Bron Rauk-Mitchell's Blog: Bron Rauk-Mitchell - Journal, page 2

Oh, where did the time go?

I started the year with a clear and firm plan for 2022 … and then once again life got in the way.

In the words of Leonard Snart:

There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. Follow my lead and you’ll be fine. The Flash – S3.Ep22: Infantino Street.

I’ll play catch-up later this month, but for now I just wanted to take this time to quiety announce that I am indeed back … it may be with the shreds of a plan, but I guess it’s still a plan! It may not be much of a plan but ot’s not like plans have really ever worked out well for me … and that I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month.

So … did you miss me?

An approaching birthday …

source: me.me

In another few weeks my facebook page will be 5 years old. It’s already been 5 years since my writer’s block smashed and I started writing like a person possessed … and I was possessed. I really was.

I have written more in this 5 years, than I did in the years proceeding. I continue to be in awe at just how much I have created in that time. I mean on the poetry front alone, it’s bloody fucking impressive, but across the board? Damn!

 

And the thing was that just before the block broke I was holding myself back from destroying all of my writing. I just couldn’t see the point anymore.Now this is not an inspo-porn post. It’s not a post about continuing on against all the odds, continuing when things are rough, because quite frankly even if I had destroyed everything at that stage, there would have been regrets but it wasn’t the act of not destroying everything that broke through the writer’s block … it was the fact that I shattered. And that was happening anyway – there was no stopping that destruction at that point.So there is no moral to be had here from my story. It’s just the timing of it all that I felt was worth mentioning. But breaking the block was one thing. The thing that took cuts was to strip down bare, tear open the wounds, and stand in front of the world – exposed down to the bone.I could have kept writing and kept it to a small, select audience until I finished the book of poetry but I decided to take everyone on a journey with me – sometimes kicking and screaming too *lol*I’d shared my work before – hell I’ve been published so people can read my work at any time, anywhere that the books are available. Hell, I had a patreon I was dabbling with – just something to hold me accountable and get me writing again. I shared ideas, dreams, hopes, snippets … So sharing work wasn’t new.But this is different. I started to share on my personal page, but it wasn’t enough. So I posted to insta, twitter, on my Essential Bron page … and I started to get nibbles from people. I made the poems – at least – sharable, and let people know that they could save the pieces and/or share them. I needed to get my words out there.And then I began to plant the seeds for the future. I knew what I wanted to achieve … and this page was just a step in creating Bron Rauk-Mitchell: The StoryWeaver. I wanted to share my creations, to discuss my creations, to discuss writing and art, and creativity. I wanted to reach beyond me, and touch people through my words, my voice, my art. I wanted to a place that I could be me – and a place where that 9 year old version of me could come out and play.And so this page became a launch-pad. It’s evolved as I shape and mould myself into the artist that I’ve always wanted to be. I started a podcast, and a channel, and broke into voice acting and performing monologues. I found new creative outlets and tied them together as much as I could.Essential Bron is still the hub of it all … but The StoryWeaver is my alter-ego; the magickal being that weaves stories and entertains the young and the young at heart. The StoryWeaver allows me to be that young child that talks to the faeries, dreams of exploring space, that believed the world was their stage. That young child that truly believed that they could be whomever they wanted to be – even if it were several people.So, how do I celebrate the 5th birthday of The StoryWeaver? Especially in these times. And who will celebrate with me?

Did the f-bombs, bomb?

I knew that these new pieces – these #bronisms – might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s been a while since I dropped a piece on insta and practically heard crickets afterwards. I usually don’t get much reaction to my poetry elsewhere, but by now insta has a rhythm and I guess I missed the mark with the new piece … time will tell.

When working over the new piece yesterday with my mate, we discussed the usage of fucking that is peppered throughout the piece. Now, I’m not one to hold back from using “cusses” in a piece, where they fit. It took a while for me to use these colourful “sentence enhancers” in my poetry … and that hesitation came from continually being told that I swear too much, that it’s a sign of being “uneducated” and I should refrain from doing that … and that it was unnattractive of me to swear as much as do. Besides, there’s a lot of snobbery in certain corners of the writing community when it comes to swearing … esp. in poetry.

So now, dropping “f-bombs” all over the place is just as much a part of my poetry as ignoring punctuation is. But I was concerned about whether I was dropping one too many F-BOMBS in yesterday’s piece … sometimes it’s best to save it to use as a gut punch, and sometimes it’s best purpose is more of a machine gun. And these #bronisms … well, they’ll call for both. I mean, recovery is not fucking pretty.

