Doing Research For A Book Is Probably As Much Fun As The Book!

I find myself looking forward to seeing what I find out next about the time and place of the story I've got in the works! 

Loving history in general, it's no hardship for me at ALL to dig into what was going on where at a given time. 

And the stuff I find out ... !  Details that you would never expect to be able to know - not about my story's characters specifically of course, as they're totally fictional, but about what their lives were probably like, and the general area of the story, how it's changed in the interim between the story and now (LOTS); the foods they would have been eating, the clothes they would have been wearing, the things they would have spent their days doing ... it's just plain FUN!

A New Work In Progress

I've done a little more work on this one since the photo and will post an update soon.  She's one of the options for a character in the book I'm working on.

 

 

Works In Progress - By Request

Ach...Decisions, Decisions...That Roof Ain't Leaking A Smidge...ROAD TRIP!

All of us have to make a thousand (at least) decisions every day.

Yeah, we all know that; so what? 

Well, it's like this: 

Sometimes I have to choose between gas money to go see my girls/younglings and buying shingles for my roof. 

Since I can't do both, I think about it for a while. 

Naturally, my head tells me that roof has to get done eventually so I should buy the shingles and put them on the roof. 

Then my heart kicks in. 

And IT tells me to go see my family. 

So I think about it some more. 

And you know what? 

That roof ain't leaking, not a smidge. 

The kicker of the whole thing is that people are always posting on line things about following your heart, spending family time, and yada yada, right? 

But when someone (like me) actually DOES choose that way, it's like OH MY GOD THE ROOF IS GOING TO FALL IN! 

And I just laugh and say it hasn't fallen in for the hundred years it's been there; it isn't leaking; it will be fine. 

That's me talking to me, you understand. 

I tell myself that every time I go to see my family.

So far I've been right.

Getting Into A Routine: Write, Sketch, Do Other Stuff For A While, Write, Sketch

If only I could afford to take the time off from work to KEEP this routine going, there might be a chance this book would get written and the sketches finished ... but I can't, so have to hope for enough days off in a row next month to be able to keep the routine going instead of only just beginning to hit my stride and have to STOP. 

Methinks Thou Dost Protest Overmuch

Shakespeare has SUCH a way with words, does he not? 

Four different excuses are overmuch, when one consistently applied would have been quite effective, more so if truth. 

Kids nowadays, I tell ya. 

INFJ sites to visit and learn, and a personal commentary

http://ms-dee.hubpages.com/hub/The-rare-infj-personality-a-profile

http://www.16personalities.com/infj-careers

http://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ.html

http://avoidingatrophy.blogspot.com/2012/03/infj.html

...etc...

Essentially, they're all going to sound pretty much the same, as this personality type is a 'type' for a reason.  We couldn't, and wouldn't if we could, change much (if anything) about ourselves. 

What I think we would all appreciate a change in - is the way we are viewed by the rest of the world, most of whom will never in this lifetime be able to understand us.  We don't expect people to understand us - that would be asking for the impossible.  But accepting that we are as we are, and understanding THAT - it would be an enormous help. 

Give us a wrong right in our faces, and we're likely to blow a gasket, or leave the situation immediately to avoid doing so as conflict is anathema to us. 

Give us a cause we can and do believe in, and we're in it up to our eyeballs for the long haul. 

Give us a lie, and we're going to lose any respect we might have had for you - as in RIGHT NOW this very second - and you will NEVER get it back.  Because you can bet  your bottom dollar we recognize a lack of personal integrity when it's in our vicinity.  That is a given, my friend.  Never think you can fool an INFJ - it ain't gonna happen. 

Give us honesty and integrity, and you'll have an ally for life. 

Give us a person in need, and we will pinpoint that need in a heartbeat and do everything in our power to meet it. 

Mistreat a person in need in our presence, and you will no doubt feel a hot wrath in the air, though we say not a word.  Quite frankly, holding our tongues in such a situation may well be beyond our ability, or desire, to do. 

We respect and accept that others are as they are; we have learned, often the hard way, that they can no more change than we can.  Yet the reverse is more often than not NOT going to happen.  Respect and acceptance of us as we are is rare, and so mostly we 'hide'.

