J.R. Manawa's Blog

Okay, I haven’t posted in a while, (because I post three times a week on Wattpad, if you were wondering) so here is a random share from me

So, it’s been a while. If you are missing my inconsistent storytelling, you’ll be wowed and shocked by my relentless three chapters a week that I now release on Wattpad

“I DREAM OF JEANNIE meets THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.” — feedback from the Launchpad judging panel.

To everyone who supported my book when it made Finalist in the Launchpad / Scott Free Entertainment Manuscript competition in 2016, and well, to everyone!

Loretta of the Lamp has been through another edit, and though I never really pursued getting it published, I’ve decided it’s time to make the effort to give Loretta’s story the light of day.

I’ll be publishing the full novel, one part at a time, on the free online book app — Wattpad. If you know it, or if you like reading Young Adult, the app is worth downloading. There is both bad and good content (as with anything!), but you can find novels in any genre you wish to read, with any specific sub theme you like (ie; Young Adult Adventure Romance with a strong female lead and a genie love interest)

Anyway, let me know what you think when you get a chance to look at it. If you want to get geeky about the why — I’m keen on exploring the evolution of the publishing industry for our generation and those to come. The way we consume media has blatantly changed since the advent of online content, and while the music industry and the film industry have learned to adapt, I think we are yet to understand what this really means for books. Blogging is almost irrelevant and self publishing over flooded, so what’s next? Yes I know I’m a bit late joining the Wattpad revolution too, but why not? It’s a forum with an existing reader base where I can release my story over time and edit as I go while receiving feedback.

Let’s see what happens.

To start with I’ll be releasing two parts of the story every week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, but feel free to comment or get in touch if you want to see more of it more regularly…..!

Loretta knows how to pick a lock faster than you can say “juvenile delinquent”. But the sixteen year old’s world spirals out of control fast after she breaks into an annex of the British Museum, accidentally unleashes an arrogant, immortal genie, and winds up trapped with him inside the lamp…

Link to the first chapter of Loretta on Wattpad https://my.w.tt/znAW2a0KaQ

Generally speaking, storytellers do well at dinner parties. Like, sometimes I hear myself talking to someone I barely know, and I think, “Seriously Jo, you should shut up and tell normal stories.”

But I love telling stories, and I love hearing them. And I have a guilty pleasure in matching the best stories from my archive to the conversation at hand. Conversation should be like streams flowing into the same river. It’s like a game, and I imagine it’s a similar pleasure to that which people get from gaming.

But I realise four things that come up frequently;

1. I have too many stories to tell.

2. I always manage to bring anyone’s story back to something I know about coffins, cemeteries, or human remains.

3. I have pets that are considered weird.

It’s okay. All these things make for fertile storytelling earth, the kind of soil that grows a good tale and brings out the best anecdotes in the people around you as well.

Suddenly your fellow dinner party punters become compatriots in weaving the tale — the story of life and all the little things that make us who we are — human, flawed, beautiful, complex, priceless, unique and full of experiences.

Did you notice I said four things? And gave you three? Here’s number four;

4. Everyone has amazing stories to tell, but most people don’t believe they do.

You have stories to tell. You have lived a fascinating life. You’ve done crazy things, seen crazy things, your family is weird AF, your job brings with it some unusual characters, your music taste is unique, and those things you like doing in your spare time? Knitting? Gaming on your original Sega Mastersystem? Collecting tattoos? Planning tattoos! Sorting your underwear draw into ROYGBIV? Binge watching all the Netflix series you can find with the word “dark” in the title or description? Or even just eating cheese, lots of cheese?

Embrace it, celebrate it, share it. Don’t be ashamed of all the weird and wonderful things that you are.

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I shared this musing on my instagram over the last few days, and here it is collated

So, those travel vlogs that always take so long to make but are loads of fun? I don’t know if you saw the last episode we made [here!] but we crashed a drone and did a few other stupid things (including meeting large bugs in the dark….)

