I went into the dark ages and was hung as a witch to find my sanity. Yellow foul coated my throat. I went on a journey across timelines to find my sanity, guided by an avatar called M. Chapel perilous, ghosts in the app, to the moon and back. Got caught in a loop where… Continue reading Attempts at Sanity
Tag: identity
Entries #6
I am with Anaïs Nin; writing is intrinsically linked to flow. There is no blockage that cannot be cured by visiting a body of water. By submerging. I lie in a hot bath until words are pouring from me and I can stand it no more. I wrote much of Mind in the Gap in… Continue reading Entries #6
Interlude/Desert
I spotted you soaring high above me, your black wings wide like in that stolen poem from years ago. You were looking for an exit in the sky; we’d surely tried everywhere we could reach on foot. Days, maybe weeks, wandering through the desert of the real. Every layer of meaning, sign and recognition stripped,… Continue reading Interlude/Desert
Journal Sequence #14: Beautiful Hailstones [I am you]
The first rule of autofiction is that no one admits they’re writing autofiction. They’ll refer to ‘my narrator’ and ‘the plot’ as though they were something other than parts of the author themselves. They are, of course, parts that are not generally accepted explorations. A narrator can indulge in solipsism but a person cannot. The… Continue reading Journal Sequence #14: Beautiful Hailstones [I am you]
Micro Fiction: Elbow
You need the drugs, as it turns out. You need them to make the world shine, to show you it’s more than a three-dimensional dump. You need them so you understand – truly understand – that the fourth dimension is you, your mind. It’s what brings everything to life. It’s what makes a pedestrian crossing… Continue reading Micro Fiction: Elbow
Journal Sequence #4: Minor Fractal Loops [You Can’t Keep Doing This]
As I writhed in a pool of tears, and blood dripped from two fresh wounds in my arm, my best friend looked me in the eye and said: you can’t keep doing this. It was the end of our friendship in the sense that our symbiosis would never be the same, but it was those… Continue reading Journal Sequence #4: Minor Fractal Loops [You Can’t Keep Doing This]
Hybrid [Manifesto]
1. Writing about a writer is cliché. 2. Too many novels start with a journey. 3. Dreams and flashbacks are lazy plot devices. 4. Elaborate prose presented as monologue is self-indulgent. 5. Philosophy should be hidden, not overt. 6. So fucking what. 7. You fall out of one overused trope and into another. 8. You… Continue reading Hybrid [Manifesto]
Butterflies
From some unknown corner of the house, butterflies are emerging. I’ve liberated 4 this week. Frantically they fly towards the light. Meanwhile, I’ve been in a chrysalis of my own. Turned away from the world, writhing in chaos and conflict, evolving privately. Metamorphosing. I’m reading Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (at long last –… Continue reading Butterflies
Within and Without
Do you ever find pieces of insight come in clusters, like the universe or your subconscious mind are trying to teach you something? Perhaps not synchronicity exactly; more that you’ve picked up on an idea that resonates and then begin noticing it in other places. I just finished reading Passages by Ann Quin. I found… Continue reading Within and Without
The Journey So Far
When I started blogging in 2016, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t at all confident in my writing abilities or opinions, and I worried what friends and family would think of my weird little fragments and book reviews. So I created an anonymous site, Orchid’s Lantern, with a generic avatar and… Continue reading The Journey So Far