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Tuesday 11 December 2018

Another Writer's Journey

ManonBeach

Please accept my apologies for writing about myself. I generally try and avoid this as I feel I am nowhere near as important as the stories I tell (and those that we tell as far as the Celtic Myth Podshow is concerned). That having been said, let's plunge on in!

When I moved from Primary School to Secondary school (after the now legendary 11+ examination), one of my favourite lessons was the English class. At 11 years old I was far too young to understand much about Grammar or story/poem analysis, but I loved the act of creation involved in summoning imagery and meaning from words. Plain and simple words that when strung together could create pictures in my mind and feelings in my chest.

One memory that sticks in my mind as significant because it told me, even at that tender age that I had an intense desire to write, was a class exercise that progressed over an entire term. We were each asked to write a single-page, short and concise  story and then read it to the entire class. I was in heaven! I wrote an adventure story involving a dangerous trek in the jungle and eventual possible rescue. My story stretched the limits of our allotted time as I had filled well over a dozen pages of the small A5 exercise books that we used to be given at school. After I had finished - I don't remember exactly what the teacher said - my fellow class-mates were asked to give their feedback to the teacher and they all asked for more detail about my story and for the tale to be completed. The teacher, perhaps bowing to popular pressure, asked me to complete the story and for the next couple of weeks I wrote continuing episodes and read each out in turn to the class. The joy I felt in entertaining my peers with my my writing is a joy that has never left me. To give pleasure with mere words is something that can never be underestimated.

As my relationships with my school-mates developed, I played many games and don't remember writing much other that the allocated tasks that we were all set. Our play-ground games however were rapidly becoming increasingly complex. A small group of my intimate inmates decided to each take on the role of a particular leader/hero/ruler on a planet in some imaginary Science Fiction universe that we had decided upon. My own planet of bio-mechanical inhabitants acquired technical drawings of the transport system within its major cities, biological descriptions of the alien inhabitants (vaguely resembling cones on wheels as I recall!) and each city having its own history mapped out. Hours and hours of work. It never got used in our games of course, but for me the creation of back-story was as essential as the game itself.

Writing after Leaving School?

As my school-years were coming to an end, my close-knit circle of buddies discovered the very first 3 volume box-set of an imported game from America, ridiculously named "Dungeons & Dragons". The game was what later came to be known as a 'role-playing game' with one person acting as a story-teller come referee come guide and the other players taking on a role of a character within a Fantasy-based universe.

The big difference between this and other traditional methods of story-telling was that the actions that the players decided to take determined the future course of events within the story. The Fantasy universe moulded itself around us as we played. We were living in the story! I had come home! What an amazing discovery.

It wasn't long before I, myself, took on the part of the Dungeon Master (as the referee was called) and was creating my own interactive stories with a group of players. My own game had maps (based on hex-paper) that were filled in as the players explored the world I had created plastered all over one wall of my very small flat and the remaining space in my flat taken up with as many chairs as I could fill into the space. At one stage, our story had over ten people meeting weekly to continue their adventures and the whole story arc carried on for over a year.

That was something that required almost constant attention and a vast amount of time and energy to complete. Something that I would never advise anyone of even half-sane mind to contemplate doing!

Turning to Myths & Legends

Coming into my early 20's, my daily reading consumption increased and although I didn't put pen to parer at this time not only did my love of fiction grow and evolve but my love of mythological and religious stories also grew. My interests spread into a more academic and factual direction in order to find out where these stories came from and to seek answers as to why some versions of the same story were different and why there were similarities between stories from widely different cultures around the world. This was a long time before I discovered Joseph Campbell! My love of story, mythology and comparative religion eventually lead me to study ritual and magic - which, in my opinion, is yet another variety of living story. But that is really a different tale that I shall save for another day.

One of my greatest loves from my first days at Secondary schools was Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the whole Middle-Earth mythos. To be fair, it is a love that I carry with me to this day. Back in 1977, I found the Silmarillion to be hard reading at my first attempt, but I fast grew to love it. In particular, the Song of Creation found in the first part, Ainulindalë, tells of the creation of Eä, the "world that is" struck a deeply resonant chord within my soul.

What happened next is something that I look back on with great awe and wonder. Without realising it, my next actions were to act as a prelude to the type of story-telling that I was to take up again 30 years later! I recorded myself reading the Ainulindalë accompanied by music by Tangerine Dream (I think the album was Phaedra) and loved every minute.

