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necros-writing-stuff · 3 years

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oooooooooohh nooo thats so cute :(((( what u said abt young eden is so true omgg. they r also def the type of kid that brings stray cats n dogs 2 their home. so evrytime the orphanage carataker hears a meowing or barking inside they r like "gdi eden not AGAIN!!" but it wouldnt stop them lol. they r the type that r immune to scolding. after finishing wth being scolded theyll go back 2 do exactly what they r told not 2 do. oh n also they enjoy rough playing. so on top of being covered in dirt or mud, theyll always have bruises n scratches from getting into fights or just from falling or running around. also they have a habit of like, suddenly disappearing (maybe 2 the forest which makes them hard 2 track).

and lol ye i saw it, it made me go hmmm, a true missed opportunity. eden wouldnt let the chance pass. im manifesting a future update where we could give them oral spiderman style 🙏

a bit off topic but i was wondering if u have any ideas or hcs about eden n baileys relationship/friendship?? idk. eden being slightly aggressive n mad at u after they rescue(???) u from bailey when u miss ur payment kinda throw me off ngl. bc they dont act that way when they rescue you from remys farm or the asylum. like, wtf is going on??? idk. its a bit of head scratcher for me.

Ooooo boy Eden and Bailey's past is something I often think about.

Under a cut for sheer length

Okay so I think they are about the same age (late 20s to early 40s) and that they grew up in the orphanage together.

I think Eden was there since very young/birth, but Bailey came later.

Eden not having sole primary care takers fucked up their socialising skills and they felt more comfortable on their own (read:fear of abandonment).

Bailey I think came from a really abusive impoverished home, and thats what made them obsessed with money. They have a weird vendetta against their birth parents to be 'better' than them.

Eden had a stray dog they cared for, but one day when they were running through the forest, a wolf got at it. Hence their 'non of these would survive in the wild' line at the pet store, and their obvious interest in puppy play.

After that, Eden started to shut off even more, being aggressive with the other kids, until Bailey started hanging out with them.

Bailey was angry to be in an orphanage and could see that Eden obviously wasn't happy, so they sort of gravitated towards each other.

Bailey was also the only other kid that didn't cry when Eden hit them.

They're the only two people that know each other's birthdays, besides anyone who looks at their very real legal documents.

As they hit puberty and start growing, they get competitive. Both are rather controlling, so they make a ton of bets against each other. One of them being who can lose their virginity the fastest.

Eden is rather blunt at asking, scaring a lot of the potential partners off, while Bailey is smoother about it and of course wins the bet.

Some fellow orphans start going missing, making everyone uneasy.

This is also when they start noticing the rampant sexual assualt in town, travelling as two most of the time so they can fight people off easier, if needs be.

Terrible at school. Eden was great at English, decent at history, but good luck making them show up half of the time. Eden had a talent for art, however, particularly carvings.

Bailey was there to socialise and steal lunch money, but they had okay grades.

If this is set in England, they would have gone to a secondary school with a sixth form. This means ages 11-18 as students, and I hc that when they were in year 7 (1st year of secondary) Leighton was in sixth form (years 12 and 13). They did not get along for the brief time they would meet in the halls.

I also think Eden would have dropped out in year 11, at age 16, and probably had an apprenticeship with a woodworking company (explains making the coat rack and love seat).

Bailey starts getting into more and more criminal activities, dragging Eden into them too, until a local crime boss notices them. The boss takes Bailey under their wing, thinking Eden won't be right for the job.

Instead they ask Eden to get a job at the police station and help them get further footholds there, that's how Eden has all of those collars (inspired by that one anon), and possibly their rifle. Alternatively, Eden leaves for the military and comes back later.

It works, and they end up covering a lot of their tracks. It's probably around this point that Landry does a few smaller jobs around the place and starts hearing about the Boss' new protégé.

They both have money now, for the first time in there lives, and this is when their differences start to show.

Bailey wants more and more, where as Eden wants to be comfortable.

Bailey fits into the mobster life fairly easily, but instead of the drugs that a lot of the others peddle, Bailey specialises in extortion and blackmail.

