Mr. MASK brings down the House and Lordy LORDY, look whose forty!? Scream! Scream!

  You're walking along a path...a dark path, that twists and winds further into the black trees surrounding you.

You are faced with a sign, leaning so far over that it seems nearly to be bound to the ground, yet you are still able to see the words printed in cursive there:

'The Sinister Meeting Room has been momentarily moved to a deeper part of the forest. If it is still your desire to find your way through the twists and turns of our merry, merry house to find a table to sit at then please proceed with reasonable measures of caution and frivolity.'

    So you want to be a Word Craftsman...a shape-shifter of the written speech? To make people forgive you with what you have merely written or to so embed in their mind a series of sentences or poetry that it doesn't leave them for years after: if at all.

    To create words that become more than words and can change people and worlds.

     I am not the best writer in the world or anywhere near the closest good one, but I do love to write (even if I often procrastinate and disbelieve at times), and the fact is, I have found that at times in my life - a lot of times - words have rescued me. They've aided me when I've had to reconcile a relationship with someone I cared about, and they've helped people to see the words as actual worlds and images when they've read what I've written.

   I'm not boasting, merely saying that anyone who has writing and its world of galaxies and forests in their heart...that when they want to achieve something so badly with their writing and words...well usually they'll get what they desire. Maybe because they have an affinity with the words they write, I'm not sure.

   It's like with surfers - and so many of my family members and friends surf and are dedicated to that lifestyle in heart or action - but for them, they can go out there to seek the waves and when it's in their heart...well the sea opens its' doors to them. They catch waves and find peace and they respect the ocean. A respect that causes the ocean to allow them their small time playing in the waves.

   Lately though I've been thinking about how it feels and is to write. I read somewhere that there is a phenomena called a through-line in the process of writing. I know what they mean, in that the only way to actually make it to the end of any novel or poem or art piece is to find that central, glowing line that will pull you through to the end.

  It's so strange though, when you actually think about it. When I'm writing, yes I always know where I'm going and I can see the end of my book, more that it's just taking all the small steps to get there and just tapping out the words. But if you don't focus on that central line it can become so crazy. Even when I do follow it, I can feel all around me - like some chaotic, shifting grey forest of other bits of the story pressing against my mind from my right and left. I think this chaos is all the other parts and details of the story that fall in place as you plough your way through to the ultimate point in your novel.

   Ah yes, ah yes.

    You know the most curious part of my stories I found was that all of my characters names...well, when I looked up the meaning of said names after they were given, it shocked me to realize how well the names suited the characters. As though someone had been guiding me when I chose (or when they chose) their names.

   Have you ever wanted to be lost, to smoke a galaxy...see and hear the sky shifting? Become what you're afraid of?

Those who wish to dare...to find the Sinister Meeting Room again, need only ask by way of the Dastardly Cotton Tree.

  How, you may ask, will I know the Dastardly Cotton Tree from all the other trees?

  Well dear friend, most likely there'll be a gramophone issuing forth some kind of music or another from beneath its' wood. You should also encounter a cat with pale wings in its' branches.

This cat is named MASK and she/he/it...well I've heard that this feline prefers people to refer to it as they, but so is so does. Sometime's they're black in colour, sometimes they're white.

In thought of your well-being however dear friend, pray that you find MASK when they are a black colour, as the white version of this fabled creature is as unruly as a jury consisting of goats and mice.

     There is a simple thing you must say to MASK so as to find your way back to the Sinister Meeting Room:

     'Oh MASK dear friend, a song to wake the dead, 

For you are most esteemed Decision-er,

      Show me the way, through a point, a tail, a wail.

To the road leading backwards and forward again.'

   

     Well MASK is most likely to smile, though sometimes they tend to howl, and hopefully they will speak to you. You listen and watch, and after a moment of pondering, this feline looks down at you and this issues from within:

 'Follow the road past the marked tree,

Turn right then left then move straight ahead,

You'll come to a bathtub, poised on Cliff-edge,

and my dear, dear sir...I invite you to hop in,

Your weight should cause this pale chariot to slide,

Down the mountainside...

Do not scream (if you can help it), 

but if you can't, then make sure you bellow it,

You'll land in a pond, filled with snails and gaols and sails,

Please don't dawdle, swim out instead,

On the shore will sit a door...please enter inside,

There you will find, a whole new sky,

Dance beneath the clouds and say hello to the ghosts,

the Sinister Meeting Room you say?

Well you should be happy to know...

That no where is such a thing confined to four walls, 

and the only place I can lead you to is your own front door,

So take in your heart that you carry your goals,

and that finding the way back is just being in the know.'

    One last little thing, if you would humour me, is that I wanted to write down a small poem I wrote about otherly things, and a video clip from YouTube about these peculiar noises in the sky that people heard one day:

   Until fever strikes us and death makes his call, let us laugh and play and while away, the days of our summer, and maybe we shall learn to touch the stars,

  Much Love,

  Miss CLScarlett xx

Tonight.

Tonight I looked into the eyes of a queen and saw myself. 
   She spoke heart to heart, in a whisper only I could hear.
She mistook me for someone else yet she understood me better than anyone...
    Tonight I endured a pain, 
a pain that was not entirely mine. That boiled and swept over my barriers, telling me to give in...
    Tonight I was called back to the deep by the hands I had created. And in their eyes I saw fake smiles, that masked the hunger, the will to tear me down.
    Tonight I sat upon a ridge, silence my only guest, as I watched those people,
hungry yet glad, that forever I'd stand on the edge.