N.O.A. Rawle: Through the Eyes of a Stranger

Don your goggles, I have some Rambunctious news!   But first things first, if you do not know what Steampunk is let me take you on the adventurous voyage I took to Steampunk and hopefully you will learn a little more! I was a Goth. I say this in all seriousness but with the sly smile of one forced to join AA but with no will to do so. Meaning I still have a Bauhaus moment or two and although I no longer practise  Bela Lugosi's Dead on my double bass, you will hear me screaming along to the Cult  Revolution or prancing about to Sisters of Mercy  Temple of Love . Goth, as I know it, has nothing to do with Emo. I do not, and never did, mope around in cemeteries, although I do have a strange admiration of Victorian funerary art. Neither does it have anything in common with Black Metal or devil worship. That said, I love dark fiction and movies related to these things and I am n...

Ask a 1000 writers and you'll get a 1000 answers. It's one of those bug-bear questions. When I get something published (hooray!) I try to tell the story behind the story but it ain't always easy (and sometimes I simply don't want to share!) In this post I thought I'd let you into my thought processes.   This is a gorgeous treasure chest that sits just inside the front door of my godmother's house. I've always loved it as it's got gorgeous colours and seems pretty old - about a century if I were to hazard a guess. Due to the fact that it is a delightful hiding place for palm-sized hairy brown arachnids it has never really been used for more than dumping empty carrier bags. This summer I thought I'd do it up so that we could use it for storing winter blankets. The brass plate at the front has been painted with horrid poo-coloured gloss which I have no idea how to remove but the paper lining, which was all torn, wa...