Challenge our personal integrity, and something's going to happen.  Being unwilling to engage in conflict, we will most likely go away; if that's not physically possible, we will withdraw into our own selves for however long it takes us to understand the underlying issues of others.   If it's serious enough, we WILL speak up, and of course realize that others will be defensive, because that's the way THEY are.  And we will be goated.

Being incapable of deceit ourselves, we loathe it in others, although we have to accept that it infects just about every other person on the planet.  We still loathe it, and being sensitives we ALWAYS pick up on it. 

We pick up on EVERYTHING - good or bad - and thank heaven the good generally has more pull.  When it's otherwise, it's physically painful for us, emotionally painful, and spiritually painful - we'll beat a path to the nearest door to avoid it as it can and will make us very sick. 

And how on earth do we explain something like THAT to the rest of the population who not only can't understand us and the impact such things have on us, but don't CARE? 

Just sayin' 

There's a lot more to this whole thing - sometimes I feel as though I ought to wear a sign or something - just in case anyone ever cared enough to want to know.  But nobody ever does and that's just SAD. 

Settings Develop, Characters Become, Plot Unfolds

The progress on my newest project can be a little daunting at times.

I have no idea how others would approach this, and my way might seem weird to everyone else - but it is MY way, and so far it's working for me. 

It isn't actually quite as disorganized as it would no doubt appear on the surface, were I to try to describe the process - but almost. 

*laughing*

No.  In reality, it's progressing in an amazingly orderly fashion, which astounds me. 

I gripe and complain about the characters 'taking over' but, you know, it's simply that I can and do tap into any number of relevant times, moments, events, experiences, whatever ... people I've known, things I've done, places I've been ... and that part of my INFJ brain that collects, connects, correlates, and coalesces data has been a busy little bee. 

I honestly couldn't tell you HOW all those bits and pieces are managing to fit themselves together into a cohesive unit, but  by jiminy that's exactly what seems to be happening. 

Some of the scenes for this story are events I have never had any knowledge of at all in my life - battles, for instance; not to mention that nobody living could possibly have any first hand knowledge whatsoever of the time I've chosen for this story - but I've known love, and I've known loss; I've known success and triumph, and I've known absolute failure and despair. 

Emotion, challenge, growth and development, physical fatigue, internal fatigue, setting and working toward a goal, faith, adversity, learning - these are without a doubt universally human, along with a lot of other things, regardless of when and/or where a story happens. 

When it comes right down to it, the setting isn't what it's all about.  The characters aren't what it's all about.  The time isn't what it's all about.  The plot or story line isn't what it's all about.  It's the fact that people are people - each and all of us are both individuals and a part of something bigger than any individual.  How it all fits together, how WE all fit together - that's what it's all about.

Still, the story that's developing, becoming, unfolding - it's a fine thing. 

Do I Believe In Angels? Yes, Yes I Sure Do!

Being as I'm related to quite a few,  you better believe that I believe in ANGELS. 

Family - I tell ya - mine would make ANYONE believe in angels.  Maybe a devil or two once in a while, granted, but angels, angels, angels most absolutely. 

Yeah, I'm a believer. 

Cups and Rings

2013 July 11 Cups and Rings 

I have a theory about the cups and rings that have been puzzling everyone for thousands of years. 

They’re engraved in stone all over the place and nobody can figure them out. 

Because I’m certainly no expert all I can do is speculate – but then that’s all everyone else has been doing for all this time so what the heck.  It’s not like I’m stepping on anyone’s toes.  If anybody’s toes are so fragile that a little old gramma lady in the middle of nowhere can step on them, somebody’s attitude needs adjusting. 

ANYWAY, as I was SAYING, I have this theory that I might use in my story, just because I might feel like it when the time comes. 

My theory (and yes I know it’s not technically the word I ought to be using – deal with it and hush) is that they are indeed funereal in nature.  Not in the sense of having anything to do with burials but more a celebration of the life of the person, and recognition of the family s/he had a part in generating. 

If memory serves, the stones they used are flat (i.e. the surface that’s used is horizontal to the ground).

