A Characters in my Mind Noted -

Taming wild thoughts into micro-fiction and capturing character stories.

Noted. A series of Notes on nothing in particular. Some direct observations, others fragments of fiction that breeze into my brain. Words found drifting by my mind during sleepless midnights, steady rhythms of rail journeys and everywhere in between. All of them refusing to be ignored until they are committed to paper or some such.

Noted began as a way to make writing a habit for my broken brain. It quickly morphed into a place to collect highlights from Notes (I write most days), to an outlet to try things without my ego / inner critic banning me from ever hitting publish on a proper post containing them. Because notes are the seeds that we sow, where good things always start, right?

Share your story snippets and idea seeds (if you feel comfortable doing so). I’d love for you to add your own “Notes” in the comments.

I’m a habitual hoarder of dreams. And craft items I’ll never use.

Sun. Set.

A clear sea blue that fades into a delicious nectarine sorbet. Beneath that, on the horizon, a flushed cheeks blush that gently brushes over the landscape. A hand skimming water and feeling the ripples between its fingertips.

This poetic show was followed by some sort of seductive lavender haze, that was probably something nasty like smog, but looked like the sky was softly beckoning bedtime.

All these words, I still can’t explain how it feels to be so lucky to witness such magic.

Names. A steady string of them / Announcements that come in a range of voices, from the timid student doctor to the brash tired nurses / Footsteps, so many feet moving from space to space, person to person.

All that movement. Hospitals seem like really loud ants nests.

Serena is more of a vision than a character in my head. Whilst Astrid wandered in with her story fully formed and refused to leave, Serena is waiting patiently in an LA diner. All 5ft 11 of her, surrounded by pastel sorbet colours, chrome and dreams.

-

In conversation with her friend…

“I want to be me. Actually, no, I need to be the me-ist me that ever lived. If I’m ferociously me, it’s a gift to the world! (She uses a lot of sweeping hand gestures, unafraid to take up all the kinds of space possible)

I am smart and funny and kind. I have courage that is apparently quite boundless and I have an innate want to help people live their lives to be ferociously themselves. Because we’re all wandering around wearing different suits, playing “dress up”, and it’s serving no one to be these dull and faded carbon copies of something we think we ought to be.

Nine times out of ten, if we stop putting energy into trying to stuff ourselves into suits that don’t fit (we’re winding up exhausted before we’ve even left the house and it breaks my soul) we become rays of light that illuminate others lives and help them become the them-ist them versions of themselves, and so on and so forth (she really said that in a sentence, out loud, this is how she talks) until everyone is free of pretending. Except the people who are themselves acting, but that is the naked version of themselves, not the dress up one in some barely understandable and peculiar twist.

I just get so tired, thinking of it all.”

If you know someone who would like to read some fairly nonsensical (but oddly charming) words caught from the space around my head, set them free…

———— & the fish.

As he explored his new space he looked like an angel. Gossamer white wings for fins, a tiny heavenly body, drifting, suspended in seeming nothingness.

To the corner of the tank he came, looked out and for a little while they stared at each other. Taking in every tiny detail, reaching out to one anothers souls.

There they were, two beings meant for something bigger, destined for so much more, bound by the trappings they were dealt instead of freedom.

They were the same, you see. The lady and the fish. Each imprisoned in beautiful bodies bound to small, but carefully made worlds, her body just another version of his glass walls, endless possibility, invisibly contained.

In August 1999 I met the love of my life.

Two in one week as it goes:

one turned out to be a cheat and a liar,

I married the other.

Tilda. (more Tilda here)

“I hate you. I absolutely, unequivocally, fucking HATE YOU! Is what she wanted to scream. Over and over. What was, in fact, screaming in stereo in her head right at that moment. Instead, she quietly uttered the words “ you’re an utter monster and with every fibre of my being, I detest you. It saddens me that atoms were ever wasted on your grim excuse for a body, and that someone birthed you at all, is a total shame. You are a dried-in tree sap stain in the fabric of my life and I. Am done. With you.

That was the beginning of a divorce that was bitter. Not like 100% dark chocolate or black coffee. But cyanide bitter.”

-

Maybe the beginning of this exchange as per an entry in Tilda’s journal…

“I felt seen, cared for, buoyant even, at the thought of being the centre of your thoughts. Then I got that feeling, when I found out that what you did was not for me. The same feeling as when you were cheating and you left dinner to answer the calls.

Both times I knew I wasn’t the first thought on your mind, just a tolerant bystander with a front row view.”

I swear my garden is in a different time zone to the rest of my home. I just went out to do a quick ten minute job.

That was three hours ago.

“My origin story will make you weep.”

- Blackbird

“I steal food because I’m an adrenaline junky.”

- Robin

“I’m terrified of heights. But I like being eaten even less!”

- Worm

I write Notes almost daily and they can be found here. Alternatively, if you haven’t already, subscribe for your Noted monthly roundup of highlights and unseen notes…