A Mindful Music Mix

 

 

An inspiring book I read recently was Mindfulness in Music by Mark Tanner. It included many references to music I was unfaimiliar with as well as other music I had forgotten about. I have included the music from the book and also other mindful music interludes on a new spotify playlist called Mindful Mix. There are 220 items on the playlist and it lasts for 20 hours, so I hope I won't be adding any more to it. The list is shown below.

Bubble Universe

Writing has long been one of my main interests in life, although life often seems to get in the way of various projects. In 2014 I gathered together twelve of my shortest stories for my project Bubble Universe, with the aim to develop them further over the coming years (see above). I was very happy with the twelve pieces of flash fiction I eventually came up with (see below). They have been elaborated upon, but have all been written between the ages of ten and fifty.

All Grown Up

'All Grown Up' is the third of my 'Still Life' poetry collections on Wattpad, it contains the poems that most reflect my grown up thoughts on life.

'Opening the door' is about being bold and stepping into the unknown.

'The shadow people' is about the invisible forces that shape our world.

'Alone' is about the profound difference between loneliness and solitude.

'The sufferers' is about the deep pain sometimes involved in just being alive.

'Crossing the bridge' has a similar theme to the first poem, it is about leaving the familiar behind and moving into a completly new landscape.

Shadow stories

I was writing my magazine 'Shadow' when I was around about 11 in 1979. In 2017, when I was 49, I concentrated on four of my favourite 'Shadow stories' to see if I could develop them into anything more substantial. Two of the items 'After the rain' and 'As the cat meowed' became two pieces of flash fiction, 'As the cat meowed' changed its name to 'The midnight cat'. 'Last Bus Home' developed into a serialised short story which I published on Wattpad. Nothing much became of 'The girl on the pier', so I shall have to develop it further in the future.

Blog Therapy

 

I have enjoyed writing since I was little. I have been fascinated by blogging and blogs since I first encountered them in the early noughties. I was too busy with my young daughter and my poetry group to start blogging at the time. When I found out about craft and creative blogs in 2010 I was quite eager to start a blog myself. I started my blog finally in November 2013 after spending much of that year thinking about what I would put on it. Now I find blogging a good way to organise my mind and my ideas and get my life and times into some perspective. Below is my working list to inspire blog posts for each month of the year.

Comfort TV 2020

Films and TV have long been a comfort to me. I produced a list of film therapy films last year and thought I would attempt a similar list for TV programmes this year. I found my favourite TV shows fall into 10 categories.

1. Arts and Culture
2. Comedy
3. Drama
4. Gardens
5. History
6. Homes
7. Mindfulness
8. Sci-fi and Fantasy
9. Science and Nature
10. TV dinners

After a little thought I came up with 52 programmes, enough for contemplative TV shows for every week of the year.
 

   

Teenage Troubles

I used to write more and much longer poems when I was a teenager, maybe I had more time back then at least for writing poetry. The five poems in my Teenage Troubles collection occupy a special place in my heart.

Dave was a caveman came second in the Hounslow Poetry Competition in 1984.
Not a very pretty sight is an earlier insight into body dysmorphia.
The Antique Junk Shop has developed into a YouTube video.
Who's been corrupting our son? is about my brother and his teenage friends.
Inadequacy comes from the same place as my interest in 'Unspirational' and Stoicism.

The Need Fairy

I first thought of the basic story of the Need Fairy in the late 1990s when I got married, moved into my house and was hoping for a baby. I was so busy being a working mum in the noughties and also running my SubVerse poetry group, that it was ten years before I sat down and wrote it out as a proper story. It now exists in the real world as an ALF Book and on my Wattpad channel as one of my serial short stories.

The Need Fairy by LJ Finnigan
Tony and Cleo are happy in their new home, but the more they settle in, the more Cleo senses another presence in the house, one that is neither happy nor settled.

Christmas Day
As Cleo and Tony enjoy their Christmas dinner in their new house, the house's spirit reminds them of its presence.

