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Recharge

Tuesday May 15 2012 

I wasn't sure if I should write this post, but to be honest, I've suffered a serious case of writers block since January. A combination of the overexertion, physical pain, going from one bout of the flu the next, house hunting, and an unhealthy dose of writing unrelated stress, hit me pretty badly.

In the past I've been able to power through writers block by writing more. New ideas would always get me excited, and reading would set off fireworks in my brain. But reading lost its pleasure, and writing felt flat. Though I'd get new ideas, nothing excited, and it's been pure drudgery.

I tried a number of things which didn't work. I tried taking a break, which grew from one month to two. I tried writing a simple short story, but the process frustrated me to the point of tears. I tried to find ways to make writing fun again, but my go-to tricks (dancing like a fool and lighting candles) stopped working. I tried being creative in other ways. I sewed and I baked, but I was still dead tired.

You know what I realized? Sometimes its not the writing that's the problem, but life.

I needed to take care of the other commitments first. This runs totally contradictory to some advice that you see online: make writing a priority, write everyday. That advice works for some people, but I was driving myself crazy with it. I was making myself unhealthy trying to achieve this.

I'm still working on finding balance, and I suspect that's something I'll keep refining as life changes. I've made the mistake of over-committing myself until the end of June, and until then something has to give. For now writing takes a back seat. Thankfully, at this point I don't depend on writing fiction for income, so I do have that option.

Funny, just making that decision has lifted a great deal of stress off my shoulders, and I think I might have enough energy to write a little for fun. That's how writing should feel, right?

Filed Under: Happiness, Writing Updates 19 Comments

Fantasy Map of Vancouver

Tuesday May 8 2012 

Ever find fantasy in your own back yard? I do a lot of walking and have stumbled on a few surprises in the city.

Here's the Hobbit House, which is one of the oldest homes built in the West End.

The Hobbit House

Then there are the Rivendell apartments, just next door to the Hobbit House. I believe they are owned by the First Baptist Church which is just on the corner.

The Rivendell

King's Landing is a lot swankier. You can own a two bedroom there for a cool $2 million.

No Photoshop!

King's Landing from the water

I used to call this house the 7 dwarves cottage and imagine living there when I was a kid. There were several of these houses built in Vancouver, and they're identical. The wavy roof is made of wooden shingles.

Fairy Tale House

Hmm maybe next time I should do a sci-fi movie tour... Ever discovered some weird/fun things in your backyard?

Filed Under: Random Fun 9 Comments

Creature Compendium: Bloody Bones

Friday May 4 2012 

I ran into this creature while reading a novel and wanted to know if it was invented or based on folklore. It turned out to be the latter.

Rawhead and Bloody Bones / Tommy Rawhead

Rawhead and Bloody Bones
Steals naughty children from their homes,
Takes them to his dirty den,
And they are never seen again.
- Children's rhyme (Yorkshire/Lancashire)

Bloody Bones

Bloody Bones by Majo-Yoru

Bloody bones lives near places of water, sink pipes, under stairs, in cupboards, or in closets. He punishes naughty children by drowning them, or changing them into jam or trash (that gets thrown out by their parents), or eating them. Descriptions vary depending on the telling: sometimes a hairy creature with long claws, an old man covered in scabs, a razor back hog with head yellow eyes and bones for a body, or possibly a shape shifter.

Stories of bloody bones originated in Ireland, spread throughout the UK, and into North America where the belief is more prevalent in the south.

Further Reading

Related Creatures: boogeyman, Krampus

Region of Origin: Ireland

It seems like parents around the world like to threaten their naughty children with terrifying monsters. Perhaps it is just a small sampling of stories that I've found but descriptions of the Bloody Bones seem to be more frightening in North America than in the UK. Did your parents ever threaten you with monsters when you were naughty?

Filed Under: Creature Compendium 10 Comments

Happy Tīw's Day

Tuesday May 1 2012 

The internet can be overwhelming at times, especially if you're plugged into a never ending stream of social media. Even if you don't go looking for negativity its usually there. Even if it doesn't involve me, sometimes I just need to take a step back, and surround myself with happy things.

