opportune-moment

Oh dear God... I haven't posted a journal in seven months...

So, I'm gonna be away for the next two weeks

Also, I've decided that I'm gonna stop putting my project stuff up on here... I'm just going to be doing it as a series of vlogs instead.

So, ttfn

Love you all

This journal won't be about the project, so read it if you want.

I just feel angry. All the time. And I don't know where the anger comes from, or what it's created by, but wherever I go I feel like there's a lion inside my chest that I just have to let out.

If I'm on the street I'll rip pieces of bark and dead leaves off of trees and break them up, then throw them away. I hit stuff with sticks. I throw screwdrivers around in my backyard. I scratch my arms with my fingernails and sometimes I pull out my hair. I just need stuff to destroy and break.
I stab chopping boards with knives and I snap pencils and paintbrushes.
If there was a cupboard or something that nobody wanted I'd just smash it up with a hockey stick or something like that.

I just want to yell and scream and swear at some people.

I think half of the problem is that about 80% of people think that I'm completely happy and nothing is wrong at all - because that's how I look. But I just feel either dead to the world or so hyped up I could punch somebody.

Whenever I close my eyes, my face hurts and my eyes feel like rocks. Whenever I lay down or lean against a wall my head throbs and my chest feels like it's ripping apart.

I can't sleep regularly - normally I wake up about four or five times every night, and I usually have either nightmares or just horrible dreams.
I can't make decisions, remember details or concentrate for very long.

I'm seeing a psychologist soon I hope, but I just don't know.

I have no idea what to do.

I just feel so broken all the time.

I don't know.

I've recently come to realise how gruesome fairy tales actually are. If you think about them hard enough, they actually have very dark overtones. I can see why Agatha Christie used them so much in her stories – they were a chilling, horrifying source of subliminal terror. Perfect for the Queen of Crime.

The poem used in "And Then There Were None", was originally called "Ten Little Injuns", written by Septimus Winter in 1868 for a minstrel show. In 1869, the poem was re-written by Frank Green and given a new title – "Ten Little Niggers". However, this name was becoming ever more racially sensitive as time went by, the name was changed to "Indians", and, again, to "Soldiers".

The basic premise of the poem is that there are ten of these characters, and, one by one, they die in different ways, until the last one gets lonely and hangs himself. In the story, each character represents one verse in the poem, and they die just like the soldiers.

In one of Agatha Christie's most famous plays, "The Mousetrap", the poem "Three Blind Mice" is used. The killer (who must NOT be named) attempts to kill three people.

Other plays of hers that use nursery rhymes are A Pocket Full of Rye; Hickory, Dickory, Dock; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe and Five Little Pigs.

I think that she was so clever to use nursery rhymes like this because nursery rhymes are about ordinary people or things doing unordinary things. Take Jack and Jill, for example. Jack and Jill go up the hill to fetch water – they both fall down and Jack breaks his crown. Even today, most pint glasses in the UK have a line cutting them in half with a crown on it.
Were they pushed?

One that has ALWAYS creeped me out was The Pied Piper. I remember staying at my grandmother's house and it was always my least favourite story. But, the good thing about the version I was told was that it was the original version. The scarier version.
In the tale, we have a village that's overrun with rats. A piper in rainbow clothes (pied) arrives and agrees to lure the rats away if the villagers pay him lots of money. So, he enchants the rats with his flute and makes them drown in a river. He goes back, but the villagers won't give him the money. So, in revenge, he enchants all of the children in the village and hides them away. Some versions say that he killed all of the children like the rats, some say that he locked them inside a mountain, and some say that he led them to a magical land full of wonder.
Elements of paedophilia?

Red Riding Hood. A classic. We all know the story – but in the original French version by Charles Perrault, the little girl is given fake directions to her grandmother's house by the wolf, and, is subsequently eaten by him. There is no friendly woodsman to kill the wolf. No false grandmothers. Just a fat wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood.
Don't take advice from strangers, much?

The Little Mermaid. In the Disney version, we see Ariel being changed into a human so that she can marry Eric and live happily ever after. But in the original, written by Hans Christian Andersen, she sees Eric with another girl so she gets jealous. She is offered a knife with which to stab Eric, but instead she jumps into the ocean and dies by getting churned up into froth. Lovely.

In Snow White, the Queen orders the Huntsman to kill Snow White and bring back her heart, so that she can eat it and become beautiful for ever. But the original was even worse. The Queen actually asks for Snow's liver and lungs, which were to be served for dinner that night. Also, she doesn't wake up from a magical kiss; it was from when she got bumped by the Prince's horse, which was carrying her dead body home with him. What he was planning to do with her probably wasn't the nicest of things… and, in the end, the evil Queen was forced to dance to death in red-hot iron shoes!

