Flora & Fauna: Manuscript styles for Herbal & Bestiary.

From Medieval Archives.

Hi there,

I started out with this grand idea of making an illustrated manuscript. I thought it was fantastic and that I was going to use all of my artistry and skills to make something truly amazing. Then I started researching different styles of illuminated manuscripts. Did you know there is a shockingly high number of different illuminated manuscript styles just in Europe? Essentially each region has their own richly detailed styles, some getting down to the individual lineage of the scriptoriums who were putting these things together.

It's subtle, but all there. And then there is what you will find in other regions that is kinda jaw-dropping in complexity. The manuscripts of Persia are probably the ones that I find the most visually appealing. At the same time, however, the manuscripts of the lower portion of the Indian subcontinent is a kinda big thing too. We won't even get into the enormous range of the Chinese and Japanese illuminated and illustrated manuscripts. That is a tradition that has so many different nuanced elements that it literally takes multiple college classes to begin to understand it.

To say the least, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the matter. When I began turning back to look at some of my old artwork, I started seeing details from when I was much younger and not as inclined towards strict realism that was similar to the English illuminated manuscripts. I think to do the artwork for all of this, I am going to have to go back to my own artistic roots and reassess things from there. My test sketches are not that great, but they are test sketches done in pencil. I did reach a final decision on how to handle the actual work in the books proper. I'm going to use colored pencil because it is the medium I am most comfortable with and because the color saturation is a bit closer to what I'd find in the old manuscripts at the present time.

Progress is happening in fits and starts, but there is indeed progress.

Craft of Writing: Don't get too competitive.

Hi there!

Sorry this post is a day late. My boys were very active yesterday and when I finally got time to sit down at the laptop my brain was completely fried. Adhd is a hell of a thing. When I wasn't juggling one kid's temper tantrums over what the other kid was doing (and in one case an epic level meltdown over losing a game of checkers), I was thinking about what my problems had been posting. Being distracted was part of it, as was not feeling well. I was pretty sure that there was something else poisoning the well, however.

Watching that meltdown made the proverbial penny drop. I was trying to compete with EVERYBODY on the internet. It was a disappointing moment, to be honest. Still, it made me step back and look at what the problems were this created. It is something that kicks my perfectionism into high gear and for my internal critic, nothing is good enough. (I kinda wanna stick that chick in a trunk and sinking 'em into the bottom of the lake. There's caves down there, it'll be hard to find the body.) And good gods, how much is this competition with ALL THE INTERNET making me depressed and crazy, on top of the legitimate problems with depression happening.

A little competition is good. It keeps me hungry for doing more and for pushing myself to grow. Feeling like I have to compete with every last Bob, Dick, and Jane who have a website (and a Twitter feed) is something that leads to crippling self doubt. I really don't recommend it. Beloved had a good point the other day when he encouraged me to write for myself. A famous person, I can't remember their name right now, once said that if we write for ourselves, the book will find its audience when we put it out there.

It is not easy to do so. It requires heaps and heaps of courage and vulnerability. It also requires a willingness to do the super uncomfortable things to keep moving forward. (Kinda like this post, to be honest.) But, from what I can tell, the higher quality writing comes out of that place of vulnerability and openness. And that is what I am seeking. Not to edge some invisible, nameless conglomerate figure of the entire internet.

TL:DR version: Don't try to compete with everybody on this rock. It's just going to make you crazy. Compete with yourself, if you must compete. The rest comes along later, the writing is first. Focus on what you want to say and how you want to say it. Everybody and their brother are still going to be there later. Who knows, maybe they'll notice your work and say 'hey, this fits me.' because you didn't chase what other people was saying how things should be done. ♥

Rambling and nattering on.

Hi Folks,

It has been a challenging time for me. Back to school has been exhausting. The biggest hurdle, however, has been my mental health. After feeling somewhat better, but anxious, I have slipped into another depressive episode. I was talking with Beloved about how I was worried it was going to turn into the same kind of mess that last year was. I was (and, honestly, still am) very concerned that the depression was basically going to kill all of my writing projects.