Some happy:

  • Roman artifacts found in English molehills - Priceless what? Get it out of my mound! You humans sure do have a lot of garbage.
  • Console to Closet - Outfits inspired by video games. Totally wearable. I get a kick out of comparing the reference images. I lust after Carmen Sandiego's shoes.
  • The Abominable SnowButt backwards taxidermy (plush) - Taxidermy usually makes me feel vaguely creepy and uncomfortable, but this I might be able to handle. At least it's not staring at me!
  • An Ancient Roman Feast - Complete with recipes. It sounds tasty too. My kind of dinner party. It's research, right??
  • Archaeoacoustics reconstructs the sounds of Stonehenge - I'd never heard of archaeoacoustics until now. It's fascinating! Have you ever considered the sound properties structures have, and what impact it might have had on a crowd? That's richness to be mined in your storytelling folks. I particularly liked the audio (follow links to it).
  • Wind Map of the US - I could stare at this for hours... you've been warned.

*Tuesday = Tewesday = Tiw's Day. Tiw / Tyr is the god of heroic victory and single combat in Norse mythology. Just so you know. Tuesday is badass. No wonder it always kicks my butt. I'm so tired... *weeps*

Any fun links to share? What makes you happy?

Filed Under: Happiness 9 Comments

A Few Questions For A Versatile Blogger

Tuesday Apr 24 2012 

That rascal John Wiswell is making up his own rules again. I've been awarded the Versatile Blogger, and this time there are questions involved. The questions are actually pretty good, so I'll see what answers I can come up with.

1. What's the last sentence (from any of your work) that made you feel pride in writing?
"I dreamed of mud sliding slick against my belly, and breathing the dark water in and out of flooded lungs." There was something to this line, potential perhaps, but I ended up discarding the entire story. Still a shame.

2. What’s the last work of fiction that left you envying the creator? In what way did you envy he/she/it/them?
Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine. She created a sense of loss, sadness and magic, that underpinned the whole story so subtly. The post-apocalyptic backdrop, made it even more haunting. I cried when I read it, because this was the sort of circus story I had attempted to write but failed at. (My own novel turned out very differently when I was done with it.)

3. In your entire life, what have you most catastrophically failed at cooking or baking?
Oh plenty of things. I am known for burning things so often that we've disabled the fire alarm in the kitchen. There was the dumpling fiasco... they looked nicely done on the outside, but when I took them out of the water, the insides were hardened flour and inedible. I also tried making popcorn on the stove, and let me tell you... NEVER burn popcorn. The smoke was terrible, and it completely saturated my apartment for more than a week.

4. What field of science most frequently inspires you?
Cognitive science, which according to Wikipedia is: "The interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on intelligence and behavior, especially focusing on how information is represented, processed, and transformed (in faculties such as perception, language, memory, reasoning, and emotion) within nervous systems (human or other animal) and machines (e.g. computers)." If I were to go back to school for my masters degree this is what I would choose to pursue. What would I use it for? I have no idea. I just find it interesting. Oh and the natural sciences. I can watch nature documentaries for hours...

5. What task most recently frightened, grossed you out or otherwise intimidated you, such that you got someone else to do it?
When the new hire arrived, we found out that her desk drawers were full of maggots, and the maggots, now enraged, started climbing onto my desk which was beside it. AHHH!!!!! I still get grossed out thinking about it. We called the facilities guys to clean it up. Spiders are ok with me... just small squirmy things make me shudder.

6. Who is your favorite dead author? Or, if there is no single such person, name six of your beloved dead authors (in no necessary order).
This is a tough one, as most of my favorites are still alive! In random order (that looks a lot like assigned reading in English Lit): Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats

Play along if you like ;)
Filed Under: Random Fun 14 Comments

Creature Compendium: Unicorn

Thursday Apr 19 2012 

While not a creature rare on the collective consciousness, I would like to blog about the often overlooked and maligned unicorn. I myself have suffered anti-unicorn snobbery for years. Why should I be enamored of a creature that does little but prance around, deer like and innocent, when I could choose a flying horse to ride into battle? It turns out my impression of unicorns are all the fault of  medieval artists and Peter Beagle.

The Unicorn

The Last Unicorn by Blue-Dragon22

The first mention of the unicorn come from Greek texts in natural history, rather than mythology. The unicorn was thought to be a real creature native of India described by Pliny as "very fierce animal called the monoceros which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead, two cubits in length." This is no gentle creature.