Hollows (called ‘cups’ because that’s a logical thing to call them) are dug, drilled, pecked, carved, or whatever, into the stone.  I don’t recall them being very big, maybe the size of a couple of fingers put together side by side and maybe as deep as to the first knuckle.  I would reckon that the sizes would vary considerably but the principle is the same. 

Surrounding these ‘cups’ are concentric circles, each bigger than the one before (duh, they have to get bigger if they’re gonna fit around the outside of the first one, second one, etc. – that’s what ‘concentric’ means).

Me, I think the circles represent the generations of the family of the person who has died. 

That makes sense to ME – because each generation WOULD be bigger, and outside of, the one before. 

So we have a parent, the ‘cup’, children, the first circle, grandchildren, the second circle, and so on, depending on how old the person was. 

Some of the engravings have the added feature of a sort of trough running from the cup in a straight line bisecting all of the circles. 

My thought is that trough represents the blood of the ‘cup’ person that runs through all of the concentric circles of the surviving generations. 

It MAY be that there was a ceremony of sorts that might have used the ‘cup’ person’s blood in the cup, and some from each generation in the appropriate circle.  I doubt it was anything painful or threatening or anything like that. 

Maybe they are BIRTH circles, for that matter. 

A child is born; that’s the cup. 

That child is surrounded by his/her siblings; that’s the first circle, the one closest to the child. 

The next circle would be parents and their siblings.  Third would be grandparents and THEIR siblings.  

To expand it further, another circle could represent the village or the clan or whatever, those who lived together in a community. 

You know, I kind of like that idea. 

AND, if the communities are stable and stay in the same place for long periods of time, like generations, there’s no reason those same cups and rings couldn’t have been used, in reverse (so to speak), when that person died. 

Since I’m a fiction writer, and a little old gramma lady in her tumble down cottage on Main Street USA in the middle of nowhere, and I know absolutely nothing about what I’m talking about and don’t particularly care, I don’t have to prove ANYTHING.  I don’t have to be RIGHT, just creative. 

The Cast of Characters Speaks On Backgrounds For Portraits

The cast of characters in the story I'm working on have, among them all, given me a task which I greatly fear is going to test me more than I thought. 

Each of them, the original eleven of them, have set forth a design for the backgrounds of their portraits. 

Nobody wants just a plain jane grey or brown. 

And, once again, they are right. 

Because the backgrounds are the settings in which each is viewed for the first time; they are important and have meaning. 

About five percent of me wishes I could make collages of photographs and just paste them on. 

The other 95% is about equally divided between sheer terror, enormous excitement, and an appallingly strong determination to get them done and done right. 

Which isn't to say that they will be traditional renditions or any such thing, but an interpretive rendering of what I know each wants and needs in order to successfully portray the characters, each and all, the way they need to be viewed. 

It's a daunting challenge. 

I hope I'm up to it. 

Sorting And Filing In My Studio Is Dangerous

In the course of my sorting and filing I've run across all sorts of fun things.

Naturally, finding all those fun things makes me want to stop what I'm doing and HAVE fun with them! 

But I'm stern with myself and onward I go. 

In a box labeled 'Sort and File!' I find an unexpectedly poignant batch of papers. 

They are pay stubs and other items related to my time at Johnny Nolon's Casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

I stare at them in mute astonishment. 

Glancing through them makes me want to weep. 

I miss working there.  I miss being there.  I miss it all. 

Including the income that those pay stubs remind me (painfully) I'm not getting any more.

Sigh.

I didn't look at all of them. 

One was enough. 

It showed that, in one two-week pay period, I made just about as much in tips as I bring home in an entire month doing what I do now.  And the regular pay was double THAT. 

Sigh. 

Back to sorting and filing in my studio. 

Characters NAGGING Me - I Tell Ya ...

Okay, it's not like the characters of my latest story are literally nagging me. 

Actually, it's more my own self suggesting that I ought to be getting more words down instead of focusing so much on the visuals. 

The reason is obvious when I stop to think about it, which I really would rather NOT (think about it that is) - it's that I am intimidated by doing the eyes of the portraits, afraid I will totally mess them up and wreck the whole works. 