New Year's Day
As Tony works in his home office Cleo ventures into the attic and begins to unearth the house's hidden treasures.

Valentine's Day
Cleo introduces the elaborate idea of the house possessing a Need Fairy to a bemused Tony.

Ash Wednesday
Cleo discovers a little of the house's gruesome history and the house spirit begins to find its voice.

Mother's Day
Cleo finds the true value of the attic treasures when she visits the local antique shop.

Palm Sunday
Cleo and Tony both experience tangible encounters with the house spirit when they both venture into the attic.

Easter Day
The Need Fairy visits Cleo in the middle of the night with a promise of love for the future.

Christmas Eve
The spirit of the Need Fairy is alive and well and living in the nursery.

Lorna's Songs on YouTube

Twelve of my songs feature on the Lorna's Songs playlist on YouTube.



Stargazing
A song written with passion about an obsessive love which leads to a tortured, sleepless night.

Island of Happiness
This song is about the few wonderful times in life and love that are highlights in an otherwise bleak existence.

For What I Am
This song is about being yourself, warts and all, and finding love as a flawed being.

Alive at Last
Romantic hope is renewed after recovering from a broken heart.

Jazz
Jazz is a carefree, attractive girl, a popular, social butterfly, the singer of the song can only look on with envy.

That far away look
This song was written on a moonlit evening near the sea, when the cool air was full of promise and excitement.

The feeling's always there
The remnants of an intense love affair, the lover may have gone, but heartbreak takes much longer to move on from.

I can see you
A song written when I was seventeen, when I was contemplating future love and relationships and was rather apprehensive as to what awaited me.

Scorpio Eyes
This song concerns superstition and astrology. What does the second water sign of the zodiac have to say about love?

New Ways
My songs are mostly about love. This one concerns exploring new opportunities, possibly as a result of a recent break up.

Richard's Things
Richard's Things is a novel by Frederic Raphael. This song is inspired by the title rather than the novel itself. It is about a woman constrained by a possessive man and her attempts to break free.

Waiting for me
I wrote this song on a European tour in the late 1980s. It is about longing for adventure.

Debut or The EWOC

This piece of flash fiction was inspired by a wedding reception I went to in the City of London. It was a very 'fish out of water' situation, I am a far cry from the city types I was mingling with. I was only on the very edge of that world and now that situation feels a very long way away from me. I'm glad I have this small piece of writing to remind me of that 'unreal' time in my life. I still find myself wondering about those people and the kind of life they lead. I couldn't keep up that level of pretence and 'I just had to let it go,' as John Lennon once sang; 'Watching the Wheels' indeed.

Debut by LJ Finnigan

'The wedding party arrived by double decker bus. Christine was one of the last to step outside into the late afternoon sun, onto the hard grey city of London pavement, before stepping foot into the Merchant Taylors grand hall.

Inside the hall was cool and dim, Christine’s black heeled shoes clattered on the hard stone floor and she found herself fascinated by the echo that was produced. It was then that she became acutely aware of her difference.

Despite her expensive haircut and her elegant clothes, she didn’t quite gel with her surroundings. The others seemed to carry on as they normally did, they were at home. But to Christine, this was odd.

‘Max,’ Christine called to her date, her boyfriend of two years.

A little ahead of her a shaggy haired, rugby-playing, ex-public school type lowered his eyebrows at her and gave her a crooked sort of smile. He was standing amidst a group of Greek Goddesses and their mother, apparently. Christine felt her face heat up and knew that she must be going red.

‘I’m an embarrassment,’ she thought.

It was then that she became aware that her time in this world and with this man would be short lived. He was already tiring of her. Soon she would be banished; back to her shabby house on the edge of the council estate where she had lived all her life, back to buses, lonely nights in front of the TV, her mediocre family, her ‘just getting by’ existence. Back to the land of the EWOCs, the vanishing English Working Class tribe that she belonged to.