The mythology of the unicorn does not begin until the middle ages, when it became a subject of Christian artwork. A wild beast that can only be tamed by the heart of a virgin, the unicorn becomes a symbol of purity, chastity, innocence. The horn of the unicorn is said to be made of a material called alicorn, which can cure disease and combat poison. An alicorn cup was a gift given to kings and queens. These goblets were often made of ivory, and full horns, from narwhals.

FYI the unicorn appears on the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada (taken from the Scottish coat of arms).

Further Reading:

Related Creatures: zhi / quilin (China), kirin (Japan)

Region of Origin: Multiple

By the way, I love the book "The Last Unicorn" despite my prejudice. That story plays very closely to the medieval concept of the unicorn: innocent, difficult to tame, and possessing magical healing powers. What do you think of unicorns? Are they badass, or a yawn?

Filed Under: Creature Compendium 8 Comments

Show and Tell

Tuesday Apr 17 2012 

I have a confession to make: I find it harder to write short stories than novels. I don't know why. I'm struggling with one right now. I've got a bunch of ideas but they're not gelling together. It's not the word count that's a problem, its figuring out how much of a story can fit in X amount of words that is.

In the meantime I'll spare you some of my ranting and share a secret with you... this isn't the only place I blog.

I'm one of those people that can never sit still, and when I'm stressed out, or need a break, I make things. I sew, I take things apart and put them together again, I bake and burn things, and take photos of whatever. I generally make messes.

So if you're not appalled at the prospect of possibly seeing my face... here's my other blog, for which I occasionally wear makeup and comb my hair, and sometimes don't.

And here's a bunch of random things from there:

DIY thumb guard! It's a hand saver. I was getting painful clauses from using my sewing shears.

Tropical fruit salad with mint syrup.

Vancouver floating in the fog.

I don't use Tumblr or Pinterest, though they look very tempting. Where do you hang out online? Just blog and twitter? Do you have anything to bring to show and tell? ;)

Filed Under: Random Fun 16 Comments

Superstitions

Thursday Apr 12 2012 
ladder by sbluerock

Ladder by sbluerock

Yesterday while we were in the elevator, headed to the basement to do the laundry, E pointed out that our apartment building has no thirteenth floor. I never really thought much about it before, but just accepted it as a fact.

"That's because no one wants to live on the thirteenth floor. In all the horror movies, that's where people die." I nodded solemnly.I'm not sure if he bought my explanation. There are various explanations for the missing thirteenth floor, some are innocent and others sinister.

Superstitions seem to pop up in all kinds of strange places, and situations.

It's NHL playoff time, so I expect to see a decrease in shaving until it's over. Sports fans and athletes are notorious for their superstitions.

One of the first gifts my in laws sent us when we moved into our apartment was a glass pomegranate, with a slice cut open to show the seeds inside. I remembered seeing one in their home, but never asked why. It turns out that is a traditional first gift when you have purchased a new home, as it is a symbol of prosperity and fertility. There are baby blue and pink beads tied to it, and I did get not so subtle hint. lol

E's also hugely superstitious. He'll stop a car in the road if a black cat crosses, and wait for someone else to pass first. This is a guy that does not believe in the possibility of supernatural entities, so it's amusing to watch him paralyzed in fear over a cat. He'll never walk under a ladder. He also believes that a particular kind of cold wind will make you sick, and I've seen it happen to him - there's power to belief. It's never happened to me.

My family has a few of its own. My dad swears we should never take a shower on Good Friday. The one year he bathed his dog on Good Friday (when no work should be done, and bathing = work), it lost all its hair. My mom always puts out oranges at New Years, to encourage good fortune. She also grows a pachira or money tree. The more points each leaf of a money tree has, the more prosperity it's supposed to bring. When my parents go away on vacation, and my brother inevitably forgets to water it, mom always gets angry, because she needs to restore it back to health. Now hmm, actually sounds rather metaphorical.

I don't subscribe to many, but one of my personal superstitions include wearing something new on New Year's day, as a symbol that the year includes a fresh start. I also like to avoid talking about what I'm writing until it's done. Irrationally, I think by talking about it, the idea might change or slip away from me. The excitement, let out and escaped forever.

Now I'm wondering what kind of superstitions my characters might believe in. Are you superstitious?

Filed Under: Random Fun 14 Comments

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