Writing with Colour

Here's something utterly different - our writing group has been working with emotion and colour. Here's how:

1) We chose an 'emotion word starter' - the example I've used here is 'self-protection'.
2) We matched our word to Chakra colours - in this case, black.
3) We wrote a descriptive piece using that colour, trying to evoke the relevant emotion.

Not easy! Mine evolved into a poem...

In the room,

velvet curtains sweep the walls with heavy shadow;

their black drapes block out the blast of winter.

In the centre of the floor a grand piano displays

its ebony splendour.

The glossy curve curls like a cat’s back.

A candelabra rises like an ice-jagged tree from the

polished plain of piano-top.

The fixed drip of candle wax hangs from

 its slender, silvered branches. Outside,

church bells clash on the hour

But in the room -

the air barely quivers.

We had fun with this! Want to have a go? Try working with joy - orange; fearlessness - red; or healing - green.

More on Matters of the Female

...and if you'd like an updated, exquisite rendering of female vampire, then look no further than Angela Carter's The Lady of the House of Love (from that wonderful collection of short stories where fairy tale is Gothic is adult is gripping in its sensuous use of language!) The Bloody Chamber.

'On  moonless nights... the Countess will sniff the air and howl. She drops, now, on all fours. Crouching, quivering, she catches the scent of her prey. Delicious crunch of the fragile bones of rabbits and small, furry things she pursues with fleet, four-footed speed; she will creep home, whimpering, with blood smeared on her cheeks. She pours water from the ewer in her bedroom into the bowl, she washes her face with the wincing, fastidious gestures of a cat.'

Got to say... great alliteration ('crouching, quivering'; 'fleet, four-footed). Present tense for the power of immediacy. Onomatopoeia - 'crunch', 'whimpering'. Dynamic verbs, great adjectives (particularly fond of the assonance in 'wincing, fastidious'). The weave of fairy tale into the Gothic spaces of 'moonless nights' - a touch of fee, fie, fo fum, Little Red Riding Hood, all rolled into this one.

What's not to like?

On Matters of Female Seduction...

...and by that I don't mean seduction of the female, but rather by the female. If you'd like an example of Gothic literature operating on the boundaries of what is acceptable, and perhaps exploring the taboo, then look no further than Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla. Written in 1872, it touches on preoccupations of the time such as the female exhibiting 'unregulated' behaviour.

Carmilla is a female vampire - a Gothic monster who seduces her victim - in this case, the daughter of a wealthy family. Listen to this:

'...she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and  her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.'

In Le Fanu's text, Carmilla is 'languid'; she is, typically for Gothic writing at this time, erratic, unstable - these were considered feminine qualities. Even while we can consider her a Gothic monster, she remains feminine, and uses the (feminine) language of seduction.

Carmilla was pre Stoker's Dracula, by the way. And we thought he was original!

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Lovely feature article on Thoughttree Courses in the #YorkshireTimesArts Section. With thanks to Jan at Yorkshire Times. Read and enjoy! http://www.yorkshiretimes.co.uk/arts

A huge welcome to all our new followers on Twitter too - thanks for this!

PS Scotland, we love you - please stay!

The Looking Glass

We have just moved an antique mirror into our bedroom; it is a thing of beauty - carved, dark wood with a tilting oval looking glass. Several nights ago I dreamed that a face was looking from it - staring out of the mirror. It was not my own face.

Mirrors hold a fascination for us Gothic Tradition fans. To gaze at the Self in a looking glass is, in a sense, to capture a moment of time passing; just as, when we utter words, we have moved those words from the present moment of 'about to say' into the historic moment of 'said', so it is with our reflection. We capture our Self, held in the moment - the seeing. And yet in that same moment we have already turned, moved into the 'seen'.

How much history stares from a mirror?
How many faces have been held,
Transfixed in the gaze
as we turn from
young child
to the fast
ageing
Self?

Lucky us.

Happy Monday everyone - had a great time at a party on Saturday night; I think it is fair to say, we danced like no one was watching. I distinctly remember running on the spot to @pinkcadillac's excellent rendition of Pharrell Williams' 'Happy'. The shoes were off, the tights were ruined - always a good sign!

Then I remembered that earlier this year, dancers in Iran were jailed for doing the same thing: dancing to 'Happy'. A sobering thought, that so many freedoms we take for granted are denied others. We can dance; we can speak; we can write.

We have the freedom to express ourselves; our world is a lucky one.

The genre of diary: revealing a little more?

Hearing that Michael Palin is publishing diaries from his earlier life made me think: diary writing is an interesting genre to consider. Writing a memoir is surely different, because here the writer draws on 'truths' from memory. But those 'truths' are tempered by the implied relationship of writer and reader. Diary writing is a genre where the author is unaware of the reader's presence - in this respect, it is 'unconscious'. It will be unpolished, first draft - but ultimately perhaps more truthful.

This sent me searching in diaries for writing from my own, earlier days...

'Yesterday I walked with the dog across the stubble field then down the lane, just as the sun was setting: a pale yellow orb, still radiant, still strong. It felt - spiritual; a moment of connection, resonance between soul and landscape; between the turning Earth and being... a tiny part of it.'

Lofty stuff! Scary, sharing a private, unconscious moment of writing - yet it reveals the struggle to find expression and is perhaps all the more honest for that.

Diary writing as a genre is interesting, because rather than being presented with a finished, polished product, as reader we potentially share in the search for words... although I rather suspect that Michael Palin's work will be polished and ready for the market!

Perpetuating the Child Within

Here's a thought for today: to what extent do we still yearn for our childhood innocence? Our adult world is perhaps not such a disconnect from childhood as we might think; we're still fans of our comic book Superheroes such as Batman and Superman (even while their world, portrayed in film, is darker and more sinister than we may remember, as anyone who has seen Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in Batman's The Dark Knight will agree).

The jokes in films for children are often adult-orientated - think of those erstwhile family favourites such as Shrek, or Toy Story; it's an interesting thought that within the framework of film for children there exists a secret society of jokes for adults -  a club that kids can't join - yet it reveals that yearning we may have for the 'innocent' days when toys were plastic soldiers and Mr Potato Head. Nice thought: the paradox of a kids club that kids can't join.

We  constantly reach for the world of the child, reading every one of the Harry Potter series; Philip Pullman's The Northern Lights trilogy; searching out the fantastic; perpetuating the fairy tale in our lives. Maybe we do so, because we want the sense of childhood magic to return to our increasingly desperate- to-consume society (have you just bought a high-powered vacuum cleaner? What on earth for?); we yearn for the freedom of laughter - the joy of finding something simply funny. Or magic; just out of this world.

Or perhaps we are yearning for innocence, a return to childhood, in a world that is becoming too difficult to turn our adult frightened eyes upon.

The Magic Toyshop - contemporary domestic Gothic at its best

It's easy to think Frankenstein or Dracula when we consider the Gothic Tradition - but what about something more contemporary? Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop is perhaps British domestic Gothic at its best, where elements of fairy tale and the fanstastic are reworked in a narrative where relations are warped, dysfunctional.

In this Gothic space, the normally 'safe' domestic is invaded, disturbed by the Strange; by violence. It is a place where Nature itself has turned from the safe - expressed as middle class, suburban garden - to the sinister, so that whereas at first a 'fresh, little grass-scented wind' blew and the flowers gave out 'unguessable sweetness', later 'the branches, menacing, tore her hair and thrashed her face'.

It is a fine piece of Gothic terror (not horror!). A must-have for our writing workshops this autumn!

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