Caviar, of a different sort...

I am oppressed. By guinea fowl. 25 of 'em this morning. Males charging at one another. Females tearing up the lawn. All hunting for treasure. For the brown-skinned gold. Guinea Fowl Caviar!

Only trouble is, the doves think it's dove caviar. And the squirrels know its really squirrel food.

I give you, of course, the humble peanut.


Who would know it could wreak such mayhem - and destroy my garden? Who knew I would become a peanut farmer courtesy of my furry grey friends?


Mixed corn and seed is not good enough for the likes of those who visit my garden. Oh no. We all demand nuts. Peanuts. Almonds are not good enough, nor are walnuts. No, in the depths of winter when we all want fattening up, it is the peanut to which we turn. Which we fight over, squabble about and go to war.

The funny thing is it's the smallest of the marauders who win. The doves. By sheer force of numbers. Let's hear it for mob justice!

Right, now I'm off to make myself a peanut-butter sarnie... Yeah, catch me if you can oh ye ravening hordes of garden destroyers!

(Hmm, methinks mayhap, a certain chicken of my acquaintance had something to do with this invasion...)

Blog, blogging along, along...

click to enlarge image (oh thank goodness for witty cartoonists and places like CartoonStock!)

This thing keeps on popping up in blogosphere - actually, it's not so much a thing as an exchange of... er... words, thoughts and sometimes heated wossnames. Recently it's been popping up over at Skint's place.

Given what some folk have said, I have one simple question.

Why do you blog?

For fun?To network?To get noticed?To have an ego massage?To meet new people?To market yourself, your work, your body...? To relax?'Cos you don't have a life?'Cos it's cool?'Cos all your mates do it?To wossname, wossname, wossname... (with apologies to Mr Pratchett's parrot).

You blog because...?

click to enlarge image

Atyllah on "Talking about inspiration..."

Copyright 2007 Absolute Vanilla

Talking about inspiration...

No, no, let me talk about inspiration - you've done quite enough quasi creative-meaning of life-wittering for the past few days. Shove over. You remember the deal - your blog, but I get a chance to butt in.

Oh, what, like you haven't already done enough butting in?

You got a problem?

Me? Do I dare?

I wouldn't if I were you...


Okay, this is Atyllah posting - so pay attention!

As some of you may well be aware, prior to my departure from Planet Earth I was involved in a campaign to save some trees - very old trees many of them - oaks of various species, eucalypts, pines, poplars, willows... (did I ever mention that some of my bestest friends are trees?) - and not only that, I was trying, though the Corncob alone knows why, to save the shaded recreational space of the Mugger City - the place where my spacepod crash landed - damned thing. Since my actions came to the notice of the Draconians, nasty reptilian aliens who humans refuse to believe have infiltrated Earth, it became necessary for me to adopt a low profile and hand over matters to those in a better position to actually do something about trees and related schtuff. (And the Corncob knows, there is a bundle of related schtuff - enough to give any local politician damp dreams...)

However, talking of inspiration and thinking of trees and the various characters who popped up on the stage, I'm thinking of penning my own little parody... See, you just never know what sort of fodder can be turned into a tale...

At the moment I'm putting together the cast of characters...

The Evil Ones:
Brat Meerkat - an Evil Overseer
The Idiot Bluster Von Hot Aire - an infamous bottomist
Ding Dong Bell - oh yeah, that cat should really be in a well...

The Good Guys - mostly:
The Four Immortals - a group of brave and brilliant minds (and yes, I know in the feng shui folk say there are only three)
YT - aka Yours Truly - Atyllah the Hen, chicken with über-attitude
The Tree Doctor - a passionate human intent on saving the trees come bellowing Hot Aire or Draconians
Raving Rob Treebeard - he means well (I think...) but constantly forgets to take his medication...

The assorted and self appointed egos of several causes:
Wily Coyote - a supposed leader, who wouldn't know a lead if it strangled him
Dumcluck McPhuck - a Novapulsian meddler or the worst kind
The Ugly Phuckling - Dumphuck's brother and self proclaimed legal genius
Dennis le Menace - an old fart who thinks he knows best
Queen Deen - another fart of indeterminate age and with several personal agendas.

I'm thinking of calling it "Stupid is as Stupid Does"; "The Misadventures of Trees" or; "Fuckwittage Flows where anything Grows".

Now all I need to do is work on the plot. Any ideas and further inspiration would be welcome.
(My Corncob! I don't actually believe this, I'm asking humans for assistance! What is the multiverse coming to!?!)

Creative Forces and Inspirations

Blue Dawn by Tay Dall - 2005

Blue Dawn

Ocean glints

as sunlight stretches

to kiss the eternal blue.

Moon calls forth

the earth’s embrace

And fingers of dawn

Caress the waves.

Whispers of a new day sparkle in myriad hues.

© 2007 Absolute Vanilla

A couple of years ago I came across the work of a local artist, Tay Dall, and was instantly captivated by her art. Somehow her paintings spoke to me and inspired me. I felt, goofy though it may sound, a soul connection, even though Tay and I have never met - chatted on the phone, yes, shared email, for sure. What I find so interesting is that the person who bubbles over the telephone line, who produces the most prolific quantity of work, who bounds and bounces, seems so unlike the person I'd imagined behind the paintings. Which makes me think... how much of the persona we present to the world, the personality that others see, is really the true person? I wonder how much any of of us reveal ourselves to others or do we save it entirely for our art - or even then, not? Indeed, how many of us even know who we really are?

The other thing I'm inclined to ponder is just how much we inspire each other. Who, for example, inspires you?

