troubled by spam

i try to keep this blog of mine for specific posts regarding my artwork, but i just had to post about this…

i’m starting to get my fair share of spam. very often these comments look complimentary to my own posts, but are infact just meaningless words and phrases strung together which link back to paysites for one thing or another.

however, yesterday i found this in my spam folder..

it follows that typical pattern which demonstrates a complete lack of language and grammar skillz. the writer has little credible contact information too. at this point i hit the delete option. however, it was at that point when i noticed which particular post this comment was made on…

‘plasterboard falls.’

 

for those of you that don’t know, plasterboard falls is a story i wrote which uses the theme of child abduction, imprisonment, and subsequent murder as it’s backdrop to explore the character’s of these victims.

now that you have context, please re-read the spam…

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day one in the house

“day one in the plasterboard falls house, and all the residents are getting ready for bed…”

i do hope that anyone familiar with the british TV show, big brother, read that in their best geordie accent?

i am infact geordie myself, and at times i use a big brother quote to prove to people my ethnicity. or occasionally i will resort back to that timeless geordie phrase, “kawasaki motorcycle”.  [although if im honest, my accent was never particualry strong in the first place!]

anyone else have a specific phrases that exaggerates the limits of their local dialect?

 

anyway. the original point of this post, was to say that i’ve just posted the latest chapter of plasterboard falls. i was trying to recap when i got distracted. i shall continue…

brick girl has had quite an eventful day, what with dying and all that! but it is getting late now and everyone is winding down for the night…

read chapter 6 here

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outside the walls of plasterboard falls

the last time we saw brick girl, she had just set off exploring the new residence that she’d found herself in.  i wonder what she’ll discover about this place…

 read chapter 5 here

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words and pictures

it’s taken over a month, but i’ve managed to upload the next chapter of my little story, plasterboard falls.

i must apologise for the delay. it wasn’t that i hadn’t written it, quite the opposite – it’s been written for years! but rather that i wanted to have an illustration to go with each chapter, and the one i had just was not up to scratch.  is that a bit silly of me? especially given that they’re only little sketches. i mean, surely images should not get in the way of a written tale…?

read chapter 4 – morning subdues mourning

or, if you haven’t looked at these yet, it would make sense to start at the beginning. hit that link at the top of the page

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when zombies walked and liverpool burned

normally these paintings feature a couple of my artistic endeavours that i have blogged about during the month, but this month i have posted about virtually every event on the painting.

this means two things – one: that i have been very focussed on my artworks. and two: i currently have no social life

august was the culmination of about 3 months work getting my educational life back on track [the final project of which was the alice portraits.]  inorder to achieve this i’ve slowly cut myself of from people and the distractions that they bring. but now that im done, i find it’s rather difficult to return into those circles. tis indeed a curious situation to tackle!

the most socialable thing i did last month was to participate in a zombie walk – my own little gang of undead buddies are featured in the painting. i got oodles of fab photos on the day too, the best of which i’d posted already here. a few days later, riots took place and liverpool burned.  the official line is that the events were unrelated.  pffft!

in these paintings, there have been a number of continuing threads concerning people and events [which are more than simply the graphic tools i use to track certain things]. and after a 5 month stretch [since i started the paintings], one of these has came to an end. deadmau5 is no longer. there hasn’t been a single dead mouse in the house. i havent even seen a living one either. i can only assume they’re avoiding the place after hearing rumours about the cryptozoological project i have planned  ;]

im happy to report that i picked up a new skill this month – and it was a direct result of these paintings! i learned ‘sign language numbers’. i always track the dates of the month on the sides of the paintings, and was looking for new ways to record it. a fellow blogger [murphysrun] suggested ‘sign language’. ”fab idea,” i thought. but using all my powers of google-fu i was unable to find a drawn record of numbers 1-31, so i had to learn it and then figure out how to paint it myself. 1 through 5 were the easiest!

this month im using morse code [which i just know will be handy during the many apocalypse scenarios that i will be faced with in the coming years]. date tracking  suggestions for future months anyone..?

chris z

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grandmama’s house

i’ve just uploaded the 3rd chapter of my plasterboard falls story…

this one gives a little background to girl who has been at the house the longest – lil’ red.  read chapter 3…

or if you havent had a look at this tale yet, it makes sense to begin at the beginning…

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the girl between the walls

my last post referred to a story i wrote some years ago. well, i rooted through my sketchbook boxes and found a version of the story i’d printed out – it was dated ‘may 2005’.  i sat down and read the entire thing afresh. to my surprise, i really enjoyed it .

the tale is told in a rhyming panameter [is that even the right term?], and i felt some parts were too forced and i’d sacrificed storyline to make the words flow. so i’ve rewritten a few verses, and now hope it stands up a little better.  but i guess you can decide for yourself as ive posted the first chapters.

“brick girl” [pencil sketch. 2004] 

ive added page links on the side navigation bar, but please read the introduction first – as im not convinced this will be to everyone’s taste.  and please let me know what you think too – feedback is always welcome, good or bad! 

incidentally, this entire story was sparked from a single line in another story i wrote.  it was about a nightmarish nursery. where sometimes, at night, if you listened really carefully …you could hear singing! these sounds were made by the girl who was bricked up between the walls. this is her tale…  

this is the story of brick girl 

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plasterboard falls

last week i connected with a novelist called jw manus [please check out their blog]. typically, it was the tag ‘zombie’ which led me to jaye’s blog – but i found myself staying to read the posts regarding the differences between standard press versus self publication.

i dabbled with creative writing a good many years back. a poem here, a short story there.. and even though i didnt mean to, i began to write a story. just few lines at first.. but it grew and grew until id been workin on it for several months. the story grew and it absorbed more time. the problem with doing something like this though, is that because i never meant to start it, i didnt know how to finish it.  so i typed it up and showed it to a few people, i even read the first chapter at my creative writing group.

“oh my christopher, what a dark mind you have!” was the overwhelming reaction!  indeed.

the general concensus was that while the story had some creative merit, it was impossibly dark. nobody would be willing to read a story like this. one suggestion to make it lighter was something along the lines of “it  would be much more palatable if all the characters were dying from cancer.” 

being the artist that i am, it was impossible to write without also drawing. i drew a fair amount of  sketches, illustrations and even a few paintings based around the characters. this image below was my vision for a potential book cover to complement the story.

“the lost girls of plasterboard falls” [acrylic on canvas, finished in photoshop+painter. circa 2005]

the image should give a flavour of the story. grim huh? oh, and yeah – im afraid the entire thing is written in rhyme. looking back, im not convinced this is a good thing – but i can only assume i’d been reading tim burton’s oyster boy at the time.

so, i briefly considered self publishing [which is where my interest in jaye’s posts comes in!]. however, i quickly realised that i didnt have the knowledge, skills, or finances to go down this route.  alongside all of the sketches and character illustrations id been working on, i packaged my story away.  and its been in that cardboard grave for over 5 years..

but maybe its time to dig out that old corpse and see how it looks in the cold light of the day?

“the lost girls of plasterboard falls” [detail]

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