The Poppins cycle is a collection of short stories, vignettes, conversations and so on. The pieces can stand alone but collectively they also can stand as a biography of Mary Poppins. I had originally intended to post them chronologically once the full work was completed but I doubt I will ever arrive at a time where there isn't at least one more story to tell. So, I've decided to post them as they are finished. All stories in the collection will be tagged as being part of the cycle with either a title (for short stories) or a type note (for vignettes and conversations) and a time reference for anyone who wants to keep track of what order they go in.

As always Mary and Bert, Mrs Corry, the Bankses, etc belong to PL Travers, CamMac and Disney. All other characters mine unless noted in the individual story notes (ISN).

ISN: 'keep a tender distance, so we'll both be free' This one is somewhere between a vignette and a short story, but it felt like it needed a bit of a title. The quote is a line from 'Marry me a little' (which is perhaps something Mary and Bert should have considered doing) from Stephen Sondheim's Company.


( 'keep a tender distance, so we'll both be free'Collapse )



 

The Poppins cycle is a collection of short stories, vignettes, conversations and so on. The pieces can stand alone but collectively they also can stand as a biography of Mary Poppins. I had originally intended to post them chronologically once the full work was completed but I doubt I will ever arrive at a time where there isn't at least one more story to tell. So, I've decided to post them as they are finished. All stories in the collection will be tagged as being part of the cycle with either a title (for short stories) or a type note (for vignettes and conversations) and a time reference for anyone who wants to keep track of what order they go in.

As always Mary and Bert, Mrs Corry, the Bankses, etc belong to PL Travers, CamMac and Disney. All other characters mine unless noted in the individual story notes (ISN).

ISN: None, does what it says on the tin.

( Vignette, soon after the marriageCollapse )



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A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion. ~Umberto Eco

 

I can feel a Mary Poppins fic starting. I don't yet know what it's going to be about, when it will be set, who will wander in and out of it or anything really. Just a feeling that a story is coming. It's been brewing for some time, on 19 February I had this to say:

I'm starting to have the stirrings of my need to write Poppins-fic again. I know it's coming from the roleplay forum I dabble in and the product of it will probably only wind up there, but... It looks like Bert may be about to join my thread. It's a very film-centric Bert and my Mary is quite anti-film so I'm not sure how well they're going to mesh. In any case it will be a good writing challenge for me (I hope, my main reason for doing this is to keep my skills up). I do wonder if it might just frustrate me, though, not being able to control every nuance of their relationship, going up against a Bert who is not exactly-how-I-see-him-thank-you-Gavins mine. It might lead to more fic, if I wind up needing an outlet. It might not. For anyone with a vague interest in seeing how the roleplay is going to date, it's here. It's not the most exciting or interesting of things, but it does the job of keeping my Mary-mind running, even if only a little, rather than letting it slip into the filing catacombs of my brain. We'll just have to see what happens, I suppose.

I now know there is going to be fic, probably sometime soon, but it will depend on how quickly the story takes shape. Tiny fragments of it are starting to stand out from the general fiction cloud in my brain but they don't yet make sense. There's something in Mary and Bert's past. There might be a scene with Sandy. There will probably be an unusual location at some point. Bits of 'The Girl in the Fireplace' from Doctor Who, 'While I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path' are floating around. It might well depart completely from the given convetions of the stories in the way Galleries did. I don't know yet.

But it's going to happen. Watch this space.

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This is an unfinished Mary Poppins story in pieces. I may finish it someday, I may not, but there are pieces of it I'm really proud of and posting it doesn't really bother me. In writing terms I was challenging myself to be intensely descriptive in terms of how things are experienced through senses. In storytelling terms the concept was Mary giving up her magical abilities for a year and a day as a sample of mortal, human life, so that she could choose between Bert and her career fully informed. Takes place prior to whichever version of the story you're familiar with and Mary and Bert, as always, belong to PL Travers, CamMac, and Disney.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this as it's not smutty, but is some of the steamiest stuff I've ever written. Just consider yourself warned.

( The turn of the seasonsCollapse )


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A gift for Scarlett Strallen at the closing night of Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. The statue is in the Rose Garden at Hyde Park Corner and inspired the character of Neleus in the original books by PL Travers.




Medium: watercolour with pencil under-drawing
Paper: Arches Aquarelle cold-press 100% cotton
Colours: Windsor & Newton Cotman half-pans
Brushes: Windsor & Newton Cirrus Kolinsky Sable

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A Mary Poppins story where sometimes you don't get to live happy ever after and true love doesn't conquer all. It's set in modern-day London, though their marriage was in the Edwardian era, and the easiest way to get your head around that is to decide that Bert moved to 1997 after the divorce and Mary took a longer route. I've posted this to the Julie Andrews forum I frequent and I'm just waiting for the hate mail. Mary and Bert, as always, belong to P.L. Travers, CamMac and Disney, everyone else is mine.

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A Mary Poppins piece written last summer after seeing Sunday in the Park with George, so some credit for inspiration must go to Stephen Sondheim. Otherwise the characters belong to P.L. Travers, Disney and Cam Mac. It is quite conceptual, Bert musing on his muse, but I am pleased with the artistic obsession that comes through it.

This was also posted to maryandbert.

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A Harry Potter fanfiction, so the characters belong to JK Rowling and her publishers and I don't make any money from this. Written prior to Order of the Phoenix so it's somewhat AU now. The song quoted at the end is apparently Irish Traditional but I first heard it in the film Waking Ned Devine and thought it suited the story.

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Another university era piece which owes The Hours for thematic inspiration. It's not great but it's not bad, just up here so it can go and get dusty in the archive. Oh, and the character may be named Minerva but she's original, though you don't have to read it that way if you don't want to.

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‘A woman's whole life, in a single day, just one day, and then that day, her whole life.’ ~ Virginia Woolf, The Hours

( One DayCollapse )