When I began working on "The Ledgerkeepers" novel, I knew that I would want to fair spend bit of time with the world building. There was so much to figure out and create before I got the actual writing of the novel going.
Geography, flora and fauna, language(s) transportation, quality of life, currency/trade, clothing, economy, death, myths and legends, climate, superstitions, history, education and on and on.
I spent quite a bit of time working through and fleshing out all of this even though less than 5% of it will end up in the world as actual written detail, I DO think it's important to have the fantasy world built out in your head before you dive in and start writing in it. While characters, plot and action will be the core of the writing, it helps to know what the world around them is all about so you can experience it as the characters would.
In recent months, when I went ahead and began the actual storylines for the characters, I found myself swimming in that sea of details because I am an admittedly terrible organizer. Time and again I found myself spending far too long looking for those things I had already worked out months before. It was often like looking for a needle in a haystack. Many times I had a good idea where the right section of notes was. Others, it was a shot in the dark.
Very frustrating.
The writing program I use, Scrivener, has several wonderful ways to organize notes and details just like these. My problem was that I had written most of the pages of world building notes before I started working with Scrivener, so I needed to go ahead and transfer them all over from Mac Notes.
Well, I recently got all of those notes printed AND transferred and, out of curiosity, I decided to put all of the notes in one project folder so I could check the word count on all of that world building.
It crossed over400,000 words. Given that a novel will be in the 100,000 word range, that floored me.
I've basically written FOUR books worth of NOTES about the Bewildering Pine world in the last 18 months! It now occurs to me that the world is the haystack and the book that I am trying to pull from it, is the needle.
But I am SO glad I did all of the world building. When I am writing a scene and I know the style of clothing a Lutin elf wears or the type of hat a Hob sports, if I want to write about the types of street food or the fillings for a tart or drop the names of a few of the wagering games played in the secret basements of pubs, I smile.
Those are the details that I can just write without having to create them in the moment.
Next month we will begin the dive into the world itself. I hope to focus on the map for the next few fourth Fridays. I love maps and I think I could sit and create them all day long. . . I've spent hours on the one for the Bewildering Pine and it is nowhere near complete.
So come back then for the next installment!
Hoping YOUR world magical and bright! Thank you for dropping by. . .
Nicolas XO
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2018
Friday, April 6, 2018
A Book, A Bug and a Bit of a Revelation - First Friday Post - New Work - April 6th
Hello all!!
It's been a month since I've posted and, as many of you know, I 've been away for much of it.
The month started with a cross country train trip home to PA to see my mom. She's doing well all things considered. Still able to live on her own, drive etc. I cooked a lot, laughed a lot and learned a lot. (Family stories that you just never get as a kid or even as an adult, until you ask!) More on all that as time goes on. Anyway, that was where the first two missed Fridays went. I was off-line almost the whole time and LOVED it!
The Book: While away I finished a wonderful and inspiring book, The Witches of New York, by Ami McKay. I love a good period piece and this one set in the Victorian era of spiritualism in NY is filled with amazing scenes and characters. Its beautiful, full of magic and dreamy. . . but gritty and relatable and I highly recommend it. I just have to say, where can I get a pet raven?!
The Bug: The last two weeks of March were spent recovering from my trip and from getting sick for the third year in a row, after my return. I don't know what I expect. It's a terrible time to travel with so many people sick and the trip, in all honesty, is exhausting. Physically (it's hard to get good sleep on a moving train) and emotionally with being both home (childhood home) and away from home (Here, where my entire life and future are) all at once. It took the last two weeks to get back to normal and so I let the posting of blogs slide.
The Bit of a Revelation - While away I've thought a lot about time and how I spend it.
I am fortunate, beyond my wildest dreams, that I get to make a living being creative. At the tail end of last year, and maybe this is human nature, I began thinking of how I could make things "better". I'm not even sure what that meant really. But it led to me thinking I should do more of this, or try more of that, or create new online presences etc etc. While away, I realized that I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, Every single day. So why did I think I needed to do more?
I'm still not sure really.
On the train rides I talked to many people from all over the country and what always strikes me is how many (nearly every single person) react the same way when I tell them what I do for a living.
Their response falls along this line. . . "Oh, you can really make a living doing that?"
It's always stated, it seems, with a mix of exasperation and true joy.
It jars me to remember just how difficult that is to accomplish and also, when I set out to do it, that I never thought of it that way at all. It was always just going to be the next thing I do for a living when I sold the coffeehouse.
I was certain of it. Had no doubts. I was determined and willing to put in whatever time it took to make it happen. Never giving up.
The thing is, I never stopped in the last eight years to think about what I would need to do to continue it. I thought about that a lot this last month and the answer was pretty simple.
Follow the exact same path you always have. For me/us that means making and listing new work every single day and just letting it carry us where it will, trusting that the critical mass of listings, the continued desire to improve and the exposure will bring the customers.
In a sense, I'd come to allow the thinking me to overtake the intuitive. It's easy in a world where you can feel so "out of touch" if you are not on social media or connecting somehow when it seems everyone else is.
I kept feeling I should branch out, try new venues or promote my work more. The truth is, we have never done or had to do that and I cannot see why we would take time away from making and listing new work to do so at any point unless what works for us now stops working in the future.
Inspiration is always one reason to venture into those waters, I know, but I've come to think that there is such an overwhelming amount of visual out there to inspire and that too much of it is, for me, not good. If I take in too much I can lose my way because, YES, I want to do SO many things! Try new ideas and go down rabbit holes at every turn. So I try to limit my inspirational online dives too.
All that is to say that I came back seeing clearly that the focus for the rest of 2018 is just this:
Create, create, create!
My shops currently have less than half the stock they "should". That is, in part, because I have been selling items as fast as they make it in there but I have always thought that a shop with 80 items is more attractive to a buyer than one with 20. Especially as the holidays approach. (Yes, I said it, the holidays are NEAR. lol)
A long time ago I used to love to toss around a saying that I picked up in my old, urban/city-hardened art days:
"There are only two kinds of artists, talkers and doers. The talkers rarely make the time to do their art and the doers rarely have time to spend talking about it."
I've always been a mix I suppose and in those early days of my adult life was I was certainly more the talker. I didn't say that type of thing to rouse or poke others, only to light a fire under myself.
It was a reminder.
It's easy to talk about what we want to do and far harder to put ourselves on the line and just take action and do them. Somehow though, when it came to creativity as far back as childhood, I was more the doer, never the talker.
So I am going back to those roots.
My shops and my "Ledgerkeepers" book
That's it. At least for the rest of this year. . . and, honestly, it's quite enough! :)
So I'll be putting off some of those new outlets and inspirations for now and getting back to what got me here and allowed me to become a maker-of-things
And that is, simply
The Making
Which I have been doing since getting past the flu bug and below are a few of the newest pieces. :)
Thank you for coming back and I look forward to posting weekly again and to catching up on all of your blogs in the days ahead too!
XO Nicolas
It's been a month since I've posted and, as many of you know, I 've been away for much of it.
The month started with a cross country train trip home to PA to see my mom. She's doing well all things considered. Still able to live on her own, drive etc. I cooked a lot, laughed a lot and learned a lot. (Family stories that you just never get as a kid or even as an adult, until you ask!) More on all that as time goes on. Anyway, that was where the first two missed Fridays went. I was off-line almost the whole time and LOVED it!
 |
| On the return trip, the train had to sit on the siding as a freight train passed. . . and that left us right outside the entrance to Glacier Park at sunrise! |
 |
| Not for everyone but I have always adored the landscape of the Dakotas. This is North Dakota. I love the sparseness and the extremes. |
The Book: While away I finished a wonderful and inspiring book, The Witches of New York, by Ami McKay. I love a good period piece and this one set in the Victorian era of spiritualism in NY is filled with amazing scenes and characters. Its beautiful, full of magic and dreamy. . . but gritty and relatable and I highly recommend it. I just have to say, where can I get a pet raven?!
The Bug: The last two weeks of March were spent recovering from my trip and from getting sick for the third year in a row, after my return. I don't know what I expect. It's a terrible time to travel with so many people sick and the trip, in all honesty, is exhausting. Physically (it's hard to get good sleep on a moving train) and emotionally with being both home (childhood home) and away from home (Here, where my entire life and future are) all at once. It took the last two weeks to get back to normal and so I let the posting of blogs slide.
The Bit of a Revelation - While away I've thought a lot about time and how I spend it.
I am fortunate, beyond my wildest dreams, that I get to make a living being creative. At the tail end of last year, and maybe this is human nature, I began thinking of how I could make things "better". I'm not even sure what that meant really. But it led to me thinking I should do more of this, or try more of that, or create new online presences etc etc. While away, I realized that I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, Every single day. So why did I think I needed to do more?
I'm still not sure really.
On the train rides I talked to many people from all over the country and what always strikes me is how many (nearly every single person) react the same way when I tell them what I do for a living.
Their response falls along this line. . . "Oh, you can really make a living doing that?"
It's always stated, it seems, with a mix of exasperation and true joy.
It jars me to remember just how difficult that is to accomplish and also, when I set out to do it, that I never thought of it that way at all. It was always just going to be the next thing I do for a living when I sold the coffeehouse.
I was certain of it. Had no doubts. I was determined and willing to put in whatever time it took to make it happen. Never giving up.
The thing is, I never stopped in the last eight years to think about what I would need to do to continue it. I thought about that a lot this last month and the answer was pretty simple.
Follow the exact same path you always have. For me/us that means making and listing new work every single day and just letting it carry us where it will, trusting that the critical mass of listings, the continued desire to improve and the exposure will bring the customers.
In a sense, I'd come to allow the thinking me to overtake the intuitive. It's easy in a world where you can feel so "out of touch" if you are not on social media or connecting somehow when it seems everyone else is.
I kept feeling I should branch out, try new venues or promote my work more. The truth is, we have never done or had to do that and I cannot see why we would take time away from making and listing new work to do so at any point unless what works for us now stops working in the future.
Inspiration is always one reason to venture into those waters, I know, but I've come to think that there is such an overwhelming amount of visual out there to inspire and that too much of it is, for me, not good. If I take in too much I can lose my way because, YES, I want to do SO many things! Try new ideas and go down rabbit holes at every turn. So I try to limit my inspirational online dives too.
All that is to say that I came back seeing clearly that the focus for the rest of 2018 is just this:
Create, create, create!
My shops currently have less than half the stock they "should". That is, in part, because I have been selling items as fast as they make it in there but I have always thought that a shop with 80 items is more attractive to a buyer than one with 20. Especially as the holidays approach. (Yes, I said it, the holidays are NEAR. lol)
A long time ago I used to love to toss around a saying that I picked up in my old, urban/city-hardened art days:
"There are only two kinds of artists, talkers and doers. The talkers rarely make the time to do their art and the doers rarely have time to spend talking about it."
I've always been a mix I suppose and in those early days of my adult life was I was certainly more the talker. I didn't say that type of thing to rouse or poke others, only to light a fire under myself.
It was a reminder.
It's easy to talk about what we want to do and far harder to put ourselves on the line and just take action and do them. Somehow though, when it came to creativity as far back as childhood, I was more the doer, never the talker.
So I am going back to those roots.
My shops and my "Ledgerkeepers" book
That's it. At least for the rest of this year. . . and, honestly, it's quite enough! :)
So I'll be putting off some of those new outlets and inspirations for now and getting back to what got me here and allowed me to become a maker-of-things
And that is, simply
The Making
Which I have been doing since getting past the flu bug and below are a few of the newest pieces. :)
Thank you for coming back and I look forward to posting weekly again and to catching up on all of your blogs in the days ahead too!
