AJ Farries’ blog

In the Woods the Other Day
Graffito at the waterfall, the bridge crossing. It read: Dinky the Pirate King was here. Of course, first notion is to dismiss this as some teen playing at being a king. A bloody pirate king at that. But then the mind shifts. Who am I to say that Dinky the Pirate King really doesn't exist? Maybe he does! He's probably just popped over from the dimension where pirates rule the woods as well as the seas.

COW QUIPS
Believe in possibility.

Some dreams die of old age. Others are murdered.

Spare Change
I hung out with my friend Kristen recently. We talked of cabbages and kings, and many splendid things. Realised that, when I began writing 'Predestination', and that whole epochal era, was when I changed. Dramatically. I went into hypo-drive. Accomplishments were made because they had to be: there was no alternative to what must be done. Externally, I showed nothing but what I wanted people to see in me. Internally, I showed myself nothing but what I knew was there. That is when i began to write my life, each day, each event, as I go about writing a book. Sequentially. Dropping the right word where it needed to be. Seeing tomorrow unfold as the touch of an idea against my brow. Back these five years and some months ago, I hadn't realised how much I changed. It wasn't until I lost my best friend Jen (not because I'd done anything wrong, or she'd done something to me, but just because I was so different) that I realised I really had changed. A gigantic, cavernous change.

Everything On A Sunday
I'm not having a very perky morning. Mum left, too, to go back to WV and her new house, with the kitchen she despises, and I really didn't have a chance to talk to her about all the stuff on my mind. I'm feeling even more sequestered and isolated. And everyone has their own lives, their own problems, to think about. You can't frown in this house, either, without some sort of consequence. Grandma was trying to get me to smile. I said, 'I have worries . . . I need to think about them to fix them.'

Unusual, isn't it? Normally I don't worry. But now I'm worrying.

I would like to meet Dinky the Pirate King. How does one become a pirate king, exactly?