Writing worlds into being

This week I had to do some organising of my art supplies. Hidden among them were all kinds of sketches. sketches mostly from college or my internship. Some of them from when I lived in Bismark. What surprised me the most was that they didn't look half bad. most of these sketches come from story ideas I have had. I had forgotten most of them yet here they were to remind me of the worlds I fashioned in my head. Some as illustrations some as just drawing out what was in my mind. Here are some of them:

 This Dancing girl was going to be a queen in disguise. A pirate queen, because well I've tried several different pirate story lines. this one had the pirates as a loosely organized trading kingdom.

 This is Cabrea, It was from my second High fantasy low magic world. It was a world that was steeped in ethnocentrism and most people were Xenophobic. This city was walled to keep out undesirables.

This one is from the same world. as the previous picture. It is of a Dryad who was waken from her winter's sleep by an abandoned child. She then took the child back to the tree with her to share her sleep. this would cause the child to have curtain magical abilities.

These two were the characters of my first romance. It ended in tragedy for some reason when I write romance it almost always ends in tragedy. He was killed by an arrow then she went on a rampage of revenge. 

This character was an elf who was born under the eclipse of the two moons. this omen frightened her village and she was cast out.

The story with this picture was a story of escape. in the end she made it with the help of the pirates of my second attempt at a pirate story. These were sky pirates. In this story this character ran to the edge of the world and jumped off the edge. She only survived because she happened to jump just as the pirate ship flew by. 

 This Drawing was an experiment. in my project which was called the Utopian Chronicles I'm currently trying to think of a new name, which would represent how much the project has changed. I wanted to be able to do things for future fans like make little drawings that could be used for promotional ideas. This one was to be a Christmas card. I drawing of the character as a child on Christmas.

I like worlds that are vastly different then our own. Flat worlds, worlds with universes which have a different organizations. worlds where the continents float in the air. This was one of them. 

And now for a small diversion here is a minuet of cuteness: 

Adventures of being Unemployed

So I have now not been to work of over a week and it has been fun let me tell you. between the filling out of paper work to become a substitute teacher and having a leaky water heater it has been fun.

So where to start, well Let's start with the fact that my car is currently enjoying it's third stay at the mechanic's. I drove to Lexington to drop of my application to Substitute teach at Lexington Christian Academy, suddenly my car started started to smoke. my first thought was "nonononononononono!" I opened the hood and the coolant was boiling over. this fun adventure ended with my car headed to the mechanic on the back of a tow truck. (this is the 2nd time this year my car has been towed!)

Now on to the water heater, this is the big thing that led to all kinds of other things. Our utility closet is a mess. the dryer doesn't really fit, in fact we had to lift it up on top of the washer to get it in. and when we dropped it into place it kind of hovered for a minuet or too. it is wedged between the washer the water heater and the wall. So when the plumber came out to take a look at things he told me that the land lord wanted to change the water heater from gas to electric. I instantly realized that this meant they were going to have to move the dryer. the crazy thing? the plumber is also a wizard. I don't know how he got the dryer out and back in by himself. Sadly now our dryer is making a scary noise and we don't know how to fix that.

however because the gas water heater was replaced by an electric one that meant that the electrician had to come out. and change the wiring. while he was running wire under neigh the house he found this:

these three little kittens have purred their way into my heart. I love them, but here is a video about them:

(Just a small correction I say lost my job but I quiet my job.)
and another for fun:

Adoption One Piece at a Time

Today I want to talk about something I think is just plan awesome. I'd like you to meet the Brannon family. And their amazing story. They are a family of five who are hoping and praying for one more to be added to their family. they plan to adopt a little girl. they have two sons who are their natural born sons and they have already adopted once. a little girl from Rwanda.

Aren't they a great looking bunch? the problem is that adoption is expensive. So to help them under write the cost of bringing a new little baby to their family they have set up a fundraiser.

