J.R. Manawa's Blog, page 10

Just an ordinary London girl – video catchup about Emmeline

Did I mention that the last 12 hours have been nuts? I’m genuinely like a kid in the dark little Disneyland of my mind. I know this is only a small beginning, and the road ahead is likely long and dark before the morning, but this is a milestone, a marker in the ground that I’m so relieved and happy to have reached. I decided not to update the last blog, instead here is the video I shared last night about the release of Emmeline. I don’t quite know how, but it already has over 1.8k views on Facebook…??

I’m not checking book sales yet because it’s not about sales, it’s about getting the message out, and for me, it’s personally about setting a catalyst for change, but I know that I’ve already sold several of the limited edition copies which is great. It’s always a little scary putting a high price on your own work for fear of failure, but let’s see, 24 copies to go!

I had a quick pause over my writing wall this morning (it’s a big black pin board where I keep thoughts and quotes that push me, drive me, inspire me, and tell me I’m okay) and I there was a note I made about two years ago;

“Tonight the moon is waxing, not waning. The sun is rising, not setting. I am being born, not dying. My existence is at its beginning.” Sometimes, I’d like to stick a pin board moment in my life when I feel like a time is significant, and a feeling or moment is something I should specifically remember, so I can capture that feeling forever.

But, hey, the road is moving on. Let’s see where to next?

Oh, and if you haven’t already, you need to do what the video says and pop over to www.emmelinestory.co.uk and watch the full trailer for the book!

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A BIT OF A THANK YOU WHILE I’M AT IT…

Big thanks to Liliana for filling Emmeline’s boots and rocking the candy floss pink hair and punk look, Mike for lending me his eyes for Charon’s storm, Helen for producing the video, Brian for filming, and Lidka for connecting all the dots to make it happen, Mandi for all the design and photoshop work for the marketing material, and Sigourney for the web site creation and design; I’m whole-heartedly blown away by your dedication and hours of input, Steve for your print genius, and Aurore for your photoshop loan! Sarah for your read-thoughs and fandom, Tristan for your tireless and thorough editing support. Libby, Millie, Lis, Natasha, Ade, Jayne, Fee, Bev, Leanne for holding me to the wire and helping me keep my head straight. To the 32 people who gave me the chapter topics to write about in the first place, to everyone else who knows they’ve been in on it, and my head is too full of nonsense to have succinctly listed you all (forgive me!)….and lastly to everyone who know’s they have a role coming up in this saga!

Massive announcement! Book release!

Hey all you beautiful people!

I’ve published a book!!!! Holy smoking coffins ^_^

This post will be amended in the morning, but you can head over to my social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all that to watch my little video about the release of Emmeline!!! (Facebook has the full version!)

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I’m so excited and so happy you are all on this journey with me.

Meanwhile my video update is only at 12% loaded to YouTube, so if you can’t watch it on any of the three links about, you’ll have to wait until I can update this post tomorrow morning!

Have a beautiful night, with love, from this side of darkness, J R Manawa xxx

The Atheist Christmas Album : FREE DOWNLOAD!

Tylean is one of my favourite alternative artists. My pet python, Kowhai, once starred in a music video of her’s, despite her deep-set fear of snakes. She’s a powerhouse of spookiness and grit, challenging the status-quo in every way she can, and I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing her latest album, The Atheist Christmas album……!

The Atheist Christmas Album? Yes, it’s Christmas, without the religion. And whether you don’t believe in a God, or you do, this collection of Christmas tunes is worth making a noise about. No, it’s not a Weird Al mockery type charade, this is a Christmas album, created by talented avant-garde artist, Tylean, who just wanted Christmas without the Christ for her family. In her own words, “Being an atheist, there have been some changes to how my own family celebrates the festive season compared to when I was growing up. No church, no nativities. It’s a strictly secular holiday, and I regretted losing none of the religious nonsense! ….except the music.”