Here's another bit of a "pome" inspired by Tay's work.

creative force

silver circle

soars

on high

brightening glow

- heaven-

night’s eye.

ancient mysteries

magical rites

below the stone slumbers

waits for flight.

whispered threads

woven imaginings

tales spread

and stories unfold.

Spirit

soars

uncovering

the soul.

© 2007 Absolute Vanilla

And whaddayamean, where's that chicken?! Don't know, don't care is the succinct answer.

Ba-kaaaaak!

Damn, see what you've done now. You've woken the beast!

Ouch! All right, all right, you're not a beast. Honest you're not.... you're just a demented chicken.... Ow!!!!!

When your characters take over...

A question recently popped up on one of the children's writing groups to which I belong...
"I really don't know what my character's personality should be like. Please help?"
As is often the case with writers - we're a friendly, supportive bunch, see - suggestions flowed in thick and fast and included:

making your characters take the Myers Brigg test,
talking to your characters to find out more about them,
getting into your characters' head (I can't help wondering if one needs a ladder and a crowbar for such an exercise...),
studying psychology (a whole degree seems a bit extreme...) and,
writing about your character in the first person and getting them to answer questions like who am I? (which in my case might leave you in even more of a muddle).

Frankly, I find I tend to have the opposite problem. I have a really hard time getting my characters to stay out of my head, to stop them from taking over and demanding what they want. One character in particular has taken on a life of it's own... And is, I feel, entirely out of control. Now any advice on this, would be most welcome.

Ba-kaaaak! Ya talking 'bout me? Huh?
Who me? Talking about you?
Yeah!
I wouldn't dare! Honest.
Hmmm. Let's just get one thing straight for you and everyone else out there. I am NOT a figment of your imagination. I am real. I come from Novapulse. I'm a secret agent observing the human condition and my granny is a werechicken. Best you be afraid, very afraid!
B-but...
But what? You got a problem?
No, no, of course not, no problem at all.
Good. Glad we're clear on that.

Whew! See what I mean about characters being out of control?

I heard that!

Damn!

Tell me, does this sort of thing ever happen to you?

(This wire and beadwork chicken (and other similar creations) is made by local craftspeople and is sold at the roadside and local craftmarkets.)

I am. Am I ...?

Driftwood - Nature's Valley © Absolute Vanilla

There is something about a piece of driftwood lying on a beach that makes one wonder about origins - well, it makes me wonder...

And in my pondering I set to mulling over our human propensity to identify ourselves by what we do, rather than who we are. Why is that, I wonder? Any thoughts?

I was eavesdropping the other day - after all, writers never know where they might find fodder for stories...

"So tell me," said the elegant woman dressed in black, "exactly who are you?"
"I'm Anna Worthington," said the second woman.
"And what do you do, Anna Worthington," asked Ms Black, her eyebrow raised.
"I'm an accountant," retorted Ms Worthington, pocketing her calculator.

See what I mean? Ms Worthington, asked who she is, gives her name. Asked what she does, gives her profession. But this, surely, isn't who Ms Worthington is. Or is it? Have us humans become that shallow that we are no more than a collection of names and jobs? Have our lives become so limited, so intently focussed that we have forgotten the essence of simply being, and of who we really are?

Yep, see, as you may have guessed, I've developed this irritating propensity for deliberately refusing to answer in the normal way - but then let's face it, who'd be normal - whatever that is. Can writers indeed be normal? Can any artist bend themselves to the ordinary and the average? Mind you, that's the topic of a whole other conversation.

So who am I? I am. What do I do - oh all sorts of things - including spending probably too much time contemplating the true nature of life (which, yes, you may call procrastination...) - which is probably why I spend so much time writing stories. It's in creativity, I find, that one really touches the core of the universal energy.

Ba-kaaak!

Ouch! What do you want?

My Aunt Aggie would have liked you...

Really?

She was into the universal energy in a big way...

Uhuh?

Uhuh. For my part, I don't think humans know a good thing when they see it.

Meaning?

If you lot only knew the powers that reside in you and which you've forgotten... Mind you, probably better for the rest of us that it's that way... Much better for all of us if humanity doesn't realise it's true force. Never mind wanting to take over the world, you lot would be after then entire multiverse. What a horrible thought!

Hey! Where are you going!

To save the galaxy! Ba-kaaak!

Damned chicken. Can't take it anywhere, not even back to apologise!

Now where was I. Oh yes, so who am I? I am. Question is, who are you?

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

Hmm-mmm, why a blog? Why this blog? I don't know. Terminal insanity perhaps. Your guess is good as mine.

Who am I? Answer: I am. It's as simple as that.

My name? Well, let's call me Vanilla, because I love vanilla. Mmmm-mmm.

What will this blog be about? Who knows. Let's see what happens. Perhaps it will be about writing, painting, the arts, life, the universe and everything. Witterings and warblings would probably be the best description. Well, that at least was my intention... And then a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

This five foot something chicken materialised next to me, eyed me beadily and muttered, "Ba-kaaaak!" Then she whispered in my ear, which rather tickled with all those feathers and said, "Got a job for you, do whatever you do but make some place for me too."

Huh? I'd have said she had a cheek, but she was a pretty scary kind of chicken. She had attitude, if you know what I mean. And although I'm not chicken, well... yes, okay, let's not go there.

So here I am, starting a blog about this and that and perhaps the writing life - and saving space for some demented alien chicken from some planet called Novapulse - just so she can make the odd, now and again, comment on what she calls the dire state of humanity.

Oh dear, I worry that I may have been hijacked before I've even begun... Oh well, let's just see what happens, shall we...?