Being the first part in this new series, I went with machine gun rather than gut punch – and it was a risk. I’m no stranger to risk – most of my poetic work is an acquired taste, and my audience is petite, so sharing my work as widely as I do, is always a risk. As I said, time will tell – I guess.

But I’m not going to stop writing these poems. As I wrote yesterday, it’s another stage of my recovery, and these pieces are coming hard and fast, since I stopped shoving them down. So if they bomb, I’ll save them for my patrons, for the zines, and of course the books. And it may not just be the sprinking of fuck everywhere … the pieces themselves may just be too raw, too emotional, too honest for people to enjoy. My daughter says that reading my pieces can feel like taking a peek into my journal.

Background image from #canva.

Introducing Bronisms … a new direction for my recovery.

Content warning: trauma, mental health, abuse, anger …

While I’ve been writing for decades, over the past 5 years writing poetry has been a huge part of my recovery from a complete breakdown. I’ve been quite frank and open about this.

As such the poetry that I write is often dark, sometimes brutal and bloody – although I can, and do, write about rainbows and lollipops too. The brutal and bloody is cathartic.

I don’t write this darker stuff under one of my pen names, because part of my recovery involves finding my voice, reclaiming the narrative, and facing my ghosts head on.

The darker stuff isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I get that. A lot of people want their poetry to be light, whimsical, and skipping lightly across a field of flowers … and I am working on a story which is exactly like this … and that’s absolutely fine.

I write my poetry primarily because I need to … a lot of what I write, or create, comes from an overwhelming hunger, and I rarely ignore that need these days; it’s not worth the cold shoulder from my muses.

I share my words to entertain, to open people’s eyes, and to reach out to those that need a lifeline – to those people cowering in the corner, licking their wounds, and wondering if today is the day that it all becomes to much.

After pushing myself to complete more of the poetry in my files last year, I found that I couldn’t feel the hunger as much. So I turned to other creative outlets, and satisfied those cravings.

But lately I’ve been feeling a burning rage. I’ve reached a stage in my recovering where it feels like I – metaphorically – want to set the world alight. I have faced so many demons, looked into the deepest shadows, held a mirror to myself and held myself accountable for my actions. I have slowly began to speak up, and own my story.

But it’s not enough. I have those core issues that are demanding that I pay attention to them, that I stop hiding from them. I want to shout my story. To face those that have hurt me. To rage at the world. To poke at the scabs and scars. And my writing, my art – it all allows me to do that, safely. And of course I have the experts there on hand as well.

So often we are told to forgive, forget, move on, be gracious. And there’s a time and place for that. But so many of us that are healing – from abuse, neglect, trauma – have those deeper, darker emotions that we have to deal with, of face having it eat us up.

As I get closer to the inner layers – and fuck knows how close I am – I find that the emotions that I have supressed for so long, won’t be supressed any longer, and swallowing them down is continuing to be harmful.

So I’m working on some new pieces. They aren’t exactly poems, they aren’t quotes or truisms, and they definitely are NOT rainbows and lollipops. Some people may find these pieces dark, brutal, and bloody. They are direct, and rough, and raw. They are not elegant. They are confronting. And they will probably make people uncomfortable.

In line with owning my story and healing from my past, I will not be using one of my pen names for these; which could lose me some readers, but it’s a risk that I’m willing to take.

I don’t know how many of these pieces – these Bronisms as I call them – that there’ll be, but I hoe even if they’re not your cup of tea, that you’ll still stick around – after all, poetry is not the only thing that I write.

Thank you to David for his help, and encouragement, with this first piece. The image features a pic by Jean-Paul Jandrain from Pixabay.

CampNaNo – Day 1

Another month, another challenge. So what happened with ChaBooCha? On Day 19 I realised I was burned out; not from the challenge, but as a result of spending much of the past 4 years working on my recovery, getting my life back on track, etc. And with the events of the past year, on top of that, I hit a wall (emotionally). I didn’t even have it in me to finish the challenge or even update the blog.

I haven’t bounced back yet; but I’ve made a few positive changes over this 2 weeks, and I’ve resumed my self-care regime from 2018/early 2019 … which has had the added benefit of helping me to lose some weight.

