reading Life:

 

Wanting to be all grown-up and read one of the old books in my mum's bookshelf only for it to be Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It provided me with a role model and a whole new level of imagination to culture.

Just Finished:

 

Well the last book I 'finished' was The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs however by 'finished' I mean got to the end of chapter two before deciding I really didn't enjoy a page of it and didn't want to inflict a single word more of it on myself.

Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:

 

I have an instant desire to run the other way from chick lit romance books however I appreciate that to some people (like my mum) they are great and if a book encourages a person to read who otherwise wouldn't then I'm more than happy for it to exist in the world! I also refuse to read anything which was once fanfiction and is now an 'original fiction' such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Mortal Instruments series. I very much enjoy fanfiction but I think it is both a huge disservice to the original author and your readers if you take a fanfiction and change the names then call everything about it your own. If you are a good writer you should be able to come up with your own characters and scenarios with no problem.

Longest Book You’ve Read:

 

Ulysses by James Joyce.

Major book hangover because of:

 

Wet Moon by Ross Campbell - it feels like such a cool place to live - alternative heaven! Volume seven can't come soon enough (if it comes at all)!

Number of Bookcases You Own:

 

Four in my office and two downstairs.

One Book You Have Read Multiple Times:

 

Alice Through the Looking-Glass never gets old for me.

Preferred Place To Read:

 

In the bath. It has got to the point that I can only read Wet Moon books in the bath. Weirdly I can also only read Neverwhere in London...which is why it's taking me so long to finish it!

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you’ve read:

 

Grammar Nazi time...the correct word is quotation - easy way to remember it is "I quote a quotation" *hides* 

"We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter" - Alan Ginsberg, Howl (part III) 

The moment I read that line it stuck with me. It spoke to me so much about that indestructible friendship that forms when you meet someone who has suffered as much as you have and has survived. Just being with someone who has survived makes you want to keep on surviving.

Reading Regret:

 

Can I say spending good money on The Soft Machine? Actually a bigger regret is that I buy books faster than I am able to read them.

Series You Started And Need To Finish(all books are out in series):

 

The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor. The Looking Glass Wars is by no means my favourite book however I feel I owe it to myself as such a big Alice fan to read the whole series and then maybe even the Hatter M graphic novels.

Three of your All-Time Favorite Books:

 

Oh no! Choices! Erm....Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell and Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston.

Unapologetic Fangirl For:

 

BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In particularl Paul Dini's various forays into Batman. He writes characters that are so often reduced to stereotypes (aka villains and females) with amazing depth and humanity. I absolutely applaud his numerous attempts at creating more female characters who actually are characters rather than arm candy for Bruce Wayne and eye candy for the male readers.

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others:

 

Oh gosh I don't know! I'm not very informed with new releases, I usually get tempted in by good reviews, pretty covers and recommendations.

Worst Bookish Habit:

 

I'm not sure how bad this is really but I'm a terribly slow reader. I can't skim read. I like every word to really sink so that the book becomes a memory rather than just a stack of paper. I guess also I get horribly freaked out when I lend someone a book and it comes back to me with the tiniest scuff or bend. It's my OCD.

X Marks The Spot: Start at the top left of your shelf and pick the 27th book:

 

I tell no lie - on the first bookshelf it was Impossible Spaces. On the other shelves in my study it is: Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Walt Disney's Peter Pan and a 2002 Digimon Annual........

Your latest book purchase:

 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

ZZZ-snatcher book (last book that kept you up WAY late):

 

Hehe probably browsing the erotica samples on the iBooks store.

Minx Review: Good As Lily

This week's graphic novel in my Minx Review series is Good As Lily written by Derek Kirk Kim and illustrated by Jesse Hamm.

 

Good As Lily is about Korean American high school student Grace Kwon. After getting her head stuck in a magic birthday piñata Grace is visited by three versions of herself (a child, aged 29 and an elderly lady) who seem intent in ruining her life...which couldn't come at a worse time as she is desperately trying to keep her drama club from folding and also win the heart of her high school drama teacher. Through all these events she realises that turning eighteen is not the end of the world but just the start of a new one.