Avant garde multi-media artist Tylean has a penchant for disturbing sights and sounds

And Tylean certainly isn’t the kind of girl to sing Santa Baby a-la Eartha Kitt, Madannoa, Taylor Swift….or whoever it is this time around. No. Tylean…

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Boo! A quick update…

Hey beautiful you,

Everything is a little busy right now, the journey is always pressing and moving forward. But it’s good-busy, great-busy, exciting-busy, colliding with the fact that London has to be one of the most beautiful and fun places on the planet at this time of year.

I’ve got some exciting news coming, and in advance of that I’ve re-vamped my “About Me/About this website” page, which is something I think was well overdue.

“I AM THE STORYTELLER”

So please pop by and take a quick look, I’ve also highlighted a selection of my favourite stories from the history pages of this website which you may have seen or not seen before.

Now, I’m going to go back to watching my funny little P Metallica bending over backwards trying to weave a new web (Yes, that is just as strange and stupid as it sounds).

With love, from this side of darkness, JR Manawa xxx

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Hello London! Winter Wonderland has landed!

Not quite so dark any mysterious, but one of my favourite people took me to the VIP opening night of Winter Wonderland and Thursday evening, and seeing as it is a much loved London institution, I reviewed it for Chuckie Vision (Magazine I edit for) and I thought I would share it here too, definitely head down if you are in London over Christmas! My personal recommendation is to get your ass on the Munich Looping Roller Coaster and then head over to the Bavarian village for a hug mug of Vikinger But (yes thats Viking Blood, or Mead as the educated call it)….

And just in time to celebrate it’s tenth festive outing in Hyde Park, and bigger and better than ever before!

Londoners just can’t get enough enough of Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. Perhaps because the Wonderland gives a magical taste of what we dreamed a white Christmas should look like in all its perfect form, with sparkling festive lights, warm log fires, daintily iced gingerbread and happiness all round. Throw in some epic fun fair rides and we’re all happy as Larry. The Europeans sure got it right, and let’s hope this isn’t a tradition we’ll lose thanks to Brexit.

Open to the public for the first time last night, this weekend is set to be a big one, with the park seeing more visitors in its brief instalment between Nov 18 – Jan 3 than many major London attractions see the entire year. On most weekend nights, Winter Wonderland will churn through 500 thousand happy revellers…

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Does anyone remember George?

Well, do you? I know I remember him.

I’ve been wanting to get a new story out for a while now, but since the competition excitement and book drama took up so much of my time over the last few weeks (If you missed it, you can follow/ catch up here), it’s only now I’ve had the ability find out what happened to George, so this tale is 100% fresh off the creative chopping block.

And I’ll be honest with you. I fell in love with George the first time I met him; his slightly scruffy brown hair, innocent face, gentle eyes and long elegant fingers that still managed to fumble over tying a ribbon into a bow…but that day—the day I met him—was also the last time I ever saw him, and I have my suspicious as to why…

Does anyone remember George? J R Manawa

George pushed his glasses up on his nose and stuffed his hands in his pockets to stop them from trembling. It had been a horrible day. ‘First day nerves,’ he knew his mother would say, and wave off his concerns. That was if he bothered to voice them to her, which he never did so he couldn’t imagine why he would start now. Most of all he’d been glad to get the ridiculous suit off. He’d only worn a suit once before, and that was at his mother’s behest to a family funeral. Now he was expected to wear one everyday, a suit with a waist coat and tails no less. He wasn’t really sure what to make of it all.

His new job was manning the sweets counter at one of the most reputable department stores in London—the kind of store that was so much of an institution it would require you to wear a suit with tails to work every day. He wasn’t even allowed to take the suit home. Every evening it was to be hung up on a coat rail with his name labelled on the hanger, and every day off he was to tuck it into a crisp white laundry bag and pop it in the chute for dry cleaning.

His hands were still trembling. It wasn’t even cold. His second to last customers had been two girls in summer dresses, one in black and one full of colour. He’d maintained the polite formula of his rigorous week of training when he addressed them,”What can I get for you?” He forgot to say ‘ma’am’ or ‘ladies’ because he wasn’t sure which he should have used, and he’d never referred to a girl or a woman as a ‘lady’ in real life, it was old-fashioned and proper. Too proper, really.