It was only when I listened to the cassette recording that I was over-whelmed and the hairs on my arms stood up and my heart raced with some form of excitement that I had never felt before. Something magical had happened. When I was reading about the Horns of Ulmo, resounding in the Deep Waters, there were horn blasts in the music. So much synchronicity happened in this reading whose true significance I missed at the time. This was something unique and wonderful. But hey-ho! - I was 18 years old, and forgot all about it in the rush of rapidly expanding teenage hormones in the following months.

Time for a Quick Break

Let's take a small break in the narrative here, while I grab a glass of water, you get to wonder what on earth you are doing wasting your time reading the drivel that I have written and I skip forward in time. As we go, we can jump over several failed attempts at both fiction and non-fiction writing, and arrive at the point in my life where my long-suffering wife (the gorgeous Ruthie) and I decide to start a podcast about Celtic Mythology. The Celtic Myth Podshow was born at Imbolc, 2008 - it seemed to us a suitable birthing time. Reading the complex Irish myths out aloud seemed to us an excellent way of learning them, understanding them and perhaps help other people out with the same tasks. It was only natural that eventually we would want to cover all the stories of the Celts that we could find.

For two years, I scripted the ideas we came up with and along with friends and family we recorded and released shows every fortnight. There was no way in this or any other universe that we could maintain this pace and were it not for my becoming seriously ill and requiring major surgery due to Cancer at the end of 2009, I think I/we would have burned out and never carried on making any shows or telling any more stories.

Health is something that when you are healthy you can often take for granted. I certainly did. Without it, each physical movement initially and later any focus or concentration became something that rapidly drained my energy. I learned about Spoon Theory very quickly indeed. Google it - it's worth it.

Life events (family, career, housing, finances etc.) began to overtake us in 2015-2016, and the rate at which we could produce shows dwindled as more and more of our focus and attention had to be placed on far more immediate concerns. I think we only managed to get out one show in 2016 and another in 2017. Early in 2017, I discovered that I had Leukemia and we were again forced to focus on health and the need to rapidly find a new home.

Patience, Pacing and Priorities

It is strange that no matter how important your writing is to you, or how much you value your creative work and no matter how much pleasure you get from seeing or hearing the joy that other people have from hearing or reading your work, there is no way that the inspiration will flow when your life's basics are under threat. I thought that writing and creating would be a great distraction form the more serious problems in our lives. I was, however, totally wrong. It just wouldn't happen. It took time - a long time - for me to even begin to accept this. Starting a new podcast, Celtic Tomes, was my refusal to accept that I could do nothing creative during this time. Eventually this podcast too had to come to a halt as life's needs escalated. This was a frustrating time that I am glad we seem to have passed through. It is over and I hope I have learned some very important lessons about patience, pacing and the priorities in our lives.

At the height of the Summer heatwave in this year (2018), we moved and began to unpack and settle. I could feel the relaxation beginning to seep into my bones. Despite the mountains of boxes around me, the presence of inspiration began to make itself felt.

For me, inspiration works in a very strange and yet defined way. It seems I have to make space in my life and my head, start the process off by moving a little way towards an idea and then whatever it is that comes from outside of myself, from the wider universe, from the Realms of the Fae or the Gods or whatever (be it Awen or Imbas or just plain Inspiration), I begin to feel its breath rushing into me towards a new creation. They say the word 'inspiration' comes from from the Proto-Indo-European root *en "in" + spirare "to breathe". Breathing in the Spirit of creation from the cosmos perhaps? It is interesting that the word 'spirit' also has the same roots....

Flexing My Muscles (as if!)

I felt I needed to flex my writing muscles again. "If you don't use it, you lose it" is a common expression, but I am not sure it means you forget how to write, but I think it may mean you lose contact with that flow of "spirit" or whatever that brings a creation into life and full being. I had been listening to podcasts about the Craft of Writing for some time and as October was approaching, I began to hear more and more about NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for the "National Novel Writing Month" and it always takes place during the 30 days of November. In this time you do your best to write 50,000 words to create a novel (novella perhaps?). Success or failure is not strictly the main goal. The main goal of #NaNoWriMo is to get you writing.

So I made a decision to write a novel. Research and preparation of that novel has been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding pastimes that I have encountered in the last few years and I am incredibly excited to start writing on November 1st. My novel is going to be a ghost story set in the middle of a disaster zone at a place I know well in Hastings - the town where I was born.

It's only 10 days away now and I find myself 'itchy' to start writing. As I can't start on my novel until November, I found my mind drifting to other projects. Perhaps I could start thinking about the next book for the Celtic Tomes? So, I totaled the votes cast for the next book and started some preparation. Fantastic!

And yet, still the Universe had not finished with me.