XO Nicolas
 |
| I love the idea of using large flowers with a tiny house!! |
 |
| I just wanted to come up with a house that had a mushroom "feel" without being a mushroom. |
 |
| When I was home, I reconnected with the root of my love of ancient Egyptian/Kemetic Art. I never tire of making Sekhmet lioness pieces and these busts have been very popular lately. |
 |
| A request for a red and gold Anubis led to this. I LOVE the colors and may make more like it going forward too! It feels very elemental and warm. |
Friday, November 24, 2017
The Bewildering Pine - Worldbuilding - Fourth Friday - November 24th
I wrote about it before, quite awhile ago, but I want to get into the specifics of the world building I've done for my novel-in-waiting, "The Ledgerkeepers".
First I want to say that I admit that I am a prime candidate for what is known as "worldbuilder's disease". This is when you allow the task of creating a fictional world to consume you and you never get to the writing of your book, stories, music and what have you because you can't move past the creation. Well, I spent the better part of a year creating the world that is the setting of this book.
I get it.
It's addictive. There were times I couldn't stop and,even with all the details and ideas I've fleshed out, there remains more to be done.
And while fantasy/sci-fi wiring is most prone to this, it needs to be done for any sort of storytelling really. In fact, one of the first novels I read way back when I was maybe 10 or 11 was a true crime story that was so detailed about the era (1940's -50's), the neighborhood (Boston's little Italy) and the characters (mostly 2nd generation immigrants) that I was swept away into it and have never forgotten the "escape" effect it had on me.
But building a world from scratch? Deciding on a subarctic climate leads to the types of housing, plant life, foods, animals, terrain, clothing that are needed. The types of people/elves living there leads to origin stories, folktales, shadowy pasts, familial/community structure and expectation and superstitions.
The magic, if there is any, leads to needing to set the rules, what it's limits are, who can use it and the many ways it might manifest or change the dynamics in a world you worked so hard to build.
Languages, social structure, government, ability to travel, money, trade, politics etc etc etc
And do not even get me started on mapmaking. It's my favorite part and I am in process of making the third full map of this land.
On and on and on. . . and I could be quite happy with just doing that if it weren't that I feel compelled to tell this bigger story.
But the best part of getting past those beginnings and into the writing is that your world gets to be built from within the telling as much as it did when you were building it deliberately before hand. Some of my favorite bits and details of the world thus far came from just writing and not from advanced planning.
Take this passage from one of the first chapters I've completed:
The Barchans unsettled Yanne — and very few things did.
So, before writing that passage I knew only that the Barchans were traders from the outer world who dealt/interacted with the folk in my world very rarely since the trader docks are located out on a floating village in the vastness of the bay, away from the bulk of the land which is inaccessible by large ships.
Yanne, a main character in the book, fancies himself a storyteller. The Barchans are rude and obnoxious but so, in his own way, is Yanne. So in deciding what aggravates him about the Barchans, it is of course some of the mirrored traits he sees in them. Yet I wanted something outside the box for him to focus on about them and I needed something visually specific to identify the Barchans later in the book.
Their oversized iron teeth, the chokers they wear made of their pulled, original teeth and the sounds and sights of iron scraping on iron. All of that came up in the writing/daydreaming and, even though it is just a tiny scrap of the world building, now I can't imagine the chapter/story without it.
World builder's disease can present itself in the writing too though. That passage above was around four times as long after it's creation. The rest was unnecessary backstory and filler. More reveal than was needed which, often, loses your readers. (and this is hard for me because I LOVE reading descriptive text even when I know it's a bit much for the story!!)
As world builders we all tend to think the worlds we create are incredibly cool. And most of them may be. But in the writing I am discovering, even in and among my own creation, a slow unveiling is far more effective than an info dump of history and genealogy.
A great part of the excitement of the process is that I do not know where it will go exactly or what other little gems I might uncover about the folk who populate it as the story continues!
I am glad you're coming along for the ride and I look forward to sharing so much more as we go. . .
Hoping all my American readers had a wonderful holiday and that everyone else in our beautiful world had a magical day, as always!
Keep building the world you wish to dwell in!
XO
Nicolas
First I want to say that I admit that I am a prime candidate for what is known as "worldbuilder's disease". This is when you allow the task of creating a fictional world to consume you and you never get to the writing of your book, stories, music and what have you because you can't move past the creation. Well, I spent the better part of a year creating the world that is the setting of this book.
I get it.
It's addictive. There were times I couldn't stop and,even with all the details and ideas I've fleshed out, there remains more to be done.
And while fantasy/sci-fi wiring is most prone to this, it needs to be done for any sort of storytelling really. In fact, one of the first novels I read way back when I was maybe 10 or 11 was a true crime story that was so detailed about the era (1940's -50's), the neighborhood (Boston's little Italy) and the characters (mostly 2nd generation immigrants) that I was swept away into it and have never forgotten the "escape" effect it had on me.
But building a world from scratch? Deciding on a subarctic climate leads to the types of housing, plant life, foods, animals, terrain, clothing that are needed. The types of people/elves living there leads to origin stories, folktales, shadowy pasts, familial/community structure and expectation and superstitions.
The magic, if there is any, leads to needing to set the rules, what it's limits are, who can use it and the many ways it might manifest or change the dynamics in a world you worked so hard to build.
Languages, social structure, government, ability to travel, money, trade, politics etc etc etc
And do not even get me started on mapmaking. It's my favorite part and I am in process of making the third full map of this land.
On and on and on. . . and I could be quite happy with just doing that if it weren't that I feel compelled to tell this bigger story.
But the best part of getting past those beginnings and into the writing is that your world gets to be built from within the telling as much as it did when you were building it deliberately before hand. Some of my favorite bits and details of the world thus far came from just writing and not from advanced planning.
Take this passage from one of the first chapters I've completed:
. . . And while that was all reason enough for his soured opinion of them, what disturbed Yanne most about the Barchan traders was that, save for a few of the youngest aboard each vessel, they had all been fitted with their trademark iron teeth. Those oversized denticles, which they grated together inside their mouths and scraped along the tines of their heavy iron flatware in a most egregious and disconcerting way, were just too much to bear. Just the thought of the sound they made sent shivers spiraling up Yanne’s spine and made the hair on his neck and arms prickle upright. Their original teeth, those that they still possess when they’re ceremoniously yanked for the fitting of the iron, are fashioned into a choker that each Barchan wears around his neck with great pride.
"And that’s no treat to look upon across a communal dining table."
So, before writing that passage I knew only that the Barchans were traders from the outer world who dealt/interacted with the folk in my world very rarely since the trader docks are located out on a floating village in the vastness of the bay, away from the bulk of the land which is inaccessible by large ships.
Yanne, a main character in the book, fancies himself a storyteller. The Barchans are rude and obnoxious but so, in his own way, is Yanne. So in deciding what aggravates him about the Barchans, it is of course some of the mirrored traits he sees in them. Yet I wanted something outside the box for him to focus on about them and I needed something visually specific to identify the Barchans later in the book.
Their oversized iron teeth, the chokers they wear made of their pulled, original teeth and the sounds and sights of iron scraping on iron. All of that came up in the writing/daydreaming and, even though it is just a tiny scrap of the world building, now I can't imagine the chapter/story without it.
World builder's disease can present itself in the writing too though. That passage above was around four times as long after it's creation. The rest was unnecessary backstory and filler. More reveal than was needed which, often, loses your readers. (and this is hard for me because I LOVE reading descriptive text even when I know it's a bit much for the story!!)
As world builders we all tend to think the worlds we create are incredibly cool. And most of them may be. But in the writing I am discovering, even in and among my own creation, a slow unveiling is far more effective than an info dump of history and genealogy.
A great part of the excitement of the process is that I do not know where it will go exactly or what other little gems I might uncover about the folk who populate it as the story continues!
I am glad you're coming along for the ride and I look forward to sharing so much more as we go. . .
Hoping all my American readers had a wonderful holiday and that everyone else in our beautiful world had a magical day, as always!
Keep building the world you wish to dwell in!
XO
Nicolas
Friday, October 27, 2017
The Bewildering Pine - Fourth Friday October 27th
Welcome to my first Fourth Friday Post. Every month, on the fourth Friday I will be writing about, and sharing insights into, the Bewildering Pine; a world I've been creating, in one form or another, for as long as I can recall.
I should start by explaining and separating the two main parts of this series and that world.
One, the "Bewildering Pine" is the fictional world where my first (in process) novel length book, "The Ledgerkeepers", is set. It's a fantasy world that pulls from the many influences and inspirations I've had over the years for just such a world. The world is populated by "old world elves", simply referred to as folk, and not the High elves of modern fantasy.
And the second aspect, the Bewilder and Pine, which is the creative outlet for my miniature making. It's my Etsy shoppe and where many of the larger ideas I have been formulating began.
Here, I really want to focus mainly on the book, that world and it's ties to my childhood and adult life but some parts of that world are derived from the experiences and products in the shoppe, and the shoppe in great part inspired the book and everything else that will come beyond it. . . so I will want to dive into both over the coming months.
Today, for the first installment, I do want to focus on what the undertaking of the writing of this book has meant to, and done FOR, my own heart.
It would be easy, I think, for an outsider to look at my miniature work, my writing here and my views on life in general and assume I am stuck in a loop of nostalgia and whimsy, not that there would be anything wrong with that. . . and to a degree it's true. :) I've come to a place in my life where I tend to keep most anyone who I feel is too caught up in the outside or "real" world at arms length. Not because I want to pretend that world doesn't exist but because I believe how much that world affects us is almost entirely up to us most days.
Simply put, if I allowed that world to inundate my daily thoughts and emotions, I could not do what I do for a living. It's not an escape, it's the way I go about and make sense of that very same world while at the same time, giving life to, and protecting, another world I've held within for so many years.
Somewhere along the way I decided that we each have our roles to play, I won't say it's our destiny or our calling. . . or even our path. . . just that we may choose what we do with each moment we are given and for me, that choice slowly over the years became one of deciding that I wanted to put as much beauty and joy into the world as I can every day.
I discovered early on in the Etsy/maker-of-things world that the more I attached stories to my little creations, the more people responded to them. The more stories I created, the more the world that is now the Bewildering Pine of the book, started to creep in and influence my making and the stories I wrote to go with. Tart Carts, crooked towers, shop and village names, houses with different architectural styles, little enigmatic elves who live in the woods or in hermit like solitude. Monks with face like mimes. Old tongues and sacred traditions lost. With each addition another little piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Now, this is going back some eight years to the beginning. In the last few years, the separation had begun to widen in my heart and in my creative desires. I started spending more time on the "side project" which, at the time, I could not have told you what exactly it would become. The world of the book is now vastly different from the world of the Etsy shoppe.
There are still bits and pieces that remain constant but as characters, locations and I suppose, most of all, the plot for the Ledgerkeeper's story started to reveal itself to me, I saw the chance to speak about more than just a fantasy world. It's aim is to be a novel that speaks to cultural identities and traditions, how things change, why things change, and, of course, how everything is not what it seems when story is a foggy subject at best.
As for the writing, this has been a crash course. I've never even attempted to write something like this before. Not seriously. Poetry yes, short stories, yes, letters of all kinds to friends and family, yes.
But to sit down and say, "Right, I want to write a novel!" No, that never crossed my mind once really.
What I've learned more than anything in the last year since I took up the task is WHY so many people start writing a novel, a short story, a memoir and then quit. Because it's reallllllly HARD and it requires something I feel blessed to have been able to find in an already busy life. The space and a routine to do so!!
I believe it's the hardest creative thing I've ever set out to do. It requires persistence, time commitment, belief in it and in yourself. More than all of those, I think, it requires a desire to say something through your fiction. To tell your story or offer a viewpoint.