“We’re still figuring that out, but thanks,” the girl in the black dress said.

“Ooh, chocolate orange, I want that one,” said the short girl in the colourful dress.

“Wait, let’s look over here first,” the other dragged her away.

George went back to placing the new delivery of pralines carefully on the tray, just the way he’d been shown. Four across, perfect rows, tip of the hearts facing forward. It was boring, methodical work but he was anxious to get it perfect, because Eileen would notice even if they were only a hair out of line. His line manager took the meaning of perfection to a whole new level. He looked up to see if she was watching him, but found himself staring straight into the eyes of the girl in the black dress instead. She and her friend had come back. He blushed, wondering how long they had been staring at him and waiting. Eileen had told him earlier that he needed to be better aware of what was going on around him. “Oh, you made a decision?” he presumed. The words sounded awkward as soon as they came off his tongue. Actually, his tongue felt dry. He’d never been much of a people-person.

She smiled.

“Chocolate orange, please,” said the other girl, beside  her.

“Yes ok,” he agreed, looking between them both, “anything else?”

“White chocolate champagne,” the girl in black told him, with a grin that was somehow rather cheeky. He could feel his cheeks getting redder.

“And macaroons too!” said the girl in the brightly coloured dress. She pointed out the ones they wanted.

“Do you want them in a box?” George asked, and then coughed as he corrected himself, “Would you like them gift wrapped in a box?”

“Ooh, yes,” she said.

“Uh, okay, I’ll wrap them then,” he said, stammering awkwardly, stating the obvious.

She smiled.

He stumbled about fitting the macaroons into a box and began the laborious task of tying a perfect bow in the ribbon whilst the two girls watched on.

“Are you going to be long, mate?”

He looked up. A bald man with a craggy chin had moved in to watch his gift wrapping.

“Uh—“

“I need some chocolates. For the wife,” the man said.

George looked around, but Eileen was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m in a rush, mate,”

“Alright mate, give him a moment to finish wrapping our chocolates, yeah?” said the small girl in the brightly coloured summer dress.

George blinked.

The man looked in surprise from the girl back to George. “Well hurry up then. Don’t just stand there,” he drummed his knuckles on the glass counter top.

George felt his right eye twitch. He was going to have to clean the glass again.

Eileen reappeared. She’d counted up all the registers except the one George was using, so she added a fourth set of impatient eyes that watched his efforts, but finally he had it perfect. He even snipped the ends into that triangle shape that people seemed to like, the hallmark of a well-wrapped present. He adjusted his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose, placed the little box into a paper bag, and handed it over.

“None of that poncy wrapping for me, just get it in a bag and get me out of here,” the craggy-chinned man ordered as the two girls walked away.

The tongs slipped in George’s hands as he fumbled, and two of the heart shaped pralines fell to the ground.

“Bet they make you pay for that,” the man said with a smirk.

George looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. He picked up a fresh pair of hearts and slipped them into the cellophane bag as Eileen rung them up and took the final payment.

“Give me a ribbon though, around the top, yeah? That’ll keep her happy,” the man said suddenly, “make it a red one,” he added.

This time George hadn’t the nerve to tie the bow well, his hands were shaking so much. Eileen finally took over and shooed him out the way. Once the man was gone, she gave him an earful about spending too long wrapping boxes of sweets for pretty girls. He listened mutely, and then walked away when he was finally excused. Though George wouldn’t have known how to express it, he was annoyed with himself for not standing up to the man, or to Eileen. It was only his second time tying a stupid bow, aside from his shoelaces. There should have been some kind of allowance for that.

As he walked away from the building he engaged in a private re-enactment of the conversation in his mind, in which he told the impatient man that he was rather rude and that it didn’t cost anything to be polite, and he told Eileen that she was unfair in her judgement of him and his efforts to do his best on the job. In his mind, the customer apologised, and so did Eileen. They were both sorry for their behaviour, given the strong debate he had proposed.

