I find it really inspiring to use photo's as a basis for ideas when writing. Not only does it help to create more vivid contexts and settings within which to place your characters, if you're lucky, sometimes a story or an idea for a poem might strike you.
I-Phones Hipstamatic app is very good for making an average photographer (such as myself) take great, atmospheric pictures.
They also occasionally hold exhibitions of the pictures that users of their site: www.hipstamatic.com upload. They chose one of mine a while ago and it was great fun going to the exhibition, especially since I've been to so many in my time for the artists I've used in Trespass/NT!
I wrote this song for Aunty Jean, a lady who had always been very kind to me. But as we weren't incredibly close, I was surprised by how upset I was by her death. Later in December 2010 my friend's baby boy died as well, so it seemed appropriate to dedicate it to both of them. Then, earlier this year Mike's mum Daphne passed away. As she'd been suffering from early onset Alzheimer's for a long while it wasn't a surprise but it was still upsetting.
I'm finally diving into the whole blogging experience. Previously my perfectionism has kept me from being able to really enjoy the process of just whacking up your ideas as they happen, but I realised that that is the point of this brave new world, and since I often have a few bits and pieces that I'm working on (especially, at the moment, videos and interviews) I thought I'd stop being so uptight about it and, as Nike would say, just do it.
With so much that I'm involved with at any one time from editing New Trespass (www.exacteditions.com/newtrespass) to wrestling with my own writing demons, from writing music and creating video interviews, I'm hoping there will be enough fodder to feed to the machine.
The band is made up of my brothers Joe and Simon Tuson as well as my husband Mike and cousin Talitha. We've been making music together for years off handedly (Mike and I used to play together in a band called Recluse Filmstar but we were too retiring for our own good :) and we finally faced the truth: we needed to make it official. So Scarlet Starlings was born, a little fledgling band made up of people who love each other and music. Hope you enjoy it.