Nothing has ever brought me face to face with my own resolve and motivations like writing.
I chose the genre of fantasy for obvious reasons. Mostly because at the start of a fantasy story or novel is the world building part of it. That world that only exists in your head has to be fleshed out. Mapped out too. Not all at once but, at some point, you have to think about it all. The cultures, the limitations, the food, the climate, the magic etc.
Often you'll hear writers offer the advice "Write what you know". For some, like David Sedaris, that can mean your close family. For others like George RR Martin, that means the world you've been toying with in your head for your whole life.
To me, the love required is the same and evident in both I think. So yes, write what you love as well as what you know. The great thing is, you can learn so much that you don't know when you start! I may have a fantasy world in my head but it's littered with real world objects and situations that need to be right for the story. How does a water clock work? How were certain vegetables farmed 500 years ago? What happens when you have two moons, not one. The list is endless.
I love fantasy. Myth, legend, magic, the realm of Faerie, elves, surreal nature.
The funny thing is, I've decided to go a whole lot less in the original direction I assumed I would.
I've left magic off the board in this world for the most part. What magic does exist is born more of our own old world beliefs and traditions and the faith of folk in that. I've seen first hand in my life how powerful that can be. So, if it's tinged with magic in the Bewildering Pine, it has roots in something you may recognize. There are no great powers, no mages and wizards. No dark forces. . . at least, not magic ones.
The main characters as well as most of the supporting ones are all based on people I have known as well. From childhood friends to folk I know in the small town I live in currently. All wonderfully unique in their own ways and human to a fault.
I personally fall in love with books for the characters, not just the worlds the author created for them to dwell in.
My favorite books of late all share the core foundation of having very strong characters as well as the world around them being interesting too. But that doesn't mean they have to be a total creation of the imagination.
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Green and Ancient Light
The Queen of the Tearling
The Foretold
The Night Circus
All of these portray vastly different worlds: Four parallel Londons, a non-descript,"post war" European setting, a realm from our very own possible future, an Amazonian tribe/landscape and the underbelly of 19th century London.
What they all have in common are main characters that are stronger than the need to suspend your disbelief because they are relatable. Now, I won't ask you to read any of those if fantasy is not your thing. . .but if you want a short story that sums that same idea up, of the character being more important than the system of magic and the world, I'd suggest seeking out "The Night Market" by Holly Black. It's simply one of the best short stories I've ever read. It's got a bit of fantasy, a bit of magic too, but it's all revolving around the main character, her love of her family and the ending is the true magic of the story, of the world. . . of each of us in our world. It's well worth the read.
So here I am. over a YEAR into this project and just moving forward every day. I spend two hours each morning from 5:30am to 7:30am sitting in the silence of the early hours at the laptop writing, researching, plot sketching, exploring.
Each day starts with feeding and loving on our cat, Bhu, then venturing out to walk to the old-school bakery which is just a block away from our place and opens at 5:30am ( I know, lucky right?) and the day starts with something like this
Finding that space, that time and making it a routine was key to getting along with the writing. It has also been the best adventure ever! Bringing this world to life and creating the characters and all the little details is like nothing else I've done. I 'm hooked. It's no longer hard. No longer a chore. It's just one more thing in my daily routine and I try not to let anything keep me from it.
In the future I want to talk about the beauty of routine and how it is such an important part of my days. I learned it at retreats visiting a Zen monastery years ago. Their set hours for meditation, meals, down time, work etc were a novel idea to me who, as a creative soul, could not stand the notion of incorporating that into my own daily creative world. Yet. . .
Immediately I saw why it worked but I still fell off the "routine wagon" very quickly afterwards. In the last 8 years or so, learning to keep to a schedule has become essential with all that I want to accomplish and make.
The routine I have now is set in stone and it has to be a pretty extraordinary thing for me to break it..
I'll also want to discuss finding your "voice" thru writing. For me, that has been the hardest part of taking up a novel. Different writers create in different ways. It was yet one more reinvention and I seem to have found my own methods to get me there along the way.
At this point in the Ledgerkeepers, I have a prologue and four very strong character chapters. One for each of the main characters. Each also explores a little of the world around them and each, before I found my voice, were wayyyyyy too long expositions of pure world building and description ( a common flaw in fantasy writing) and less of the characters. One of these chapters, for example, was near to 70 pages of discovery writing which I condensed and stripped away to what is now an 11 page first chapter. I found the characters and found THEIR voices, their motivations and their desires.
I'm excited to start sharing some of that world with you all here. And while I am not quite there yet, I want to put out there that I am going to be asking for Alpha and Beta readers in the coming months. (beginning in January most likely) If you have any interest in being among the first to read what I am creating, you can let me know and I will put you on the list of people to open the early chapters of the story up to as it falls into place.
As an alpha reader, I'll ask you to only focus on, and give feedback for four distinct things:
Thank you for coming by and reading! XX
Nicolas
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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:
I should start by explaining and separating the two main parts of this series and that world.
One, the "Bewildering Pine" is the fictional world where my first (in process) novel length book, "The Ledgerkeepers", is set. It's a fantasy world that pulls from the many influences and inspirations I've had over the years for just such a world. The world is populated by "old world elves", simply referred to as folk, and not the High elves of modern fantasy.
And the second aspect, the Bewilder and Pine, which is the creative outlet for my miniature making. It's my Etsy shoppe and where many of the larger ideas I have been formulating began.
Here, I really want to focus mainly on the book, that world and it's ties to my childhood and adult life but some parts of that world are derived from the experiences and products in the shoppe, and the shoppe in great part inspired the book and everything else that will come beyond it. . . so I will want to dive into both over the coming months.
Today, for the first installment, I do want to focus on what the undertaking of the writing of this book has meant to, and done FOR, my own heart.
It would be easy, I think, for an outsider to look at my miniature work, my writing here and my views on life in general and assume I am stuck in a loop of nostalgia and whimsy, not that there would be anything wrong with that. . . and to a degree it's true. :) I've come to a place in my life where I tend to keep most anyone who I feel is too caught up in the outside or "real" world at arms length. Not because I want to pretend that world doesn't exist but because I believe how much that world affects us is almost entirely up to us most days.
Simply put, if I allowed that world to inundate my daily thoughts and emotions, I could not do what I do for a living. It's not an escape, it's the way I go about and make sense of that very same world while at the same time, giving life to, and protecting, another world I've held within for so many years.
Somewhere along the way I decided that we each have our roles to play, I won't say it's our destiny or our calling. . . or even our path. . . just that we may choose what we do with each moment we are given and for me, that choice slowly over the years became one of deciding that I wanted to put as much beauty and joy into the world as I can every day.
I discovered early on in the Etsy/maker-of-things world that the more I attached stories to my little creations, the more people responded to them. The more stories I created, the more the world that is now the Bewildering Pine of the book, started to creep in and influence my making and the stories I wrote to go with. Tart Carts, crooked towers, shop and village names, houses with different architectural styles, little enigmatic elves who live in the woods or in hermit like solitude. Monks with face like mimes. Old tongues and sacred traditions lost. With each addition another little piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Now, this is going back some eight years to the beginning. In the last few years, the separation had begun to widen in my heart and in my creative desires. I started spending more time on the "side project" which, at the time, I could not have told you what exactly it would become. The world of the book is now vastly different from the world of the Etsy shoppe.
There are still bits and pieces that remain constant but as characters, locations and I suppose, most of all, the plot for the Ledgerkeeper's story started to reveal itself to me, I saw the chance to speak about more than just a fantasy world. It's aim is to be a novel that speaks to cultural identities and traditions, how things change, why things change, and, of course, how everything is not what it seems when story is a foggy subject at best.
As for the writing, this has been a crash course. I've never even attempted to write something like this before. Not seriously. Poetry yes, short stories, yes, letters of all kinds to friends and family, yes.
But to sit down and say, "Right, I want to write a novel!" No, that never crossed my mind once really.
What I've learned more than anything in the last year since I took up the task is WHY so many people start writing a novel, a short story, a memoir and then quit. Because it's reallllllly HARD and it requires something I feel blessed to have been able to find in an already busy life. The space and a routine to do so!!
I believe it's the hardest creative thing I've ever set out to do. It requires persistence, time commitment, belief in it and in yourself. More than all of those, I think, it requires a desire to say something through your fiction. To tell your story or offer a viewpoint.
Nothing has ever brought me face to face with my own resolve and motivations like writing.
I chose the genre of fantasy for obvious reasons. Mostly because at the start of a fantasy story or novel is the world building part of it. That world that only exists in your head has to be fleshed out. Mapped out too. Not all at once but, at some point, you have to think about it all. The cultures, the limitations, the food, the climate, the magic etc.
Often you'll hear writers offer the advice "Write what you know". For some, like David Sedaris, that can mean your close family. For others like George RR Martin, that means the world you've been toying with in your head for your whole life.
To me, the love required is the same and evident in both I think. So yes, write what you love as well as what you know. The great thing is, you can learn so much that you don't know when you start! I may have a fantasy world in my head but it's littered with real world objects and situations that need to be right for the story. How does a water clock work? How were certain vegetables farmed 500 years ago? What happens when you have two moons, not one. The list is endless.
I love fantasy. Myth, legend, magic, the realm of Faerie, elves, surreal nature.
The funny thing is, I've decided to go a whole lot less in the original direction I assumed I would.
I've left magic off the board in this world for the most part. What magic does exist is born more of our own old world beliefs and traditions and the faith of folk in that. I've seen first hand in my life how powerful that can be. So, if it's tinged with magic in the Bewildering Pine, it has roots in something you may recognize. There are no great powers, no mages and wizards. No dark forces. . . at least, not magic ones.
The main characters as well as most of the supporting ones are all based on people I have known as well. From childhood friends to folk I know in the small town I live in currently. All wonderfully unique in their own ways and human to a fault.
I personally fall in love with books for the characters, not just the worlds the author created for them to dwell in.
My favorite books of late all share the core foundation of having very strong characters as well as the world around them being interesting too. But that doesn't mean they have to be a total creation of the imagination.
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Green and Ancient Light
The Queen of the Tearling
The Foretold
The Night Circus
All of these portray vastly different worlds: Four parallel Londons, a non-descript,"post war" European setting, a realm from our very own possible future, an Amazonian tribe/landscape and the underbelly of 19th century London.
What they all have in common are main characters that are stronger than the need to suspend your disbelief because they are relatable. Now, I won't ask you to read any of those if fantasy is not your thing. . .but if you want a short story that sums that same idea up, of the character being more important than the system of magic and the world, I'd suggest seeking out "The Night Market" by Holly Black. It's simply one of the best short stories I've ever read. It's got a bit of fantasy, a bit of magic too, but it's all revolving around the main character, her love of her family and the ending is the true magic of the story, of the world. . . of each of us in our world. It's well worth the read.
So here I am. over a YEAR into this project and just moving forward every day. I spend two hours each morning from 5:30am to 7:30am sitting in the silence of the early hours at the laptop writing, researching, plot sketching, exploring.
Each day starts with feeding and loving on our cat, Bhu, then venturing out to walk to the old-school bakery which is just a block away from our place and opens at 5:30am ( I know, lucky right?) and the day starts with something like this
 |
| French Press and a fresh apricot danish. Sorry about the lighting. . . but it WAS taken before 6 in the morning! |
Finding that space, that time and making it a routine was key to getting along with the writing. It has also been the best adventure ever! Bringing this world to life and creating the characters and all the little details is like nothing else I've done. I 'm hooked. It's no longer hard. No longer a chore. It's just one more thing in my daily routine and I try not to let anything keep me from it.
