It should be a good afternoon, the previous one for Halloween went really well. I’m hoping friends will be able to come and listen to our group read stories and poems with a possible festive twist. We hope it will be cosy and cheerful.
Writers group
Tag: Authors
Painting and reading
Which activities make you lose track of time?
When I paint I lose track of time, the world goes away. Sometimes I lose myself completely. I know I feel pain in my arms nowadays, and I can’t always focus on the tip of my brush because I get slight double vision. But I have to do it. I’m under a compulsion to spread liquid onto a hard or soft surface (board, wall, or canvas) and recreate images or come up with ideas of my own….
My other passion is reading, I rarely read a book from cover to cover anymore unless it’s very short, my hands stick in place, my trigger fingers play up and I get cramp in them. But I do like using reading to send myself to sleep. I’m currently rereading The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. It’s a sci-fi novel set in the 1960’s? It’s also a very good film…. He was the author of Jurassic Park by the way.
Goodnight, off to bed to read….I might just lose track of time again. X
Three books
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
Youngest influence? Old Yeller. I was at Junior school and read about a boy whose dog catches rabies. It was frightening and sad and tender. I don’t remember everything about it but I learnt about American society. I think Disney might have made a film of it.
The next was the Plague Dogs, written by Richard Adams who also wrote Waterside Down. Two dogs escape from a laboratory in the Lake District, called Snitter and Rawf, it’s about their desperate journey across wild moorland to try and escape to a better life. It’s full on dark adventure. Emotional and sad.
The Third one was when I was at college. It was the handmaid’s tale by Margaret Attwood. Yes it was on bookshelves in the 1980’s. It’s story was frightening then. Now it’s almost prescient.
Yes they influenced and informed me and it’s about time I read them again.
Baby 🐲 dragon
For as many artists that draw and paint dragons, there’s a different style, shape, pattern, technique or colours.
I’m studying an illustration course and my final report is about the mythology and history of dragon illustration. I’m having to find out more about them, from the possible link with fossilised dinosaur skeletons, to medieval bestiaries, to more recent art including children’s and adult fiction that includes either dragon illustrations in the books or on their covers.
Here’s a question. Does anyone know any interesting dragon stories I can investigate? I have Ursula K Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffery, Cressida Cowell, J. R. R Tolkein, T. H White and other authors. Are you aware of more?
Thanks x
Too many books?
Featuring a painting by my artist friend Charlie Walker. The other, little yellow rose, is one of mine.
Who needs insulation when you have lots of books? Well I only have them lining one wall so I guess we do. I did start counting them once, but when I got to 1000 I gave up. Some of them are unreachable because they are too high up. I sometimes get the step ladders out if I notice one I’d like to read again. I have my favourites, including sci-fi and fantasy, biography and science books. I’m about to start a book about the history of Jodrell Bank Radio telescope.
There are books by Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke that I like. I also enjoy books by Terry Pratchett. I think that’s because I read some them when I was at school so I have that memory ingrained in me. I remember reading Arthur C Clarke Dolphin Island when I was young. It enthralled me. I read it again recently but it had lost some of its magic. I guess some of the fantastic things he talked about dont seem as amazing in the modern world….
I want to go to Wales!
The foreign country on our doorstep. With wonderful singing, beautiful landscapes, sandy beaches, castles, neolithic artifacts, mountains, pleasant green hills, and narrow guage railways.
Home of authors like Dylan Thomas, R.S Thomas, O.M Edwards, Vernon Watkins from Swansea or Eric Madden who has written stories based on Snowdonia folk tales.
I would love to go back and have Bara Brith, a type of friuty bread, or Welsh cakes full of butter, and a nice cup of tea. Other delicacies include lava bread made with seaweed.
Driving through the country is sometimes slow. A lot of the roads are ‘scenic’, narrow and twisting. But they are beautiful. Driving over a pass and into a new valley with different field patterns, or plantations of trees is a pleasure.
There are waterfalls like swallow falls near Betwys Coed, the wooded hillsides which gradually become moorland, covered in slate as you drive into Snowdonia.
Snowdon is the tallest mountain in Wales. There is a footpath to the top, or you can take the mountain railway. Great for views, except on the day we went up when everything was enveloped in fog.
North Wales is closest to where I live, but there is a lot to see in Mid and South Wales too. In Mid Wales there are places like the national centre for alternative technology at Machynlleth and towns like Aberystwyth where there is a funicular railway and a narrow gauge line up to the Devils bridge waterfall. In the south you can visit Tenby which is a tourist attraction, Laugharne where Dylan Thomas wrote, and the capital of the principality which is Cardiff.
I’ve only included places we have visited. There is so much more to see.
The strangest thing, as you drive into Wales the signs on the roads are in Welsh and English. I find myself trying to pronounce them!
Too many books?
How many books is too many? I was counting ours a few years ago and when I got to over 1000 I gave up. We had books in all the rooms except the bathroom but they have also had to be moved out of the kitchen now it’s been modernised. If I could sneak a few cookbooks in I would, but then the books on trains would follow…
What books do I like?
Biography, Science, Astronomy, Autobiography, Physics, Maths, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, Fantasy, Train books, Novels, Thrillers, Art books. Books about Pottery and Ceramics. Books about photography.
Books I dislike. …I don’t know..
So what do you do when you have a partner who goes out and buys books from charity shops every week! ..? You send him back with ones to donate. I have wondered if I should take some to a local second hand book shop but I dont know if they would take them.
I read books at bedtime to help me sleep. Some of the physics ones can send me off in minutes. At the moment I’m reading the Earthsea Quartet by Ursula LeGuin and 1356 by Bernard Cornwell. I have a copy of The Handmaids Tale I bought in the 1980’s by Margaret Atwood, and also The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. One book Richard introduced me to was A Canticle for Leibovitz which is a post apocalyptic story. It’s very strange.
So yes I love these books, I would never get a kindle or e-book reader. There is something about turning paper pages, without having to charge the battery up just when you are mid chapter, also if you drop a book when you fall asleep it doesn’t break the screen, and yes I have read books in the bath… they can get very soggy!
Mallaband-Brown 