LUCY ŞiiENiZ

The concept of ‘stars are not for counting on’ began whilst I was travelling semi-alone in turkey visiting family. I knew that I wanted to start writing fiction from the perspective of a young girl navigating the world as she grows up exploring her emotions/ thoughts in solitude.

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The stars have always been very important to me, acting as a recurring source of comfort in their consistency. I remember being young and far from family and taking consolation in that they were looking at the same night sky as me. The stars also fascinate me because even though they appear so consistent over time, they’re constantly changing and re-generating just like our own lives, where the exterior changes but we are the same person as long as we live. 

 

My mother’s mother is an astrologer, so the study of stars and their meaning is very close to home. When I was young and staying at her house, I’d stay up late and read through all her star-related books, blurring my reading of fiction novels with the fantasy of the real, too young to understand what I was reading about but taking joy in that there was something out there, suggesting there was something ordained, something that knew me before I did. 

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I also wanted to respect the wisdom and independence of women in my family and the freedom which stars illuminate through their navigational function. I was thinking about the freedom to leave difficult situations. Although I love the stars, I am also aware that the notion of fate/ circumstance can justify belief of duty to stay and fulfill expectations. I had this image of a woman counting on the stars, waiting for her life to start but it never happens. Maybe, she is brave enough to enact change, maybe it is not possible. I don't want to glamorise these stories of women leaving in the search for something greater. I tried to capture the intensity of grief that comes with starting over. 

 

 

In the text, the protagonist uses writing and words as a place of refuge. My interest in the power of words, language and communication was developed in Turkey when I couldn’t fully speak the language. I remember me and my cousin speaking in English and my grandmother getting annoyed at us, saying it was not fair, "from where would [she] have learnt English?" 

 

I wanted to include the beach environment as a site of change, also a site of migration to new places for better opportunities. 

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The textiles and clothes complemented my concept as needlework and sewing is traditionally (and personally) a task that connects me to both of my grandmothers. I started to think about my childhood bedsheets and fabric as a source of comfort like blankets, muzzies ect. and I thought this worked nicely with the innocence of the protagonist in the text. I included embroidery of key motifs which didn’t make their way into the text but that I wanted to develop further: shells and beachcombing finds alongside the fish, and more abstract patterns which lean into this developing idea of ‘disturbed dreams’ - drawing on Surrealism, the Uncanny and the Hypnagogic state (the state between wakefulness and sleep) which I am fascinated by. I want to further explore this confused, contorted dream state and the tricks that the mind can play.

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