 

I need to address the elephants in the room: the story has nearly nothing to do with Lily and the cover art is drawn by Derek Kirk Kim whilst the inside art is by Jesse Hamm. I feel the only time a graphic novel should have a cover by an artist who has had nothing to do with the inside art is when the book contains art by multiple artists or if it is a trade paperback where each section was published separately using the cover artist. I mean I hate it when people buy a book then complain about the weird art when it is obvious from the cover what they're getting but in this instance I think it's fair to feel cheated. Though Derek is also an artist and quite obviously wanted a hand in the art of the story too nothing suggests a lack of faith in the inside art than to choose a separate cover artist (the biggest offender being using Kouyu Shurei's amazing cover art for standard western manga Return to the Labyrinth).

 

You can see more of Derek's art of Good As Lily here.

 

It is evident from the amount of story packed into Good As Lily that Derek is full of good ideas. Good As Lily is a fantasy with a subtext of embracing life, a slice of life drama about friends fighting to save their high school drama club and even a romance but thanks to the restrictions of the single volume format it feels like too much is going on to be full explored satisfyingly. For instance the first 28 pages (nearly a 1/4 of the entire page count) are dedicated to getting to know Grace's friends. Endearing as this set up is only Jeremy and Rona deserve such a detailed introduction as the other friends barely return again. Perhaps if there was no fantasy aspect we would be able to focus on the drama friends more but once the fantasy part kicks in and Grace's friends retire to the background it makes such a long beginning feel redundant and slightly wasteful. The rest of the story races to deal with the lack of balance and never really catches up.

 

Then there is the titular Lily. Lily is Grace's dead sister. She is supposed to be this heavy weight that Grace compares herself to throughout the story but she is barely referenced and when we eventually do find out who she is Grace's feelings towards her are resolved in a matter of panels in the middle of the story. Because the book is called Good As Lily you are on the constant look out for her or at least expect to be drip-fed hints about who she was. Because this does not happen it feels like the most unsatisfying aspect of the story.

 

The story is written in a friendly, sometimes even comical tone and Grace has good conflicts with her other selves (yet another reason why her friends are not needed). In particular she has trouble with her 29 year old self who also has a crush on her drama teacher. This finds a satisfying conclusion as does Grace's evolving friendship with Jeremy however her eventual friendship with her bully does feel less believable.

 

Jesse Hamm's art is detailed and very indie. I particularly like Grace's look. I can imagine her as a drummer of an indie rock band! There's the odd weird panel (and few too many floating heads for my liking) but it's mostly of the good quality you would expect from a Minx artist. It does, however, have a slightly stinted feel. At first I thought maybe Jesse was a new artist still trying to perfect his style but as I looked over Derek's notes on Good As Lily I realised Jesse was trying to recreate Derek's style rather than embrace his own which is a shame as you can tell there is something not quite comfortable about it. I would like to see something in his own style to see if it feels more relaxed and natural.

 

Good As Lily is probably the weakest of the Minx books though it is still worth a try if you have enjoyed the rest of the series. Despite its faults it is a perfect gateway for exploring the art and writing of Derek and Jesse. Just surfing around Derek's blog makes me want to read and watch more by him. I hope to feature more by both Derek and Jesse in the future.

You'll like Good As Lily if you like:
Freaky Friday, 13 Going on 30, 17 Again, Glee (and The Glee Project), Western slice of life manga, 1990s kids shows set in and around high school, cheesy Asian drama.

Also by Jesse Hamm:
Negative Burn, Hawkeye Volume Two and Hawkeye: Little Hits

Graphic novels written by Derek Kirk Kim:
Same Difference,  Flight Volume One, Bizarro World and Electric Ant Issue 1

Graphic novels drawn by Derek Kirk Kim:
Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, The Eternal Smile and Prime Baby

Online Media by Derek Kirk Kim:
Mythomania, Tune, Yesterday and Orange Tango

Impossible Spaces Trailer

Hehe the trailer has even got me excited to read all the different stories now! Dark fantasy and surrealism is just the kind of subject I love! If you love it too then here is all the information on where to buy Impossible Spaces! I hope you will all enjoy it! The great thing about anthologies is that if you don't like one story there are twenty more you may like!