By the time he pulled himself out of the pretend debate, he’d looked up to realise he was already halfway through Green Park on his way to Victoria Station. His mother was constantly chiding him for being unaware of his surroundings, and this was no exception. After dark he would normally have avoided cutting through an inner London park, and Green Park was always exceptional creepy after the sun set. With no walls or rails to shut the park, it was open all hours, and George suspected an array of disturbing things to be lurking in the darkness behind the trees.

He looked left and right, but there was nothing to see, and nothing moving except for the slowly undulating fog that was welling up from the ground around his feet. In the changeover between summer and autumn, London was always unpredictable. Sweating hot days followed by crisp, foggy evenings were nothing out of the ordinary. George shifted his glasses and jammed his shivering hands back into the depths of his hoodie pocket before looking down at the ground and moving on. He was halfway through the park now, so he certainly wasn’t about to go back and get the bus like a lazy sissy. In the back of his mind he could hear how the kids at his school would have reacted if they’d known his fear of the park after dark.

“Hey Georgie, run home to mummy now,”

“Don’t let the monsters under the bed get you either,”

“Hey Georgie, better watch your feet incase you fall in the dark—”

George rubbed his wrist. He hadn’t fallen in the dark, they had pushed him when they found him outside of school alone one evening when he was nine. He’d broken his wrist as a result, and his mum had never let him out of her sight away from the school grounds again, which had only increased the bullying during his school hours.

“Hey Georgie, the monsters are watching you—”

“Georgie, can you catch this ball? Or is that your weak wrist?”

George jumped. For a moment he thought he had seen a set of eyes in the dark, but it was just the reflection of his own against the inside of his glasses as he passed under the flickering lamp post. He sighed and continued on. Green park wasn’t so green after dark, in fact it was almost pitch black save for a singular bulb in a lamp every thirty yards or so. But he was making good progress, and was almost out the other side. He could see the war memorials of Hyde Park corner, Wellington Arch and the street lights looming out of the mist up ahead.

“I’m lost.”

George spun flat on his heels.

“I, I didn’t see you there,” he stammered in surprise at the girl who stood a few metres behind him.

“I didn’t think you would,” she agreed. She didn’t move.

She just stood in the centre of the path.

“I was just thinking about getting out of the dark,” George admitted, trying to be friendly. She didn’t move.

She just stood in the centre of the path.

Right where he’d been standing seconds earlier.

Except there was an odd little thought in the back of his brain. A mere consideration that he’d been on that spot only a moment ago. She hadn’t the time to move there, had she?

He turned to face her fully, the street lights and the road behind him, the darkness of the park before him.

Something didn’t add up. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose, but the girl’s face was still in shadow.

And the light was behind him.

She just stood in the centre of the path. And she looked right at him.

George twisted his fingers together in the pocket of his hoodie.

“Are you looking for Buckingham Palace? It’s that way,” he pulled his arm out and pointed. Most people lost in London around this particular area tended to be looking for Buckingham Palace. Even if it was eleven o’clock at night.

She shook her head.

“Piccadilly Circus is back that way,” he suggested, pointing behind her.

She shook her head.

“Well how can I help you then?” he asked after a moments silence. His customer service training had kicked in and the question seemed overly polite given that their conversation was taking place in a dark park late at night.

“I’m hungry,” she admitted.

The fog caught in a sudden spat of wind that curled up the leg of George’s trousers and sent a shiver through his body, twisting up his spine.

“Do you speak English?” he asked, a little unsure.

“You are so cold already,” she said with a slight tilt of her head. It wasn’t a reply, but her English was clearly defined with a North London accent.

“Already? Hah,” he laughed, “Well, it is night, and London summers never really last—“ he took a step back. She was getting closer and it made him feel uncomfortable.

“There’s a McDonald’s that way,” he pointed. “Who are you out here with anyway?”