Sleeping Beauty was similar. In the Disney version she pricked her finger on a spindle and fell into an enchanted sleep, and a hundred years later, the Prince kissed her, woke her up and the couple lived happily ever after. But in the first version, while Sleeping Beauty (who was actually called Talia, not Aurora) was asleep, the Prince came along and raped her, and nine months later, she gave birth to two twin children, called Sun and Moon. One of the children sucked on her finger, removing the piece of wood that was keeping her asleep and she woke up raped with two children and no Prince.

The original of Hansel and Gretel was much worse. The kids get lost in the forest and come upon the house, but it's not of a wicked witch – instead it's a devil, who realise that the children are planning to escape and kill him. So he prepares a sawhorse so that he can torture them, but the kids don't know how to get on it. The devil's wife shows them, and while she is lying down, Gretel slashes her throat and the two escape.

Cinderella was not called Cinderella, originally. She was called Rhodopis, and the story was pretty similar to the Disney version, without the glass slippers and the pumpkin carriage. But in the Brothers' Grimm version, the ugly stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet to try and fit them in the slipper. However, two pigeons know about this, so they peck out the sisters' eyes and tell the Prince. Cinderella gets to lounge about in luxury at the palace while her sisters live in the slums as blind beggars.

In Goldilocks, when she wakes up she jumps out of the window in fright of seeing the bears and breaks her neck in the fall. In Rumplestiltskin, he is so angry that the girl guessed his name correctly that he drove his foot into the ground and grabbed hold of his other leg, and ripped himself in half.

So all fairy tales are actually really terrible, if you read between the lines. But they're fantastic inspiration for horror stories and murder mysteries!

A while has passed since my last blog entry, and I think I'm progressing along with the project really well. Yesterday, Mr Brice our co-ordinator for the project, talked to us all about the different aspects of what we had to do, and the basic premise was:
• Come up with a proposal question.
• Create the product.
• Write a journal (this blog) as you go.
• Write a 3500 word essay about it all.
This is my proposal question so far.
How are feelings of tension and suspense created in art?
Since the term "art" is pretty broad, that can mean books, movies, paintings, drawings, graffiti, sculpture – anything that really expresses human creation. I decided to look up the dictionary definitions for the words "art", "tension" and "suspense".

• art, n. /art/.
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
• tension, n. /ˈtɛnʃən/.
mental or emotional strain; intense, suppressed suspense, anxiety, or excitement.
• suspense, n. /səˈspɛns/
a state or condition of mental uncertainty or excitement, as in awaiting a decision or outcome, usually accompanied by a degree of apprehension or anxiety.

I borrowed And Then There Were None last week from the library and it's written very differently from how books are written nowadays, but in subtle ways. My mum also had a picture book called Ten Little Insects, which was based loosely on the characters in And Then There Were None, but they were insects instead.

The book provided a new ending to the story, which was funny and yet stayed on par with the sinister plotline. The original movie adaption of the book was on YouTube as well, so that was an easy way to watch the story (up until the ending, which was, again, twisted).
The thoughts of performing my play to an audience are becoming more and more realistic. I have already got well underway with the writing of the script for the play, and if I finish it in the holidays or early Term 1 then I could begin casting and rehearsals, so that the play can be put on in Term 3 sometime. My friend Tim has talked to me about being available to act in the play if it is ever performed, so I could easily see him being cast as possibly even a lead role.

Just to give a quick overview, the characters in the play will be:
• Anthony Marston, 15. Dies from potassium cyanide in his drink.
• Ethel Rogers, 58. Dies from an overdose of chloral hydrate – a sleeping medication.
• Mack Arthur, 15. Dies from being bludgeoned to death against a window.
• Tom Rogers, 61. Dies from having his heat split open with an axe.
• Emma Brent, 15. Dies from sedation and injection of potassium cyanide.
• Ted Armstrong, 16. Dies from being drowned in a pool.
• Will Blore, 16. Dies from having his head crushed by a brick.
• Henry Lombard, 16. Dies from being shot by Elizabeth, who mistakenly thinks he is the murderer.
• Elizabeth Claythorne, 16. Dies from hanging herself with a noose.
• John Wargrave, 15. Dies from shooting himself with Henry's gun.
• PI Claude Maine. He unravels the mystery.
• DI Thomas Legge. He helps Maine to solve the case.
• Fred Narracott. A teacher who finds the bodies in the morning, and calls police.

So that's a cast of thirteen, but I can easily add or delete a few characters if I need to. I could also act in any of the male roles if it came to it.