We really need people to host guest posts for a blog tour (like Toby Stone's fantastic Aimee and the Bear post on my blog). Please be wonderful and allow one of the writers to write a post for your blog! To join in click here!

Friday Feature: Toby Stone and Aimee and the Bear

Today we'll be going into the mind of an author as Toby Stone shares with us how he creates a writeable concept for a full length novel. He'll share with us how he develops an idea (and how to beat that big nasty, writers block) as well as read for us an excerpt from his debut novel, dark fantasy Aimee and the Bear.

Aimee and the Bear is the story of little girl Amy, who, when her mother's cruelty gets too much travels with her teddy bear to the Other Place - a world where teddies become real bears, children attend the Night School to escape whatever it is they face at home, Amy becomes Aimee, and there’s magic in the air. But the Other Place is in danger - the Witch has awoken, and Amy must find the courage to save her baby brother before it’s too late.

Don't take it from me though, hear it from Toby himself as he reads an excerpt especially for Enchanted Blogging:

And now Toby on coming up with workable ideas, writers block and upset spiders:

"For me, ideas for novels never come in ones. If an idea has enough about it to reach a format of 300 plus pages, it normally needs to merge with several other ideas, which forms a kind of molecule of attached concepts (they're the atoms, in this weak analogy). The best way to give an image of this is with one of my novels - the novel I hope to be my next full length publication. About seven years ago I thought that if anything is likely to be psychic it is probably a spider. There is something both misanthropic and powerful about them and psychic-arachnids chimed with me. This then festered in my brain until the thought that spiders are the victims of domestic violence joined with it, and I reckoned that a psychic spider might try to stop these abuses. Finally, the extra idea - that the best way for a psychic spider to stop domestic violence would be to take over a television station and broadcast to humans - came to my mind.

Once there are enough elements to the macro-idea, it gains a momentum that will carry it through 70 odd thousand words (in this case, very odd indeed).

I tend to take settings and occurrences I know / have experienced / other people's experiences and jumble them into an unrecognisable(ish) morass for the minutiae and detail of the novel. This informs the bricks and mortar (and roads, and parks, etc...) environment as well as little things that happen in the book (television extracts, music interludes, snippets of conversations, bus rides, and so on). The characters tend to write themselves in. They are normally relatively blurry and then, through the writing of the book, take a clearer form.

I see the plotting of the novel as a map with vast areas of unexplored territory, and ponds / glades of vivid detail. So, I see scenes that I am heading toward and (often) the end itself in colour, but have to fumble through the dark until I reach them. I'll take hot baths, long walks, and lots of alcohol / caffeine (and a fair amount of music on Spotify, at high volumes) in order to cough up scenes and keep the momentum (across the map) going.

Once I've finished, I will edit for years. The form of the book in my mind will then change, morphing from a map to something like a tower block where I can see all the storeys of my novel quite clearly in my mind (because it is already written) and, say during a long walk, I will 'travel' up and down the length of the book searching desperately for flaws, sentences that don't work, etc. For some reason, I can sort of 'feel' sections which are weak(er than the rest). Weirdly, I love editing, and find it hard to let go.

I don't really get writer's block (jinx!). I normally have several books on the go (each somewhere in the above process) and will simply churn from one to another if I reach what feels like saturation with one. Saying all of this (and my apologies, it is a lot) the most important part of the writing process, for me, is the writing. If any of the above ways of going about this isn't working, I'll stab it to death and hide it under the patio. Getting to the end of the book is the most important thing.

Why did I choose a female character? After all, I am (the last time my wife checked) male. Mmmm... I'm not sure I did. Scanning back up what I said above, it is worth adding that when the ideas / concepts clump together, they sort of come with a hazy character attached. In the writing of Aimee and the Bear one of the original atoms of the idea was of a child cuddling a teddy bear that granted her the ability to travel to a fantasy world. At its conception this came with the internal Polaroid of a young, brunette girl cuddling a brown, bead-eyed bear. It is blurry, shifting, vague but, like DNA, it is a marker that seems to determine everything that follows. And what followed was, in the main, smooth, although (given the content of the book) really quite emotional. I love writing, and I loved writing this novel, despite its darker surfaces (and I'll not even mention the depths). I'll be lucky, I think, if every one of my novels makes me feel the same way.