Unfinished Business

Last week, I woke up wondering where my work period that day could be directed, opened my laptop and found myself opening up the Script for the Branwen story! The Second Branch of the Mabinogion is the next story to be told in our main podcast, the Celtic Myth Podshow, and the script is about half-way completed and stands at about 22,000 words. I found myself re-reading and editing what I had already written, suddenly aware that I was mentally preparing myself to finish the script. I sent my prayers of thanks up to the Gods or whoever was helping me with the inspiration and went to bed a very happy Gary.

A few days later, the realities of the situation began to sink into my dense, Neanderthal brow and I realised that if I were to avoid the same burn-out problems that I had hit before then I would have to heed the lessons of Pacing that I had tried to learn previously. I would have to take things very slowly indeed. I would have to work in tune with Life and not separate from it.

November is, for me, fully booked with NaNoWriMo and Life events, but after that, in the New Year, I can turn my attention back to the Branwen story and do some editing of my novel, some recording for Celtic Tomes and any other project that leaps into my mind. The important thing I have to remember, and I really must drive this home into my thickest of heads, is that I can only focus fully on one major project at a time. To do otherwise would be to tread, stagger and eventually fall on the stony path to a barren plain where nothing gets written.

Thank you for listening to the story so far.


The next Chapter from Celtic Tomes has been released

Thursday 15 March 2018

Intermission and Book Choice Show - CT034


Intermission and Book Choice Show - CT034

Next Book for Celtic Tomes

We announce that Celtic Tomes is taking a small break while we move house and offer you five amazing books to choose from. Have a listen and decide which book we will read for you when we return after the house move! You can make your choice by sending us an email (see the link above on our shownotes page at cetictomes.libsynm.com), making a comment here on our Shownotes, making your choice on the Polls we manage to set up on Facebook, Twitter etc. You can vote as many times as you like, and all the votes will be counted up and we'll let you know the scores in the first show of the next Book reading.

The Five books to choose from are:

 

1. Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race, T. W. Rolleston (1911)

2. Religion of the Ancient Celts, J. A. McCulloch (1911)

3. Myth & Folklore of Ireland, Jeremiah Curtin (1889)

4. Fairy & Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, W. B. Yeats (1888)

5. Welsh Fairy Tales, William E. Griffiths (1921)

 

Which of these would you like us to read next?

 

Try the Celtic Myth Podshow for the Tales and Stories of the Ancient Celts at http://celticmythpodshow.com or on Apple Podcasts.

Our theme music is "Gander at the Pratie Hole" by Sláinte.  You can find their music on the Free Music Archive.

 


The next Chapter from Celtic Tomes has been released

Wednesday 10 January 2018

Baleful Storm Spirits - British Goblins CT033


Baleful Storm Spirits

British Goblins: Welsh Folk Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions (1881)

Book 4 Chapter 5

by

Wirt Sikes

Baleful Storm Spirits, is all about the spirits of thunder and lightning, hidden treasure and the dragons of Wales. Sikes tells us the story of the Red Lady of Paviland caves and the Treasure Chest under Moel Arthur, the Cavern of the Ravens and the origin of the Red Dragon of Wales.

Running Order:

  • Baleful Storm Spirits 1:48
  • The Shower at the Magic Fountain 2:31
  • Obstacles in the Way of Treasure-Seekers 4:03
  • The Red Lady of Paviland 4:46
  • The Fall of Coychurch Tower 5:23
  • Thunder and Lightning evoked by Digging 6:21
  • The Treasure Chest under Moel Arthur in the Vale of Clwyd 7:32
  • Modern Credulity 8:36
  • The Cavern of the Ravens 10:36
  • The Eagle-guarded Coffer of Castell Coch 12:03
  • Sleeping Warriors as Treasure-Guarders 15:38
  • The Dragon which St. Samson drove out of Wales 16:52
  • Dragons in the Mabinogion 17:48
  • Whence came the Red Dragon of Wales? 18:14
  • The Original Dragon of Mythology 19:41
  • Prototypes of Welsh Caverns and Treasure-Hills 20:27
  • The Goblins of Electricity 21:42

 

Names Used in this Section

All proper names, and words in Welsh or other languages, are recorded here in the show-notes and we've done our best to get the pronounciations right for you.

