Kia ora peeps,

Yeah I know, two blogs in November, it is a banner month for Dusky.  On the 14th of November we launched our new novel "Feather from the Kākahu" Yeyyyyyyyyyyyyy  If you haven't already been inundated by our pictures of the event check this page out...http://www.duskyproductions.com/events.php  See the people in the picture above...if it wasn't for them, I could NOT achieve ANYTHING!  That is true Whanaungatanga and Manaakitanga folks.

Well, as the Euphoria of that triumph morphs into the anxiety of hoping people actually like the book, Dusky Productions have to move on with all our other obligations and me, the famous (in my own mind hahaha) writer/artist has to do some actual fecking Mahi (work)
 
I hate talking about myself and the reasons are pretty dark.  I used to lie, a lot, I mean big fat soul blackening lies that erupted out of a sense of despair, low self-esteem, and devilish naughtiness created by a constant state of "Ennui" which translates as boredom, tedium, listlessness, lethargy, lassitude, languor, restlessness, weariness, sluggishness, enervation - yes that is as bad as it sounds.  Dark aye.  
Life was just never as exciting as I thought it should be.  
This along with an inability to deal with confrontation which impelled me to say a lot of things I knew people wanted to hear rather than the actual truth.
This has now been "Diagnosed" but that does not change lifetime of trying to fill a bottomless black hole of neediness with drugs alcohol sex blah blah blah blah blah...but it does gather great material for stories.  Also, most of all, the storyteller in me taking over and teasing out as much drama as possible.
That particular habit went on for a long, long time and now, even occasionally I sometimes will change a story slightly, just to add a little more spice to it than existed before.  
Yesterday - Well Made Market - Expressions gallery Upper Hutt
I'm not great at markets, I am shy (bollocks I hear people say) but I am, very shy and the act of talking to strangers it torturous.  
How I handle it is to turn on the other Olivia, the one that is kept in a jar by the door, like Eleanor Rigby (if you don't get that reference its a Beatles song, youtube it, best song ever written)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Itt02QOO0

I have to tell the same story over and over again about where my artwork, books and the process and inspiration for the creation of these things.  We have Books, T-shirts, wrapping paper, cards which are all designed by me.
People stopped at the stall while I told stories about where and why the work was created.  
The Book “Heart of the Tapu Stone”  fell into my head about fifteen years ago when I met my husband Scott.  
The story was originally inspired by having to adopt my first child Megan, and even though we have a great relationship, how that part of me just won’t heal no matter how many years go by.  Also it was because of my twin brothers Johnny and James and the fact they were totally different people but from the same place.  How they were both genius in their own ways and how people could never compare them as they are like opposite poles of a perfect sphere.  
Then I talked about how I stupidly told the all my friends I would write a trilogy and now 6 years later I have finished it and published the second book 'Feather from the Kakahu.'
I talked about ‘I Taniwha” and how I wrote it for a conference I attended in Vienna, so it would be something I could hand out to people rather than have to talk to vast groups, and it was.  
Then I talked again about Heart of the Tapu Stone being included on the English Literature Syllabus at the University of Bonne and how the University was translating that books and 'I Taniwha" into German.   
I talked about where the story of “Piwakawaka and the Ruru” two very different birds born on the same day in the same Totara tree, which turns into a story of a friendship that faces a terrible supernatural force and wins.  How this story was inspired by the lack of stories of Hine Atua (Goddesses) out there ...then I started to talk about how we were approached by a production company to make a tv series or movie based on my book...then, at some point, I started listening to what I was actually saying, every single wonderful word.  And I was like…WOW if I was an audience listening to this woman I would be seriously impressed.  
That’s the moment, I did something I never thought I would ever do in my lifetime, I impressed myself with myself, which totally shocks and stuns me.

Love Olivia