And as Toby mentioned in his video reading, here are some scans of his notes so that you can really get inside the inception of his ideas (click each image for a larger view):

I think we can all agree Toby has been an epic host for today so please send him lots of love via twitter @tobystone1 and find out how you can buy Aimee and the Bear here.

***

If you are a writer / musician / artist and would like to be featured on Enchanted Blogging please leave me a comment!

Why you want to read tomorrow's guest post by Toby Stone

Reviews of Toby's debut dark fantasy novel Aimee and the Bear.

Amazon

"Absolutely brilliant! I'm not usually a fan of 'magic realism', but this really works. I think that's because the realism is very real (this is not a book for kids, despite the cuddly toy element) and the magic is serious, funny and dark. Stone is a superb writer - intelligent, stylish and quirky - who creates very rounded characters. As an evocation of the childhood mind, it's the most convincing thing I've read since Alice in Wonderland."

" This is a brilliant debut novel from Toby Stone. The combination of modern contemporary fiction and fantasy is finely balanced. You are never quite sure if she is imagining the events or they are actually happening, so there is great psychology that keeps you guessing all the way. She is Amy when she is the world inhabited by her cruel mother, and Aimee when she goes to the other place. The ending is fantastic. I would recommend this book even if this is not the genre you normally read. There are some very clever crafted parts to this book that will make you nod your head in appreciation."

"This book, be warned, is in no way a pleasant read. But then again, I don't suppose it was ever intended to be one. It is, nevertheless, gripping, and once you start reading, you will hardly be able to put it down...Absolutely recommended."

Goodreads

"In some ways, this is as realistic as fiction can get in its portrayal of a young girl who escapes into her own mind because she can't deal with the horrible reality of her day to day life. It's also a classic 'hero's journey' story (or in this case, heroine's journey) as Amy/Aimee struggles to save her little brother from the life they have been unfortunate enough to be born into. With elements of horror and dark fairytale, Stone's novel takes us with Amy/Aimee and her bear as she struggles to defeat the evil in her 'real' and 'imaginary' lives...Dark, strange, confronting and thoughtful, this is a book that deserves a wide readership. Highly recommended."

"This is a very unusual book, a contemporary modern day novel with a twist...It is enchanting and pulls you along. This is Toby Stone's first book according to the blurb, and for a debut novel it is stunning, he has massive potential. I would recommend this book."

Angels in the Underworld

"What a fascinating read!! This is, hands down, one of the better books I’ve found in years. Like I said, Wow. No matter what I render as a review, there is nothing left more important than WOW."

Impossible Spaces Update II

Hi guys! The Impossible Spaces launch party will be held on the 19th of July (which is also when the book launches) in Manchester! It's free to attend. There will be readings (including one by me and one by Ramsey Campbell), competitions and free booze. Here is a form to register you interest in attending:

Online event registration for Impossible Spaces Launch Party powered by Eventbrite

And even more exciting (maybe) is that you can now read an excerpt from my story I'd Lock it with a Zipper on my website!

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Clockwork,” she said, tugging me to my feet. “Come on—we have to go.”

“Where are all the people?”

“Gone. The robots took them.”

I stopped. “The robots? Like you?”

“No, like Brother but not like Brother.”

I held my position. “I don’t understand.”

She froze and looked beyond me...

...Click here to read more!

 

 

***

 

There will also be a blog tour. I will be hosting a post by an Impossible Spaces writer and if you would also be willing to host a post that would be more than wonderful! You can find out how to take part here: http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/impossible-spaces-blog-tour/

Impossible Spaces Update

Hi guys!

As you may or may not know, my short story 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be appearing in Hic Dragones' anthology Impossible Spaces. I'm pleased to share with you some exciting updates!

Firstly here is the cover:

Secondly it will be available to buy in hard copy and digital from Friday 19th July (put it in your diary!) It should be easily available to get online from places like Amazon but also feel free to ask your local book shops if they would be interested in / able to stock it.

More to follow!