So I go into procrastination mode, look for something else I can do to delay having to do what I know bloody well I have to do. 

The most logical thing, from my perspective, is going into word mode. 

SIGH. 

I hate it when I figure myself out. 

Going back to the eyes now. 

THEN we'll see what the characters have to say. 

I already know part of it: 

"How do you think you can portray us when you don't even KNOW us yet?  We are our own selves, HELLO!  Not clones of anyone you might think you already know."

And they have a point as they are clearly already NOT exactly the same as the people I thought I was going to model them after. 

But onward I go. 

A Change of Tactics Might Make A Difference

Rather than burn the learning portraits in my wood stove, I might take a different approach to them. 

Back in the day when Rome was trying to conquer to world but had to stop when they ran into the Celts, they changed their tactics, made use of the fledgling religion that was Christianity, and picked up where they had left off in conquering the world. 

Maybe if I take a page from their book I can conquer these portraits yet. 

What if, since my first approach only worked up to a point, I just go a different route, choose a different method, and select a new medium with which to accomplish my goal? 

The foundation is already laid, so to speak; maybe, like the three little pigs, I need to switch from straw to brick. 

Interpret that as a query about using paint over the pastels already in place. 

Since I don't have anything to lose, I figure it might be worth a try. 

But not right this very minute as I have to go finish Sass' eyes.

Sass



 

Okay, I admit it.  I might be getting a little nervous here. 

 

 

This looks like it might actually end up looking a little like Sass. 

 

The ones I screwed up didn't make me anywhere near as nervous as the one that might turn out right. 

 

Pray for me. 

 

 

She will get a dark background and dark hair framing  her face, and a few bits of fine tuning here and there ... but ... it's almost finished.

 

 

 

 Slow but sure - we're getting there!

 

One Of These Days ...

One of these days I'm going to: 

Finish the illustrations for my kid stories. 

Working with the portraits isn't as intimidating as it was even last week, so there's hope for the future! 

Do you have any idea how many muscles our FACES have?  It's amazing. 

Anyway, as I go along trying different things I'm learning all the time.  I'm beginning to figure out what works and what doesn't - for me, at least.  Mostly what doesn't, this is true, but as I eliminate the awful things I narrow the field. 

*Laughing*

My field is still pretty wide. 

New Project Kind Of Scares Me A Little

I'm working on a new project that involves photography, artwork, and writing. 

It's going to drive me bonkers. 

I take photographs, some from the past and some new ones, and turn them into parts of big paintings representing a story line, for which I write prose or poetry, as the story itself, and the artwork, choose. 

Just in case you might think that neither a story nor a painting can choose what kinds of words get used, THINK AGAIN.

When it comes right down to it, the only thing I get to have a say-so about in this whole thing is MAYBE the photos.  After that, it's basically out of my hands. 

Believe it. 

If you're an artist or a writer, nobody has to tell you - or if you're INFJ, for that matter. 

So when I say this new project kind of scares me a little, I mean it. 

I honestly have no idea at this time WHAT might happen, but I'm kind of excited to find out, fears aside. 

It's going to be an adventure! 

As the characters take on their own personalities, they're gonna have a lot to say about how the story goes. 

I hope to high heaven I can keep up with them.

finally

 

 

STILL AAAAAUGH !!

 

 

 

 

 

TIME TO MOVE ON TO A SECOND ATTEMPT I THINK ... SIGH ... 

WE ARE NOT EQUIPMENT; WE ARE NOT ROBOTS; WE ARE PEOPLE

When are we going to figure out that we are human beings, not droids that can just keep on and on and on? 

I am not innocent here.  God knows I've put in monstrous hours doing the job so that the job would GET done.  Because the job has to be done and somebody has to do it. 

That, my friend, translates to the people who WILL do it end up being the ones who HAVE to do it - or it won't get done at all ... and some things just flat out can NOT be left undone. 

It's all well and good for me to realize that I have almost killed myself on more occasions than I care to think about too deeply - getting the job done because I CAN and I WILL. 

That's me, and those days, for me, are pretty much history. 

When I see young people I care about doing the same thing, it just makes me mad. 

