Showing posts with label #jasmoonbutterfly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #jasmoonbutterfly. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Imagination

Hi, Everyone.
Famous Scientists Who Tapped Into Magic & Imagination to Change ...
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."
Building a Matrix with reinforcement learning and artificial ...
“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.
Imagination is Actually Magic. Seriously. – Action Plan Marketing
 “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
5 Reasons Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Thursday, 27 April 2017

Youtube Book Review by Laura 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers'

Book Review
I was sent this book from the lovely Author to read and do an honest review on.. can I just say how LOVELY Tracey-Anne is! I have been talking with her on Twitter and she's been sweet and friendly!
This book was sooooo GOOD! Mystical..magical..spiritual.. romantic ... liked the way magic and the real world mixed together. the characters were great esp. Bea the main girl. Lots of Twists and turns and emotional. This is book 1 in the series and I am soooo excited to read book 2! The ending was a real twist which I loved! This book is really great :) (Source)
Where Laura can be found ~ 
MinxLaura123's Wacky World - Youtube Channel ~ HERE
Twitter ~ HERE

I was blown away by Laura's kind review posting. Such kind words. Thank you so much, it really lifted my writing spirit. I've never received a youtube review, absolutely wonderful. 😍 
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Friday, 10 February 2017

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

Art Play ~ The Sun

Gesso base ~ watercolour pencils and crayons

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Sunday, 18 December 2016

Christmas Writing

Claíomh Solais  (Shining Sword) first draft in Progress
Book Three ~ The Future
More HERE
 
Book Three ~ The Past
More HERE


Love and light
Trace
xoxo

Sunday, 18 September 2016

Book Stuff. How important is a book blurb?

Often it is the editor or some other person from the publishing house who writes the book blurb/jacket description. The publisher usually has a better idea of what elements of the story will most appeal to readers who pick up the book at a glance.
Below is an example of how important it is to get the blurb right. A professional reviewer and author, Christina Philippou, gave ACoPF a wonderful 5-star rating and listed it in among the top 10 books of 2015 on her blog - Wow! But this shows how the blurb can give a wrong impression that could ultimately repel potential readers ~

'From the blurb, I expected a kind of ‘Twilight for adults’. What I got was intricately-imagined fantasy, suspenseful action, two beautifully interwoven love stories (not the kind of paranormal love triangle I was anticipating), and a lot of well-crafted drama. Brilliant – I want more!'

Read HERE

In hindsight, I should've definitely re-written the book's blurb - shown below:

‘Every Unknown is a Beginning’

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 were all she desired, but that was all about to change.

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.

The future is not set in stone and the choices that Bea makes ripple through the cosmos. As the secret unfolds she realises that 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 Vororbla.

Will she cope with the heartbreak and truths before her?
What would you do if your very existence came into question?
Join Bea as she uncovers the truth of her past via A Carpet of Purple Flowers.

To something like this, perhaps?

Discover a new fantasy world with a unique love story.

'Four Souls & Three Hearts' 

No-one expects to bump into supernatural beings, let alone two opposing sects of an otherworldly race. Bea’s quiet existence as a bookshop owner in SW London turns into turmoil as she starts to unravel a lost history. Reality quickly becomes blurred with folklore, and as the secrets unfold, she realises that no matter what form your soul takes, there are consequences for past actions in which time has no relevance – we call it karma, they call it Vororbla.

What would you do if your very existence came into question? 

Hmm. I'm going to work on book two's.

FICTION BLURB TIPS - T K. H

Note that the goal of the blurb is NOT to summarise the book. Rather, the goals are to:

  • Implicitly reveal the genre or subject. This should reinforce the message conveyed through the title and visually by the cover.
  • Entice the reader to look inside.

That’s it!