In the future I want to talk about the beauty of routine and how it is such an important part of my days. I learned it at retreats visiting a Zen monastery years ago. Their set hours for meditation, meals, down time, work etc were a novel idea to me who, as a creative soul, could not stand the notion of incorporating that into my own daily creative world. Yet. . .
Immediately I saw why it worked but I still fell off the "routine wagon" very quickly afterwards. In the last 8 years or so, learning to keep to a schedule has become essential with all that I want to accomplish and make.
The routine I have now is set in stone and it has to be a pretty extraordinary thing for me to break it..
I'll also want to discuss finding your "voice" thru writing. For me, that has been the hardest part of taking up a novel. Different writers create in different ways. It was yet one more reinvention and I seem to have found my own methods to get me there along the way.
At this point in the Ledgerkeepers, I have a prologue and four very strong character chapters. One for each of the main characters. Each also explores a little of the world around them and each, before I found my voice, were wayyyyyy too long expositions of pure world building and description ( a common flaw in fantasy writing) and less of the characters. One of these chapters, for example, was near to 70 pages of discovery writing which I condensed and stripped away to what is now an 11 page first chapter. I found the characters and found THEIR voices, their motivations and their desires.
I'm excited to start sharing some of that world with you all here. And while I am not quite there yet, I want to put out there that I am going to be asking for Alpha and Beta readers in the coming months. (beginning in January most likely) If you have any interest in being among the first to read what I am creating, you can let me know and I will put you on the list of people to open the early chapters of the story up to as it falls into place.
As an alpha reader, I'll ask you to only focus on, and give feedback for four distinct things:
- What bores you
- What confuses you
- What don’t you believe
- What’s cool? (So I don’t accidentally “fix” it.)
That's it! No long explanations are necessary. Just simple observations as you go. No other input is required at that first stage. I'll likely post the chapters here with password protection on them and send you the password when I am ready. I tend to like rather short chapters, 8-12 pages on average so it's not a lot of time commitment with each.
Here and there I'll be posting little excerpts on the open blog too. In addition to "The Ledgerkeepers", I am also creating a book born from the world building itself. An "atlas", I suppose, with many of the descriptive details of the villages, architecture, maps, belief systems, flora and fauna, folktales and the ancient origin stories for all of the type of folk who dwell in the world of the Bewildering Pine. As if someone were archiving the world from within the world itself.
Alright, I think that's going to be good for this month's opening installment. I know it was a bit scattered but we'll find a direction with it in the next month or two.
Welcome along for the ride! I look so forward to sharing more of the world with you in the coming months on fourth Fridays. I hope you will enjoy it too.
Welcome along for the ride! I look so forward to sharing more of the world with you in the coming months on fourth Fridays. I hope you will enjoy it too.
Thank you for coming by and reading! XX
Nicolas
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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:
1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me)
3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me)
3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)
Friday, September 29, 2017
Turning a Page
Hello everyone!
So, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on something exciting as it pertains to my blog!
I have struggled for years to find a rhythm with keeping my blog active. I kept wanting to discover some magic structure that will allow me to be more regular and offer more of what is going on in the creative world around me.
With the wealth of new projects, ideas, undertakings etc, I have once again allowed my posting here to slip and I want to change that going forward.
So here is what is happening. . .
I am pledging to post each and every Friday of the month. To try and make this a reality, I am going to give each Friday of the month a "theme".
Starting with October, (my favorite time of the year), I will be offering posts on the following general topics based on the number of the Friday of the month.
1st Friday of Each Month - New work. This will not just be newly finished creations but I a peek into the actual making of one of those new items each month. From start to finish. Photos, materials, techniques etc.
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities - Links and topics that I've come across that inform my work, my writing and just my insatiable curiosity for the strange and wonderful in the world we live in, past or present, and beyond. Research is a big part of my creative world and I can think of no better way to stir that "making pot" than to share those things I've found.
3rd Fridays - The Maker-of-Things - a look into how I got "here", from an over-reaching teenage dreamer to being a full time creator. So, snippets of those early childhood memories, the long and winding road of experimentation and failure along the way and all of the other creative ventures I tried and moved on from. Plus some all-around advice for creating a life that supports living as a creative soul and working maker. This will be only my experience so it will not resonate for some, I know, but I think it worth expressing to hopefully help those who wish to follow in those creative footsteps.
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine! - Many of you know that I have been focused on writing a novel and short stories centered around the world I created, the Bewildering Pine. So these 4th Friday posts will offer small peeks into that world. Details about the folk, the place, the history etc. Where these things come from in me and where I'd like to see them go in the future. Eventually, maybe early next year, I'll even offer snippets from the book itself as it moves forward.
5th Fridays, on the rare occasion it happens, well, we shall see!
Hoping Autumn is shining in your worlds!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. . .
nicolas
So, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on something exciting as it pertains to my blog!
I have struggled for years to find a rhythm with keeping my blog active. I kept wanting to discover some magic structure that will allow me to be more regular and offer more of what is going on in the creative world around me.
With the wealth of new projects, ideas, undertakings etc, I have once again allowed my posting here to slip and I want to change that going forward.
So here is what is happening. . .
I am pledging to post each and every Friday of the month. To try and make this a reality, I am going to give each Friday of the month a "theme".
Starting with October, (my favorite time of the year), I will be offering posts on the following general topics based on the number of the Friday of the month.
1st Friday of Each Month - New work. This will not just be newly finished creations but I a peek into the actual making of one of those new items each month. From start to finish. Photos, materials, techniques etc.
2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities - Links and topics that I've come across that inform my work, my writing and just my insatiable curiosity for the strange and wonderful in the world we live in, past or present, and beyond. Research is a big part of my creative world and I can think of no better way to stir that "making pot" than to share those things I've found.
3rd Fridays - The Maker-of-Things - a look into how I got "here", from an over-reaching teenage dreamer to being a full time creator. So, snippets of those early childhood memories, the long and winding road of experimentation and failure along the way and all of the other creative ventures I tried and moved on from. Plus some all-around advice for creating a life that supports living as a creative soul and working maker. This will be only my experience so it will not resonate for some, I know, but I think it worth expressing to hopefully help those who wish to follow in those creative footsteps.
4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine! - Many of you know that I have been focused on writing a novel and short stories centered around the world I created, the Bewildering Pine. So these 4th Friday posts will offer small peeks into that world. Details about the folk, the place, the history etc. Where these things come from in me and where I'd like to see them go in the future. Eventually, maybe early next year, I'll even offer snippets from the book itself as it moves forward.
5th Fridays, on the rare occasion it happens, well, we shall see!
Hoping Autumn is shining in your worlds!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. . .
nicolas
Sunday, January 1, 2017
New Year, New Plans, New Work
Wishing a very Happy New Year to everyone in the blog-world and thank you, for your comments, for just taking a moment to read and for being a part of my world. :)
Hoping YOUR year to come is filled with magic and wonder every day!
“Now I become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places.”
― May Sarton
2017. . . yikes! I can recall, in the early 1980's being old enough to realize that I would see the turn of the century. It felt like it was a world away back then. Now, 17 years after that millennium date came and went, feel like I can hardly remember it passing.
I found myself, this past week, thinking of so many of the things I have tried in my life. as it pertains to "making a living" — Cooking, writing music, sound engineering, running coffeehouses, owning cafe's, photo editing, photography, digital art. . . all took up a bit of my life as my main "pursuit".
A perfect word, pursuit.
Looking back I think I am realizing that I was always chasing something — some dream I held at that moment. And at the core of those dreams was the thought "Wouldn't it be great to be able to make a living doing ___ " Of course, if I am honest, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be "known" for what I did too. And I often, in those early adult years, let that misguided part of it in the driver's seat far too often.
How wonderful now, all these years later in life, to have discovered thru the process and elimination of all of the attachments to that particular ideal, that it is truly enough to just say, "I want to make magic!" Well, that and then to put it into this world"
I feel most grateful that I have been able to become a "maker-of-things" and that, for the last six years, it's been my sole occupation. I do not think, in that time, I have ever thought about anything else other than gratitude for the fact that I get to rise each day and travel down whatever road my imagination wishes to go.
When I am asked about my "occupation", as with my recent, mid-December eye doctor appointment, it is funny to notice how speaking of what I do tends to stop people in their tracks. That's how it was with Dr. Paul,. Like him, they'll often ask the question, take in the answer, then turn, look at me and say "Really? You can make a living from that?" In Dr. Paul's case, this led to us stopping the exam mid-stream so he could open up Etsy on his computer and look at the shoppes! :)
But behind the magic of my two main shoppes is, at this point, seven plus years of diligence and hard work, experimentation and lessons learned along the way. From those first days of running to the store to get the right sized box with every sale to now, where our "guest" bedroom is 100% devoted to packing and shipping. Walls lined with shelves of gift and shipping boxes, tissue and bubble wrap and oodles of rolls of raffia and ribbon.
From not knowing how to ship an international package at all to having a pretty good grasp on many of the oddities one cannot ship to specific countries. We've adapted and grown into it with every step of the process. And the thing I believe that we are most aware contributed to our ability to turn these ideas into our life's work, was the way we look at each new obstacle and are willing to do almost anything to overcome it.In short, as I have said before, the willingness to shape our life around the work and not try to force it the other way around.
Even at the beginning, when Sofie and I first took an apartment together, on day one we decided we needed to make the living room space the bedroom and the two small bedrooms into our work studios so we had more space and better light to work within. Our lifestyle never goes over well with family, though our few friends seem to appreciate it and understand. It's all in service to the creation of what we hope IS magic. And that magic has to come first for us or it's just not going to work.
Now I have gone about things pretty much the same way my whole life.
All or nothing.
No safety net or cushion below the high wire.
It's always paid off beautifully with either wonderful experiences or total collapses — and I mean that. It's always paid off BEAUTIFULLY.
Even the worst of it was a better learning experience than anything I might have gained playing it safe or taking things slow and sure. Diving in always felt like learning to ride a bike. The uncertainty of your steadiness before that first glorious moment where the pedal completes a revolution and you catch the balance of the wheels just right. Now, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 30, so I recall the feeling oh so well. I'll never forget it.
That said, all or nothing was a younger person's game to play for sure. And I never had the stress in those years of a mortgage or of kids or of car payments etc. I moved across the country, started four or five businesses over the next 15 years and, when things didn't work out? Next idea please! Along the way I've accumulated skills, equipment and insights that I would never have had otherwise. And they all seem to be converging in the here and now.
Thru all the trial and error, I kept looking for that one thing. That certain "magic"I could call my own.
It was never a case of wanting to have it all for me. I remember reading in May Sarton's, " Journal of a Solitude" about how, as she was becoming something of an icon for feminism, she would get letters from young women begging her to tell them the secret to "having it all", which they perceived her to have achieved. She often would reply, "you can't dear, no one can."I want to write another post in the coming weeks about Sarton's influence on my own life. Her love of solitude, seeing it as an absolute necessity for her sanity. . . it resonated so strongly with me. Quotes like:
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
No one had described solitude's graces quite like that before and it allowed me to feel as though I wasn't just some oddball for wanting so much time to myself again, as I had when I was a child.
So. . . solitude, magic, openness to change of direction or to unorthodox means. Whatever it took.
Here we are then. Solid footing and seven years into this magical path and I am completely committed to whatever it takes to keep the magic flowing.
So what does 2017 hold?
Well, I'll just bullet point it for now with short descriptions as I am sure I'll address these all in detail in the coming weeks.
1. Continued growth of my Etsy shoppes. I think I finally get it when it comes to creative balance. I've needed for some time to be better about not overloading myself and trying to accommodate everything that is requested of me. And I plan to further my dive into exploring new work and new skills each month.