They slowly end up getting quite a few powerful figures under their control, and when the boss dies and Bailey ends up in charge of the money? They buy the orphanage.

I think Bailey might have cared for the orphans at one point, in their own ways, but their greed got the better of them.

Working under the mob and the corrupt police has Eden start to hate and fear the town. The only place they felt safer was the forest - which was full of deadly animals. But Eden could protect themselves now.

Being tall and muscular means that Eden is often sent to intimidate or even physically hurt people, often times getting hurt as well. Not to mention when arresting people, some are rather adverse to going to jail and take stabs at them.

If I go with Eden joining the military, they come home hoping to have a familiar setting calm their nerves, but it doesn't. Working for Bailey to earn money also doesn't help, one job having them break into the police station and setting fire to their files (that's another way Eden could find the collars, think of their old dog, and take them in nostalgia).

Eden cracks when they're asked to kill someone off, only to realise its a kid. That's too far.

They go to Bailey and tell them they're done. They need an out, they're fucking miserable, barely sleeping, constantly anxious, and Bailey tries to convince them to stay at first, before realising that they could lose their best friend once and for all if they force them to stay.

So they start planning together what Eden should do, and eventually come up with the cabin. Bailey has Quinn/their predecessor in their pocket by this point, so some cash and threats have some builders help make it, including running water.

When in town, Eden supplies Bailey with animal furs for custom coats. Bailey gets Eden new books, cans of food, more bullets. And if you miss your payment, Bailey eventually gifts Eden with a spouse.

Eden gets angry if they 'rescue' you from Bailey cause its a reminder of the past they try to avoid, and they take it out on you. Of the fear they had as a young orphan of disappearing, something Bailey is now enforcing on more orphans. They take it out on you because violence has always been a way they've coped.

Occasionally, maybe on one of those birthdays, they sit at the lake and drink some whiskey together. They don't talk about their feelings, they're both too stunted for that. But it's comforting knowing each other is still alive and well.

#degrees of lewdity eden #degrees of lewdity bailey #degrees of lewdity #spill your guts #anonymous

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Magdalena Ball

was born in New York City, where she grew up. After gaining an honours degree in English Literature from the City University of New York (CCNY), she moved to Oxford to study English Literature at a postgraduate level. After a brief return to the US, she then migrated to NSW Australia, where she now resides on a rural property with her husband and three children. While in Australia she received a Masters degree in Business from Charles Sturt University and a Marketing degree from the University of Newcastle. Magdalena runs the respected review site Compulsive Reader. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won local and international awards for poetry and fiction. She is the author of the poetry books Unmaking Atoms, Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novels Black Cow, and Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, the Celebration Series poetry books Sublime Planet, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, Compulsive Reader Talks. In addition to her writing, Magdalena is a Research Support Lead for a multinational company, and regardless of what she’s doing, will usually be found with a book or two in one form or another, sneaking time for reading.

The Interview

1. When and why did you begin to write poetry?

I honestly cannot remember a time when I wasn’t writing poetry. It feels very natural to me to express myself poetically, probably because I grew up with a lot of poetry around me, from Dr Seuss and Maurice Sendak to the songs my mother, who was in a rock band, was writing and singing or the poetry my uncle set to music including literary giants like Edna St Vincent Millay, Frank O’Hara, WB Yeats and Emily Dickinson. Poetry has always been part of my environment. I created a lot of handmade ‘zines, themed booklets and celebration poems for friends when I was growing up, but my first official publication was a full centre-page spread in a Greenwich village magazine while I was an undergraduate. I’ve lost the publication now though I kept the clipping for years, but the buzz of that first publication was pretty intense.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

