My Strange Notebook is the journal for those too chaotically creative to journal!
Contains creative prompts to help you get started with writing your own strange stories, doodle pages, pages to empty out your brain, and journal prompts to help you feel more confident, self-assurred and positive during these strange times.
Or you could just use it for your shopping lists. It’s entirely your call.
My Strange Notebook is 225 pages and the size of a standard paperback, making it easy to carry around wherever you go. The pages are fully bound so they won’t fall out, however rough you are with it.
I’m genuinely sorry to keep doing this to you. But remember how I told you back in my Lockdown Blues post, that back in 2019 I promised myself 2020 would be the year I pushed out of my comfort zone and do more things that scare me? And I started trying to make some music, because though that wasn’t what I envisioned, it is really scary? Well I’ve done that again. Sorry.
So here’s my latest ukulele song. I’ve been playing since February (it’s now late August), and you can tell I’m very much a beginner, but I had fun doing it.
I’ve never been a musical person. But back in February I got a little blue ukulele for my birthday. I never intended to inflict my “music” on you, but then coronavirus happened and the whole world went a bit weird and now – despite being unable to sing and virtually unable to play – I’ve written a blues song about being locked down with 4 kids (I’ve also started a cult, but that’s a different story!).
If you’re on this post you’ve probably seen the #TheCultOfV hashtag and wondered what it was all about. Or you’re just looking for a cult to join and stumbled across this one I guess. In which case welcome, and I’m glad you found The Cult of V instead of one of those cults that’s all about doing unspeakable things to vulnerable people and generally being an arse, I guess.
If I were your phone screen Would you gaze at me Adoringly As your fingertips Softly stroke my face? Would you share That secret smile That you save only for me? Would you lose Entire days Staring into me Exploring all the depths I contain? If I were your phone screen Would you reach for me When you can’t sleep Would I be the first thing you turn to When you wake Would you fall asleep With me in your hand? If I were your phone screen Would I feel like you are here?
You can read more of my poetry free here, or find some in my books.
If you enjoy my writing and want to throw some change into my tip jar, you can find it here.
Victoria Pearson lives behind a keyboard somewhere in rural Bedfordshire, with her husband, her four children and her dog. She writes very strange stories.
Victoria mostly writes fiction, although she has been known to write political essays, sociology articles, and even musings on menstrual cups. She has been writing since she could hold a pen, sending out her first query (on pretty unicorn stationary she got for Christmas) to Penguin publishers, aged 9. Kind though their reply was, Victoria wasn’t published until she was 16, when she wrote and edited a feature for The Guardian. You may have seen her discuss the piece live on Channel 4’s Richard and Judy at the time, but she sincerely hopes not, because she briefly fumbled her lines and is still embarrassed about it, over a decade later.
Since then Victoria has squeezed in a variety different jobs around raising her four children, doing just about everything from working in a sales call centre (which she described as “a horror too dark for Dante’s Inferno”), to being a school dinner lady, dabbling in freelance brand management, content copywriting, podcast production and team management, and being a Learning Support Assistant for children with Special Educational Needs.
Alongside her family life and day jobs, Victoria has continued to write, releasing several short story collections as well as a stand alone novella. She has written advertising copy, news articles, political podcasts, and opinion pieces on everything from feminism to foodbanks, police brutality to the politics of poverty, the gender debate to General Election analysis. She also writes novels, poetry, and flash fiction (she is a regular on several short story and microfiction hashtags on twitter), and has collaborated with another author on a political audio play based around Doctor Who.
If you see her in her natural habitat, please pretend you haven’t noticed her cardigan is inside out, and help her look for her car keys.