Here is a fiction blurb checklist:

  • Be concise. Did you say anything that was unnecessary?
  • Arouse curiosity. Did you give anything away? Does it read like a summary?
  • Genre. If strangers can’t read the blurb and guess the precise sub-genre or have some idea as to the content, your blurb has miserably and utterly failed to be an effective sales tool.
  • Engage. You need to draw interest immediately; most customers won’t be patient and let you build things up (true of your Look Inside, too). Come out swinging with your best stuff, but also pack enough punches so that you can engage interest throughout. When you run out of punches, stop writing your blurb.
  • Flow. Check that it flows well. A hiccup, such as when a reader has to stop and figure out how to correctly parse a long idea, is like stumbling on your way to the cash register.
  • Spellcheck, aisle three. If you can’t get the spelling and grammar right in a hundred words or so… Look, it’s not an option. You have to get it right.
  • Vocabulary. It needs to match your target audience. Words they don’t understand can scare them away (but if such words are common in the prose, you also don’t want to create false expectations).
  • Research. Do your homework. Check out blurbs of successful books similar to yours.

Feedback. Ask for opinions on your blurb. Before you publish, this can help you generate buzz.

Did you know Amazon has 30,000,000 different books to choose from? Wow! 

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Tuesday, 13 September 2016

"The veil between the worlds is thin"

A lovely review for
Book One
This is a most entrancing and captivating story. Bea, as the central character, weathers every emotional storm you can imagine, and as we get to know her, we feel for her plight, and one is torn on her behalf as she herself is torn, between two men, two identities, two realms of reality.

Bea is living a fairly ordinary life, running a small, somewhat esoteric, bookshop in London, left to her by her much-missed uncle. Into her somewhat muted existence burst beings from another realm, and why they are so interested in her gradually becomes apparent.

Tracey-anne McCartney introduces us to a richly-detailed and dramatic cosmology drawn from Irish folktales, mythology, and magic, and it is by virtue of this age-old relationship between the world of the Sidhe and that of humans that we find ourselves drawn in most strongly. It is the skilful, often humorous, blend of supernatural and spiritual elements with that of ordinary life; the hopes and disappointments of the ordinary person, as experienced by Bea, which makes this novel so charming, and makes us experience Bea’s emotional maelstrom as our own. We want the best for her, even if deciding what that may be seems near impossible.

The final scene in Coldfall Woods is magnificently achieved, and the writing overall has the right balance of lyricism and restraint and is peppered with moments of levity when appropriate. The narration allows one not only to viscerally experience the events described but also to be privy to the internal life of the principal characters, sensing their doubts, their confusion, their pain and joy – Bea's in particular.

The finale does not give up all the secrets hinted at during the novel. Who exactly is Jonathan? What does Bea’s future hold? And other questions, which I will not pose here for fear of spoiling the many surprises and revelations this artfully-plotted novel offers us en route.

A Carpet of Purple Flowers is an original, entertaining, and sophisticated blend of romance, the paranormal, and the spiritual.

~ By Mark Mayes 

Mark has a new book release set for 2017 ~ More HERE The Gift Maker 

Mark has published numerous stories and poems in magazines and anthologies in the UK, Eire, and Italy, and in particular, has had several stories published in (or accepted for) the celebrated Unthology series (Unthank Books). His work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. He has been shortlisted for literary prizes, including the prestigious Bridport Prize.

In 2009, Mark graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in English (Creative Writing and Critical Practice) from Ruskin College, Oxford.

Currently living in South Wales, Mark is also a musician and songwriter, and some of his songs may be found here: HTTPS://SOUNDCLOUD.COM/PUMPSTREETSONGS

Thank you, Mark. ;o) 


Sunday, 4 September 2016

Sketching...

 Playing with pencil and gesso wash ~yay!
 I've been scribbling down words about characters and love the idea of using this image for a Haiku book cover. Just as a little personal treasure, inspiration from a magical muse. 
Work in progress...
 She's not finished, this is the foundation prior to adding colour.
Feels good to be drawing again. 
A little break from editing. :o) 
'Picmonkey' effects
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Rose-tinted glasses...

