Imagination

Hi, Everyone.

I thought I'd make a post concerning symbolic visual knowledge and imagination. I'm a pretty curious person with bundles of imagination, and so research a lot about many varied things. One of my favourite topics is origins and cosmology. When writing 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers', I wanted to create a cosmology for my beings called The Sindria and understand their environment. The mind is amazing when it's set free to wander the realm of possibility and along the way connections of patterns are made. This is where the creative mind/consciousness plays with what if's with no boundaries. If there's a problem that needs solving, imagination can take you there. Then, all you need do is research the science behind what you imagined or try and piece together scientific evidence/hypothesis that will back-up your theory to make it viable.
It's why I love Einstein's quote: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein

Some more on imagination:

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.”
― Patricia Highsmith

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”
― Maria Montessori

“Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
― Lewis Carroll

“Children see magic because they look for it.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
― Mark Twain

Okay, enough with the quotes, but you see how imagination is everything.

Jonathan Wolstenholme. a book character, journals his experiences, and growing knowledge of the Sidhe, supernaturals. Through researching ancient symbolic visuals, he discovers that the ouroboros, a symbol in the form of a snake biting its own tail, used especially in ancient Egypt and in Hermetic philosophy, as an emblem of eternity meant the cycle of birth and death. That one end represented the beginning and the other, the end. 

He pondered on this a while, what would be interpreted as such in our known universe? He pictured a snake across the heavens as the Aborigines Rainbow Serpent and Dreamtime. The Dreamtime is the period in which life was created according to Aboriginal culture. Dreaming is the word used to explain how life came to be; it is the stories and beliefs behind creation. 

The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake, a creator god. What would it look like? Jonathan envisaged a massive black hole as the point of rebirth, as exploded from the belly of the snake (center of a black hole) and the pinprick black holes or possibly white holes, being the ones that haven't exploded yet. All would contain within their belly the primordial soup which makes a world. This would also match the theory of the big bang and many spiritual teachings of returning to the source, and the cycles of karma, which the Sidhe called Vo-ror-bla. He speculated that consciousness/soul were the same things, alive but untangible. What if, pieces of matter and light were sucked in from the holes and expelled at the end, creating other universes, even replicas of us as all? Parallel universes perhaps, due to the invisible information/building blocks of life being the same stuff as ours, passed through. Would these building blocks replicate our own? Was that one form of quantum entanglement connecting us all? 

Jonathan mentally noted the snake in mythology and symbols such as Yin/Yang, the infinity symbol and many more, all contained creation stories, balance of the universal power, and cycles of life and death. So, the ancients were indeed using imagery to depict the story of creation but along the way, text and literal interpretation got in the way. The spiritual interpretations of the visuals not understood by mainstream academia logic, and maybe, were classified wrongly as myth and folklore. The truth of many things concerning our histories became lost because of a logical perspective and disconnecting from ourselves spiritually, leaving that task to religion, external influence. 

Everything needs balance he concluded, including the decoding of our origins, Mind (logic), Heart (feels/spirit/essence), and Soul (spiritual consciousness). The trio that religion oft depicts, that our law courts state a thing three times, even commands are given three times in order to verify that the message is being given intentionally. Writers and artists use the rule of three. The Latin phrase "omne trium perfectum" (everything that comes in threes is perfect, or, every set of three is complete) conveys the same idea as the rule of three. Three/Thrice/Trio/Triad...the lure of three...his mind drifted to numerology and jumped to Tesla's Key to the universe...vibration, energy frequency. 3...6...9  The Universe...

The above isn't in the books, it's research and philosophical ramblings. I create Jonathan's journals to better understand the character/the realms/origins through concepts/theories that come to me. Without imagination, all stories would be the same. It is the perspective of the writer which creates a new idea for a story told millions of times already but from different eyes. This, to me, is imagination connecting the dots/patterns to a very ancient puzzle where pieces were destroyed/lost /misinterpreted during the linear time. Imagination fills these lost spaces in the puzzle, and from different writers, we see the many aspects of the same/origin puzzle piece.

 “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

― Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Chance and Bethany

Richard Madden Lily James

Chance and Bethany

The mental imagery of 'A carpet of purple flowers’ inspired me in such a magical way, that I felt compelled to write my first novel. Once I started to place pen to paper, the story began to grow into a much greater tale. Maybe, every creative whimsy that I have ever envisaged and not acted on, has waited until now to be brought to life.

