T. S. Bazelli | Ink Stained

Creature Compendium: The Church Grim

Wednesday Feb 1 2012

The Church Grim
Kirk Grimm / Kyrkogrim (Swedish) / Kirkonväki (Finnish)

Black Dog by WarNick

The church grim is a spirit with roots in Scandinavian and British folklore. The grim are helpful spirits that lurk about a church or graveyard. They are said to ringing the church bells when a soul has passed, or someone will soon die. If anyone besides the priest sees the grim, it is considered a portent of great change, but it does not always signal tragedy. The grim are most commonly associated with black dogs, but are sometimes described as other animals or pale-skinned ghosts.

The grim are tied to the practice of burying a live animal beneath the foundation stone of a new church. The first creature to die in the church or graveyard is said to roam eternally in the place where it died, and so animals were chosen instead of humans. This was a pagan tradition that carried over to Christianity. The choice of sacrificed animal has significance. A black dog was said to protect the dead, but other animals were sometimes used. A lamb, for example, would ensure the church would never be torn down.

Further Reading:

Related Creatures: hell hound, black dog

Region of Origin: Europe, Britain, Sweden, Finland

I'm noticing a theme here, do you? It seems that many of these creature legends are tied to religion, change over time, and as they spread regionally.

Filed Under: Creature Compendium

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And in a flash it's over #NaNoReMo Recap

Tuesday Jan 31 2012

Woman Reading (circa 1900) via the National Media Museum

Oh how I wish I lived a life of leisure where uninterrupted reading time was a regular thing. In that perfect world, I'd curl up on the couch with a warm blanket, a book, and some hot chocolate. I didn't think I'd do very well at this month of reading (#NaNoReMo), with beta reading, and writing in full swing, but January flashed by and I'm happy to report my results.

Although I didn't read any classics, and was gently chided by Mr. Wiswell for the transgression, I finished 4 novels, and started on a 5th. The biggest takeaway from this exercise for me: though I can't find large chunks of time to read, I can still snatch a few minutes here and there. Short stories happen to be a good length for a lunch time read, and I've got several collections to work through. I'd prefer more time, but that's not going to happen.

I can't sustain January's pace, but I will keep up with the daily reading, even if all I can manage is a few pages.

What are your reading habits? When do you find time to read?

Filed Under: Journal

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Everyday Magic

Thursday Jan 26 2012

I believe in magic. Not in the showy kind, of puffs of smoke, wizard's waving wands, nor curses that rob you of your luck, but simple small things that we take for granted everyday. You do magic too, but you might not realize it.

There are hundreds of little things...

Once in a while, when you're lonely, a friend you haven't heard from in ages might get in touch with you out of the blue.

Sometimes that souffle recipe works, the humidity and temperature, all conspire together, and you get a fluffy perfect desert, instead of a hollow eggy mess.

When you're having a bad time in your life, you might read a book that changes everything. Any sooner or later, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

The sun coming out after a long rainy day, so your walk home is dry.

It's there if you look for it. Call it coincidence, or convergence, if you will. I prefer magic.

I think creative people understand it best. There's a point when a painting, a poem, a sculpture... takes on a life of its own, when craft has reached its limit, and the piece becomes art, more than the summation of its parts. I read a story of a famous potter once. For him, the process is always the same. He can't say why some pieces turn out different than the others, why these pots end up in art galleries when others do not, but there is something special, unquantifiable, he can recognize. I think the act of pouring passion, intent, and sweat into something, can turn an ordinary thing into something more.

You're writers. You know the feeling. When a story you're writing takes you someplace unexpected, when the characters come to life in your mind, when an solution to a plot tangle comes out of nowhere. To me that's magic too.

And then there's love.

Just finding someone you can love, and be loved by, is already a miracle to me, but I'm not just talking about romantic love. Love can keep you going when there's nothing left, make things possible that you never dreamed of. Two people, five people, can do more than that many should be able to accomplish.

The heart is also perplexing thing. You can't divide it up into percentages: I love you with 15% or I love you more than the rest. Love is love, the heart is capable of an endless supply of it, and that love is always whole. That always irks the mathematician in me. I like pie charts! (Perhaps this is more in the realm of the quantum physicist) And its true, heart can break, but they keep on beating despite the pain. They're tougher than we think.