After piking out on ChaBooCha, I decided against participating in CampNaNo; but then today I went for it, as I’ve been having fun doing these over the past few years. I’ve set a 5000-word goal, but if it seems too much with my already full schedule, I’ll cut it in half. I’m continuing with The Daughters of Artemis comic series, and given that I only signed up late today, I’m happy with the 140 words that I got down. Plus, I finally made a decision in regard to an issue with the lead character, Celestial Arrow. It was only a minor issue, but still it was something that I could never make my mind up about. And now I have – so if that’s all I get from this challenge that’ll be enough. Well, maybe not, lol.

At this stage I probably won’t post updates every day, but I guess it depends on how I go.

ChaBooCha Day 18

I started reading Rags and Bones … I love the premise behind the anthology; that the writers involved have taken some of our most beloved tales and have boiled them down to the bones, to reassemble them for a new audience, and from a new perspective. We all retell our favs for our own reasons, often to take that marrow, that substance and shape it into something that will sit better with us, or reflect our current way of life, etc. Each of us choses what to keep, what to throw out, and what we want our readers to take away from the story. A moral that worked well 100 years ago isn’t necessarily as palatable for our current tastes. And what we write today may not sit well with a new audience, 100 years into the future. Sometimes there is not moral – it is what it has always been; entertainment for a frosty night. In many respects, no matter what our background, all of us that are giving a new spin to the old favs are connected through our love of these stories. It doesn’t matter if this is our first writing project or if we are a bestselling author … we all are dipping our toes into the same story pool.

ChaBooCha Day 17- regrouping

I had a big therapy appointment today, so I dropped into the library to see what faerie tale retellings that they had on the shelves; and I grabbed 2: The Evil Queen by Gena Showalter and Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales (an anthology including retellings by Neil Gaiman and Garth Nix). I tried several times to post pics but the server is having issues.

Since I’m feeling stuck, and going back to the beginning with the faerie tales wasn’t helping, I thought I’d have a look at what some other authors have written. Not to copy, just to get an idea, get the juices flowing, and see if I can inject something into my stories that are floundering. I’m still not sure if the problem lies with me, and I am a hack and writing trite, or if my mental health conditions are being a little more obnoxious at the moment. Either way, I enjoy reading faerie tales anyway, so that’s a win.

ChaBooCha Day 16

I put the anthology and the challenge away for the day … I stepped back to concentrate on clearing my head, as I was in no shape to even think about the stories, let alone attempt to write anything for the challenge, after some major flashbacks last night. So today I concentrated on household tasks, and threw myself into decluttering and reorganising some of my craft stash … enjoying the possibilities that seeing all of those raw materials brings.

Some days we have to put our health before our writing; but as it was, it wasn’t an entirely writing-free day. I still completed my poem for the day, and I had some writing-related chats with a fellow author … and that may help to get the juices flowing again.

ChaBooCha Day 15

Just about halfway through this year’s ChaBooCha, and I’m pleased with the progress that I’ve made overall, especially as I wasn’t sure how much time I could spend on the challenge. I’ve even pushed through to do some small on my tough days … and I’ve been blogging my progress too, without fail.

Before the challenge I had an idea for an anthology, and now it’s shaping up to be more a reality than an idea. And as the challenge goes on, I will potentially end up with more than the anthology that I have envisaged all this time, i.e. a few novellas as well. But what matters to me is that I’m making progress towards a firm goal; if I end up with additional books in the pipeline … well, that’s just icing on top of my faerie tale cake.

Do I think I’ll finish a complete draft of the anthology? At this stage no, but who knows what March 31 will bring.

ChaBooCha – Day 14

Today was a day for decluttering, which gave me thinking time and of course worrying time. All that worrying led me down into a deep pit of despair. I haven’t hidden my battles with my mental health and my creativity, so it’s no secret that my mental health affects my writing. And today I was convinced I was nothing more than a hack. So rather than force anything out, that might only reinforce that belief,
I took some time to watch an old favourite cartoon, Gargoyles. I’d been meaning to watch it anyway, but it also helped me, as I’d been concerned that my recent bouts of free flowing words regarding The Lone Gargoyle had merely been some long-forgotten memories from the show. So far it seems that isn’t the case. So, while today was a no words down day again for ChaBooCha, it wasn’t a total write-off … especially as I uncovered another couple of story ideas in the files, which will suit the anthology.