My mind raced as folklore came entwined with love, fate entwined with choice, science entwined with spiritual teachings - all guiding me to write a romance that revolves around a karmic cycle. Let me share with you a secret place in which only a parted veil exposes. To an ethereal plane in which otherworldly, angelic type beings, tend to a well of souls. In the book, I take the reader on a brief, visual journey to the home of these elementals called, 'The Sindria', their realm, 'Calageata'. It is here that the purple flower of Vororbla grows, emitting a thick mist ready to greet the essence of a soul.

What keeps us going when the world can feel so harsh?

Where do we draw our strength from in times of need?

What urges us to carry on when things become extremely overwhelming and too much to bear?

We all know the answer... it comes from within.

Somewhere, deep inside, a light refuses to fade.

This light (our inner strength) may become less bright for a time, but in its fading, it is re-energising, and will again, awaken from sleep. Once, our inner light screams out its very last ray of hope, the sleeping energy awakes, re-igniting the inner dimming ray. It is reminiscent of an illuminating birth of a far away star, and from apparent nothingness, wondrous brightness can evolve.

The Sindria teach… 'To be able to shine more brightly, one's light must first fade.’

In the book, I mention to 'keep your light bright' as we've all experienced at some point in our lives, a time when nothing makes sense, a time when life can feel like it's too much to bear, and I really wanted to send out an important message to my readers – that you are so much more than what you initially see, and to remember, a fading light secretly masks an eternity. Our light never truly diminishes, and we can always shine bright, again.

Bea lives a simple life residing in a South London second-hand bookshop. It had been an especially difficult year, first with Bea’s uncle dying, then splitting up with Brandon, her philandering, druggie boyfriend. The shop's trivial daily conversations, local faces, and calm, was all she desired, but that was all about to change.

            ‘Four Souls & Three Hearts’

The future is not set in stone and the choices that we make ripple through the cosmos. No matter what form your soul takes, there are consequences for one's actions in which time has no relevance – 

we call it karma, they call it Vo-ror-bla.

No-one expects to bump into supernatural beings, let alone two opposing sects of a forgotten race. Bea’s quiet existence turns into turmoil as she slowly starts to unravel a secret past. A lost history in which love, revenge, betrayal, magic, power, and karma are not mere cycles of a soul, but a sacred journey upon a web of many possibilities.

Tantric sex is an ancient Hindu practice that has been going for over 5,000 years, and means 'the weaving and expansion of energy'. It's a slow form of sex that's said to increase intimacy and create a mind-body connection.  In this way, you're sharing all of yourself with your partner. 

The heart breath to tune into each other. Stand opposite one another and look into each other's eyes placing your left hand on your partner's heart. He should then place his hand over your left one and you should try to match each other's breathing for at least two minutes.

 Crossing the veil between worlds…

A light bright
a loud cry in the night
makes way for a soul in the dark
gliding through time
a passage ethereal sublime
a story forgotten renewed

mingling the past into the future
a haze blinding most
glamour hides a host
the spiritual warrior has eyes to see
but not until he falls to his knees

the figure in shadow feels the heart of the broken
crushing love not forgotten
gripping mist
chasing dreams
karma eludes or so it seems

circles and cycles
souls entwined
something at work
possibly divine

by Tracey-anne

 Souls forever entwined

***Amazon U.K Bestselling*** 

Inspirational Romance  ~ Fairy Tales ~ Mythology & Folk Tales

Love and Light,

Trace

xoxo

Character Storybook ~ A Carpet of Purple Flowers

A Carpet of Purple Flowers~ Book One

Give me Love by Ed Sheeran

The dance and dinner scene are one of my favourites in book one. I guess, the slow imagery of shy intimacy playing out as a film through my mind, remained, and of course, that is also the night of the first mead encounter. When I saw this gif, I just had to share it along with the song they danced to. 

Richard Madden Lily James

Chance and Bethany

Chance Character Board ~ HERE

Bethany Character Board ~ HERE

Martin Marcisovsky Photography ~
Coldfall Woods

Update:

I'm editing 'Awake in Purple Dreams' book two, but it's taking longer due to illness and general craziness of life keeping me busy. So sorry for the delay.

I have a few beta readers that also need to review prior to the last edit, so, I'm still hoping to be finished this year but contemplating releasing/publishing next year. I'll keep you updated.

ACoPF Book Trailer ~ Character Version 

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

When the first flowers opened on Earth, this is what they looked like...

Revealed: the first ever flower, 140m years ago, looked like a magnolia.

Although most species of plants on Earth have flowers, the evolutionary origin of flowers themselves are shrouded in mystery. Flowers are the sexual organs of more than 360,000 species of plants alive today, all derived from a single common ancestor in the distant past. This ancestral plant, alive sometime between 250m and 140m years ago, produced the first flowers at a time when the planet was warmer, and richer in oxygen and greenhouse gases than today. A time when dinosaurs roamed primeval landscapes. But despite the fact dinosaurs went extinct 65m years ago we have a better idea of what an Iguanodon looked like than of how the ancestral flower was built.