I think I’d have to say my parents. They both read to me a lot – and there was poetry in the children’s books I loved (Sendak and Seuss come to mind immediately because I also bought and read many books by those two authors for my own children, but there were many books I loved when I was very young like The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson, all of which became introductions for me to what language can do as an art form, and how poetic language in particular can convey complex ideas in ways that jump past the intellect using rhythm, correspondence and imagery. I always had a visceral response to the books that were read to me, perhaps because my parents were very good readers and tended to act out the work and engage me in the process by talking to me about what they were reading, letting me fill in words and take over when I was ready. I’m deeply grateful to them for this early gift, which to be honest, I didn’t properly recognise until I was much older. Beyond being read to, I was pretty heavily influenced by my uncle, the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who not only set a lot of superb poems to music – the sound of which formed a backdrop to my childhood as I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house where Ricky, who is only 10 years older than me, was growing up, but also he was always recommending and gifting books to me. I remember a book pack he gave to me when I was around 12 after he read some of my poems. I still have the books, which include Plath’s Ariel, Sexton’s Live or Die, Brecht’s Manuel of Piety and Rimbaud’s The Drunken Boat – none of which were age appropriate (!) but they certainly left a mark on me – like many young women I became a bit obsessed with Plath in particular for a while! Even now, when I see him he’ll usually recite a poem by heart to me from someone he personally knows or has recently discovered which will immediately blow me away.

3. How aware were and are you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t suffer from imposter syndrome regularly as a writer. However, I have always been a confident reader. The delight I take in other people’s words is something that has bolstered me since I was very (possibly too) young. I think it’s fair to say that nearly all writers, no matter how famous, need and love attentive readers and reading is my happy place. So whenever I don’t feel like I’m writer enough to match the company I’m keeping (and that company may be on the page rather than in the flesh though I have been lucky enough to meet some intimidatingly good writers), I’m always able to fall back on the joy of delighting in the words of others. It’s a great privilege I think to be able to just pay attention to art that is exquisite. The sheer joy of that deep engagement is something that I think transcends age, fame, and even genius. It’s connection that is very primal and powerful and wipes out jealousy, intimidation and domination. That said, I’m always actively seeking diversity in my reading as I’m conscious that the “dominating presence of older poets” is really partly determined by a canon that isn’t necessarily very diverse. I’m actively trying to read as diversely as possible, not only because it is healthy to be exposed to what challenges you, but also because nuance and exquisite beauty can often be found in under-represented writers that isn’t so easy to find in some of the bigger, more famous names that are treated as “classics”. So I will sometimes deliberately resist that domination.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I think it would be a rare day when I didn’t write something, but aside from that I just write whenever I can, often in brief snatches here and there, or while everyone else is watching television in the evening once the hubbub of the day has eased off. I have done things like pulled my car over to the side of the road to write something down that came to mind; written poems during business meetings; stirred something on the stove with one hand while writing with the other – you get the idea. I have three children and a day job so can’t really be precious with the time. Poetry is particularly flexible that way and can be fitted into a tight schedule but I have to admit that fiction is harder for me to write in short bursts which is why I’ve been writing a lot of poetry over the past few years.

5. What motivates you to write?

I’m not really sure what motivates me! It’s kind of instinctual. If I don’t write almost every day I find I’m not at my best – I get cranky – some variation of hangry – like there’s a hunger that needs satiating. Being able to sit down, even for just a few minutes, and put something down in writing is part of what my body needs each day – like food, water, exercise, sleep. It’s just part of how I live in the world. I get a lot of pleasure from extrinsic motivations like publication, praise (poets seem to me to be particularly supportive of one another and I’m so grateful for the gorgeous community I feel very much bolstered by), the odd tiny financial reward, and being able to perform/read/connect with readers – they’re all really wonderful perks, but the practice of writing is something I do regardless of those things.

6. What is your work ethic?

I was born and raised in New York, and it may just go with the territory but I think my work ethic has always been a little bit too strong. I have really tried to ease back on my work ethic – to be more present; to take more time on quality over quantity; to slow down a little bit and not feel like I have to be ticking every box on a daily to-do list. That said, I’m always feeling the tug to get one more thing done today. I’m trying to plan a little bit less, and to be more open as I get older.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