“At the moment it’s just me,” she came closer again. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

George swallowed. He took another a step back. Her dress was ripped low down her front, and the ill-fitted coat she wore hung off her shoulders, revealing more of her smooth white skin than was decent for the weather. The word ‘hungry’ bounced around in his mind, making him feel like an eight year old who’d stolen his father’s copy of FHM magazine and was considering what he thought of the large breasted, scantily clad woman on the cover before he opened to the first page. He felt dirty the moment his mind took him there. The girl before him was clearly in distress. Seeing her better now she was close, he filled his head with thoughts of concern as to why her dress was ripped, and why she was wearing clothing that clearly wasn’t her own.

But, she was very beautiful. Without a doubt.

He wouldn’t have called her pretty though. Maybe she once had been, but the beauty George summed up from the whole of her was something arcane—the tumble of dark auburn hair, falling in a mess over the thinness of her frame, narrow shoulders, perfectly curved hips. He quickly switched his eyes back up to her face. The apples in her high cheek bones, her pointed chin, her strong dark eyebrows and green shattered-glass eyes. He took a step back, realising that being close enough to notice the unique colouration and lines inside her pupils through the darkness of the night was definitely far too close to be.

She didn’t blink. She watched him.

Like a cat.

Watches a mouse.

George swallowed.

Her pale pink lips burst into a smile so fast through the darkness that his heart jumped and bounced off the walls inside his rib cage. He whipped his left hand out of his pocket and clutched it to his chest. His mother always worried about his weak heart.

“I-I-I’m not hungry,” George stammered.

She frowned.

He didn’t like that she frowned. He felt, pain? Because of it. Because of her frown. He rubbed his fist over his heart.

“All men hunger,” she whispered, in a voice as crisp as the wind.

George laughed, “That’s how come I know where McDonalds is,” he agreed. He didn’t feel like joking particularly, but it seemed a good and safe statement to make.

“All men thirst,” she pulled at the front of her dress.

“No, no. Don’t do that!” George put his arms out suddenly and blocked the view of her. He hadn’t for a moment though she was that kind of lady, but—

“My name is Starlet Fey,” she said, in a voice that purred with the warmth of a lioness, singing confusion to George’s ears for how it clashed against the brittle cold in her eyes.

“I, I don’t do that,” George turned away.

Her fingers were on his cheek and neck, feather soft, granite hard, turning him back to face her.

This close, she was almost taller than him, but George barely registered this for the chill of her fingers and the power of her grip as she pulled his face to her. She pressed her lips against his mouth and the sharpness of her teeth against the flesh of his lip made him tremble even more.

It was sweet. And the blood was bitter.

“George—” she smiled at him through the redness of her lips, calling his name from some unknown place of knowledge.

He blinked, several times, and she straightened his glasses for him with the tip of her index finger.

She didn’t stop smiling as she turned and lifted her chin toward his ear, “Don’t worry George, this is the endless night,” she whispered.

 

 

George will be back. In the meantime, you can learn about the night Starlet Fey was born here

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Tagged: London, vampire

This is my novel – currently a finalist in the Scott Free Launchpad Manuscript competition!

Hello beautiful people! I wanted to update you in brief about the Ridley Scott / Hollywood-ish / Launchpad manuscript competition in the U.S. that I am currently a finalist for. While the next round is announced on Wednesday morning, they have in the meantime decided to give all the finalists a chance at securing their own publishing deals (holy crap…!)

As a part of this they will be wanting to gauge public interest in my book, which has brought on a cataclysm of thoughts in my mind as I’d been feeding into my blog and writing in other areas publicly whilst keeping my novel work completely secret, working on it in the dark until I felt it was perfect. 

Now it seems I have to shock my monster to life, like Dr Frankenstein, hopefully wowing, and not terrifying, you all…..

Please keep an eye on my social media over the next 72 hours and bear with me as it will all come out into the open rather suddenly and I need all the love and support I can get, and then some. Even if you don’t have the ability to get involved (which is O.K.! ☺️) please throw in a comment on my posts to keep them active in social media!

[UPDATE!!]

