Crime Fiction – Page 1, redraft

March 24, 2023March 24, 2023 | Sheree

Yesterday I shared the first page of a crime novel I’m attempting to write one page at a time. And who know when or where this is going to happen, I just know I’m going to try.

Page 1 – The redraft

The beach is empty. The sky cloudless, grey moving to blue with the sun being up for over an hour. The usual dog walkers are out marking the sand with prints and shit. Some clean up after their dogs like good citizens. While others never look back.

Littered with glossy seaweed and feathers, as if a bird battle has gone down, the beach is flanked by a rotting pier. Or wooden construction used in the past to mark out bays within the sea for long forgotten trade. Now just an eye sore and gathering point for the bored youth trapped in this seaside resort.

But down there within the shadows and the shallows is one naked ~~white~~ blue – black body. A woman, lying on her stomach, arms beside her sides, palms turned up. Her ~~blond~~ black head is turned towards the sea, ~~tangled~~ threaded with seaweed and sand. The sun beams down on her bare arse resembling a dark conch. Her swollen face reveals gaping blue lips around cracked teeth.

It’s a chocolate lab sniffing out crabs around the pier who finds her body. Barking to its owner to come see, gulls flocking down to squark the find too. Then they circle, eyes piercing the sea, maybe looking for her missing feet.

The Commentary

Redrafting page one was a no brainier for me. I didn’t want to follow the stereotypes of crime fiction. The white female victim found alone in her flat or down a dark alley.

Yes I’ve kept some of the usual characteristics of the genre, the victim is female but Black. This is what I crave in crime fiction, Black characters, be them the detective, the victims, the society.

I found a few. Like I love Elouise Norton, the Black female detective series by Rachel Howzell Hall. And then the books by Attica Locke. But I’m craving me some Black British crime fiction. On my doorstep.

It seems natural to base the novel within my region and my space of familiarity the seaside as then I don’t have to go to any far flung place for research and authenticity. If I’m walking the coast, all is fodder for the one image at a time process. #onwards.

Full to the brim

March 22, 2023 | Sheree

Cullercoats Bay, 22 March, 2023, 16.33

I got the sea, after an intense and beautiful anti-racism facilitation session with the National Trust.

At some point, I’ll unpack this experience. I just know I make a promise to myself before this last session to save something back for myself.

I give and give. I have a tendency to give in the hope to be received and receive. I give as I believe I’m here to be of service.

It is only recently that I feel that in order to keep on being of and in service, I have to give to myself, first and foremost.

So I go to the sea after this anti-racism book group session, keeping a promise to myself.

I go to the sea to heal.

To be cleansed. To be released. I save just enough energy to get me to the sea. To strip down and take the short sharp steps into the waters.

This afternoon, the sea is full to the brim.

Just like my heart after the intense and beautiful final session with the National Trust around being a good ally in a society becoming more anti-racist.

Pond, Reeds, Sky

March 21, 2023 | Sheree

Rainton Meadows Nature Reserve, County Durham, 21 March, 2023, 11.10am

Writing for Life and Light

March 20, 2023March 23, 2023 | Sheree

The days of March are blowing by quickly. Blink and I might miss them. I decided about a week ago now to not allow the present to slip on by unmarked.

I want to say probably over 20 years now, I have kept Morning Pages, in some form or other, inspired from Julia Cameron‘s The Artist’s Way.

I came to the pages broken, after my mother’s death, going through a difficult patch while full-time English teaching and trying to be the perfect wife and mother.

I was coming apart at the seams, trying to be everything to everyone and nothing to myself. I was hating on myself for not being good enough at anything, and trying to prove myself in an environment where I was always going to come up short.

But I didn’t know that then. I was on the sick from school, resting and re-evaluating my life and The Artist’s Way came into my life through community creative writing classes where I’d go weekly, grabbing a mocha coffee at Morrison’s beforehand. I felt like I was playing hooky from school. And in a way I was.

With practicing Morning Pages, I found a space where I could be. Allow all my mixed emotions and thoughts out in a safe space and not be judged or fail. I couldn’t fail at Morning Pages as all I had to do was keep my pen moving on the page, three pages, and never look back.

A window opened inside of me. Into a dream world. Into my childhood. Into my joys and pleasures. And I came to realise that I wasn’t happy with the life I was living. And change had to happen and happen straight away. I was impatient to start living my life on my own terms.

After being on the sick for half the year, I went back to school in the June. Had the summer holidays, went back after them and handed in my notice so I could finished in the December of that year. I didn’t have a net but I jumped anyway. That was 2003.

Fast forward to March 2023, and I’m marking the present, my life in all it’s fucked up glory, by working through Julia Cameron’s Write For Life.