I gave the bitter argument that no one wanted to read about struggling with depression. He looked at me and said that writing is one of my coping mechanisms. He also said that I should write for myself and if I choose to post it on a blog, then I should not worry about what other people had to say about it. It was something that I spent a good part of my evening thinking about last night and tonight. When things hit the point of 'I have to write SOMETHING or give up the blog.' in my head, I started transferring old reading journal posts.

I honestly can't say that the writer's group meeting on the 20th went well. I'm not sure if it is because I went in there anticipating problems and took every small sign of looking at me in askance as a sign of rejection. I'm not sure if it is because I have a legitimate reason to be anxious about some of the members. Or if it is just because I was having a bad day. Social phobia and past trauma combined with depression plays unpleasant games with your brain and your perception of the world. As such, I am going to give it one more try at the next meeting.

It is on the 4th of October. My guts are already roiling and the social phobic part of my brain is saying I should just not go because nothing good will come of it. I think part of my discomfort is the fact that I was the youngest person there by a solid 30 years. It makes my skin crawl because it brings back memories of past writing groups that were just plain creepy. (Some of them were creepy by the virtue of the excited exuberance of having a teen/young adult in the group where the median age is around 60. Others were creepy on the basis of some genuinely ... disturbing members. I left those ones in short order, where as the ones where I was the youngest person there by over 30 years were harder due to the fact that my Grandmother was so excited to have me go with her and my choice was to go or deal with some problematic stuff at home. As a teen, the way out of the house was always my choice.)

I have been finding myself extra anxious about social interaction on-line. I am fairly sure that this is just a natural extension of my anxiety about social interaction at large and the fact that a vast amount of my social interaction is via the internet right now. I am attempting to correct the inclination to basically hide with my bad feelings and bad thoughts when I can't fake being perfectly fine. It gets tough, though, because I have this idea that no one wants to read bad news or about someone's struggles. (Perverse humor in this is obvious considering my primary genre in fiction. I am not immune to irony, it seems.)

So, I am going to attempt to write more. I can't promise it is going to be what it was like before. It may be like this post today. Or, it may be something along the topics that I try to schedule for the day. Some days, there may even be things going on with format here when I feel up to wrestling with that. I have this idea in my head about how this thing should look. It is hard right now for me to translated it from brain fluff to words or even images right now. Scumbag brain is running interference right now. I kinda hate that guy.

But, I'll try to be back soon.

Book Review: Our Cosmic Habitat

Title: Our Cosmic Habitat
Author: Martin Rees
Publisher: Princston University Press Date: 2001

Already, I've finished the preface, the first chapter, and I'm half way through chapter two. This book is oriented much more towards the "lay man" physicist. It's a lower level then Hawking's work and doesn't posess the same ambitious drive to educate. It presents a more toned down and an effort to describe the current state of cosmology.

I'm a little over half way through this book and I'm rather bored. I clearly can see that this does not challenge my understanding of modern physics or cosmology. This is a primer for the newly introduced compared to Hawking's work. It's a bit of a disappointment.

I'm now 2/3rd (roughly) through the text and I'm woefully bored with it. I believe that I'm going to set this aside and work on something else.

[Note: As an introductory book, it is excellently written. If you can make it through highschool physics and a pre-calculus class, then you can get through this book easily. If you managed chemistry with out too much pain and higher level algerbra/geometry, then the book will be challenging. It seems to be a 11th grade reading level book, roughly.]

Original Publication Date: Mar. 25, 2002
Original Notation Dates: Nov. 2002

Book Review: When God Was A Woman

 Title: When God Was A Woman
Author: Merlin Stone
Publisher: Dial Press Date: 1976

This presents a pseudo-academic argument with it's political agenda clearly present. Yet, it does bespeak of a reasonable amount of scholarship. It is unfortunate that the author remains so heavily focused on the "matriarchal/matrifocal golden age" myth. It colors her work very much and takes what was very good and actually facinating archeological, anthropological, and historical research and puts a very heavy bias on the presentation. While I do agree that the Indo-Aryan invasion did bring great changes, I can not accept that the pre-invasion period was peaceful.

Also, it is very difficult for me to accept the premise that during the Paleolithic and Neolithic period that there was this Great Goddess cult, the feminine version of the Judeo-Christian religion essentially. Nor, I must say, that said cult was spread across the world. While there are varios iconographic simmilarities through out the world cultures at that stage of development, the Goddesses worshiped were clearly very different. I belive there are stages to the deveopment of human society, and with these stages there are sub-stages that they go through. The development of religion/spirituality and iconography to accompany it is clearly one.