2. Creating a dedicated Squarespace website for "The Bewildering Pine" — OK, I know this is confusing to some. The Etsy shoppe, "Bewilder and Pine" is "inspired" by the land of the "Bewildering Pine.". That's the world itself. Rooted in childhood. The place where all the little houses, stories and ideas come from. I want the site to be for those stories, little vignettes and a blog just for that world and it's characters. Anything sold there would be directly related to the stories told within. Sets of fortune cards, special amulets, dream teas and "tinctures", who knows what could be created? But at it's core, it's to be a place to grow the magic of that paracosm without limits or without tying it to the varied expressions found in the Etsy shoppe.
3. "The Ledgerkeepers" book - Short stories from around and within that same world. A full color, detailed map and 24 or so small story "peeks" into the folk who live there and the reason the Bewildering Pine came to be. A limited run of hand-bound copies and possibly (hopefully) a full print edition by the summer of 2018. All of it, however, is to lay the groundwork for a novel in the following years. There is a certain ripple of darkness under the magic of the land itself and stories to be told that no one can begin to guess at their point of heading :)
4. The Bewildering Pine "Travel Guide"- Part of the extensive world building for writing "The Ledgerkeepers" has been taking each town, point of interest and the variety of elves and kind folk, myths and secrets of that world and writing about them. It's all backstory for the larger project but I thought it would be quite lovely to put together a collection of those descriptions, a map and some other details. Maybe a small bestiary, a lexicon? Perhaps more. . . also slated for late 2017 or early 2018 but we'll see.This would also be hand-bound.
5. The Bewildering Pine Podcast - Yes, a podcast. Though it likely won't be called that. I am quite taken with podcast radio dramas like "The Message", "Tannis", "The Black Tapes" and "Life After" but I wanted a place where I could begin to tell my own family stories (which are rather magical and unbelievable in many cases) yet keep it in the realm of "otherworld" magic. Well, a short synopsis would be: Reading so many folk tales about particular fae and elven spirits I found myself thinking, quite often, "Oh, that one reminds me so much of my Great aunt Kate who lived on an old houseboat or that meadow elf reminds me of this girl I knew when I was 10 who was bewitching!" In short, it's a podcast that's about my experiences, looking back and realizing that there may have been more magic in our world, in my childhood and extended family, than I ever realized. The journey into it is set off by the discovery of a diary of my great grandmothers, long lost until it turns up in another extended family members discarded things. The entries within it, the allusions in the details, to other worlds and other "folk". I am planning on two seasons of 6 episodes being blocked out before I get started with it all for recording and broadcast.
6. Ice Elf figurines - Well I have mentioned this before over the past two years. A series of 50 or so limited edition "Ice Elves" that would feature a story that is told over 24 months. A new "chapter" is sent to the buyer each month. I'd like it to be an interactive story as well. So as those who bought the Ice Elf figure follow the "mission statement" of the Elves and, hopefully, engage with me thru a future website for the Ice Elf world, we can build the story together. and complete their mission. I imagine the Ice Elf packaging to be rather elaborate. A "chest" containing the small figurine and a series of extras. Ice Crystal gazing ball, scrolls and amulets, coded messages, magic ice dust. . . oh I have a long list of possibilities and am sourcing materials now. I'd want to be sure I could get at least 50 of each required supply I need to keep them consistent.
7. Music - OK, this is tied to the podcast. I wrote music for years. Worked with dance companies, commercial and film makers and produced songs for other songwriters. What I rarely did though, was create solely for the "magic " of it. There was always an end game, an ideal of success that I wanted within it and, I felt, that kept me from really getting into the heart of it and writing just in the service of finding that magic. So, creating music for the Podcast would allow me that opportunity. A way of righting that part of my past too. Working with just limited world/ancient instruments and going more for atmosphere than pure song writing or music/CD release, I just want to indulge in the magical creation of it all again. I used to be so obsessed with music. I felt like I lived and breathed it but, looking back with the advantage of the years, I see that I always wanted and expected it to be in service to me, instead of the other way around. I want to give that back. So it's time to dig out the old digital recorder and start reacquainting myself with it all again. we'll see. . .
Ok, that's it. . . I think. :)
This really has been much longer than I anticipated so I am going to just leave you with a few pieces of new work from December. I may have to come back and edit any errors above as the New Year is calling me already.
And I've got my Sparrows and Crows and Starlings to feed.
Magic to make. . .
Make YOUR New Year magical too!!!
And thank you for reading, but more for believing. . .
xo
nicolas
Hoping YOUR year to come is filled with magic and wonder every day!
“Now I become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places.”
― May Sarton
2017. . . yikes! I can recall, in the early 1980's being old enough to realize that I would see the turn of the century. It felt like it was a world away back then. Now, 17 years after that millennium date came and went, feel like I can hardly remember it passing.
I found myself, this past week, thinking of so many of the things I have tried in my life. as it pertains to "making a living" — Cooking, writing music, sound engineering, running coffeehouses, owning cafe's, photo editing, photography, digital art. . . all took up a bit of my life as my main "pursuit".
A perfect word, pursuit.
Looking back I think I am realizing that I was always chasing something — some dream I held at that moment. And at the core of those dreams was the thought "Wouldn't it be great to be able to make a living doing ___ " Of course, if I am honest, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be "known" for what I did too. And I often, in those early adult years, let that misguided part of it in the driver's seat far too often.
How wonderful now, all these years later in life, to have discovered thru the process and elimination of all of the attachments to that particular ideal, that it is truly enough to just say, "I want to make magic!" Well, that and then to put it into this world"
I feel most grateful that I have been able to become a "maker-of-things" and that, for the last six years, it's been my sole occupation. I do not think, in that time, I have ever thought about anything else other than gratitude for the fact that I get to rise each day and travel down whatever road my imagination wishes to go.
When I am asked about my "occupation", as with my recent, mid-December eye doctor appointment, it is funny to notice how speaking of what I do tends to stop people in their tracks. That's how it was with Dr. Paul,. Like him, they'll often ask the question, take in the answer, then turn, look at me and say "Really? You can make a living from that?" In Dr. Paul's case, this led to us stopping the exam mid-stream so he could open up Etsy on his computer and look at the shoppes! :)
But behind the magic of my two main shoppes is, at this point, seven plus years of diligence and hard work, experimentation and lessons learned along the way. From those first days of running to the store to get the right sized box with every sale to now, where our "guest" bedroom is 100% devoted to packing and shipping. Walls lined with shelves of gift and shipping boxes, tissue and bubble wrap and oodles of rolls of raffia and ribbon.
From not knowing how to ship an international package at all to having a pretty good grasp on many of the oddities one cannot ship to specific countries. We've adapted and grown into it with every step of the process. And the thing I believe that we are most aware contributed to our ability to turn these ideas into our life's work, was the way we look at each new obstacle and are willing to do almost anything to overcome it.In short, as I have said before, the willingness to shape our life around the work and not try to force it the other way around.
Even at the beginning, when Sofie and I first took an apartment together, on day one we decided we needed to make the living room space the bedroom and the two small bedrooms into our work studios so we had more space and better light to work within. Our lifestyle never goes over well with family, though our few friends seem to appreciate it and understand. It's all in service to the creation of what we hope IS magic. And that magic has to come first for us or it's just not going to work.
Now I have gone about things pretty much the same way my whole life.
All or nothing.
No safety net or cushion below the high wire.
It's always paid off beautifully with either wonderful experiences or total collapses — and I mean that. It's always paid off BEAUTIFULLY.
Even the worst of it was a better learning experience than anything I might have gained playing it safe or taking things slow and sure. Diving in always felt like learning to ride a bike. The uncertainty of your steadiness before that first glorious moment where the pedal completes a revolution and you catch the balance of the wheels just right. Now, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 30, so I recall the feeling oh so well. I'll never forget it.
That said, all or nothing was a younger person's game to play for sure. And I never had the stress in those years of a mortgage or of kids or of car payments etc. I moved across the country, started four or five businesses over the next 15 years and, when things didn't work out? Next idea please! Along the way I've accumulated skills, equipment and insights that I would never have had otherwise. And they all seem to be converging in the here and now.
Thru all the trial and error, I kept looking for that one thing. That certain "magic"I could call my own.
It was never a case of wanting to have it all for me. I remember reading in May Sarton's, " Journal of a Solitude" about how, as she was becoming something of an icon for feminism, she would get letters from young women begging her to tell them the secret to "having it all", which they perceived her to have achieved. She often would reply, "you can't dear, no one can."I want to write another post in the coming weeks about Sarton's influence on my own life. Her love of solitude, seeing it as an absolute necessity for her sanity. . . it resonated so strongly with me. Quotes like:
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
No one had described solitude's graces quite like that before and it allowed me to feel as though I wasn't just some oddball for wanting so much time to myself again, as I had when I was a child.
So. . . solitude, magic, openness to change of direction or to unorthodox means. Whatever it took.
Here we are then. Solid footing and seven years into this magical path and I am completely committed to whatever it takes to keep the magic flowing.
So what does 2017 hold?
Well, I'll just bullet point it for now with short descriptions as I am sure I'll address these all in detail in the coming weeks.
1. Continued growth of my Etsy shoppes. I think I finally get it when it comes to creative balance. I've needed for some time to be better about not overloading myself and trying to accommodate everything that is requested of me. And I plan to further my dive into exploring new work and new skills each month.
2. Creating a dedicated Squarespace website for "The Bewildering Pine" — OK, I know this is confusing to some. The Etsy shoppe, "Bewilder and Pine" is "inspired" by the land of the "Bewildering Pine.". That's the world itself. Rooted in childhood. The place where all the little houses, stories and ideas come from. I want the site to be for those stories, little vignettes and a blog just for that world and it's characters. Anything sold there would be directly related to the stories told within. Sets of fortune cards, special amulets, dream teas and "tinctures", who knows what could be created? But at it's core, it's to be a place to grow the magic of that paracosm without limits or without tying it to the varied expressions found in the Etsy shoppe.
3. "The Ledgerkeepers" book - Short stories from around and within that same world. A full color, detailed map and 24 or so small story "peeks" into the folk who live there and the reason the Bewildering Pine came to be. A limited run of hand-bound copies and possibly (hopefully) a full print edition by the summer of 2018. All of it, however, is to lay the groundwork for a novel in the following years. There is a certain ripple of darkness under the magic of the land itself and stories to be told that no one can begin to guess at their point of heading :)
4. The Bewildering Pine "Travel Guide"- Part of the extensive world building for writing "The Ledgerkeepers" has been taking each town, point of interest and the variety of elves and kind folk, myths and secrets of that world and writing about them. It's all backstory for the larger project but I thought it would be quite lovely to put together a collection of those descriptions, a map and some other details. Maybe a small bestiary, a lexicon? Perhaps more. . . also slated for late 2017 or early 2018 but we'll see.This would also be hand-bound.
5. The Bewildering Pine Podcast - Yes, a podcast. Though it likely won't be called that. I am quite taken with podcast radio dramas like "The Message", "Tannis", "The Black Tapes" and "Life After" but I wanted a place where I could begin to tell my own family stories (which are rather magical and unbelievable in many cases) yet keep it in the realm of "otherworld" magic. Well, a short synopsis would be: Reading so many folk tales about particular fae and elven spirits I found myself thinking, quite often, "Oh, that one reminds me so much of my Great aunt Kate who lived on an old houseboat or that meadow elf reminds me of this girl I knew when I was 10 who was bewitching!" In short, it's a podcast that's about my experiences, looking back and realizing that there may have been more magic in our world, in my childhood and extended family, than I ever realized. The journey into it is set off by the discovery of a diary of my great grandmothers, long lost until it turns up in another extended family members discarded things. The entries within it, the allusions in the details, to other worlds and other "folk". I am planning on two seasons of 6 episodes being blocked out before I get started with it all for recording and broadcast.