This is partly because these first flowers left no traces. Flowers are fragile structures that only in the luckiest of circumstances can be transformed into fossils. And, as no fossil has been found dating back 140m or more years, scientists have only had a limited sense of what the ultimate ancestor would have looked like. Until now.

A major new study by an international team of botanists has achieved the best reconstruction to date of this ancestral flower. The research, published in Nature Communications, relies not so much on fossils as on studying the characteristics of 800 of its living descendant species.

By comparing the similarities and differences among related flowering plants, it is possible to infer the characteristics of their recent ancestors. For example, because all orchid species have flowers in which one half is the mirror image of the other (bilateral symmetry), we can suppose that their ancestor must have had bilateral flowers. By comparing those recent ancestors to each other it is then possible to go a step further back in time, and so on, until eventually we reach the base of the flowering plants’ family tree.

So what did it look like?

In some respects, the original flower resembles a modern magnolia: it has multiple, undifferentiated “petals” (technically tepals), arranged in concentric rings. At its centre there are multiple rows of sexual organs including pollen-producing stamens and ovule-bearing ovaries. It is hard to resist the temptation to imagine ancient pollinators crawling in this flower, collecting pollen grains while unknowingly helping the plant to produce seeds.

A controversial sex life

The new study helps to settle the controversy about whether early flowers had separate sexes, or whether both male and female reproductive organs were combined in the same flower. Previous evidence pointed to different answers. On the one hand, one of the earliest diverging lineages of flowering plants, represented nowadays only by a rare shrub from the Pacific island of New Caledonia called Amborella, has flowers that are either male or female. On the other, most modern species combine both sexes in the same flower.

The authors of the study settle the question and show that the ancestral flower was a hermaphrodite. This means that early flowering plants could reproduce both as a male and a female. Combined sexes can be advantageous when colonising new environments as a single individual can be its own mate, and indeed many plant species colonising remote oceanic islands tend to be hermaphrodite. Maybe the combination of sexes helped early flowering plants to outcompete their rivals.

Despite the apparent similarity with some modern flowers, their ultimate ancestor has a few surprises up its sleeve. For example, botanist have long thought that early flowers had floral parts arranged in a spiral around the centre of the flower as can be seen in modern species such as the star anise.

The new reconstruction, though, strongly suggests that early flowers had their organs arranged not in a spiral, but in series of concentric circles or “whorls”, as in most modern plants. The early flower had more numerous whorls, however, suggesting flowers have become simpler over time. Paradoxically, this simpler architecture may have given modern plants a more stable base upon which to evolve and achieve more complex tasks such as sophisticated interaction with certain insects as in orchids, or the production of “flower heads” made of dozens or hundreds of simpler flowers as in the sunflower family.

Although now we have a good idea of what one of the earliest flowers may have looked like, we still know little about how that flower came to be. The detailed steps leading to its evolution are unknown. Perhaps we will have to wait for the discovery of new fossil flowers spanning the gap around 250m-140m years ago, before we can understand the very origin of what is the most diverse sexual structure on the planet.
Source: HERE

Birth of a Star ~ Blooming Star Flower =  Light = Life

'Shine Bright'

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

An Introduction to Screenwriting.

An Introduction to Screenwriting.

UEA (UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA)

via Future Learn - HERE

I wanted to share this wonderful and free class found via Futurelearn Online. Week Two has just started but it's still not too late to join (link above). So far, it has been fun, nice fresh inspiration, and really interesting. The development reminds me much of what is used in novel writing craft as far as character, plot, mood, etc, is concerned. Which excites me as I would like to transform the books in ACoPF series into script format. That is once I've completed book two, Awake in Purple Dreams hopefully to be published in the autumn of 2017.
The script I'm developing is for book three - Shining Sword (future story) in the series. Half of the first draft is written and I thought this would be a fun way to further develop the story.

This week we are learning about 'CHARACTER, WRITING THE SCENE AND FIRST DRAFT'. This involves exercises to further develop characters and exploring scene construction.
and hear approaches and tips from our four educators.
2.12
A WORKFLOW FOR WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT OF A FEATURE-FILM SCREENPLAY
2.13
SCREENPLAY FORMATTING
2.14
PREPARING FOR WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT
2.15
SCREEN FORMATTING
2.16
WRITING - AND FINISHING - THE FIRST DRAFT
2.17
WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT

There are four fabulous educators who have varying viewpoints in techniques and how they're inspired. This is helpful and most people should be able to relate to one.

