Published in 2014...really published!

I got an email the other week from SAMPAD (a South Asian Arts foundation based in Birmingham) asking me to confirm my address so they could send me my copy of the the book...I happily replied, adding at the end of my mail 'What book is it exactly?' I had no idea what it was.

Anyway the reply that came back was a lovely surprise. I'd entered a short story competition at the end of 2013 ( a joint collaboration with SAMPAD and the British Council in India) and my entry was one selected for publication in a special commemorative book! Wow, finally, really published and selected from 480 entries from 32 countries...and supported by the Arts Council England too!

The competition page - November 2013

Very happy!

The call for entries went like this:
Piali Ray, Director of Sampad says
“An encounter with a museum can be a life-changing experience. We hope that this competition will inspire budding writers to reflect on their personal experiences and share them with the world! Sampad continually strives to profile creative people and we’re proud to be working with the British Council again to bring talented writers to public attention, while reinforcing the work we deliver internationally to develop intercultural dialogues across communities.”
Samarjit Guha, Head of Programmes at British Council, East India says
“For the past three years, the British Council has been facilitating audience mapping, educational programming and communication projects in the museums sectors of UK and India. We are delighted to partner with Sampad on this project and hope this competition will help to throw up insightful anecdotes and reflections on museums and their role today. We look forward to participation from across the world.”

Fantastic! And better still, I'm the only selected entry from France so my story's at the beginning of the book as they published in alphabetical order of country...hehehe...well chuffed.

It was a really short story and it was a true inspiration...so here it is 'Inspired by my Museum: An Awakening - The Museum of Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt'

"This way. This way", shouted Ali the guide, cutting through the swarms of tired yet wide eyed and excited tourists. There was hardly time to glance at the ancient relics. He waved his flag aloft, a tatty yellow scrap clinging to a worn, smooth bamboo stick. The humid air was intoxicatedly intertwined with the scent of sweat and 'old' - musty, dusty and yet very much alive.

Senses on overload, I craned to keep track of Ali, frantically waving his yellow standard to keep his charges in tow. I flicked a glance left then right trying to absorb each glass encased element. Occasionally I checked ahead for a flash of familiarity, markers from the group who alighted the bus what seemed like only moments ago - yet an hour had already passed.

Skimming the artifacts of an age gone by, carriages, golden thrones, worn carved sphinx, we finally came upon the the key which unlocked my box. My body buzzed from head to toe, my solar plexus tight and tingling, my breath high in my chest. Another age, a sense of 'knowing', invisible hands reached out to a kindred spirit on another plane. Standing almost silently, both in awe and with a strangely familiar sense of respect, around the glass tomb of a well preserved mummy I suddenly disappeared into that world - the shouts of men in harsh yet melodic Arabic; the dense smokey hue of burning wood and incense. Heavy plinths being laboriously hand-raised using thick rope, primitive hammers tapping away feverishly; the grimey sweat smeared bodies of dark and dusky men shining orange in the flickering light of the burning torches in this dark stone cave...or was it? My inner eye followed the symmetrical lines, row upon row of large grey-black blocks, steadily up towards the heavens and I understood. A brief glint of sparkling stars peeped through the uppermost unfinished soon-to-be point of this great pyramid.

"Hey you!" A frantic tug on my shirt sleeve brought me rushing back into my body, landing with an unceremonious thud. "Come, come, we go now," hastened Ali "Quick, quick madam." He rushed away like the pied piper followed by a trail of bouncing heads, still spinning from side to side trying to fit in a last memory. For me, another small piece of the eternal puzzle fell into place as I took an unexpected step closer to my soul.

The 'Book' :)

A most fitting close to a fantastic year...I feel extremely blessed!

love & light

Louise (aka Mermie)

Writer's Block - Part I

I've recently taken the plunge and enrolled for an on-line/distance creative writing course. I know I've already produced some stuff but I need some skills so people will actually buy my books. Just the fact that I've enrolled seems to have given me the much needed kick up the proverbial backside. Hopefully now I'll be motivated to make regular contributions to my blog...here goes:

18.11.13

‘Write…just write. Write when the thoughts come and don’t worry about what arrives on the paper. Write, write the essence of the story…’

…is the thought which just came to my mind. So here I am, writing. As usual when a thought to begin the creativity comes, especially, or rather it only happens with the writing – not the poems though, there is always something to distract from the original track of thoughts. The distraction is most often enough to take me off on a tangent so I don’t actually start to write. I wonder if it’s a subconscious block or if it’s a real part of me, say the vital, which fights this particular gift of mine so it will never get to shine. Or, maybe, it’s an entity, or more than one, with the same negative intention, stifling any chance of success.

Just now, for instance, I began with a thought and wrote almost 2 pages in my head before I awoke to myself and reprimanded that ‘me’ for not taking appropriate action. I forced myself out of the chair and went to retrieve my notepad and pen. These basic instruments had been in virtually the same vicinity, together, for weeks. Yet, as I decided I needed them both – they mysteriously separated. Now, I knew that I had two black ballpoint pens yesterday, and I knew they were in my rucksack. However, despite unzipping and zipping, delving and ferreting around amongst the 2 possible pockets in which they could fit and which I knew was where I kept them, nothing materialized; except a small piece of sad looking white chalk (just in case) and the inevitable fluff balls and biscuit crumbs which always lurk in bags and pockets even if you don’t eat any biscuits – the fluff is obviously mandatory. I checked the table outside our room where we’re staying with our most patient and understanding friends while we try and sell the house so we can end our refugee status. I checked all the chairs, under the magically multiplying mound of clothes, under the bed, on the table again, in the wardrobe and then went back to the bag a second and third time. All the while I was muttering “It’s impossible, always the same, impossible. I know they’re here. I know you’re here somewhere…”On the fourth, determined rummage in the bag…another deep diving expedition, this time even more meticulously scanning the edges of the dark corners with my furtive fingers, confident now that there were no small beasties lurking there…and voila! Two pens gleefully revealed themselves at the bottom of the first place I looked! Phooey!

Even as I scribble this little distraction I desperately hold on to the line that had risen in my head, the one with which to start my prose…and all of a sudden, ‘whoosh’, a magnificent teal kingfisher mischievously swoops in and landed to dance on the roof top of the unfinished building which loomed from amongst the trees a little way away. There he swayed, twisting and turning in the early morning sunlight so that his true brilliant blueness dazzled through the sea of shimmying, whispering green cashew and neem trees in my avenue of view. A cheeky glint of yellow, a seductive sliver of red and as I giggled to myself at the audacity of it all…poof, he was gone, taking his long, strong shoe horn of a beak with him. Me, I was left scribbling feverously, still trying to keep the original storyline in my peripheral vision and in parallel wondering if at all I should still be in the mood to start that new story today or whether I should simply add the note of the storyline and the characters to the ever growing list of scenarios…I wondered if the electricity had returned too, so I could have my morning elixir and reprimand myself at the untidiness of my hand writing, which no-one else but me would probably ever be able to decipher.

I must print out all the typed up pages of all my notes (just in case).

Have a beautiful day!

Love Louise x