See question 2. The writers I read when I was young have had a massive influence on me – they’ve helped formed my identity and not just as a writer. I honestly don’t think I’d be the same person if I hadn’t read so much Maurice Sendak as a child. I still get a little shiver of excitement thinking about Little Bear’s trip to the moon or that wordless page of the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are. I also was heavily influenced as a young adult by writers like Czesław Miłosz who I saw perform at Princeton when I was about 17, and I used to hang around the St Marks Poetry Project around that time hoping one day I might just end up having a conversation with Patti Smith, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg or Anne Waldman. I was always too shy to approach them (see question 3), but I knew very strongly then that this was a place I felt at home and that theses were voices that resonated with my young self. I took a lot of that in and it helped form my identity.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I love so many writers that the answer to this question could go on for about 20 pages! It never fails to amaze me how much superb work just keeps coming out. I’m very lucky to be a book reviewer and so I get a lot of books. I certainly don’t like everything but I get at least one book a week that is excellent, often by someone I never heard of before. I know that the minute I commit a name to paper I’ll have missed out someone critical or maybe I’ll read someone tomorrow and by the time this goes to air I’ll be sad I didn’t include them. So instead of answering this question I might just ‘gather some paradise’ (to steal a phrase from the wonderful PoemTalk podcast) and talk about a few poets that I’ve recently read whose work I like. Please note that this is a snapshot of the work I’ve been in contact with over the past month or so and is in no way comprehensive! Tracy K Smith’s latest book Wade in the Water is just so good. You can read the title poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147467/wade-in-the-water Another poet whose work gets me everytime is Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead. I don’t even know why but the book has brought me to tears several times and even now, I’m thinking of the title poem. I’m right in the middle of reading Anne Casey’s Where the Lost Things Go which is just so warm and lovely – so rich with empathy and compassion, and so very relevant. Another book I recently read and loved was Ali Whitelock’s And My Heart Crumples Like a Coke Can, which is hysterically funny, raw, sad and uplifting all at the same time. Both Anne and Ali are people I recently met and immediately became friends with – it was like we’ve known each other for years and we instantly began planning collaborations, tours, tweeting about one another’s work, etc. I’m so happy to give their wonderful books a shout-out.

9. Why do you write? Probably answered in question 5.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

At the risk of sounding like Yoda (it wouldn’t be the first time), there is no ‘become’ – if you want to write, write. Don’t waste too much time dreaming about it or making elaborate promotional plans (something I have been guilty of). Just get on with it. Write what you like to read best or what you feel compelling to write. Or pick a competition and begin working towards a submission. Push asdie the doubt and discomfort and that stupid “monkey” voice at the back of your head that says you’re not up to it, and just get on with it. No one is a ‘natural’ – first drafts are almost all bad, every writer no matter how well-respected is struggling with what they’re working on now, and the only way to get good at writing is, like anything, regular practice. You have to fail. It’s part of the learning curve – so get on with the failure, accept it, become comfortable in its presence and keep going. When you’ve got enough material or when your material fits a market, submit it somewhere. Then repeat the process. The one other thing you must do is to read, a lot, and diversely. If, like me, you’re nervous about promoting your own work or you’re uncertain that what you’ve done is great, then promote someone else. Shine a light on the wonderful, especially where it’s underrepresented. Everyone has the power to do that these days – leave a review, buy someone a book for a present, talk up what you love. Then get back to the table and make your own beauty. There’s no magic formula and raw talent that isn’t utilised is nothing. (may the force be with you…)

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve just had a poetry book published by Flying Island Books titled High Wire Step, and I’ve got another one coming out in April from Girls on Key Press titled Unreliable Narratives. Neither of those were planned this time last year and I’m really pleased with how they came together and the incredible editorial support I had on both books (I’m very grateful to Kit Kelen and Anna Forsyth respectively). I’m still a bit in promotion mode for these two and there are launches and performances planned at the Newcastle Wrtiers Festival this year and throughout the early part of 2019. I have begun working on a new book of poetry (I’m always working on a book of poetry ), and I am still working on my third novel, a sci fi which is proving to be quite difficult. One of my resolutions for 2019 is to either finish the thing or call it. Every time I sit down to write it strikes me as being too good and too far along to abandon but then I get distracted and it drifts away from my mind and the desire to work on it recedes. This is the year I either finish, or make the call. I also have quite a few multimedia/anthology collaborations in-hand, which I’m very excited about. I can’t divulge, but good things are on the horizon.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Magdalena Ball Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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