And now we finally have new episodes! Including visiting Cathedral Cove where The Chronicles of Narnia and other cool films were shot #setlife

You decided to read this article because you saw the title and thought, what the hell? This has to be one of those extortionate, attention grabbing headlines that never pan out (click bait!) If it was indeed click bait, maybe I would have titled it “She went to see a funeral director and you won’t believe what happened next!”

Actually, I didn’t go to see a Funeral Director, but I did speak to a few, and to a Coffin Wholesaler on this journey, but I didn’t find what I was looking for in these places, surprisingly. But I’m getting ahead of myself. They say the best place to start is at the beginning, for an overview of the situation.

(Just as a forewarning, I am pretty open about death. I don’t believe death is the end of existence, and as such I currently have little fear of it, or talking about it.)

If you know me, my decision to purchase my coffin (with no theoretical wisp of my death in sight) perhaps is not surprising at all. If you don’t know me, well…

The decision was based around my displeasure that no one will get to enjoy my coffin. I mean, one day, I’ll be dead, I’ll probably have a coffin (unless we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse), but as it will just be my soulless corpse chilling in there, I won’t be able to enjoy it. I’ll be long gone, thank you!

And it’s unlikely that anyone attending my funeral will be enjoying my coffin because, well — I’ll be dead.

Coffins are expensive. I’ve found some excellent bargains and clever life hacks when it comes to coffin shopping (thanks to a good year or more of solid research), but essentially, in your time of need, you can expect to pay between £1000 – 3000 as standard for a coffin. The cheaper end of this is reserved for wicker and basic plywood boxes. You could pick up a cardboard biodegradable coffin for around £600. If you want a full blown American Steel Casket, you know, the hotrod of all coffins, the kind you see on American CBS dramas, ones that we don’t really use in the UK, and that in many cases you cannot place in a cemetery because of the ground restrictions and absolute lack of biodegradability — those beasts are serious pieces of equipment, and they don’t come cheap. You’re looking between £2,500 and £20,000 depending on your colours and embellishments (do you want satin or cheap crepe for lining, and would you like gold player handles?)

So I knew two things when I started this journey.

1. I like coffins, and I’m not happy to simply have one for my corpse only. Be it as coffee table (like at this cool bar in Belgium) or as a centre piece (like at the Last Tuesday society in Shoreditch), or as a bookshelf (like these cool people) or even an entire kitchen, I wanted to have one.

2. I don’t plan on dying any time soon, so I had time to do my research, and at an initial glance it appeared that the industry of death in the UK makes a lot of money out of a box you use for three days at most and often burn or rot with. (I’m not saying there shouldn’t be money in it for the suppliers, I’m just saying you’re either happy with granny going in a biodegradable wicker basket, which is just how she would have wanted it anyway, or you’re an oil magnate who can spend thousands on a fully kitted out, well finished and well crafted coffin from a specialist dealer. Or you’re like the rest of us and are or will be, stuck in the middle with a not-very-well-made, white-crappy-crepe-lined, wood-laminate-mdf box that you’ll pay a lot of money for, and shed a lot of tears over.

So price, presumably, is my first hurdle.

My next stage of research was to hit up a few funeral directors (no punches were thrown), and my next major setback was that coffins are generally NOT BLACK?! Which I find absurd considering how much black we wear in London. I hadn’t even imagined that a black coffin would be hard to find, but it really was a serious problem, “There just isn’t a market for them here,” I was told.

(Editorial note: subsequently if you are looking for a nice black coffin, I have done the research for you – get in touch!)

I pushed ahead and met with a funeral director turned coffin wholesaler, and shared an awkward coffin viewing with a family who just lost a much loved uncle. Yes, I did initially feel a bit embarrassed. But, actually, my money is just as good as late Uncle Johnny’s, right? And if you are wondering, no I didn’t climb in to try one out in front of the grieving family (on the amusing side, how novel that out of anyone shopping for a coffin, I was uniquely in a position to ‘try before you buy’!)