For study, I choose Excalibur (film seen)  1981. A  British dramatic fantasy film directed, produced, and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, based solely on the 15th century Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1469–70) .

Boorman had planned a film adaptation of the Merlin legend as early as 1969, but when submitting the three-hour-one-film script written with Rospo Pallenberg to (United Artists), they rejected it deeming it too costly and offered him J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings instead.

Boorman was allowed to shop the script elsewhere, but no studio would commit to it. Returning to his original idea of the Merlin legend, Boorman was eventually able to secure deals that would help him do Excalibur.

Much of the imagery and set designs were created with his original vision of The Lord Of The Rings in mind, and it has been noted that certain scenes are reminiscent of Monty Python's 1975 comedy film, Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

In addition to Malory, the writers incorporated elements from other Arthurian stories, sometimes altering them. For example, the sword between the sleeping lovers' bodies comes from the tales of Tristan and Iseult; the knight who returns Excalibur to the water is changed from Bedivere to Perceval; and Morgause and Morgan Le Fay are merged into one character.

The sword Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are presented as the same thing; in some versions of the legends they are separate. In Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, is actually the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman follows the earlier version of the tale as told by Chrétien de Troyes, making Perceval the grail winner.

Some new elements were added, such as Uther wielding Excalibur before Arthur (repeated in Merlin), Merlin's 'Charm of Making' (written in Old Irish), and the concept of the world as "the dragon" (probably inspired by the dragon omen seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Merlin's life).

According to linguist Michael Everson, the "Charm of Making" that Merlin speaks to invoke the dragon is an invention. The phonetic transcription of the charm as spoken in the film is [aˈnaːl naθˈrax, uːrθ vaːs beˈθʌd, doxˈjeːl ˈdjenveː]. Although the pronunciation in the film has little relation to how the text would actually be pronounced in Irish, the most likely interpretation of the spoken words, as Old Irish text is:

Anál nathrach,

orth’ bháis’s bethad,

do chél dénmha

In modern English, this can be translated as:

Serpent's breath,

charm of death and life,

thy omen of making.

According to Boorman, the film was originally three hours long; among scenes that were deleted from the finished film but featured in one of the promotional trailers was a sequence where Lancelot rescued Guenevere from a forest bandit.

 The Perks of a Wallflower (film unseen). 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age epistolary novel by American writer Stephen Chbosky which was first published on February 1, 1999, by Pocket Books.

 Chbosky took five years to develop and publish The Perks of Being a Wallflower, creating the characters and other aspects of the story from his own memories. The novel addresses themes permeating adolescence, including introversion, sexuality, and drug use, while also making several references to other literary works, films, and pop culture in general.Although Chbosky's first book was a commercial success, it was banned in some American schools for its content.

Since he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky aspired to adapt it into a film, calling this "a lifelong dream of mine." After the publication of the novel, the author said he received film offers, refusing them because he "owed the fans a movie that was worthy of their love for the book."
The film boosted the novel's sales, and the book reached The New York Times Best Seller list.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo

Awake in Purple Dreams - ***Cover Reveal*** - Book Two

A different kind of fairy tale for adults. 

Awake in Purple Dreams is a story about love overcoming all obstacles. Elements of fantasy weave with reality in this epic romance derived from ancient folklore. An enchanted but a brutal tale of a soul trying to find its way back home.

Blurb ~
Having thought that she had finally escaped the past, Bea finds herself hunted down by an unknown enemy who violently rips her life apart. The harsh changes that follow catapult her on a journey which not only brings personal transformation but one that marks a new era for two worlds.

Secrets long hidden are finally revealed and a war like no other is on the horizon.
Karma never forgets and until the cycle of a soul is complete, the past will never fade away.

The final book cover was a collaboration with Rebecca covers HERE

Below, my early design using free commons images. 

I couldn't get the title to stand out but loved the different colour tone in the font. In the end, I thought it best to stick as closely to book one as possible and so decided to keep the text white. I also needed help with placing stars in the background and with book formatting for print. Rebeca was wonderful and so here we are ~ a completed cover design. 

Early Designs 

Front and Back

Placing the early design next to Book One for comparison ~ 

Did they compliment each other enough to be visually recognised as the same in a series? 

Yup! I think so. 😁

The silhouette of the couple sets the theme of romance and their souls. The purple flowers reminiscent of 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers', a place which echoes in both books. The stars and cosmos giving a subtle message of the story being Otherworldly. 

Want to find out more about book two? 

Click HERE

Will be available to Pre-order on Amazon in late summer 2017.

Love and light,

Trace

xoxo