6. Ice Elf figurines - Well I have mentioned this before over the past two years. A series of 50 or so limited edition "Ice Elves" that would feature a story that is told over 24 months. A new "chapter" is sent to the buyer each month. I'd like it to be an interactive story as well. So as those who bought the Ice Elf figure follow the "mission statement" of the Elves and, hopefully, engage with me thru a future website for the Ice Elf world, we can build the story together. and complete their mission. I imagine the Ice Elf packaging to be rather elaborate. A "chest" containing the small figurine and a series of extras. Ice Crystal gazing ball, scrolls and amulets, coded messages, magic ice dust. . . oh I have a long list of possibilities and am sourcing materials now. I'd want to be sure I could get at least 50 of each required supply I need to keep them consistent.
7. Music - OK, this is tied to the podcast. I wrote music for years. Worked with dance companies, commercial and film makers and produced songs for other songwriters. What I rarely did though, was create solely for the "magic " of it. There was always an end game, an ideal of success that I wanted within it and, I felt, that kept me from really getting into the heart of it and writing just in the service of finding that magic. So, creating music for the Podcast would allow me that opportunity. A way of righting that part of my past too. Working with just limited world/ancient instruments and going more for atmosphere than pure song writing or music/CD release, I just want to indulge in the magical creation of it all again. I used to be so obsessed with music. I felt like I lived and breathed it but, looking back with the advantage of the years, I see that I always wanted and expected it to be in service to me, instead of the other way around. I want to give that back. So it's time to dig out the old digital recorder and start reacquainting myself with it all again. we'll see. . .
Ok, that's it. . . I think. :)
This really has been much longer than I anticipated so I am going to just leave you with a few pieces of new work from December. I may have to come back and edit any errors above as the New Year is calling me already.
And I've got my Sparrows and Crows and Starlings to feed.
Magic to make. . .
Make YOUR New Year magical too!!!
And thank you for reading, but more for believing. . .
xo
nicolas
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| Perhaps my favorite Sutekh/Set I have ever sculpted! |
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| I never tire of making Sekhmet pieces. She is, after all, the Lady of Light. |
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| These two were part of a gargoyle "quarry" of nine! I loved making both sweet and bratty gargoyles for this request! |
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| A fine fellow in Ireland buys multiples of mini statues for his work team when they complete a major project, which are always named after an Egyptian Deity so, these were for "Ma'at" |
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| The Fairy House of Barberry, the village of Hobs and Grogochs. |
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| And a pair of country Hermitage Fairy Houses. These have come a long way over these past 7 years so they do still feel rather "new" to me. ;) |
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Little Potted Houses and Pinterest
I recently had a custom request for two of my little potted fairy houses which I had not made for quite some time. It was a joy to see them in the reference pictures the client had sent and I was thrilled to make new versions of her.
Now, I bring this up for a few reasons. . .
One, the amazing power of Pinterest. Bewilder and Pine receives a very healthy amount of traffic from Pinterest day in and day out and, over the last year, the second MOST viewed item of all is one I made well over 18 months ago that sold within a few weeks of being listed.
Yet, it being pinned many times on Pinterest boards drives enough traffic to make it the second highest viewed item in the entire shop!
Two, I can't believe the number of things I have made, and completely LOVED making, but in the rush of fulfilling new orders, custom requests and trying to get things stocked in the shop as well as work on brand new items and ideas etc, I can actually forget all about little creations like these potted houses. . .
And this brings me to a point that I will likely discuss a lot over the next few months. . . the balance of custom orders versus making what I want.
I spoke last time about how I took most of the month of May off from fulfilling almost all custom requests and how well that worked out. Now, I find myself inundated in June with all of the requests I pushed back to free up May and, in doing so, I find myself right back in the same situation. lol
So, I have set a firm deadline that July, August AND September will be "custom order free" and that I will focus instead on shop-stocking and making just what pleases me the most (and getting A LOT done on the world-building/stories/maps for my writing project too!)
Of course, I would still take on orders like the two houses above because I really wanted to make them right then and there anyway, so it's a bit tricky. . . but that's one of the things I want to free up time for. The requests that truly inspire whenever they may come along!
Of course, there is also Shadow of the Sphinx where many of the requests I receive are already in my repertoire anyway since I can't possible keep all the statues, deities and amulets in stock! ( I have a good half dozen "in progress" as I type just for that shop alone). Still, I have to be careful not to overload myself even with those sort of enjoyable requests.
I've always known that what I like the least are deadlines. . . due dates. . . so, even those I take on must now come with a "I'll let you know when it is ready." sort of looseness. This works for me because I never take money up front or as a down payment since most items I agree to make, should the customer end up not liking it for some reason when complete, will go into the shop and eventually find a loving home.
In the end, I tend to finish those loose deadlines quicker anyway when I don't feel the pressure of a firm due date. . . isn't the psychology of being a maker-of-things a little strange? Or perhaps it's just me? : )
So, that's the latest for now. . . back to the list of custom pieces for the next few weeks but then. . . well, I'll be sure to share all the new things with you all as they come to fruition!
Book Update: World-building. . . talk about falling into a rabbit hole. . . or several. This weeks "work" involved researching all sorts of bogs and the edible things that may grow in them as well as hand-cars, tidal bores, the history of the salt trade, Chinese magic mirrors and water clocks. . . . too much fun!
Hoping this finds you all well and enjoying magical days in your worlds. . .
xo
nicolas
Now, I bring this up for a few reasons. . .
One, the amazing power of Pinterest. Bewilder and Pine receives a very healthy amount of traffic from Pinterest day in and day out and, over the last year, the second MOST viewed item of all is one I made well over 18 months ago that sold within a few weeks of being listed.
Yet, it being pinned many times on Pinterest boards drives enough traffic to make it the second highest viewed item in the entire shop!
 |
| The Alpine Hornblower Fairy Scene circa 2013 |
Two, I can't believe the number of things I have made, and completely LOVED making, but in the rush of fulfilling new orders, custom requests and trying to get things stocked in the shop as well as work on brand new items and ideas etc, I can actually forget all about little creations like these potted houses. . .
 |
| The Fairy Houses of Padda (red) and Denka (green) |
 |
| New additions include the crystal "lamppost". |
 |
| Fencing and most details are N scale (1:148). The pot is just 1.5" high. |
And this brings me to a point that I will likely discuss a lot over the next few months. . . the balance of custom orders versus making what I want.
I spoke last time about how I took most of the month of May off from fulfilling almost all custom requests and how well that worked out. Now, I find myself inundated in June with all of the requests I pushed back to free up May and, in doing so, I find myself right back in the same situation. lol
So, I have set a firm deadline that July, August AND September will be "custom order free" and that I will focus instead on shop-stocking and making just what pleases me the most (and getting A LOT done on the world-building/stories/maps for my writing project too!)
Of course, I would still take on orders like the two houses above because I really wanted to make them right then and there anyway, so it's a bit tricky. . . but that's one of the things I want to free up time for. The requests that truly inspire whenever they may come along!
Of course, there is also Shadow of the Sphinx where many of the requests I receive are already in my repertoire anyway since I can't possible keep all the statues, deities and amulets in stock! ( I have a good half dozen "in progress" as I type just for that shop alone). Still, I have to be careful not to overload myself even with those sort of enjoyable requests.
I've always known that what I like the least are deadlines. . . due dates. . . so, even those I take on must now come with a "I'll let you know when it is ready." sort of looseness. This works for me because I never take money up front or as a down payment since most items I agree to make, should the customer end up not liking it for some reason when complete, will go into the shop and eventually find a loving home.
In the end, I tend to finish those loose deadlines quicker anyway when I don't feel the pressure of a firm due date. . . isn't the psychology of being a maker-of-things a little strange? Or perhaps it's just me? : )
So, that's the latest for now. . . back to the list of custom pieces for the next few weeks but then. . . well, I'll be sure to share all the new things with you all as they come to fruition!
Book Update: World-building. . . talk about falling into a rabbit hole. . . or several. This weeks "work" involved researching all sorts of bogs and the edible things that may grow in them as well as hand-cars, tidal bores, the history of the salt trade, Chinese magic mirrors and water clocks. . . . too much fun!
Hoping this finds you all well and enjoying magical days in your worlds. . .
xo
nicolas
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Stories Moving Forward II - A World in 30 Days?
Last week I finished the 30 day World Building exercise that I took on to help me get "started" on my short stories writing project. The goal was to use the exercise to build a deeper background world around the land of the "Bewildering Pine" and starting to collect ideas and outlines for the place, the people/folk who populate it and the myriad of details that, hopefully, will make it rich and inviting to readers.
The results were, to put it mildly, overwhelming.
When it comes to writing I have always enjoyed telling little tales. It's been a part of me since childhood too. And, as I get older, I want to create something that will be left behind in written form. More than just little tales for the items I make and sell but stand alone tales of a place that, at least half of my waking hours, I am immersed in.
And yet, every time I have tried to get started, I seem to fall short and the momentum and enthusiasm stalls out.
I am going to write about this a few times in the coming month because it is truly too much to try and share in one post. So I will keep this short and we will call this entry, "the outline".
Now, if you had told me before I started the thirty day project, that I would spend about 15 hours in one month on my stories, I would have told you that sounds great. . . but I am not sure where I'll find the time to do that.
Well, let me say that I did indeed spend between 15 and 20 hours last month writing. First thing each day, 30 days in a row, I sat down and tackled that days world building assignment while having coffee and morning pastry.
Each day is supposed to be just 15 minutes of writing but, some of the exercises were things I had already thought quite a bit about but had never written down. And each of those led, it seems, to deeper and more extensive thoughts about everything from geography and climate to the people, commerce, animals and societal rules etc etc. I spent up to an hour some days, just writing. Moe thinking n top of that.
So much so that I am going through another list of world building questions and expanding the world even more!
The best thing to come out of it all is this.
When I began, the project was going to be a series of short stories, "The Ledgerkeepers" many of which I hoped to illustrate and then make little "zines" from that I could self publish and sell thru my shop. Stories that would appeal to any age or delight anyone with an interest fairies/elves etc and their world. Then, when I had enough stories, to produce a collected, printed book of them to offer as well.
What has come from the last month's work though is a far deeper story that I think is the bones for a longer book. Dare I say. . . a full or mini novel? And the bones of that story. . . the darker, unexpected plot line, characters, the Pine history and lineage and all the details and plot twists, so much of it never existed at all before I did this 30 day exercise.
All of that. . . in roughly 15 hours. . . that I would have sworn I could not have found in my days.
I can look back now and honestly say that I just never had the discipline to do it but also, I simply did not know where to begin.
And that is the thing I want to convey here. I will never let that happen again. I know it's an age old line but it's the journey, not the destination that is the key. Getting from point A to point B is always overwhelming until we take those first small steps. And I know very well that an organized or structured framework, preferably daily and in small increments, is how we always manage to get there.
I did it with my Etsy shops, making new things every single day to improve my skills (I still do this 6 years later!) and I did it with learning to write music. . . or even running coffeehouses and cafe's. Just do this one little thing, then the next, then the next. . . little small building blocks to get where we want to be. Like so many, I can give up n things because that end goal seems so far of. It seems to be the same for people with exercise plans, diets, career goals etc etc. Point B can seem so far away. . .
I think most new things seem overwhelming until you get in and wade thru those dark waters of uncertainty and self doubt.