Friday Feature - Rebecca Sugar

For my first Friday Feature back from Japan I really wanted to write about a Japanese musician but the honest truth is I was so busy making wasabi and taking naked public baths that I didn't get to buy any music! Luckily in Hong Kong I did hear some really cool music - not by a hot Hong Kong band (unfortunately) - but the epic songs written by Rebecca Sugar for Adventure Time!

Adventure Time is an American comedy fantasy animation about the RPG-style adventures of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. One of the storyboard artists is Rebecca Sugar who also writes many of the songs performed in the series, in particular those sung by Marceline the Vampire Queen (and Marshall Lee her gender bender character in Fiona and Cake). She is basically epic. So here are some of Rebecca's demos accompanied by her concept and storyboard art:

Gummedup / Warmedup

I'm Just Your Problem

Tropical Island

 

Susan Strong

 

Marceline's Song

Fiona and Cake

Good Little Girl

And because I love the 'Bad Little Boy' episode (the second Fiona and Cake episode) SOOOOO much here is the final version of Good Little Girl:

I love Fiona. She is blonde and curvy but so not a bimbo (kind of like me...a little bit...maybe...). I hope there are many more Fiona and Cake episodes! She has the potential to be a wonderful role model.

Anyway you can watch all of Rebecca's demos here and enjoy more of her magical world here.

Next week: Bad Veins

Here Be Impossible Spaces

I'm very pleased to announce that my short story, 'I'd Lock it with a Zipper' will be appearing in Hic Dragones' anthology 'Impossible Spaces'. I'll keep you all updated on how it goes and where you can get a copy via this blog and also my website http://enchantedviolin.com (check it out if you haven't ever yet - it has lots of fun stuff on it too).

For the time being here is the list of featured writers for you to be curious / excited about.

And for something equally impossible...

Here is the moment Pyramid Head makes his appearance in Silent Hill: Homecoming:

And here is animator LambentFox's hilarious re-imagining of it!

Pictures from Paradise

The main personal project I've been working on this year is a script called 'Paradise' - a fantasy detective romantic comedy. My friend Gina is always telling me to write a graphic novel so here are some pictures I drew up of characters. I would love your views on the matter. Do you think I should have a go at drawing one of my scripts as a graphic story with the intention of getting it published? If I did try I'd need lots of encouragement not to give up...but then I'd try and share the process with you.

Anyway...some pictures (click on them for bigger versions):

 

Designs for main character Susan's outfits

Detective, spirit and love interest Everard Paradise

 

Everard's sweet lolita personal assistant Angelique

Fox spirit and cabaret singer Iris

Snake Twins

 

And here is a photo of the building that inspired the setting (The Grand on the Leas Cliff, Folkestone, Kent, England):



Arathael

Here is my entry to the 2012 Cape / Observer / Comica Short Graphic Story Prize. I'm already looking forward to entering next year now I know what it's all about :-)

Click on the sample image to go to the full comic.

Four Pages You'll Never Get Back

Hi guys! I'm back from my holiday. If you were wondering what I had been up to prior to that (apart from the Feature Fridays) I was working on my entry for Vintage Books' Graphic Short Story Prize.

Once the competition is over I'll be able to share the whole of my comic with you but until then here is a sample featuring three of my favourite panels:

If any of you enter please let me know - I'd love to see your entries too!

If, on the other hand, you prefer reading short graphic stories to writing and drawing them Vintage have provided a whole collection of short comics for you to read for free online: Shorties! The Best of the Graphic Short Story Prize 2007-2011.

The Automated Heart Concept Art

Concept art for my steampunk, gothic horror, fantasy adventure, The Automated Heart.

You can see full sized versions of these pictures and my other art HERE.

ENO Mini Opera Submission

Edit: I used Neil Gaiman's 'The Sweeper of Dreams' as a starting-off point for this piece of writing (which turned out to be wrong as they were looking for adaptations not original fiction). Though I failed at the brief I still really like the concept behind this. I'm going to take out the references to 'The Sweeper of Dreams' and rewrite this as a proper short story. I'll keep this up so that you can laugh at my horrible attempt that lyric writing though!

SWEEP ME AWAY

BASED ON NEIL GAIMAN'S 'THE SWEEPER OF DREAMS'

A businessman climbs over the rail of a bridge. He is sweaty and panicked. The sound of water washes below him.