I'm again inclined to questions the connections drawn between the various groups. The structure of the ancient Hebrews, the Indo-Aryans, and the Bramhins of Hinduism, is only simmilar on the surface. The imagry of fire-gods, storm-gods, and divine power expressed as a cataclysmic natural event/force was/is not esclusive to the Indo-Aryan race that swet through the Persian, Caracas/Balkins and Indian regions. This same structure, including an aristocratic priestly class can be foudn through out the world. It can even be found in our more "advanced" culture of the "Western" world. Hence, the rights and privilages ascribed to clergy of nationally recognized religions and the local belief systems interplay with politics. Areas where a particular branch of Christianity are of signifigant majority (or presence) will be influence to act in accordance with the ethos of said sect.

I believe that Stone is engagend in wishful thinking. Much like those who insist that the development of the theories of modern physics is dependend on the study of oriental culture and religion. I suspect the use of such arguments is due to a lack of knowledge of the philosophical and logical roots of european thought. Stone could really have built the argument better if the emphasis wasn't so heavily placed on a particular premise. A premise that the author did not state to be a primary point in her argument.

If Stone built her argument, focused it on the different points from the outset rather then developing contet, it would be a more concrete text. On the whole, a very engaging work. Well written, though I don't agree with the premises entirely. Very good research. I was disappointed that the points that cultural links between the Levite priests and the Hittites weren't developed. With how Stone presents them, it looks like they're a combination of circumstancial research and conjecture. 

It is a good start, however, in a field of writing that was just developing at the time.

Original Publication Date: Mar. 25, 2006
Original Notation Dates: Nov. 2002

I'm going to do WHAT?

So, the social phobe author is going on an adventure right in her own backyard. The Livingston County Writers and Poets club is meeting tomorrow at the Chip Holt Nature Center. This is literally right around the corner from my house. I'm more than a little nervous about this. That said, I recognize it would really do me a great deal of good to go and have something resembling a social life.

I am planning on bringing my bullet journal and my writing journal. I'm leaving the morning pages stuff at home because that is the sort of thing I'm supposed to not share with people. It's like my daily journal (and interestingly the content is shifting in that direction too despite my efforts to stay focused on writing in there). Both are private and generally not something to let most anyone view.

Wish me luck or something. If it goes well, I'll be attending both meetings on a given month (first and third Wednesday of the month). I just worry that it is going to be a situation where I'm the youngest person in the room and I completely don't fit in at all. Because social phobia says this would be a horrible thing and I should just give up before I try. Scumbag brain is getting medicated for this jaunt.

My work on rebuilding plot maps is slowly progressing. Other things have been getting in the way today, like paying bills and dealing with papers. Because not everything is going to be about writing, yanno? Next Tuesday, I will have the next installment of The Iron Lily up. The following Tuesday, I should have the next installment of Dacia's War, provided everything goes according to plan.

Craft of Writing: Organize and Attack with Mind Bullets!

I am adjusting my bullet journal and how I approach writing again. It seems to be a thing that I am going to do regularly. This is not a bad thing, just time consuming. Still, as I work on this, I am finding the creative well is beginning to fill up again. Perhaps the biggest change that I have made over the last few weeks is just making a point of dedicating a solid two hours everyday to journal writing. Spending that time focusing on myself is actually helping me find my voice again. A fantastic thing when you have been in a writing slump, to be honest.

In the pic below, I changed my layout a little bit. The weekly work log is divided up into three sections. The one at the extreme left is morning, the middle is afternoon, and the final is evening. I am also now adding appointments in so that I can keep better track of time spent on things. I also deliberately added blogging to my list of daily tasks. As I am having some difficulty staying on top of work for different books, I added a section noting my major things to get done this week on that front as well.

I am still in the process of getting plot maps done. It has been frustrating work, but this is what happens when I don't write down what I was planning and I have to back track to figure out what to do. I did have a brainstorm Friday night when I was out picking up takeout for dinner and found my way out of one plot hole. Maybe I'll get lucky and find another bolt of inspiration to resolve other plot holes.