What they have done is made a special Puzzel that I just love, and are asking their friends and family and friends of friends to sponsor a piece of this puzzle. the asking donation is Ten dollars a piece. each piece will have the name of the sponsor written on it. what they plan to do is frame it with glass on both sides. So that their little girl will be able to see the names of all the people who helped bring her to her new home.

Okay now just think about that a minuet. we all know that there are hundreds of kids out there right now who don't have homes. Babies who are not wanted, here is a way to help one child not become another statistic. and it is something that we can do and see the result. I am just amazed at the initiative that this family has taken. it is crowd funding a charity. Go look at their video, read their blog, and give. If you have a heart of adoption or the care of orphans check it out.

From the Art Desk

This story starts back a few weeks ago. See the Spare Room (sadly not one with a wardrobe) was to be our office/guest room. At different points in the last year and a half it has or has not preformed that function. See the spare room also functioned as a storage for the things we have not unpacked yet. Some days the room was usable other times (most the time) it wasn't. it is the room where my art desk is and it was really frustrating to not beable to concentrate in the room or even get to my desk. then my very good friend Jeanette came to help me make the room usable as a guest room because my parants were on their way to stay for a week. In cleaning up the room we also made the room usable again. And with my current state of unemployment I have time and energy to work on my art desk. one of the main projects is an Icon my pastor asked me to do.

I've been working on this bugger for a long time. much longer then I thought I would be working on it. But I am very happy to show the progress I have made. See this is the first layer, and all that it is missing are the five figures at the bottom of the cross. Now that I am almost done with the proportions I will move on to putting flesh on the Stick-figure skeletons. It is a long process but I hope it will be worth it. It definitely represents a large amount of work. 

Here is the strange thing though, I seem to work best when I have project runway playing in the background.  Oh well. 

Till next time God Speed and Open Roads. 

Piety

What does it mean to be Pious?
To be Sanctified, to be Righteous?

Is it what I say, What I do?
How I live, how I treat you?

It must be more then a post of Face book
or Dos and Don'ts listed where all can look.

But what does it mean
can it be seen?

(This was supposed to be yesterday's post, but better late then never, I would love to hear your thoughts.)

Till next time God Speed and Open Roads

I am Free

today was my last day at my job. I worked for a company called Brass Reminders. I ran the machines that makes silicon bracelets, and I am so happy to be done. to know that I am not going back there ever again! I have never hated a job like I hated working there. the monotony of it all. when I started I was making Auto Decal stickers. Not designing but making the product ready for packaging, or packaging.

Most of the people I worked with were college kids, and most of them were pretty cool, even though they liked to remind me how old I was. there was one who was a JaSeRBee and most of the guys there just wanted to goof around. there were a few others including the boss's father. when it came down to it the people weren't bad it just got old listening to them talk about the same thing over and over and over and over again.

the real problem was not that the job was Monotonous, it was that the job was pretty much pointless. most days (and this was why I stopped listing to the History of Philosophy Pod cast) I contemplated my own complete and utter insignificance. the product we made was pretty much nice looking garbage.

but the other thing that got to me was how much my manager would micromanage everything. She was always hoovering, not trusting anyone to do their jobs. the other thing was she would get stressed over things that weren't worth stressing. then of course in her stress she would try to get people working faster which always did nothing but make me frustrated.

But the last thing, the thing that finely brought me to the point where I had to give my two weeks notice and leave whether or not I had a new job, my boss treated me like I was an ignorant loser. Sometimes I would need help, he would come in and wonder why I couldn't have done it myself. He would help me in a condescending way that was always belittling.

But now I have closed the door on that part of my life, now there is nothing left but to move on to what ever God has for me. Right now it is a new and exciting adventure hopefully it wont result in panic attacks or anxiety.

any way till next time God speed and Open roads.

World Building Wednesday

(will this become a thing? probably not.)