London Town

Streets noisy but silent
bobby doesn’t beat, officers sleep
plastic bag an urban tumbleweed
a flower grows through the cracked pavement

pretty walls adorned, a distraction
reflected in a drunks puddle
give me a fag, got a spare pound,
nothing humble about this town

sirens replace screams
window curtains twitch
but still…
the sun comes out
lawns are mowed
trees bear fruit
flowers are on the table

typing letters forming words
a mish-mash of thoughts on the screen
most will never be seen
a sigh
a sip of tea
a drag on a fag
it isn’t so bad
ponders life while staring up at the sky
a tear drops from the eye

by Tracey-anne

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Catching up with art

Hi everyone :o) 
It's been quite some time since I've sketched in my journal. Writing has been a priority, but I finally dug out the watercolour crayons and let my creativity flow onto the pages. Yay! I wasn't sure where it would take me, but I'm happy with the outcome of the brief playtime. Hopefully, in the near future, I will make some art dolls again. 
Words and line drawing
sketches
Adding a splash of colour
 The Mystic ~ As above, so below 
Made of stars ~ Her galaxies are flowers
 Alice's Wonderland of Love
 I'm not sure why, but I drew their eyes out of proportion. They remind me of caricatures.
The one on the left of my niece, Heidi. :o) 
 Below, I thought I would try something different.  Rainbow aura ~ the soul of a lost star. In the book, the character, Chance, reminds Bea that his hand will always be in hers. It is a promise that his soul will find hers even in the darkest times. He asks her to keep her light bright.

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Sunday, 14 August 2016

Update ~ Book Two

Great News...
The first draft of 'Book Two' is almost complete. 
The manuscript is 85k so far, but there's still a little more writing to do before the edits begin.
I'm happy, happy. :o) 
I've also added more to the Book Companion Pages
Book Bible
My 'Bible Companion' is a compendium of all things relating to 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers' Book Series (#ACoPF). It contains information such as backstories of characters, in-depth character analysis from shoes to furnishings, scars, how they like to wear their hair, etc. Each of 'The Orders' and the 'Houses' are recorded, from symbols relating to that sect and why they use them, to clothing worn and how that Order began. I don't add all of these details to the books, but they're areas that I need to know/understand to write informatively about the realms and the different beings that live there. I've also created a journal in which one of my characters records their experiences, mentioned in the books, which helps me view this new world through a character's eyes and experiences. It's a fun way to explore new ideas combining writing and art, a process that sparks my muse. 
See more over at the website - HERE
When I first began playing around with the idea of writing 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers' (first book), my initial choice for the main character (the protagonist) was a young Jonathan. The starting point, Coldfall Woods where he studied the Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium).
In the German tradition, naturphilosophie or nature philosophy persisted into the 18th and 19th centuries as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of nature and spirit. 
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) was the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. Natural philosophy was the precursor of natural sciences.
Jonathan acknowledges indigenous wisdom as a global knowledge bank held by humans from all races and countries. Primitive skills are the original survival skills which all humans once used in order to live in harmony with the earth. Nature Philosophy helps to share these skills and keep them alive in the modern day. He is a seeker of the ancient knowledge. 

Jonathan dresses out style compared to the attire of modern-day humans,
 wearing high collars and a cravat. He jitters quite a bit when nervous and has many secrets.
He questions everything and records his findings in journals.
 Who are we? What are we? Where did we begin?
To find these answers and more I must follow the fading trail left by our ancestors. I must not seek with only my eyes, but learn to listen with my heart, hear the low mutterings of my soul, seeking inside and outside of myself. The path to truth is perilous and one I walk alone. ~ Jonathan's  journals
Lifprasira (Lif-pra-si-ra) symbols ~ Otherworldly Hieroglyphs
Once the eyes have been opened to all that's hidden,
you can never go back to the person you were. 
I understand what was. I understand my purpose. I understand what needs to be done.
 ~ Jonathan's journals
Our very being, our purpose, and our past, can only be understood through the combination of knowledge, thought, and contemplation. The latter, of course, is the most important. Unfortunately, there is little time to reflect in the modern world, and time passes too quickly to dwell on what was. Imagination and expansion of the mind are the keys which unlock concealment, cleverly disguised, mostly as a feeling. There is a knowing within us all, it's where our history resides, spoken in a language we have forgotten. Learn to look in the spaces in-between and not at the obvious options presented, it is where the truth lives. A tree grows, you see its beauty yet see no roots, dig and they will be revealed. The inner rings of history remain out of sight too, but look beyond, open it up and peer inside. The answers have always been there. ~ Jonathan's journals
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo