Tag: narratives

The Reason Today

On By taniacreationsIn creations, English Australia, whyLeave a comment

The reason I write today is because I need to write the narratives I want to read.
I need to make my own story and read my own power in my storyline and not let others determine what is available for me to read.
I need to create in the world the possibilities I see in my mind’s eye.
I’m tired of the same old story where everyone conforms to what is dictated by the same old tales and tired run-through formulas.
I want fresh, unused, strange, and unique; my voice deserves to be out there.
Today I am all powerful.

The fellowship of Rainwalkers

On By taniacreationsIn daily adventures, roaming the earthLeave a comment

Walking in heavy rain is like being part of a tribe.

There’s an instant connection to anyone else braving the elements, holding the umbrella for fear of going Poppins with the wind, a daring to the hurricane to Dorothy you.
I get so many ‘good mornings’ and some belly laughs at the absurdity of the cats and dogs down-pouring. Sometimes I forego the umbrella altogether and let the drops fall to the face, looking up, tongue out, like a frangipani leaf.

Before, most people had to go to the office. Not now. Walking is a deliberate choice, a good one, turns out.

I feel alive. I feel like a knight on a quest. I feel connected to the other brave knights on the road.

Narrative Ghosts

On By taniacreationsIn English Australia, whoLeave a comment

I’ve noticed that we carry ghosts with us, all the time, hundreds of them. More, if we have narrative minds.
There’s the boy from fifth grade that was going to notice you, and hold your hand; the audition that you were going to master and be chosen as the soloist and that would change your path forever, and so many others.
They happen at the moment people make a decision, different from the one you want, and your fantasies created another path for them — in your spirit — and a ghost is born, tethered to your soul.
You are surrounded. Let them go…

A Multicultural Ghost, Fio da Meada

On By taniacreationsIn booksLeave a comment

Fio da Meada is the first book I have published. It was the first time I got over the fear of putting my writing out there and self-published at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil, my mother language.

Fio da Meada, Cover

The stories are about a ghost who finds himself following a woman in the Manly Ferry, in Sydney. This fiction is based on the stories I have collected from my grandfather’s real-life. He was unique, with many funny tales, he was someone who enriched his life — before mobile phones and even telephones — with pranks and imagination.

The strongest image I have of him is this handsome older man, poorly dressed, with shorts my grandmother had been begging to be thrown out for years; with the softest shirt with a couple of wholes. We are seated in the small fishing pier in front of our ranch, for hours in silence. I can smell fish scales and worms. He is like a statue looking at the tip of the fishing rod. When he gets tired he gets up, find a large rock and throw it in the water creating a large splash. He ruins the fishing for me and the others, father, sister, cousins; then he walks away laughing out loud while we scream at him.

vovo01  avos_0002.jpg

If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:

You can read Kindle books in any device.

The Structure

On By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

How I structure my ideas is firstly by keeping notes in any way on my reach to put down ideas. In paper, on the phone, in voice notes and written bits and pieces. Early morning, middle of the night, and during the day.

Then I expand these notes to include the details that kept coming to me with or without my authorisation. The filling of these ideas assault me in dreams, in the shower, when I go to the toiled during my working day. But they come more when I am walking.

Next I start writing what needs to be put down, the parts that if I don’t make real will keep annoying me incessantly, these are the texts that won’t go away, that will fill my thoughts and ideas until they are resting in a physical form.

Following I have to organise where it all goes and write the other bits, the ones I had only the sketches for before.

Depending on the project it doesn’t have a pre-created structure. The book I have written in Portuguese, Simplesmente Gerva, has been created in a series of emails between my co-author and myself, and we never knew what the other was going to write.

I am now writing the continuation of this book and, although I am writing on my own, I am being faithful to the proposal. I don’t know much of what is going to happen to the character, I sit down to write and let him take me wherever he wants.

Sometimes a whole idea is born from one thought, one example is the one I mentioned in another post: what would a writer do if they didn’t have the means to write and which situation would that be.

To surmise, I impose no rules to myself. Whatever works, works.

The Technique

On By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

I write using the many parts of myself. I write using both my home language, Portuguese, and my adopted language, the one of my fantasies and dreams, English. One day I may write in French, who knows. I write using the young me that lives inside and the older one. The wise and the silly. I write using my South American style, some fantastic reality, chopping off sentences (see the one just before) while writing really long paragraphs in other times.

I write with my own sense of fun, my original abilities and I have upgraded my technique with a Masters degree in Arts – Creative Writing from UTS. I am far from a literary writer, (as far as I can, actually), I aim to write in a straightforward way in plain English (or plain Portuguese, from Brazil). This was not without challenges during my studies, it was difficult to separate what was valid feedback on my style and what was my own Brazilian flavour, or what was because of the simplicity in the style. I guess I am still searching for this distinction.

I write following mostly the inspiration and the voice I found when I was seventeen, but try to give it a bit more style and maturity. I keep honing the knowledge, keep reading, listening and viewing anything that will enrich and feed my writing.

What do you Write?

On By taniacreationsIn what1 Comment

Whenever I tell someone that writing is my passion they come up with the difficult question ‘what do you write?’.

‘I write letters in a blank page’ doesn’t really explain, does it?

What I do is creative writing, short stories, blogs or novels. No poetry, no journalistic pieces. I write fiction and non-fiction, although my non-fiction reads like fiction. I love writing with humour but I also get into deep depressing stories and tales, at times.

My main subjects are day-to-day adventures and relationships. I like romance.

I would probably say that there is an element of sensuality in my writing. I am an kinaesthetic person and movement of bodies attract me even in bi-dimensional black and white letters.

I write anything that inspires me.

The Positive Narrative

On By taniacreationsIn whyLeave a comment

Searching for the reasons why I feel my writing is as essential as breathing for me, I looked at what I like in life.

I have a passion for narratives, tales, characters. In books and films, give me stories I can follow, give me well constructed characters. Give me profundity of personality and longer accounts. I love reading and watching TV series and movies; I love talking to my friends and following their lives and my favourite subjects are relationships and discussing the intricacies of how the world works.

Following that logic, I have discovered that I write to be part of the construction of people’s narratives, to influence (even if it happens to be in a small way) their choices and fate.

A fuzziness invades me every time I hear someone laughing at something I wrote, or when they say that something I created influenced their lives in a good way. I write to promote positive change and accept that sometimes it can be seen in a negative light.

I know, from experience, that changing the path of our lives is very difficult and I wish to share my stories to help creating courage in my readers to change when necessary and always move forward in their own lives.