So, I hope to share some of the deeper details with what I have been working on with you soon but let me leave you with just this one little aspect of my world that I just came up with in the last day or two of the exercise.
I knew that I wanted a "sport" for my world since games and sports were such a huge part of my childhood. But I also made up so many of my own variations back then. . . so I wanted something more personal than just a simple twist on a current "Earth sport". Nothing close to what we know as being sports in the here and now. Nothing violent, nothing requiring extreme physical skill or physique. In fact, the long lithe elf would be a better suited candidate than the big strong ogre. lol But still, something that could be played by any creature. Elf, Hob, Dryad, etc etc with an equal chance for success.
That "sport", still unnamed as of now, is a combination of Hopscotch and Hackey Sack. I envision it being played on a huge, elaborately tiled mosaic version of the French hopscotch layout which is a winding snail shape play area ( in researching hopscotch, I learned that in France they call the game Escargot for the shape of the playing field!!) with, in my game's case, 21 numbered spaces leading to a gold circle in the center. The game I've invented is played with two teams of two defenders, one pitcher (a position that requires only tossing accuracy so any age folk could be this player!) and one sacker (that's the person who tries to score) on the game field simultaneously. Each little village has it's own "Shtyri" (a Pine term, from the "old language" for the four player team) and it's a dream of a number of the folk in the Pine, young or old, male or female, to become part of their town's team. Young elves all over play it on dirt fields, adults at picnics, traders on leave. . . etc etc
Anyway, that's too much fun! I'll probably make a scale model of the playing field in the future too. I've come a cross some wonderful "villager" elf 1:72 scale figurines that I could create it around.
So, more on the world building to come!
For now, here are a few little creations to share this week. . .
Have a lovely week dear ones! MAKE MAGIC!!!
xo
nicolas
The results were, to put it mildly, overwhelming.
When it comes to writing I have always enjoyed telling little tales. It's been a part of me since childhood too. And, as I get older, I want to create something that will be left behind in written form. More than just little tales for the items I make and sell but stand alone tales of a place that, at least half of my waking hours, I am immersed in.
And yet, every time I have tried to get started, I seem to fall short and the momentum and enthusiasm stalls out.
I am going to write about this a few times in the coming month because it is truly too much to try and share in one post. So I will keep this short and we will call this entry, "the outline".
Now, if you had told me before I started the thirty day project, that I would spend about 15 hours in one month on my stories, I would have told you that sounds great. . . but I am not sure where I'll find the time to do that.
Well, let me say that I did indeed spend between 15 and 20 hours last month writing. First thing each day, 30 days in a row, I sat down and tackled that days world building assignment while having coffee and morning pastry.
Each day is supposed to be just 15 minutes of writing but, some of the exercises were things I had already thought quite a bit about but had never written down. And each of those led, it seems, to deeper and more extensive thoughts about everything from geography and climate to the people, commerce, animals and societal rules etc etc. I spent up to an hour some days, just writing. Moe thinking n top of that.
So much so that I am going through another list of world building questions and expanding the world even more!
The best thing to come out of it all is this.
When I began, the project was going to be a series of short stories, "The Ledgerkeepers" many of which I hoped to illustrate and then make little "zines" from that I could self publish and sell thru my shop. Stories that would appeal to any age or delight anyone with an interest fairies/elves etc and their world. Then, when I had enough stories, to produce a collected, printed book of them to offer as well.
What has come from the last month's work though is a far deeper story that I think is the bones for a longer book. Dare I say. . . a full or mini novel? And the bones of that story. . . the darker, unexpected plot line, characters, the Pine history and lineage and all the details and plot twists, so much of it never existed at all before I did this 30 day exercise.
All of that. . . in roughly 15 hours. . . that I would have sworn I could not have found in my days.
I can look back now and honestly say that I just never had the discipline to do it but also, I simply did not know where to begin.
And that is the thing I want to convey here. I will never let that happen again. I know it's an age old line but it's the journey, not the destination that is the key. Getting from point A to point B is always overwhelming until we take those first small steps. And I know very well that an organized or structured framework, preferably daily and in small increments, is how we always manage to get there.
I did it with my Etsy shops, making new things every single day to improve my skills (I still do this 6 years later!) and I did it with learning to write music. . . or even running coffeehouses and cafe's. Just do this one little thing, then the next, then the next. . . little small building blocks to get where we want to be. Like so many, I can give up n things because that end goal seems so far of. It seems to be the same for people with exercise plans, diets, career goals etc etc. Point B can seem so far away. . .
I think most new things seem overwhelming until you get in and wade thru those dark waters of uncertainty and self doubt.
So, I hope to share some of the deeper details with what I have been working on with you soon but let me leave you with just this one little aspect of my world that I just came up with in the last day or two of the exercise.
I knew that I wanted a "sport" for my world since games and sports were such a huge part of my childhood. But I also made up so many of my own variations back then. . . so I wanted something more personal than just a simple twist on a current "Earth sport". Nothing close to what we know as being sports in the here and now. Nothing violent, nothing requiring extreme physical skill or physique. In fact, the long lithe elf would be a better suited candidate than the big strong ogre. lol But still, something that could be played by any creature. Elf, Hob, Dryad, etc etc with an equal chance for success.
That "sport", still unnamed as of now, is a combination of Hopscotch and Hackey Sack. I envision it being played on a huge, elaborately tiled mosaic version of the French hopscotch layout which is a winding snail shape play area ( in researching hopscotch, I learned that in France they call the game Escargot for the shape of the playing field!!) with, in my game's case, 21 numbered spaces leading to a gold circle in the center. The game I've invented is played with two teams of two defenders, one pitcher (a position that requires only tossing accuracy so any age folk could be this player!) and one sacker (that's the person who tries to score) on the game field simultaneously. Each little village has it's own "Shtyri" (a Pine term, from the "old language" for the four player team) and it's a dream of a number of the folk in the Pine, young or old, male or female, to become part of their town's team. Young elves all over play it on dirt fields, adults at picnics, traders on leave. . . etc etc
Anyway, that's too much fun! I'll probably make a scale model of the playing field in the future too. I've come a cross some wonderful "villager" elf 1:72 scale figurines that I could create it around.
So, more on the world building to come!
For now, here are a few little creations to share this week. . .
Have a lovely week dear ones! MAKE MAGIC!!!
xo
nicolas
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Stories Moving Forward
I've been creating stories all my life. Since I was a child really.
At 11 or 12 I had two of those old Radio Shack single cassette players and I would write scripts for plays or stories and then, going line by line, I would record them by first speaking one line into one tape player then, stop, press record on the second while pressing play on the first, and then adding the next line of dialogue after the first tape played. And so on and so on for the entire length of the story. I'd do all the voices and all the narration. Even feeble attempts at singing improv theme songs on occasion. lol :)
Now, all these years later I found myself really feeling ready to create a book of short stories, or at least several small zines, that are centered around the worlds I have built thru and alongside my Etsy creations the last 6 years.
The Bewildering Pine
The Ledgerkeepers
Kitsurada: Land of Foxgoyles
The Troll Troubles
And many more
But as an adult, there are new challenges. Mostly an uncontrollable tendency towards self editing and doubt. Uncertainty about how to build a complete world because, after all, I am not 11 and I see the holes where they should be and what I have YET to create to make these stories work.
So how to get started?
Well, 10 days ago I began searching for that help.
It came in the unexpected form of a 30 day writing primer called the Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide. Thirty short exercises to help you start to flesh out and think about those things that make a "world" complete. Everything from climate and political atmosphere to, of course, the map, timeline of historical events, the people, the languages etc etc. Now I have seen these in one form or another before but none felt as helpful as this. In part, it helped me realize I HAVE thought of much of this but, the truth is, I am ready now and committing to the 15-30 minutes a day to do the work.
And the guide has sent me off in research directions I never would have thought of due to the links, ideas and great summaries about each section/exercise.I can't explain why but I recognize the difference in this guide is that it really allows you a range of investment. 15 minutes is all they ask and it's fine if that's what you want to spare but, if you are game, it is easy to se how an hour or more each day can be spent deepening the daily ideas on your own.
I have, I would say, doubled my world's depth in the first 10 days this way.
What the old world language is, what the trade and commerce and resources of the world are, how exactly my world's magic works, what the major conflicts have been (and I have to say, I am intent on writing a non-violent story/stories, so, that came with it's own interesting challenges!)
Best of all, the pieces I already had have started falling into place. The map being further and further fleshed out. The characters and types of creatures and myths. . . it's been truly exhilarating thus far.
20 days to go.
After that I will get back to the start again and go thru it once more, for 30 more days, and expand it all some more. I have plans for a large wall sized timeline/map/storyline to begin to be able to visually, in one place, see it all. And then,of course, time to start filling in the stories.
At this point, I am partial to a first book of short tales, sort of like Shaun Tan's "Tales From Outer Suburbia." and I know that the last tale will be either the lead in to a second book of shorts or, the basis for a larger novella to follow. It is, If I can say so myself, a very good "hook". :)
Many of you know I am completely invested in the idea that stories are what creates demand for what we produce. Be it organic produce, fairy houses, quilts, handmade books, masks, jewelry, etc etc. And we ALL tell our own tales our own way so I never think anyone should follow my lead if it isn't their thing. . . but I would also recommend a perusal through Austin Kleon's newest book, "Show Your Work" , where he says,
"Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it.
At 11 or 12 I had two of those old Radio Shack single cassette players and I would write scripts for plays or stories and then, going line by line, I would record them by first speaking one line into one tape player then, stop, press record on the second while pressing play on the first, and then adding the next line of dialogue after the first tape played. And so on and so on for the entire length of the story. I'd do all the voices and all the narration. Even feeble attempts at singing improv theme songs on occasion. lol :)
Now, all these years later I found myself really feeling ready to create a book of short stories, or at least several small zines, that are centered around the worlds I have built thru and alongside my Etsy creations the last 6 years.
The Bewildering Pine
The Ledgerkeepers
Kitsurada: Land of Foxgoyles
The Troll Troubles
And many more
But as an adult, there are new challenges. Mostly an uncontrollable tendency towards self editing and doubt. Uncertainty about how to build a complete world because, after all, I am not 11 and I see the holes where they should be and what I have YET to create to make these stories work.
So how to get started?
Well, 10 days ago I began searching for that help.
It came in the unexpected form of a 30 day writing primer called the Fantasy WorldBuilder Guide. Thirty short exercises to help you start to flesh out and think about those things that make a "world" complete. Everything from climate and political atmosphere to, of course, the map, timeline of historical events, the people, the languages etc etc. Now I have seen these in one form or another before but none felt as helpful as this. In part, it helped me realize I HAVE thought of much of this but, the truth is, I am ready now and committing to the 15-30 minutes a day to do the work.
And the guide has sent me off in research directions I never would have thought of due to the links, ideas and great summaries about each section/exercise.I can't explain why but I recognize the difference in this guide is that it really allows you a range of investment. 15 minutes is all they ask and it's fine if that's what you want to spare but, if you are game, it is easy to se how an hour or more each day can be spent deepening the daily ideas on your own.
I have, I would say, doubled my world's depth in the first 10 days this way.
What the old world language is, what the trade and commerce and resources of the world are, how exactly my world's magic works, what the major conflicts have been (and I have to say, I am intent on writing a non-violent story/stories, so, that came with it's own interesting challenges!)
Best of all, the pieces I already had have started falling into place. The map being further and further fleshed out. The characters and types of creatures and myths. . . it's been truly exhilarating thus far.
20 days to go.