Man
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me -

A young girl comes up to him, curious.

Girl
What are you doing?

Man
Uh! 

He is startled and wobbles.

Girl
Careful, silly!

She pulls him to his balance and laughs.

Girl
You’re standing on the wrong side.

Man
Do you know the power that dreams hide?

Girl
Um…

Man
Dreams.
Dreams,
Scientifically put,
Are the mind processing events of the day:
Emotions,
Feelings,
Sights,
Notions –
Rapid eye movement -

Girl
Your eyes are moving rapidly.

Man
Some say that dreams are your mind
Giving sight to what was blind.
Some say that dreams are memories –
Memories of things you’d rather forget.
Or things that haven’t happened yet.

Girl
You know a lot about dreams.

Man
Not happily.
Do you know the Sweeper of Dreams?

Girl
No…

Man
I’ve met him.

Girl
In a dream?

Man
Between dreams.
When I was a young man.
A cocky man.
I saw him there –
In the gap between light and gloom:
A strange, humped, little man
With a cap and coat and broom,
His sleeves rolled up,
The head of a dragon tattoo
Peeping out from his left arm,
Its tail curled around the right.
He listened to a radio:
A heavy weight contender fight.
I found him hilarious.
I told him so.
Silently
He rolled down each sleeve,
Picked up his radio
And made to leave.

Girl
…And?

Man
He has never come again.
Every dream that I have ever had,
Every fantasy good
Every nightmare bad,
Has remained with me,
Building up and up
Like trash in the street,
Like trash at a dump!

He prepares to jump.

Man
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me…!

Girl
But wait!

He pauses.

Girl
You’re awake.
Dreams can’t hurt you when
You’re awake.

Man
No!
The dreams follow me
From dusk to dawn
To dusk again!
Creeping
And stalking,
Building at my feet
Like stray dogs after a bitch in heat.
Wherever I go,
Whatever I do.

Girl
I should like to have a dream come true.

Man
Oh yes –
The good dreams –
The beautiful women,
Endless wealth,
The food of gods,
My boss’ bad health –
Those dreams I could live with –
But –
The falls that feel like bottomless pits,
Leeches that bite the eyes and the hips,
Feeling lost and alone and in constant pain,
My father…my father…alive again…

Girl
Your father is a nightmare?

Man
He drank.
He didn’t care.
The words he would use,
The words he would pelt -
Loving abuse -
Stung worse than his belt.
Over and over and over.
I would cower.
I would beg.
I would rather dream of scorpions.
Scorpions would sting less.
Every time I think of him.
No one can see
But there he is –
Beating me.

He rolls up his sleeves to show her where his dream father has hit him.

Man
Scorpions would sting less.
Forgive me father.
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me.
One day I made a fool-proof plan
So brilliant it made me weep:
I would not dream if I could not sleep.
I took stimulants:
Caffeine,
Nicotine,
Amphetamine,
Ampakine,
Cocaine,
MDNA,
Modafinil,
Every drug,
Every pill.
But you cannot cheat sleep forever
And I fell asleep at the wheel.
And hit a girl.
Not a dream girl.
A real girl.
Yesterday I killed a helpless, living, little girl.

Girl
And what did you do?

Man
…I left her lying in the street,
Drove home and wept myself to sleep.
And dreamt.
I dreamt that the little girl wasn’t dead.
I dreamt that she found me.
That I ran and she followed me.
All through the town.
Up streets
And down squares
In my night gown.
Until I came to a bridge
And it occurred to me:
Jump.
Let the water sweep you away.
The dreams won’t follow you
Where the water will take you.
And I did it –
I jumped –
And I woke before I hit the water –
But it was a dream
And the Sweeper of Dreams does not visit me
And sweep my dreams away –
They stay
And haunt me –
My mind talking to me,
About things I’d rather forget
And things that haven’t happened yet.
So here we are now
By the water:
The little girl
And the man who killed her.
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me,
Forgive me…   

Girl
Do you know the old rhyme:
“Everything you say or do
If left undone comes back to you”?

Man
No…does it?

Girl
It does.

She pushes him off the bridge.

***

Neil Gaiman is one of my biggest writing idols. I hope he would approve of this submission!