Four things are the foundation of this creativity boost for the soul; Morning Pages, a daily quota towards my writing project, a daily walk and a weekly artist date.

I’ll follow up this post with a breakdown of what each one of these things entails. I’m just place marking this process here for a minute.

The image above is me out on my daily walk, with the sun shining but the wind blowing into my face. Nah, that’s not my new hairstyle but the fur on my hood. But can you see my inner shine. My light. That light comes from living in the moment. Marking the days with the simple delights of being present. Here and now.

BLACK WOMEN ARE DIVINE

March 19, 2023March 19, 2023 | Sheree

“Black women are divine. I think Black women are the closest that there is on this earth to God.”

Taken from The Good Ally, Nova Reid

Moonlight, mothlight caress

March 18, 2023 | Sheree

When light drips from the moon, I wonder what she sees in me.

As her light stalks through cracks, does she feel the longing threaded through the hairs of my arm, and slicing through the rim of my smile?

When light bulges from the moon, thrumming the water of my weight, does she sense my hunger for a lover’s hips touching my inner thighs, for a breath down my neck, in caress?

When the moon’s light fingers me from sleep, to wind circles over my skin, moth light, white light, does she taste

the salt in my bones

the sugar in my sweat

the howl in my throat?

Earth Sea Love on Etsy

March 1, 2023 | Sheree

Earth Sea Love has an Etsy store. It’s been a long time coming and it’s still got a long way to go. But it’s a beginning.

Starting to sell the zines I created over time as well as going to share a selection of the ones I created over on Patreon, I look forward to putting more zines into the store.

I also have the broadsides that I created with Theresa Easton around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to house in the store. I’ve still got a full set of prints that could be proudly displayed in people’s homes instead of boxed up in mine.

It’s a slow process setting up an Etsy store as not just the wordings have to be appealing but the images have to be of a certain size and dimension. It’s a bit of a pain. But worth it, if even just one of these zines are sold and manage to touch someone else wherever the may be in this journey of life.

Go check out the store and bookmark it. Then look out for updates and special offers from time to time.

and that I had to leave you to save myself, abandon you

February 21, 2023 | Sheree

sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most

This is a (QUIET) Revolution

February 15, 2023February 15, 2023 | Sheree

Every year for the past 5 I’d say I’d spend time at the end of/beginning of the year to create a vision board of intentions and dreams.

I say this, for the past 5 years, except the last one. 2022 was the year I never set out my intentions, my dreams. I missed the window of magic, I felt, and just couldn’t muster the mojo to set things down.

I missed this road map, this visioning throughout the year. There were times during 2022, that I was questioning what I was doing and where I was going. But I realise now that I needed that low, down energy to heal and recover after the last two years of Covid. And it’s not over even now, but I know I have better coping and managing skills today.

So thinking about 2022, and my lack of motivation and direction, I knew when 2023 came around, my vision board practice was coming back. Not to get all productive on my arse but because I love to have this beauty pinned to my bedroom wall at the bottom of my bed and see it every day.

Having my vision board in plain sight, everyday, the first thing I see in the morn and the last thing at night, is a gift and blessing. I get to see and feel what I want to manifest within the present moment, each day. It’s not a bind in anyways, but it is a reminder and commitment to myself to love. Myself and others.

It brings me joy to see my vision board because it is a thing of beauty. I know everything on it has been placed with intention and love for self. With joy. And it’s not used as a to-do list of productivity and perfection. It is a beacon or siren to make sure I’m {being} in my life how my soul wants to be showing up in life for me first and foremost.

That’s why I call it a quiet Revolution. I’m revolting against the system, this White Supremacy Culture, from the inside out. I’m rejecting all those beliefs and practices and ways of being that have been implanted within me since being born into a system which indoctrinates us into being machines to the system. Where we repress our true selves to fit in and be accepted. Where we do not question or reject the system but uphold it and perpetuate it through our actions and attitudes towards others and ourselves.

So here I am sharing my vision board of 2023. Not as a ‘look at me, aren’t I clever’ kind of vibe. But to inspire. I’m always about sharing my practice to inspire. Last year I gave up early, without creating a vision board. Along with using excuse and excuse afterwards for not trying to create one.

I share with you mine so you might feel inspired to create one or not even a physical one but a space in your heart and mind for your intentions and dreams and ways of being. It’s never too late is my motto. Something I could have used last year, but some how couldn’t muster the energy to. But I think this might have been a demonstration of my lack of commitment to myself and my dreams last year and being content enough to just get by. I know I needed this time of rest in place to move onto 2023 with renewed energy and a massive intention to heal.

Swings and roundabouts. I just know everything sits better with me when I know I’m on a mission to heal from the inside out through this quiet revolution of a slow, listening, restful practice.

Living Wild Studios

Sheree Mack

present