Magic / Miracles, to me they're the same thing. I live in a world full of it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Do you see it?

Filed Under: Journal

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The Genie Minted Writer's Toolkit (TM)

Tuesday Jan 24 2012

Top hat owned by Floyd B. Olson via The Minnesota Historical Society

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The kit includes*:

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Story Builder Lego. Rearrange the bricks for a proper story arc every time. Three act structure? The hero's journey? The possibilities are endless.
The Unbreakable Plot Tangle Comb. A brisk application of the comb will straighten out those plot messes in the middle of your book, resulting in a logical and consistent story without the need to rewrite. Guaranteed not to break, no matter how difficult the tangle.
The Thermometer of Doneness. Not sure when your story's finished? Tuck the thermometer between your manuscript pages, and the bright, easy to read, LED display will tell you the story needs to bake a little longer or if it's been overdone.
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All of this comes packaged in an attractive black satin top hat, certified for quality by magicians in not one, but two dimensions.

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*Magic lamp not included. Not suitable for young children. May contain nuts.

Filed Under: Random Fun

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Stir Fried Thoughts

Saturday Jan 21 2012

There have been a random assortment of things on my mind lately, and I wanted to mull things over before posting. So in no particular order, let us begin.

#NaNoReMo Update: I'm three and a half books into January. I think I'll finish the last one by the end of the week.

~~Idoru by William Gibson~~ - Done!
~~Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup~~ - Done!
~~Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle~~ - Done!
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making - Halfway through

Writing:

I've officially passed the 50% mark of 'The Golden Thread', my current WIP. It's still a first draft and very rough, but I'm surprised how much I've enjoyed working with an outline this time around. Even with a scene by scene guide, there's still room for surprise. The characters still get up to their tricks, and move the story along in ways I never anticipated. Those surprises are what I love best about writing. It feels a little bit like magic, and maybe it is.

Publishing:

I had a chat with Doug Savage of Savage Chickens over hot chocolate. He explained what he went through to get his book published, including how he worked with his agent to put together a proposal to pitch to publishers, and what happened afterwards. He said that right now publishers are looking for a sure bet. They wanted to know that there was a market ready for book, and they want concrete evidence. In his case, since his book was non-fiction, he had to provide detailed stats including how much blog traffic he gets, how many people follow his twitter account.

It's not the same for fiction, but that brings me back up to the crux of this rambling section: a need to identify a market. I'm a little lost with this part. I don't know who my novel will appeal to. I read a lot of fantasy, but I haven't found any easy comparisons. In fact, I wrote this novel to address things I didn't typically see in fantasy, but I wanted to. I'm going to have to do a little bit of research reading so I can fill in the blanks: "My book will appeal to fans of X author, and X author." I'm just worried that I may come up empty, or that at present the book is completely unmarketable.

Not convinced this is important? Check out pitch tips from agents on twitter. They will ask you for comparable novels if you pitch your novel to them. They will take it as evidence that you are not well read in your genre if you can't answer. I don't think this is necessarily a true assumption, but what can you do?

Courage!

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Courage comes and goes when it comes to this whole crazy writing business. For the most part, I usually keep my head down, and busy so I don't have time for fear. I'm anxious because no idea how to know how far along I am on the journey, nor even if I'm at the point where my writing is publishable. Do you keep working on the first novel? Keep sending it out? Or go on to the next thing? When do you stop? When are you done?

I realize there are no clear answers to this, because no one's journey is the same. I think it's the uncertainty that gets to me. Some reassurance that I'm still making progress would be great right about now, but there really are no statistics to measure by.

FIN

And so that's about it. In the meantime I'm just going to keep working. I have another novel to finish, and it's looking like the first draft will be done by the end of March. It's a completely different subgrenre from the first novel, which has been a nice change, but also a challenge.

How do you know you're making progress? Do you? Or do you worry about it like I do?

