C. Rene Astle's Blog

Art, Vikings and Books

I haven’t been active here much at all. I usually post over on Substack but have been been feeling lately that it might be good to diversity my tech platforms. So back to the blog here. This is a repost of the newsletter – if you want my ramblings fresh out of the oven, head over to Substack for now.

I’ve been picking up the analog paintbrush again recently. I’m mostly painting little credit card sized images that let me practice techniques and water control.

I need a lot of practice. M...

On Moving

I’ve been a bit quiet lately. There’s a reason. Maybe you can guess from the title of this post … I’m moving.

For the past number of months, searching — and stressing about not finding anything — took up most of my mental space. And now, althoug I’m relieved at finding a place, I have a mountain of work to do to prepare for the move. So, if you hear a little less from me for a little longer, you know why.

I hate moving. Growing up, I moved every couple of years. Seriously. I lived in a...

A twitch in the tale

I feel every ship needs a ship’s cat. Am I right or am I correct?

The Lyra has a cat, Grim. I considered renaming him Elmo, as in St. Elmo’s Fire. But he’d been Grim from the beginning, and it just didn’t fit.

Grim was a stray who wandered onto the Lyra and decided to stay. Every once in a while, Tink threatens to leave him at the next port but all the appreciate his appetite for the bakweevils that infest the ship.

Bakweevils are endemic are cargo ships that ever carry foodstuffs. So...

A sense of abandonment, or tea monks and lizard people

I read a couple of books recently that might not seem related, but they both got me thinking of a post-human world. Or at least a world where parts of it are without us.

The first is A Psalm for the Wild-Built* by Becky Chambers. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying this takes places on a world where, because of past events, half of the world is intentionally left without people. There were so many lovely things about this story that dovetail into my awakening sense of where the ...

It’s not a resolution…writing goals in 2022

I stopped doing resolutions many years ago. Instead, I reflect then I set goals. The difference between resolutions and goals might seem like splitting hairs but setting goals leaves more room for failure than be it resolved.

“But failure is bad, right?”

Not necessarily. Smart businesses adopt a fail fast mentality – try the creative thing, learn quickly if it works or you need to try something else. But I’m getting off topic.

I decided to write down and share some writing goals this y...

All the pretty things

I love gorgeous visuals. Well, not so much gorgeous but visually compelling. I’m someone who watches movies or TV shows for their costumes and their sets. I’ve already written about how I buy books based on their cover.

Arcane

I wasn’t going to watch Arcane. Just another animated production based on a video game that I’ve never played, and never plan to. But the tile in Netflix was enough to draw me in.

The animation is lovely throughout, but it was really the opening sequence that hoo...

Getting into Overdrive

Let me tell you a secret about me: before I was a writer, I was a reader. Quel surprise! Okay, maybe that’s not surprising. But I was also the kid who would cozy up with the encyclopedia on a sunny summer afternoon — in the basement! From Armada to Armadillo to Nocturnal. The world wide web has been both a blessing and a curse with its rabbit holes.

But I would also happily spend hours at the library. I still wholeheartedly support the mission of public libraries — everyone should be able to...

A Cerulean Story

NB: Book links in this post take you to books2read, letting you choose the store where you want to view the book — and letting me earn a few cents of affiliate income from some of those stores if you buy the book.

Reading the etymology of ‘cerulean’, it (possibly) traces its origins back to the Latin for heaven. Which is the perfect word for The House in the Cerulean Sea: heavenly.

That’s it, review done.

Okay, fine. I’ll write a bit more. This book made me laugh out loud and ugly ...

Rambles in and about Andalucia

I’ve been fascinated by Andalucian history for years, where myth and fact blend in a heady mix of Moorish architecture and flamenco music. I’m reading Land of Lost Borders right now, which has a great phrase: “feeling homesick for a country not my own”. I possibly paraphrased that, but it’s a great description of how I felt travelling to Andalucia.

After my first walking tour on vacation in Greece, I knew that was how I wanted to visit Southern Spain.

I arrived in Sevilla, despite an Icela...

Mirror, mirror on the wall

It’s interesting that the witch in the tale trusts the mirror to tell her the truth given that mirrors lie. They aren’t straight-up representations of fact…objects in the mirror (at least some of them) are closer than they appear. It’s also flipped — which is why you look strange to yourself in photos.

Why this talk of mirrors? I recently listened to the four part megasode about mirrors on the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. This podcast is a regular one in my rotation — I’ve mentioned it w...