Not at THEM, mind you, because ... well because they are the ones who CAN and WILL.  But I know the price they have to pay and it hurts me deep inside.  If I could, I would step in and do it for them - but I can't and that too pains me. 

Venting is good for a person they say, so this ought to do me some good. 

It hasn't worked yet as I am still angry at the situations that come up in our lives which require us to go that extra mile.  Mile and a half.  Two or three or a hundred miles sometimes. 

We drive ourselves so far beyond the breaking point that we lose sight of the fact that there even WAS a point where we could have and should have said NO. 

Ach. 

That's enough of that topic. 

I have a portrait to finish. 

THINKING ABOUT FAMILY MATTERS

I'm not sure exactly how I'm feeling at the moment, which is a bit rare these days. 

Being worried about Mom is kind of a given, since she just had surgery on her eye at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  She said it went well and they think they got all of the questionable tissue removed, and she says it isn't hurting her which is good news.  Still, the worry isn't going to be quieted any time soon. 

My sister D is with her and they're on their way home now; Mom will go home to her place in the Forks and D will come on here to our home town. 

One side effect of the whole thing is that I want to spend more time on my artwork - Mom was a tremendous talent but now she isn't doing very much in that area as her years advance. 

She's twenty years older than I am.  I ought to be able to count on producing for about that long, but the issues with my own eye make me fearful that I won't have that much time - and I have a lot of portraits I want to get done, along with other things.  It's just that the portraits mean more to me than anything I've ever done; I want to get them right and I want to get them done, as many as I possibly can. 

So all of that is on my mind; I worry about Mom's eye, and my own, and what it means to have the use of them - something taken for granted instead of USED. 

Then there's my dad to think about. 

He abandoned us forty years ago but is still our father. 

One or more of us girls need to go down to the nursing home where he is and take care of some of his business ASAP.  D will go; I will go; I don't know if M will go; I don't know for sure where B is or how to reach her.  He isn't getting any younger or stronger.  I don't know that he will even recognize me - except that he will know my eyes and so I will share them with him and he might find a comfort in them. 

Right now I'm feeling that 'role reversal' they talk about, and D has to be feeling it even more. 

At any rate, my plate is full and heavy today as is my heart. 

I called in to let them know I won't be at work this afternoon; I'm waiting out the day to make sure Mom gets home safely, and then for D to get home too, and I need to get through to where dad lives this afternoon.  That's enough for me. 

To ease my soul while I wait, I'm going to rest myself for a while here and then hopefully go into my artwork where I can also rest, only productively. 

NOT Staying Up All Night Tonight

It isn't that I don't want to stay up and work on the projects I've got going, but I'm dead tired and need some rest if I'm going to make it through my up-coming work shifts, including an extra one that they snuck in on my schedule. 

Just lately I've been working on portrait experimentation during my night hours - because I can't get any of my rooms dark enough to use my little projector thing during the day...

It's addictive! 

So many things I want to try, so little time!

But not tonight. 

Huh. 

I said that the OTHER night, and have been up to see the sun rise every night since. 

But NO!  

NOT TONIGHT!!!

Tonight I sleep. 

Huh. Gonna Have To Organize This Hodgepodge Some More I See

This blog has a really wide assortment of post themes going on, so I'm going to do some sorting and filing with it I do believe.  I already have a bunch of them:  Artwork, Youth Fiction, Mystic, Photography, Poetry, Domestic Violence, and the family searches. 

The variety I maintain in my life continues to astound me.  For now I think I'll sort out the Projects and Politics.

Twisted Copper Wire Torque (Torc)

Just because I want to, I'm trying to make a torc out of copper wire.  Thin copper wire. 

I cut a bunch of it to equal lengths, twisted three strands together and then twisted THOSE together. 

 

Once my blister was mostly healed I figured I should shoot for a callous and made another of the above and twisted the two of them together.

 

I've got one more, just like the first two, to go and I'll call it good enough for a first try - once I get the final wrapping on and the ends finished. 

 

It's lighter than I thought it would be, flexible, and comfortable.  It's not a perfectly flat circle; the back gets bent down a little and so do the ends.

 

Right up until it turns my neck green I think I'm going to like it.



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