Filed Under: Journal

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Creature Compendium: Maneki Neko (Lucky Cat)

Thursday Jan 19 2012

I always thought the lucky cat was cute but a little tacky. You see them in restaurants sometimes, just near the entrance or in a window, made of plastic or ceramic, sometimes battery powered and waving a single paw up and down. I always wondered where it came from. Is it a legendary creature? There are legends about the statue's origin, but in the end it turns out the stories are 'just' about a famous cat. There are many superstitions associated with cats in Japan so 'just' is not quite accurate.

Maneki Neko

Maneki Neko by Belindi

Maneki Neko, the beckoning cat, the welcoming cat, or the lucky cat. Though in the modern day this symbol of prosperity is popular in both Chinese and Japanese communities, it originated in Japan,during the Edo period. Maneki Neko caries Koban, gold coins that were used as the currency of the period.

There are three stories associated with its origin:

In one story, a poor priest kept a cat as his companion, treating him well, even though he could hardly afford to feed himself. One day during a storm, a rich lord saw the cat sitting in the entrance to the temple, waving as if beckoning him to enter, and as he entered, the tree he had been standing under was struck by lightning. He believed the cat was an incarnation of a god or a lucky spirit, and in thanks endowed the temple generously. The cat was honored with a statue.

Another story features a geisha who loved her pet cat. One day the cat would not let go of her skirt, and she asked for help, because she could not chase it away. The owner of the house cut off the cat's head (*see superstitions about cats) and its head flew up into the rafters and killed a snake that might have bitten her. She was presented with a statue of the cat that sacrificed it's life for her.

The third story is about a poor woman who loved and cared for her cat. The cat appeared in a dream and instructed her to create his image in clay. These she sold and was saved from poverty.

Folktales:

The Legend of Maneki Neko (legend of the Gotokuji Temple)
Three Bobtail Tales (three origin stories for the lucky cat)
*Maneki Neko (historical notes and superstitions about cats in Japan)
Photos of Gotokuji Temple and its many cats.

Region of Origin: Asia, Japan

Filed Under: Creature Compendium

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Checking In For #NaNoReMo

Friday Jan 13 2012

Has it been another week already? Time flies!

The extra reading plan has been going fairly well. I've been cheating somewhat, by choosing shorter novels than my normal diet of of 600+ page monstrosities.

Here's the status report so far

Idoru by William Gibson - Done!
Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup - Done!
Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle - At the halfway mark. Been enjoying this lunchtime companion. I usually have enough time to finish one story over the break. Perhaps more thoughts on this collection later. I've left the kitchen crying twice already.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente - 4 chapters in. Reading this one out loud has been a bundle of fun, though the first night E fell asleep after 4 pages and begged for a recap the next day.

Read anything fun lately you want to recommend or share?

Filed Under: Random Fun

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We Need Stories

Thursday Jan 12 2012

We need stories that make us feel safe.

Words that rub a soothing balm on old raised scars, or take the sting out of fresh ones, that offer threads of hope to a waiting seamstress, like a lullaby, or a bowl of soup on a cold day...

We need stories that make us uncomfortable.

In their insanity, in their insipidness, in their heartbreak, in their dry dusty pages, in their hate, in their millions of crazy ways, mirroring in the way we hate, or love, or despise, or cringe, or long for. The pain, the itch that troubles, is always something true, a sign of growth, like a new tooth ready to come in, or it is kindling to a fire that leads to action. Because the truth is not always safe...

We need stories about different kinds of people.

The CEO embezzling from his company, and spending his cash on a collection of pez dispensers.
The boy down the street, that thinks he can hear dogs speak.
The old woman in Mongolia, who wonders what her life would be like if she never married, and never had children.
The man in Taiwan with too many pairs of shoes...

Because when we give up ourselves for a moment, and look through other eyes, once we get past the first cringe, the anger, the laughter, the discomfort, the absurdity, the plugging of the nose, the view is not always so different, and also different. There are as many worlds, as there are people...

The world needs all kinds of stories.

Only you can be you, there's no one else, there's no backup, and when you're gone there's never going to be another. Say what you want to say, don't let fear hold you back, or we'll never know, what might be lost because maybe, just maybe, there's someone else out there waiting for your words, to stanch the bleeding of a heart, to see the splinter in the foot, or like a ladder to climb out of a dark pit.

Filed Under: Beat The Writer's Blues, Writing

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