After Natalie's amazing post I thought I should say a bit about why I took up the challange of being involved with Tilt.
Tilt was an idea before I got to it - I believe. It's so very long ago now. Two children both mad as hatters...but I remember little else about the idea, terrible of me I know.
I grew up - as far as memory serves...on a wild beach. Not the beach you go to on holiday with gold sand and blue water...no. This beach was rocks and grey waters, mangroves and the skeltons of boats.
I technically must have gone to school...but my memory of childhood is climbing trees, scaling rocks and picking my way through bushland...always bare foot.
On that beach my grandfather taught me to listen to the sea sing. "But the sea doesn't sing, grandpa"....but it did, and I learnt to hear it and spent hours collecting sea-worn treasures and catching up crabs with quick little child-fingers in it's ever-changing company.
It's strange but when I hear a good story - that's the feeling it gives me, bare-foot-windy-beach feeling. I started writing when I was young...the first story I remember writing was very highly praised (it was from the point of view of a playtpus) but rarely after that did I show my stories to anyone...I don't really write to be popular (though they seem to be becoming increasingly so, even to the point where spontanious tales are becoming something of an on-command party trick) - I write to get that beach feeling.
And since my family sold the house on the hill overlooking that grey and windy heaven? Since then the stories have doubled, tripled and...I only just realised that then. I think perhaps I should take a trip down there if for no other reason than to stop the writers cramp!
But to Tilt specifically I think the inspiration to take on the project is a little selfishly motivated. I remember a long time ago saying I didn't want to write a modern fantasy - but the more I thought of it, the more I realised that I didn't want to write a modern fantasy world...I wanted to write THIS world and really highlight the fantastical things about it with 'fantasy'.
This world, with it's gritty puddles and reflected rainbows...on my way to work today I drove past a tower - perhaps for water or power, but around it were arched 'windows' in a way I imagined Rapunzel (or the many other tower-involved stories in folk legends) would look...right near a main road - I see these things everywhere and that to me is far more fun to write.
If monsters exist don't just plonk big teeth on a shapeless furry body...give it reason, history...as a bear has, as an accountant has, as a rock or a building has - make it twined into the world and not just click and dragged there.
And that fact that I wrote that rant without even thinking is why I think I took on Tilt...because I'm in love with monsters.
Tilt was an idea before I got to it - I believe. It's so very long ago now. Two children both mad as hatters...but I remember little else about the idea, terrible of me I know.
I grew up - as far as memory serves...on a wild beach. Not the beach you go to on holiday with gold sand and blue water...no. This beach was rocks and grey waters, mangroves and the skeltons of boats.
I technically must have gone to school...but my memory of childhood is climbing trees, scaling rocks and picking my way through bushland...always bare foot.
On that beach my grandfather taught me to listen to the sea sing. "But the sea doesn't sing, grandpa"....but it did, and I learnt to hear it and spent hours collecting sea-worn treasures and catching up crabs with quick little child-fingers in it's ever-changing company.
It's strange but when I hear a good story - that's the feeling it gives me, bare-foot-windy-beach feeling. I started writing when I was young...the first story I remember writing was very highly praised (it was from the point of view of a playtpus) but rarely after that did I show my stories to anyone...I don't really write to be popular (though they seem to be becoming increasingly so, even to the point where spontanious tales are becoming something of an on-command party trick) - I write to get that beach feeling.
And since my family sold the house on the hill overlooking that grey and windy heaven? Since then the stories have doubled, tripled and...I only just realised that then. I think perhaps I should take a trip down there if for no other reason than to stop the writers cramp!
But to Tilt specifically I think the inspiration to take on the project is a little selfishly motivated. I remember a long time ago saying I didn't want to write a modern fantasy - but the more I thought of it, the more I realised that I didn't want to write a modern fantasy world...I wanted to write THIS world and really highlight the fantastical things about it with 'fantasy'.
This world, with it's gritty puddles and reflected rainbows...on my way to work today I drove past a tower - perhaps for water or power, but around it were arched 'windows' in a way I imagined Rapunzel (or the many other tower-involved stories in folk legends) would look...right near a main road - I see these things everywhere and that to me is far more fun to write.
If monsters exist don't just plonk big teeth on a shapeless furry body...give it reason, history...as a bear has, as an accountant has, as a rock or a building has - make it twined into the world and not just click and dragged there.
And that fact that I wrote that rant without even thinking is why I think I took on Tilt...because I'm in love with monsters.
~ Roslyn
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