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I didn’t buy a coffin right there and then, but I learned that I definitely wanted a full American Casket (you know, the hotrod coffins I mentioned earlier). Because they look awesome – and sure they aren’t anthropomorphic, but they are just damn sleek and cool. Also, they are so big I was convinced I could convert one into a bed.

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Because it’s every goth girl’s dream to sleep in a coffin, right?

Okay, maybe it’s just me.

I also learned that a full size American Casket was not in my budget right now. Not by a long shot. So I went home. Back to the drawing board. And I sat on the idea.

For about a week, before I had a new idea. Second hand coffins. Ok, don’t freak out, second hand doesn’t necessarily mean ‘used’. Anyway, there I was googling coffins like a crazy person, finding them on eBay, Facebook market place, Schpok, Gumtree, Freecycle. For real. People genuinely have secondhand coffins they want to get rid of. It’s not a common thing, but it is definitely a thing.

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But none of them were quite right. My heart had been stolen by the idea of an American casket, and they just aren’t commonly available in the UK (trust me to want the most complicated, difficult object to source

Those moments in life when you have the delight of your own existence on this planet brushing by the existence of another that wakens all sorts of stories within you.

The problem with the human race. J R Manawa.

I met a man with a mind as fit as a fiddle on the bus today. I say so, because his body was in graceful decline, and he referred to himself as an old man. But he was about as dapper as dapper could be, with a tailored linen jacket, a good hat sporting a straight brim, and a clean shaven face that ran all the way up to the keen spark in his eyes.

“Packed in today, aren’t we?” He said as I sat down beside him. “I thought if I waited till 9:30 I would avoid all the school kids, seems everyone had the same idea.”

I agreed. We bemoaned the duration we’d had to wait to get a bus, and the Law of Sod that there would be at least two buses in quick succession after this one.

“There used to be electronic signs on the bus stops up here to let you know what was going on, but they removed all those. Government cutbacks and all.”

I agreed that it was annoying, but pointed out we could all get updates on our phones now.

“You say that, but look around this bus, look at them. Less than half of them have a phone like that.” He points to my iPhone, which as always, I have ready in my hand.

I tuck it away. “You know, you are right.” I’m put in my place and happy to admit it.

We discussed technology and the direction of the world. He’d lived in my area all his life and he worked for the government. I didn’t need to talk much. His words were woven with clarity and eloquence such that my ears were commanded to do what they were designed to do, simply listen.

He spoke about the number of murders in London, compared with the country in recovery after the war, how one likely could say we have in London every day a comparable number to what England would have seen in a year.

He was probably right, and if his statistics were off a bit, it didn’t matter, it was a comparison rightly made — the deterioration of the human race, I said.

“The problem with the human race is ‘man’.” He replied. “It’s women and children who die in these wars we make and fights we start.”

We moved to politics and politicians in their chauffeur driven jaguars.

“I went to Downing Street. I met with Tony Blair once. You know, I call the lot of them Twerps. Labour, Tories, Liberals, the lot of them. Next thing you know I won’t even be able to say that, not to their faces anyway.”

“But we have freedom of speech,” I argued, after my laughter. “Our fathers and grandmothers fought for that.”

“Not even that any more. You watch. It’s going I tell you, a sad state of affairs. I used to go to Speaker’s Corner. I heard some great speeches there. It’s all but gone now.”

He’s right. I remember it when I first arrived in London, and now, even in those ten short years.

“I have to laugh at it all,” he paused and smiled, “else all I would do is cry.”

I quote Abraham Lincoln badly in agreement, “We laugh, lest we cry.”

He smiled. “Well, this is my stop.” He said. “I’ll say I wish you a good day, and hope I haven’t ruined it with these ruminations of an old man.”

“Not at all, not at all.” I repeated myself, for his comfort and my gratitude.

He got off the bus, thanked the driver as he went, and tucked his most excellent black umbrella under his arm before he made his way toward the station, turning back once to give me a smile and an ever-so-genteel tip of his hat.

Don’t try to steal attention from the light.

Happy World Goth Day

Don’t try to steal attention from the light.

Happy World Goth Day