So while I have been living life outside of this blog I have been thinking a bit about world building. The world I am currently playing in does not work in our universe, and not just cause there is magic. I personally like it that way because I'm a little tired of so much Science showing up in my fantasy. I like science just fine but I like magic more. (like when was the last time you saw voodoo zombies? or you know vampires created by magic not some kind of virus? and why do we feel the need to say hey look Westeros could have a scientific explanation? ) I do like logic though, even if some of that logic is hey magic.

I've actually been thinking of writing this piece more publicly. I already work shopped it in a very public place (Round table podcast) and lets face it the stigma of having parts of your work on the internet is going away (all be it slowly) I won't be giving away anything that is plot related directly, or anything that might be a spoiler, but I like the community aspect of creating. (When I was in art class when ever i would get stuck on something in my project I would walk around and look at what everyone else was doing. I don't think the best art comes from isolation) And I need encouragement from time to time because I'm my own worse critic.

So on to world building. This story (which was originally called the Utopian Chronicles but I think we will just called it Sheol's Ship Log Series) takes place in a medieval cosmology. let me explain (no the world is not flat the western world stopped believing that long before the medieval period started) the medievals believed that the universe was full of life. Each of the visible planets, the sun, and the moon had life on them. Each of them revolved around the Earth the moon being the closest and Saturn being the farthest. My world takes place in that idea of space, out on the worlds which revolve around the Nexis, or hub, or grave of the stars.

So did that wet your appetite? Right now I am trying to think about how thinks like seasons, days, nights, and tides will work. it is fun to play around in this world because lets face it many rules of science have already been broken so I can do what ever I want right? Any way I;d like to hear how you think this kind of world would work out on the basic level.

Winner!

Yeah this is really late but I just wanted to announce that the winner of my raffle was Shell Flower! Congratulations!

Buccaneer Blogfest: week 3 Day 3

again a little late, but well that is what happens.

So today is that last day of the Blogfest. Part of me is sad about that. I mean it has been a good time. I've gotten more followers both here at the blog and on my twitter, and I started my author fan page.I also was hopeing that this blog fest would help me get back in the habit of posting on a regular basis. So all in all I call that a win. I have met some cool people and hopefully gotten more involved in the community.

So what is my next step? well I am not really sure. I like the give away thing and I think i would like to do one on a regular basis, even though I haven't got a lot of influx from it. I know that I want to start having a vlog post, I really want to do that about once a month at least at first.  I know where I want to go I'm just not sure I know how to get there.

So first I just want to say that the give away is still open. So Comment like my fan Page and all that. I should have the hat finished soon, but here is my progress so far:

So I'll post some more pictures as the progress continues, if not here then on my fan page, again a good reason to jump in on the give away.

Some things that I will be starting soon:
Hopefully by September 1st I will begin to post my first story. I'm thinking of getting my 'long tail' started being an author. also if everything goes right I will also begin posting Ashes and Snowflakes on November 23. It is a Christmas story and will have it's final post on December 24. Also after each story there will be some give always and behind the scenes stuff. At least that is my hope. I still have to finish writing them both and get them edited. (any volunteers?)

any way in the more near future I hope to post three times a week. one post will be on the Never ending story, one will be either about writing, drawing, or knitting, and the last will be on a random topic I haven't decided on yet.

Well I guess that is all I have to say. the blogfest was fun, I'd do it again. now it is time to get back to the task of being a blogger and writer. I hope those of you who joined me during this blog fest will continue to like my content, will comment and share with your friends.

so till next time God Speed and Open Roads.

PS remember to check out all the lovely people who joined up with this little Festival.

Buccaneer Blogfest week 4 day 2

you know what today is? it is give away day!

So what am I giving away? well I had planned to have it done but I don't yet so I'll just post a picture of the Pattern. For one lucky person who either leaves a comment or likes my facebook page I will be giving a way a hand knit hat. this pattern:

Rebecca Hat From Knitty.com

but not  in those colors sadly in these colors:

So anyway Leave a comment, like my facebook page and I will give you a cool gift that I made myself.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Oh and please remember to check out all the other folks in the blogfest