For some, it’s easy
To lift their hands and praise Him,
Yet, is it sincere?
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
There is so much talk about chronic illness nowadays, and everyone seems to think that they know exactly what it means to live with one.
Often, it seems like it almost has become a one size fits all. There are buzz words, like ‘Spoonies’, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking this, but there’s a lot more to chronic illness than these words.
There are so many people suffering with all manner of chronic illnesses, every day, and the symptoms of those illnesses all take different forms.
I have Facial Arthromyalgia, caused by Temporo Mandibular Joint Dysfunction. Basically, I clench my teeth so much, and so hard, (thanks anxiety), that I have screwed up my jaw, and more often than not, my face feels like I’ve been through a mega intense work out at the gym, except that the associated pain doesn’t ease.
Imagine walking around with your whole head and neck feeling like your legs would after an hour long run.
My TMJD means that I have regular (often daily) headaches, which usually shift to migraines. My neck aches continually, and most of the time, it hurts to eat.
Simple things like yawning, terrify me, because they mean that I will need to open my mouth wide, and when I do this, my jaw cracks, when the cartilage moves out of its proper place.
When my jaw is particularly bad, I have to cut up my food into tiny pieces, or just opt for soft foods. It’s at these times when things like porridge and jelly (jello) are my best friends.
Another nasty side effect is that I find it difficult to sleep. This isn’t because of actual pain at the time, but because I know that when I do sleep, I will begin clenching, and that will make my jaw even worse. I can always tell when I’ve had a bad night, because I always wake up with a migraine.
The thing is, I’ve learned to live with it, and I know when I can push myself, and when I have to just give in, but there are only so many times that you can tell someone that you have a headache, before they begin to think you’re just making excuses.
I guess, the point I’m trying to make is that it doesn’t matter how many buzz words they come up with, or how many times it is explained, we (those living with these illnesses) are really the only ones who know what it is like.
For those of you reading this, who are fellow sufferers, I want to tell you to listen to your body. You know better than anyone else, how much you can handle, and don’t you dare let anyone push you past what you are able to do.
I am standing beside you. I know your suffering, and I know what it is like to fight a battle that no one else sees. You are not alone.
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
It seems so simple,
It looks so easy,
Just tell the truth,
It’ll all be breezy.
Betrayal hurts,
And lies do too,
Whether they come,
From me, or you.
So try to be honest,
And try to be kind,
So that friends,
Can stay friends.
Then everything mends.
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
As a writer, descriptions are something that is fairly important to me. I am constantly trying to come up with new ways to talk about things.
There are so many words in the English language, and so many of them have been placed together in certain patterns in order to describe things, but really, what we need to do is to try and look for any possible different ways to illustrate the images that we’re trying to create in the minds of our readers.
Sometimes I find that these words are more forthcoming than at other times… and sometimes, trying to find that ‘right’ combination of words is like trying to get blood out of a stone.
The thing is, that there’s no telling when the good and bad days are going to come. All we can do as writers is to be constantly trying to expand our vocabulary, and to be ever vigilant to try and catch the words when they float by us.
Something that I am going to try and do is to keep a collection of phrases… snippets of words that come into my head, in the hopes that I will one day, be able to say that I have found the exact ordering of words for the description that I want to write.
The thing that I find with descriptions, and it’s something that I am as guilty of as anyone else; is that I only ever seem to utilise one or two of the senses, rather than looking at using all five of them.
As writers, we need to be overly careful to make sure that we use every one of the senses, because this is the way in which we experience the world, and so, it follows that it should also be the way that our characters experience the world; to not do so, is to render our characters almost as disabled in some way.
So, when writing our descriptions, we must try and make sure that we talk about what our characters can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. These little details are the sorts of things that will add flavour to our writing.
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
At the start of the year, I began a project to complete an illustration a week. This is an update so far.
My first illustration, was a digital painting of a rather tipsy mouse, who was celebrating the new year. I used procreate on the ipad pro to do this piece. I am relatively new to digital painting, but I very much enjoyed working on it, and am excited to do some more digital artwork.
My second piece was a mushroom fairy house, done on 300lb hot press watercolour paper, using FaberCastell Polychromos pencils.
I wrote a review of them, which you can read here:
The third piece was a bit of an experiment. I did a coloured pencil piece of three sunflowers, on pastelmat paper. I have never used pastelmat for coloured pencils before. I read about an artist that was using it online, and thought I would try it. However, I found that I wasn’t that struck on it as a surface for coloured pencils. I am going to try again, possibly next week, and I’ll post a proper review of it when I do.
My fourth piece was a caterpillar, which was also a digital piece. This was a very quick piece, as, if I’m honest, I was running out of time. I used it as a practice in not being such a perfectionist with my work.
My fifth and final piece for January was a ladybird sat on a leaf, which was a digital drawing. It was only a quick illustration, but I still like it and it’s adding to my practice of using procreate.
So that’s it… five weeks down, and five illustrations finished. I’m excited to see what this next month brings.
Watch this space…
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
Standing on the edge,
The very verge of consciousness,
Reality slips away,
I take step after step.
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
I am ashamed to say that until this year, I had never read a Neil Gaiman book. It wasn’t through choice, particularly. I simply made the (foolish) assumption that his books were more towards the horror end of the novel spectrum, and I’m too much of a wuss to read horror.
Anyway, in December 2018, my friend started a book club, and the book chosen, off the back of several recommendations, was Neverwhere. I bought a copy of the book in hardback format, and got the illustrated version because… Chris Riddell… need I say more… 🙂
And so I began. The story got moving almost instantly, and after a more than momentary urge to punch Jessica in the face, I was happy to see Door appear. Her arrival on the scene was the true signal of the start of the story, and once meeting her, there was no going back.
I tried to limit myself to only reading a chapter a day, because I didn’t want it to be over too quickly, but on more than one occasion, I found myself reading two or three chapters.
The plot is amazingly simple and complex all at the same time, with the characters pulled along on a journey, which changes them completely; particularly Richard, who turns from doormat to hero in the course of the book.
The characters are all incredibly believable. Even Croup and Vandemar, who, let’s face it, are despicable human beings. I found that when I was reading, they were not words on a page, but hitmen who were lurking around every corner, and when the Door and her party happened across them, I, too, jumped as they did.
I have always been fascinated with the idea of cities being built above cities, and this idea immediately appealed to me, but Gaiman’s approach to this, where place names became literal, and where people from one place, be it ‘above’ or ‘below’ could not actually exist in the other, was a completely different concept, which gripped me straight away.
I loved the fact that Richard, having gone back to his old life, finds that he is no longer satisfied, and that he must find a way back to London Below (after telling Jessica exactly where to go, of course!) That was worth the worry that he was just going to go back to his old life, which for me would have been an altogether, far more disappointing ending.
In all, I found the world, locations, and characters absolutely believable, and whenever I opened the pages, found myself being transported to the world of the characters, which is what I look for in a book.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in dark fantasy, and a good bit of escapism. I loved it, and am looking forward to diving into Gaiman’s other works.
If you’d like to get updates from me once a week, you can click here… 🙂
Li Carter is a writer, artist and crafter. She lives in South Wales, UK, with her family, and five rescue dogs. She’s on Twitter @rbcreativeli , Facebook: Rainbow Butterfly Creative, and Instagram @rainbowbutterflycreative and is the author of My Only True Friend: The Beginning. She is currently working on a new series titled The QuickSilver Chronicles. She is the original Rainbow Butterfly, and wants to fill an ever darkening world with a little bit of beauty and creativity.
Rainbow Butterfly Creative 