So, next steps!! I’ve been overwhelmed already by the messages of support and the people who have gotten in touch with me over the last 24 hours….you are all amazing and I’m so privileged to have you in my life (and you know I mean this for every single one of you!)

I’d like to introduce you to Loretta of the Lamp.

https://www.inkshares.com/books/loretta-of-the-lamp

And tell you about a couple of things you could do for me….please?

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To do list (if you get a spare moment!);

1) Talk to people in your world about it!

2) Read a bit of what I submitted to Ridley Scott (well, the comp he’s involved with’) and tell me what you think! You can even highlight a quote and like it on their website; please please do this!! 

Dreaming into reality. A gothic word.

I have pretty vivid imagination, we all know that. I can dream things into existence in infinite detail just to create a world my mind can wander around within and explore.

Elaborate landscapes in which my soul can dance.

At inception, I create lands that only God can see, lands that he alone can walk beside me in. When I pull those lands into reality, dragging them from my mind and onto the written page, I’m opening a door for you. A rabbit hole, a wardrobe, a looking glass, a lamp… Imaginary worlds, mighty adversaries and battles of true valour all translate into word pictures beautifully. But what happens when I dream into reality something I dare not ask for? I can pull whole worlds into existence, yet like the rest of us, I’m too fearful to dream for my own future.

Why? Because there was point in my life where the Legend of the Broken Dream took hold.

I’d hedge a bet that it began the day my best friend and I stood in the park down the road. We must have been approaching eight or nine years of age. I had my favourite soft toy lion in my arms, and I was shoving it under her nose, “Can you feel that? I swear I can feel it! Right? Can you feel him breathing?!”

She stuck her hand up to the lion’s stitched on cotton-thread mouth. I’m convinced she gave it a good shot at believing. She said, “Maybe,” and frowned with concentration, adding, “I think so…”

My soft toy lion was lovingly named Aslan, and for a long time I had quite seriously believed that Narnia was real. 100% no doubt in my mind. We only had to find one of the last doors, and we could go there too. Just like Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. And we’d probably do it better…

Luckily, my friend has her entire life carried wisdom to never dash my hopes or challenge my dreams. Whether she agrees or disagrees, she’s stood there stoically though it all.

And we spent months in training. We took survival classes, we did archery, we studied bush cooking (Yes, growing up in New Zealand you have every chance of covering these topics at some stage), but despite all our efforts, we never found Narnia. I began to suspect that not all dreams came true.

When I was fourteen I ditched the Girl’s Brigade to join a rock band. It sounds glamorous but it wasn’t. I was convinced I’d one day be a rock star like Jonathan Davis from Korn. We thrashed the speaker system in the church hall week in and week out but only ever made it to one proper concert. We broke up. We started another band, heavy metal this time. We covered Kittie and Marilyn Manson, but it became apparent that I was never going to be a rockstar. A dark little shadow on the back of my mind had cottoned onto the concept of the broken dream. I knew I wasn’t good enough.

I was always a fairly okay artist. I loved sketching and drawing. I don’t know how I passed physics and chemistry, because I spent the greater portion of the lesson sketching faeries, monsters, sirens and dragons over my work books. Eventually, I just worked straight into my sketch book, in the middle of the lab. Teachers, pay attention! But I still knew I wasn’t good enough. I saw the girls who worked in fine art and painting, I saw the creations they produced and knew I could never compete. There are too many great artists in this world, and I was never going to place in line near any of them.

By seventeen, perhaps I was starting to get it. I had a moment of some teenage sanity in which I considered all the things I thought I may have been good at, and started to realise the long and narrow road, the road that believes dreams can still come true, when we work at them, relentlessly. It’s that moment when we begin to suspect we may have talent at something specific. Something we love doing.

It’s that moment when we give up spreading ourselves thin over things we like and things we want. Things like Narnia, like being a rockstar, like being a painter (unless you are C S Lewis, the next Jonathan Davis, or the next Luis Royo, of course!)

It’s that moment when we realise there is that ONE THING we LOVE doing, that satisfies us whether we ever succeed in it or not, and we turn to give that specific thing our all.