After that I will get back to the start again and go thru it once more, for 30 more days, and expand it all some more. I have plans for a large wall sized timeline/map/storyline to begin to be able to visually, in one place, see it all. And then,of course, time to start filling in the stories.
At this point, I am partial to a first book of short tales, sort of like Shaun Tan's "Tales From Outer Suburbia." and I know that the last tale will be either the lead in to a second book of shorts or, the basis for a larger novella to follow. It is, If I can say so myself, a very good "hook". :)
Many of you know I am completely invested in the idea that stories are what creates demand for what we produce. Be it organic produce, fairy houses, quilts, handmade books, masks, jewelry, etc etc. And we ALL tell our own tales our own way so I never think anyone should follow my lead if it isn't their thing. . . but I would also recommend a perusal through Austin Kleon's newest book, "Show Your Work" , where he says,
"Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work effects how they value it.
You should be able to explain your work to a kindergartner, a senior citizen, and everybody in between. Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn’t come easy to everybody. It’s a skill that takes a lifetime to master. So study the great stories and then go find some of your own. Your stories will get better the more you tell them."
I, of course, agree totally with this as I feel my stories are as much a part of my ability to make living as a maker-of-things as anything else. Second only to never being satisfied with "good enough" and going all out in every way I can to make the buying experience wonderful for the recipient.
So maybe that is what has held me back in writing these new, larger stories. It's a total package for me and I do not think I believed I had any idea how to create that complete world with just stories and illustrations. Or perhaps it was just that I couldn't find the start line among all the floating pieces?
Well, the 30 day exercise certainly changed that so I want to recommend it to anyone who has any sort of make believe/fictional world you want to enrich and any stories you want to tell. You can find the exercise and thru it, many wonderful links to other great resources, here:
http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/days/index.html
And to close, just a little peek into two new pieces for you all today too!
Happy day to everyone and I hope the magik of Spring (or Autumn if you are down under) is shining brightly in your world and in your hearts!
xo
nicolas
 |
| Another colorful version of what has become quite the popular item. And the flowers just keep getting more out of hand! :) |
 |
| A blue-roofed Enchanted Tower seemed a nice change of pace. I want to play with different roof colors this summer. |
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Curiosity over Passion?
New work born of pure curiosity. . . could I design a "library-tower" that actually features ledgers/books as part of the design on the OUTSIDE?
Curiosity over Passion?
Recently, while listening to the audio book of "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert, I was struck by several things. One was her no-nonsense sort of approach to creativity. It reminded me quite a bit of my own mother, but more supportive in a creativity sense. Loving and spot on but definitely a bit brusque and harsh. Even outright stern at times. Her views on creativity and making a life out of it are not a sugary sweet approach at all. No excuses. No hand-holding. Definitely not every one's cup of tea.
But it may be the most inspired book on creativity I have "read". And I usually ONLY read but, since it was read by the author, I felt it would be worth hearing it in her voice.
One of my favorite offerings that she expressed was that she would rather see people "follow their curiosity over their passion". This is a subject, I now know, she has spoken of frequently before and after the book's release so I won't quote her beyond the following because she has so many wonderful views out there on the subject.
I want to tell you why it was such an epiphany for me to hear someone say it, in their own words, and to almost denounce passion versus curiosity as what creative minded people should focus on pursuing.
In my life, I could list the number of passions that have consumed my waking, creative and dreaming hours for periods of time. Writing music, multimedia performance shows, recording engineer, golf, bowling, digital art, poetry. . . as well as my jobs as a chef, pastry chef, coffeehouse owner etc etc etc. The list really does goes on.
And, as far as passion went, each of them was a hot burning pursuit for anywhere from a few months to four or five years in my world. Longer when it came to the actual jobs I held.
While I could easily list the reasons and circumstances under which most of them, as passions, fell away in my life, I could not have seen that there might be a common thread there until hearing Ms. Gilbert speak about following curiosity over passion.
You see, each of those passions of mine began with a simple, almost benign curiosity. How is music written? Can I learn to play guitar, harp, bass, piano, percussion? Can I get a job in a restaurant kitchen? Can I learn French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Japanese cuisine. How good can I be at golf or bowling or ice hockey or softball. (all childhood recreational loves that resurfaced in my 20's) Can I write/produce a multimedia show or make music for dance companies?
Curiosity is always the gateway to passion for me it would seem. But what happens when passion loses curiosity as it's bedfellow?
In each of the previously mentioned pursuits, there came a time when curiosity fell away or was satisfied. . . and passion no longer was enough. I've NEVER shared this story in my life but I took up bowling again in my mid 20's because, as a child, my mother would take me once a month to our local bowling alley and let me bowl a few games. Of course, in her way, she was both loving and overly critical all at once. I recall how often, after a gutter ball, she would say "If you're going to bowl like that we might as well go home right now. . . you can do better!" She never yelled really. . . she just had zero patience. She's still that way. It never bothered me then because I just loved the environment of the alley and the total/score was really secondary. The smells and noise and the weirdly wonderful repetition.
10 wooden pins.
One ball.
GO!
But, I will say that, as a young adult, those memories flooded back and I wondered if I could be good at bowling as an adult. I was simply curious. And when in two years I had become good enough to bowl in the state tournaments and in the highest ratedleague in our local alley, the curiosity started to fall away.
I was good. Very good. But I knew that I did not want to put in the time or effort to be more than that. Mostly, I was not the slight bit curious IF I could be! And I would say that right up to that point I was passionate about it. And then, suddenly, without the curiosity driving it, it went away.
And this, I believe, is why making the things I do now: the fairy houses and statues of deities of the ancient world. Little elves and creatures from my own imagination. THIS passion was not only born of, but is constantly fueled by, my endless curiosity about these things. . . and the curiosity of my own inner world from childhood.
Ancient myths and civilizations. Fairy tales. Childhood imagination, wonder and nostalgia. Dreams and
day dreams. Telling stories and making up entire worlds, drawing maps, imagining possibilities. . . these are the things that are as rife with my own curiosity now as the were when I was a child. . . or a teen. . . or a young adult. . . even when I was in my lowest places, searching for something I could find meaning and, yes, passion in. These were ALWAYS there. And I was always curious about them in one way or another.
If you could look within my heart, you'd find that thread running from childhood drawings to library reading lists to TV shows and movies to stories written and ideas stuffed in drawers and lost to time.
These worlds I create were always present.
And I do feel passionate about my work most every moment of every day. But what keeps that fire burning hot is the constant fuel of curiosity. New ideas. Can I? Will I be able to? Would anyone buy this? How is this made?
It seems an endless source of inspiration.
I'll follow it wherever it leads, knowing that curiosity is always in the drivers seat and passion never far behind!
Have a wonderfully creative and CURIOUS day!
nicolas
Curiosity over Passion?
Recently, while listening to the audio book of "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert, I was struck by several things. One was her no-nonsense sort of approach to creativity. It reminded me quite a bit of my own mother, but more supportive in a creativity sense. Loving and spot on but definitely a bit brusque and harsh. Even outright stern at times. Her views on creativity and making a life out of it are not a sugary sweet approach at all. No excuses. No hand-holding. Definitely not every one's cup of tea.
But it may be the most inspired book on creativity I have "read". And I usually ONLY read but, since it was read by the author, I felt it would be worth hearing it in her voice.
One of my favorite offerings that she expressed was that she would rather see people "follow their curiosity over their passion". This is a subject, I now know, she has spoken of frequently before and after the book's release so I won't quote her beyond the following because she has so many wonderful views out there on the subject.
"Passion is a tower of flame, but curiosity is a tiny tap on the shoulder — a little whisper in the ear that says, "Hey, that's kind of interesting…"
Passion is rare; curiosity is everyday.
The trick is to just follow your small moments of curiosity. It doesn't take a massive effort. Just turn your head an inch. Pause for a instant. Respond to what has caught your attention. Look into it a bit. Is there something there for you? A piece of information?
For me, a lifetime devoted to creativity is nothing but a scavenger hunt — where each successive clue is another tiny little hit of curiosity. Pick each one up, unfold it, see where it leads you next.
Small steps.
Keep doing that, and I promise you: The curiosity will eventually lead you to the passion."
I want to tell you why it was such an epiphany for me to hear someone say it, in their own words, and to almost denounce passion versus curiosity as what creative minded people should focus on pursuing.
In my life, I could list the number of passions that have consumed my waking, creative and dreaming hours for periods of time. Writing music, multimedia performance shows, recording engineer, golf, bowling, digital art, poetry. . . as well as my jobs as a chef, pastry chef, coffeehouse owner etc etc etc. The list really does goes on.
And, as far as passion went, each of them was a hot burning pursuit for anywhere from a few months to four or five years in my world. Longer when it came to the actual jobs I held.
While I could easily list the reasons and circumstances under which most of them, as passions, fell away in my life, I could not have seen that there might be a common thread there until hearing Ms. Gilbert speak about following curiosity over passion.
You see, each of those passions of mine began with a simple, almost benign curiosity. How is music written? Can I learn to play guitar, harp, bass, piano, percussion? Can I get a job in a restaurant kitchen? Can I learn French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Japanese cuisine. How good can I be at golf or bowling or ice hockey or softball. (all childhood recreational loves that resurfaced in my 20's) Can I write/produce a multimedia show or make music for dance companies?
Curiosity is always the gateway to passion for me it would seem. But what happens when passion loses curiosity as it's bedfellow?
In each of the previously mentioned pursuits, there came a time when curiosity fell away or was satisfied. . . and passion no longer was enough. I've NEVER shared this story in my life but I took up bowling again in my mid 20's because, as a child, my mother would take me once a month to our local bowling alley and let me bowl a few games. Of course, in her way, she was both loving and overly critical all at once. I recall how often, after a gutter ball, she would say "If you're going to bowl like that we might as well go home right now. . . you can do better!" She never yelled really. . . she just had zero patience. She's still that way. It never bothered me then because I just loved the environment of the alley and the total/score was really secondary. The smells and noise and the weirdly wonderful repetition.
10 wooden pins.
One ball.
GO!
But, I will say that, as a young adult, those memories flooded back and I wondered if I could be good at bowling as an adult. I was simply curious. And when in two years I had become good enough to bowl in the state tournaments and in the highest ratedleague in our local alley, the curiosity started to fall away.
I was good. Very good. But I knew that I did not want to put in the time or effort to be more than that. Mostly, I was not the slight bit curious IF I could be! And I would say that right up to that point I was passionate about it. And then, suddenly, without the curiosity driving it, it went away.
And this, I believe, is why making the things I do now: the fairy houses and statues of deities of the ancient world. Little elves and creatures from my own imagination. THIS passion was not only born of, but is constantly fueled by, my endless curiosity about these things. . . and the curiosity of my own inner world from childhood.
Ancient myths and civilizations. Fairy tales. Childhood imagination, wonder and nostalgia. Dreams and
day dreams. Telling stories and making up entire worlds, drawing maps, imagining possibilities. . . these are the things that are as rife with my own curiosity now as the were when I was a child. . . or a teen. . . or a young adult. . . even when I was in my lowest places, searching for something I could find meaning and, yes, passion in. These were ALWAYS there. And I was always curious about them in one way or another.
If you could look within my heart, you'd find that thread running from childhood drawings to library reading lists to TV shows and movies to stories written and ideas stuffed in drawers and lost to time.
These worlds I create were always present.
And I do feel passionate about my work most every moment of every day. But what keeps that fire burning hot is the constant fuel of curiosity. New ideas. Can I? Will I be able to? Would anyone buy this? How is this made?
It seems an endless source of inspiration.
I'll follow it wherever it leads, knowing that curiosity is always in the drivers seat and passion never far behind!
Have a wonderfully creative and CURIOUS day!
nicolas
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