Hairspray&Cigarettes

Improbable things.

2009-04-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

I started thinking about improbable things and when people do things that are unexpected we get scared or frightened.
Last week myself and himself were driving back from West Clare as usual, we had spent the day roaming and exploring so it was late evening by the time we were heading home.

The roads have improved in recent years there are still some bad ones. Anyway we were driving along, listening to the radio and chatting intermittently. Travelling between 80-100 km/h easy driving with not much other cars around. I was dreaming and looking out the window when we passed what looked like what I'll loosely describe as a kind of 'flower garden' amongst the trees and shrubbery that grows along the roadside, as we passed it I thought I could see a man standing inside looking out towards us but the thick metal gate to the 'garden' was locked with a heavy looking chain. I turned to Jack and said "That was strange" and described what I had seen. He immediately became uncomfortable and started asking questioning me what did I mean there was a man at the side of the road?

Maybe it had something to do with the time of day and the fact we were in a rural place with not much people or cars around that it stuck out as odd but it got me thinking. Of course since I wasn't really paying close attention and we were driving I could have been mistaken, the man could have been a scarecrow in a vegetable garden, a trick of shadows or my imagination it's not important.
So it got me thinking about how improbable things frighten us, when people do things which are out of character or deviate from what is normal we create a scandal or assume there must be a supernatural explanation.

Ashamedly, I admit a small part of me wanted to believe I had seen some ghostly thing but, sadly, if you look at it rationally all I saw was a man in a garden.

Anyway where I'm going with this is that because it was improbable or unlikely for a person in such a lonely place to be standing straight backed looking out onto the road we immediately classed this as a bad thing despite the fact I didn't see the man do anything ghastly- indeed anything at all! Yet we had created a story of a ghostly lost thing along the road side.

My brain has been mulling over this idea but I'm still not quite able to accurately articulate how much this intrigues me.

West Clare.

2008-12-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking alot about my two main characters. A- the typical heroine, rebellious feisty, refuses the proposed arranged marriage ends up falling in love with the male lead he dies etc. etc. but then as I mulling over it more and researching more into old stories it occurred to me that in the time i want to set this story in that is all this woman would have had. And that now a days we see being a housewife as taking a step down, being uneducated as a cardinal sin, which got me thinking again that the women who fought for the right to choose to follow which ever path they wanted to in life did so in vain. Those women were a product of their society only expecting very little out of life, which at the time was little beyond marriage, today however modern women only to expect a life beyond marriage- bypassing it even. To choose marriage and to rely solely on a husband without furthering ones education is seen backward and perhaps given the same social stigmas as pursuing a career and not relying on a man as a source of income, was back then?

The women back then had no choice only what society chose for them, (huge generalisations coming up) the same as today, so, in essence nothing really has changed. There is no choice only what is expected of us. All struggle is just fighting against the expected and few people are brave enough to do so.
But what about everyone else, the majority? What about those who are happy to live with the times?

So why the hell am I writing her as some kind of hero, that is not the purpose of the book. And more importantly why shouldn't she just be happy with a marriage? So now I have changed this character completely which leads me to my final point which is there is nothing wrong with living your life whichever way you choose
All this came from Kilkee beach in West Clare (the picture above). We drove down there last Sunday, mostly because I love the sea and partly for lack of anything better to do.

The next theme or idea I want to focus on is the idea of things that do not belong to you. From the research I have done in a lot of the folklore people are very wary of dealing with or meddling in things which have nothing to do with them; bad things tend to happen to those who persist... This idea also came to me from my own frustration.

We were doing some Christmas shopping and I nipped into the bathroom just before we left but stupidly left my purse behind with my bank cards and everything else important to me. About five minutes later (while trying to pay for some McDonalds cheesy wedges!) we noticed it missing and I ran back to the bathroom and of course it was gone.

I was fucking furious, cursing whoever took it, why couldn't they just have left it alone?! Yes they probably meant well taking it in case someone else would have stolen it etc. etc.- later it turned out they did as they handed it in to the information desk. But at the time I checked the lost and found for the shopping centre and of the customer service of the biggest shop nothing had been handed in yet.

This set me down another train of thought. What if important possessions were bound or held some imprint to their true owner and stealing them would bring serious consequences for the thief? Something similar to bringing a curse onto oneself... I'm not quite sure how yet I'm going to work this into the story line but it's a thought I'm playing with. I'm not planning to make it a huge theme but it might work nicely as a sub plot especially since the 2nd female character is herself a 'found' thing.

Vampires.

2008-11-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

I've been fascinated by Irish myths and Legends for as long as I can remember, and for as long as I can remember I've thought "why is no-one using this?!". Not in some tourist “I’m a leprechaun weeeee” way but rather used these wonderful myths and stories and make modern Irish folklore

I think it was the idea of vampires that first grabbed me, partially because I had just read the 'Twilight' series (I know..) Today’s vampires are cool and mysterious. It's chic, expected even, to have the sexy un-dead tortured character. Maybe it's my sick imagination but I wanted to write about the real un-dead, decaying monsters around which these ideas grew, that to me is far more interesting.
I think I want to write a modern day Frankenstein, a book dealing with real human emotions but from a ghoulish slightly creepy perspective? Aim high, right?
But I got a bit of a writers block trying to figure out what to do with a zombie like un-dead monster...

I think a lot of folklore stems from the fact that the stories were almost believable because they were applicable to life back then e.g. slighted fairies
to explain unexpected/tragic events, so that got me thinking what creepy thing could I write about that today would almost be believable, well believable to make the reader (me) think twice?

I've settled for a story in a mid sized coastal town in the west of Ireland set in the not so distant past maybe 1950's but the year isn't going to be a huge issue, something modern enough to be a story from a friend-of-a-friend. I've decided to use a lot of factual superstition i.e. not happy go lucky faeries playing in the garden.
FAIRY.
FAIRY.
FAIRY ……. The Gentry.