Paviland
Coychurch Tower
Moel Arthur
Vale of Clwyd
Castell Coch
St. Samson
Sir Kai
Arthur
Sir Owain
Dr. Buckland
Constantine
St. Crallo
Caerau, Cardiganshire
Crochan aur
Herald Cymraeg
Pant-y-Saer crmlech, Anglesea
John Jones, Llandudno
Isaac JonesGiraldus
Kemeys
Pembrokeshire
St. Bernacus
Glamorganshire
Ogof Cigfrain
Peidiwch!
Lord Bute
Nantyglyn
Yehain Banog
Hu gadarn
Draig
Owen Lawgoch
Mynydd Mawr, Carmarthenshire
Craig-y-Ddinas
Caerleon, Monmouthshire
Hesperides
Payshtha-more
O'Rourke
Cadwaladr
Thomas Stephens
Merddin
Nennius
Geoffrey
Mr. Conway
Vortigern

The Red Dragon of Wales

The Red Dragon of Wales


Taliesin
Gwion Bach
Satanas
Klakkr
clû
Odin
Prince Ahmed
Poseidon

 

British Goblins can be found on Archive.org

You can find out more about Wirt Sikes on Wikipedia.

Try the Celtic Myth Podshow for the Tales and Stories of the Ancient Celts at http://celticmythpodshow.com or on Apple Podcasts.

Our theme music is "Gander at the Pratie Hole" by Sláinte.  You can find their music on the Free Music Archive.


The next Chapter from Celtic Tomes has been released

Wednesday 3 January 2018

Early Inscribed Stones - British Goblins CT032


Early Inscribed Stones

British Goblins: Welsh Folk Lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions (1881)

Book 4 Chapter 4

by

Wirt Sikes

Early Inscribed Stones tells us all about famous stones that dance, superstitions about rocking stones, and Cromlechs. Sikes tells us the story of the Sagranus Stone and the White Lady, and how humans can be turned into stone. He finishes by telling us about the fairy legends, and the fairy castle at St. Nicholas.

Running Order:

  • Early Inscribed Stones 1:50
  • The Stone Pillar of Banwan Bryddin, near Neath 3:54
  • Catastrophe accompanying its Removal 5:04
  • The Sagranus Stone and the White Lady 5:52
  • The Dancing Stones of Stackpool 6:39
  • Human Beings changed to Stones 7:17
  • St. Ceyna and the Serpents 9:39
  • The Devil's Stone at Llanarth 11:21
  • Rocking Stones and their accompanying Superstitions 12:59
  • The Suspended Altar of Loin-Garth 13:31
  • Cromlechs and their Fairy Legends 14:53
  • The Fairies' Castle at St. Nicholas, Glamargonshire 15:40
  • The Stone of the Wolf Bitch 17:00
  • The Welsh Melusine 17:32
  • Parc y Bigwrn Cromlech 18:50
  • Connection of these Stones with Ancient Druidism 20:01

 

Names Used in this Section

All proper names, and words in Welsh or other languages, are recorded here in the show-notes and we've done our best to get the pronounciations right for you.

Banwan Bryddin
Sagranus Stone
St. Ceyna
Llanarth
Loin-Garth
St. Nicholas, Glamargonshire
Melusine (french)
Parc y Bigwrn
Maen Llythyrog
Margam Abbey, Glamorganshire
     'Marci Caritini Filii Bericii'
Lady Mackworth
Rev. Mr. Williams
Tir-y-Cwm
Gnoll Gardens
     'Dur'n catwo ni!'
Cymro or Saeson
Sagranus Stone at St. Dogmell's, Pembrokeshire
Stackpool Warren
Horestone Park
Sais's Fpord
Moelfre Hill, Carnarvonshire
Llandyfrydog, Anglesea
Carreg y Lleidr
Rolldritch (Rhwyldrech?)
Prince Brychan, Breconshire
River Severn
Camden
Bristol
Keynsham
Cornu Ammonis
Llanarth, Aberaeron, Cardignashire
Diawl
Mecca
Pontypridd
Nennius
Loin-garth, Gower
St. Illtyd
Frennifawr

Fairy Frolic at the Cromlech

Fairy Frolic at the Cromlech

Castle Correg
Korreds & korregs
Haute Auvergne
Pirols
fée
Melusina
Gast Rhymhi
     'Ange par la figure, et serpent par la reste'
Pressina
Kilhwch and Olwen
Parc-y-Bigwrn, Llanboidy, Carmarethenshire
John Jones

 

British Goblins can be found on Archive.org

You can find out more about Wirt Sikes on Wikipedia.

Try the Celtic Myth Podshow for the Tales and Stories of the Ancient Celts at http://celticmythpodshow.com or on Apple Podcasts.

Our theme music is "Gander at the Pratie Hole" by Sláinte.  You can find their music on the Free Music Archive.


The next Chapter from Celtic Tomes has been released