Category: About Writing

Story Debt continued …

One of those photos I make of a seemingly hidden pic on the TV screen, a god-like figure in the hidden depths of a mysterious pool, inserted … even seeded … in there, perhaps to act as an eventual hook for a new series. I seem to remember that I got it from The Mandolorian somewhere. This camera shot surprisingly clear compared to the original.

Instead of sedately side-stepping back to the original Lodestar story, or going way back to the first or third installments, I’ve decided to skip to part 12. [This is all on the Page about the Lodestar Timeline] Which in a way can be thought of as the very first installment and anyway is a necessary prequel to the Doomed Trilogy.

Claire and Nalbo retired to the valley where the alien engineer, original owner of the spacecraft known on Earth as The Lodestar, decides to spend time on Earth to renew a member of his life support system. Things don’t go well as can be expected when species as different as the alien engineer and his support system, and humans meet.

I was only about fifty when I began writing this installment, and thought I should wait until I was much older to know what it felt like to be old and crotchety. Well, I’m seventy-seven now, high time I tackled it.

In Hospital

Anthony Roberts from Tony’s Bologna reminds me to talk about something I’m emotionaly responding to … not sure of the grammar there.

I’m not in the mood for grammar. I’m cold, hospital aircon is like the Antarctic. I’m standing swaying, with a blanket over my shoulders in my ED hutch (roomlet in the energency department) at the Mater (Hospital) in South Brisbane.

Been here for four and a half hours, had a canula put in that’ll give me the pip for weeks the bruise surrounding it is momentous.

Waiting for the results of the CT scan I had half an hour a go figuring if there’s a good/bad reason for the blockage in my gut. Waiting for the pain to be flushed out.

ED beds are the pits, as I’m sure everybody who has ever languished in ED knows. I’m too tall, my feet always flush against the footboard. How do really tall people manage?

Does it sound like I’m moaning? Does to me. Emotions are totally tied into physical sensations, you know? There is no brain body separation.

The time is 13.13 … one of those synergies I have with time. When I check the time, ther’s more often than not a little pattern to enjoy. Synergies might be the wrong word. I’m frazzled, frustrated and freaking!

OK, I can still do alliteration. Can still think. Discomfort is in overdrive. Now to find a pic that describes how I’m feeling …

Water color-painting .. practice

Learning a craft takes a lot of practice. When I was stil pretty new to watercolor painting, I used to try to paint on any type of paper and thin cardboard.

Not all of it worked. Art calendars featuring photographic art have a lot of marble dust in them. Paint sits on top until it dries. Made for some interesting experiments.

Then for a while I used mixed media papers, they worked better and I still have a few of those paintings.

Lately I’ve gone into 200 gsm paper specifically made for watercolor and since I have a problem throwing out good things that might be useful one day, I swear I’ve hung onto every bit of used 200gsm paper I’ve painted, it seems like.

Of course I laugh at myself but then don’t throw anything, I have a bag full of painted scraps for collaging.

Recently I’ve felt the need to practise painting a ‘wash’ or ten. Something I have a lot of difficulty with. So ended up with ten washes on four sides.

Made them into a little art zine … if I have that terminology right. Here the back and front covers (three washes)

The story was going to be about a red planet but the nickety nog said No!

Several aspects about this booklet please me quite a lot. The size, a quarter of an A4 page. It’s just enough for a short fairy story. I like the way the torn edges of the pages look edged with gold.

‘Hariet Reed’ is a pen name scrambled from my real name. Good for the witch telling this story. I don’t like the stickers much, will rethink that aspect. The random design of the pages (all those washes) worked well.

The story became a dark in color as wel as plot little tale about a nickety nog demanding a five and after being offered various juicy morsels and rejecting them, stealing five gold coins.

The story lacks cohesion, there are a couple of glitches, as well as other things I could’ve done better. The gold coins for example.

Some of the coins are gold-leaf on pva glue, none of them turned out round and some were rounded later with acrylic paint. And then towards the end I thought might as well paint the whole coin with acrylic gold. Worked the best of the lot.

All useful things to remember for when I make the next little story book. Only the last two pages were over-painted to help the tale end.

The ‘Case for Re-reading’…

Reading this article has gifted me with a fantastic reading list. I’ve read maybe four books on the list, a couple that are also on my shelves and that are also on my re-reading list.

I came across this website only recently and haven’t explored the whole of it yet. The links in the article below are giving me a lot of food for thought.

https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/case-for-rereading

When Mandy Brown mentioned the novel I had just started to re-read–The Peripheral by William Gibson–I felt I was finally in the right reading group.

Though maybe only a parallel group to the one being written about, I still feel like this writer is reading stuff I’m reading, and thinking along the similar lines I’m thinking. I feel relationship for the first time in a long while.

Reading isn’t an escape—it’s a reckoning.

Rereading is training, practice for remaking and unmaking—and, yes, razing—the world. Rereading draws your best thoughts close, keeps them at the ready, prepares you to think thoughts with them, prepares you to act with them at hand. Your favorite reads are your armor and your weapons and your shelter all in one. What have you gathered about you? What has taken root in your mind? What thoughts are you thinking with?

from the Case for Re-reading by Mandy Brown

Bosley & Co

The site as it stands. Work has begun on the canteen. Naturally there are some quibbles and quarrels.

Trish wants her cabin up asap.

Boz asks her where with his most irritating logic.

Tim wants to get on with it already.

Dan wants to go salvaging.

Drew stalks around looking inscrutable.

Nin Wizard is agitated and hops here and there with his teacup.

Nin’s younger brother and his crew have almost finished the Stone Dragon Teahouse with just the five of them … a fact Jed points out at least three times a day.