For me, this meant I ceased imagining myself in other people’s worlds, and I started pulling people into mine instead. I could tell a good story, and maybe one day, maybe I’d learn to tell the best stories.

Did that make sense?

And yet, the Legend of the Broken Dream is still there. Telling me that I’ll never meet Aslan and never be a rockstar. Telling me there are thousands of writers in the world who never get a book published, and of those few who do, most never sell more than a few hundred copies. I don’t dare to dream I can achieve more, because I know how the odds are stacked against me.

So I’ve decided to aim for something far bigger and far more cataclysmic. If I can create a whole world in dark and bleeding reality, and sprawl it out into words on paper, in vivid colour and striking detail…

then I can also change the world.

 

Learn how to swim

Something short and sweet after dark. My advice always, is that you should learn how to swim ^_~

LIFE. J R Manawa.

Before our time we all fall down,

Like in a row, we’re dominos.

Puppets on string, we’re lead to drink,

Never stopping once to think.

The more we consume the more we thirst.

It’s like we’d never wait. Breathe first.

We dive in and drown, never learnt to swim.

Round and round, we are locked in.

Holy smoking coffins — I have good news!

“No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world,” Dead Poets Society

People, beautiful people! So it’s 2am here in London, and I’m writing this post now while I’m super hyped, knowing that by the time I’ve finally wound down to sleep and woken up tomorrow morning, I will be able to come back to my desk and edit this into a sane piece of writing to share with you all.

So I found out on Saturday evening that the novel I have been working on for the last four years made it to the shortlist of the Tracking Board’s Launch Pad Manuscript competition. That’s the guys that works with to find great new ideas. Ideas like ‘The Martian’. It’s a competition where they look for regular everyday crazy-focused people like you and me (yes, you can be focused!) who haven’t yet published their book but have a good idea! And not only Ridley Scott, but other pretty amazing people and companies too, like Energy Entertainment and Inkshares (Insert your wide-eyed emoji here!)

And I wasn’t allowed to tell you. I wasn’t even allowed to tell my mother. I’m not gonna lie, I asked my Nana and a million other people in my world to pray for my writing between Saturday and Tuesday though, and if you were one of these people, thank you. Thank you to the moon and back, and I’m excited you are on this journey with me. Hah!

Tonight I found out that I’ve made it to finalist. Here I was thinking, “This is great, can’t wait to tell a few people that I got shortlisted for something that big and awesome.” But hey, I made it to the finals!!! That’s amazing. That’s whole other level kind of stuff!

Best of all. It’s validating.

Our biggest fear as artists, creatives in any form, and as every day ordinary people is that we aren’t good enough, that we are inadequate, and we compare ourselves to everyone else. Stop doing that. You are more than capable, more than gifted, more than talented. I know it, because I’ve suddenly discovered that I’m a daft gothic romantic with grandiose ideas who is capable, and is valid.

I am capable.

I am capable because of the people who have been placed around me in my life who believe in me. Who match my inner crazy and who have relentlessly supported me. I’m capable because I will get down on my knees and honour where my talent comes from. It’s not possible without.

And I might have a bit of raw talent, but if not for the people who put up with my lunacy 24/7 I would never have arrived here. I would never have stayed focused and relentless in my dedication were it not for those who have loved me despite all. Now it’s up to the One who gave me what gifts I have to see where we go from here…

And I should try to sleep. The wind is howling in the trees, I can hear the first autumn leaves being rattled toward the ground, and my snake is looking at me with a wise face like she knows I’m crazy, and my two adorable tarantulas are giving me the evil eye because I haven’t given them darkness yet.

So, let’s try to sleep.

Oh, and before I forget, you can find me on the finalists list here. I’m down alphabetically under ‘L’ for Loretta of the Lamp, the working title of the manuscript I’ve been working on that I never told you about, haha. I’m also down under my actual name, Jo Fletcher.

With love, from this side of darkness, J R Manawa x

(By the way, I hope they don’t mind that I borrowed their website banner….guys let me know if you do! ^_^)

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