‘OK Christine, I’m just catching up with some old friends from university. Help yourself. There’s plenty to eat and drink,’ said Steven, obviously itching to get away.

‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me,’ said Christine, humbly.

The couple were edging away from each other even now; Steven towards a new group of ex-University students and Christine towards the long white table-clothed table full of Champagne and canapés.

Christine stood alone sipping her glass of champagne and studying the assortment of wedding party guests until her gaze settled on a particularly pleasing specimen of city boyhood; tall, blond, athletic. His handsome face returned her lustful look with a particularly manly one of his own. Christine felt the exquisite sensation that she would be the instrument of her own destruction.'

Webflower Girls

My WebFlower WebGraphic project never saw the light of day. It was an intermediary project in between the SubVerse Poetry Tea Room and the Star Heart Cafe. I created many images and I am still using them in my stories, my greeting cards and a montage of them can be found on 'Kaleidoscope Girl,' a LornaJHart music video on YouTube. Above and below are some images from the WebFlower web pages I created at the time.

       

The Poetry of Surrender on Wattpad

I have been meaning to put six poems from my days at SubVerse onto Wattpad for quite some time.

 You can now find them here.

Webflower Graphics

I was working on Webflower graphics back in 2006, after the demise of my Web One project; SubVerse. The time was a bit of a creative wilderness for me. Social Media for me began in 2008 when I started putting animation on YouTube and then in 2010 I joined FaceBook, which I used to post about my creative endeavours until I started my blog in 2013.

In Webflowers I used to design web pages around six coloured flower ideas, a green crysanthemum, beige (or orange) lilly, pink rose, blue pansy, yellow daisy and purple tulip. I have used the six colour flower idea in my designs for ALF creations @ the Star Heart Cafe, for my cards, dolls, lavender scenters and fabric brooches. Webflowers were inspired by beautiful web sets like Pat's graphics and Moyra's Web jewels, that sort of web design died and my Webflower webpages never saw the light of day, however they did give me ideas I could build on in the real world. Below are a few of the web pages I created at this time.

Angel Writers Reading List

In 2013 when I decided to start a blog I spent several months deciding how I could conceivably keep going about every two weeks for at least five years. Eventually I came up with the idea of using the short stories I had written in the 1990s as a springboard for ideas for each month of the year. The idea developed into a story itself which revolved around a year in the life of the Angel Writers Group. These are the themes for each month of the year as dictated by the work of my imaginary group.

January’s story is ‘Consumed’ and its themes are music and solitude.

The February story is ‘Lucy’s Lucky Dress’ with the themes of romance and poetry.

March is ‘Duchess Doom’ concerned with technology and games.

April is ‘The Gathering’ and its themes are family and parenthood.

May’s story is called ‘Deja Vu’ and has the themes of groups and inspiration.

June’s themes are nature and seasons for the story ‘Living Rooms’.

July is ‘Image Makers’ and its themes education and travel.

August’s story is the ‘Institute of New Food’ with its themes of work and identity.

September’s story is ‘The Creature’ with the themes of childhood and spirituality.

October’s themes are retirement and pastimes and its story ‘The Number 13 to Gravesend’.

November’s story is 'Urusla’s pets' which has the themes of animals and fairytales.

December’s story is ‘The Need Fairy’ and its themes dreams and space.

As well as writing their own material the group also read the work of other, well known authors. This is the list of stories the group read over the course of one year and one month, they are spooky tales of the supernatural.

      1. The bus conductor by EF Benson
2. The bloody chamber by Angela Carter
3. The listeners by Walter de la Mare
4. The veldt by Ray Bradbury
5. Disturbances in Angier Street by JS Le Fanu
6. The man whom the trees loved by Algernon Blackwood
7. The fall of the house of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
8. The ghouls by R Chetwynd Hayes
9. Number 13 by MR Jam

      10. Dracula’s guest by Bram Stoke 

      11. The blue lenses by Daphne Du Maurier.

      12. The signalman by Charles Dickens 

      13. The Little Matchgirl by Hans Christian Anderson

The beginnings of the group and their ideas can be found in my story ‘The Angel’s Retreat'.

Stargazing on SoundCloud

It is ten years, this August, since I first delved into Social Media, when I uploaded my animation Ballet Class onto YouTube. As a sort of celebration, I have joined SoundCloud and uploaded an old favourite song I have written, Stargazing, you can find it here. I don't know if I will upload any more, I will see how it goes. You can find our slide show of the song, featuring Amy's childhood Planet project pictures, here.

Amy's Games

Agatha Christie once said that the best thing you could give another human being was a happy childhood. I always tried to make Amy’s childhood as happy as I could. Part of my positive parenting endeavours was a struggle against the lure of the screen and one of the things that helped in this struggle was developing our own board and card games.

Continuing in Concert

I had my first piano lesson in 1975. Since then I have played the recorder in local Eisteddfods and music festivals, sang in a choir, participated in a college musical, completed an acting course and performed my songs in folk clubs in and around London and South East England, however it wasn’t until 2010 that I started playing classical piano pieces in public, primarily in local churches. 

Since 2010 I have developed a repertoire of over twenty pieces that I find very enjoyable both to play and to listen to. You can listen to these favourite piano pieces by going to my ‘At the piano’ playlists, which are available on YouTube and 8Tracks.

The Antique Junk Shop

        

I wrote this poem as a teenager, it was somewhat inspired by 'From beyond the grave' an old Amicus portmanteau horror movie starring Peter Cushing. I drew the old man who runs the shop and owns the cat based on Peter Cushing. You can find the poem on my WattPad adolescent poetry page and as a small montage movie on YouTube.

Last Bus Home on Wattpad

I decided to publish Last Bus Home on Wattpad before I visit NYC. The six parts of the story cover six weeks in the protaganist's life, so I shall publish one a week, between now and the end of October. Below is a summary of the story.

Last Bus Home

Wednesday nights were dark and lonely, waiting for the last bus home from college and then Miranda entered my life. She was a free spirit, mysterious and unearthly. With her came change, I could see more clearly, experiences became deeper, more meaningful, I could see the truth and the way to move forward. After Miranda I never felt alone again.

ALF @ London Bloggers

 

I joined the London Bloggers group last summer, to help myself out of the Brexit Blues and to connect with other possibly like-minded people, although my experience of life is that like minded people probably don't exist.

After some encounters online with other London Bloggers I was really looking forward to an evening out and to meeting a few of them in real life. April 25th 2017 was a cool spring evening, there was even sleet at one point, but by the time we reached the newly improved Tottenham Court Road Tube Station the weather was pleasant and sparkling.

After a pizza in posh pizza place, Vico, Amy and I made our way to the Seven Dials, Covent Garden, where the mysterious pub, the Escapologist, awaited us. We headed down the stairs to the underground bar, past the surreal mock Victorian artwork. On enquiry about the London Bloggers group we were directed to a hidden door behind a large cryptic painting, very Harry Potter.

Once inside the starry ceilinged, plush, lower basement area we proceeded to have a really good evening, meeting, among others, Abbi, organiser of the event and ex-pat, Filipino Food blogger and Elle, a fitness blogger who runs the London Bloggers group. 

 

We also met the lovely people behind Fourfits, Passionate Zoe, Page to Stage Reviews and Edward's noneedforpostcards blog. Mollie brought fitness promotional goodies with her and I had made 'Promote the Vote' cards, which all went down very well.

  

 
The Escapologist was a lovely venue for this special event and Amy and I really enjoyed the atmosphere and company, not to mention the prosecco, the passion fruit cocktails and the death by chocolate pizza.

At many social events these days it is rude to be on your smart phone engaging in social media, but the group mostly knows each other because of social media, so it all felt quite natural. I learnt something about Instagram, Twitter and hashtags which hopefully will be really useful in the future.

The evening ended with a promise of future events, karaoke or a picnic perhaps, we shall see.