Wed. Nov. 15, 2023: Thinking Leads To. . .
image courtesy of Arek Socha via pixabay.comWednesday, November 15, 2023
Waxing Moon
Neptune, Chiron, Uranus, Jupiter Retrograde
Sunny and cold
On today’s Process Muse, we’re talking about Creativity Altars. You can read and comment here.
Today, we have two serial episodes dropping.
The first is from ANGEL HUNT:
Episode 85: Like a Crushed Tomato Truck
Gaston uses glamoury to hide the carnage.
The second is from Deadly Dramatics:
Episode 35: Working the Band Gig
Nina crews for her friend Randi’s band until her work is interrupted by Jake.
Yesterday was sort of hit and miss in the productivity department, although I’m glad my schedule is flexible enough so I can do that. I alternated writing with working on the test pieces on the non-writing creative project.
On the writing front, I got the blog up. I wrote a partial Legerdemain episode, and paused at a point where I needed to choreograph a fight scene and need to figure out a way to make it comic as well as action-based AND drive the plot forward. I did some work on the weird Northumbria mixed genre piece, and did a scoring sheet. Then, a coverage came in, and I turned that around. I wrote over 2K of new material, but because I spent so much time on non-writing projects, it felt like I hadn’t done much.
On the non-writing front, I experimented with layers of paint, color, techniques. Because of the medium onto which I’m painting, it needs multiple coats. Some of the colors aren’t what I feel looks best – the silver is a particular disappointment. Part of my problem is that I have cheap brushes, because I didn’t want to make the investment yet. But they basically disintegrate between uses, even when carefully cleaned, so I’m having to do workarounds.
I alternate between being really happy how they’re turning out and wondering if they look like a craft project from kids’ summer camp.
Reworked the poem “Night Walk” and actually submitted it to an anthology call in the UK. It’s probably premature to submit any poetry, but the theme really spoke to me, so I figured why not give it a shot? I’ve worked and reworked the poem over several weeks. And now it’s out the door.
Had to do some research on some runes. I needed some runes with specific meaning, and completely blanked out. I’ve worked with runes long enough to know the meanings. Once I looked them up, it came back, but I had to go and look them up.
If you missed the whole “skydiving babies” bit on Bluesky, it was whacky and funny and out of control. Thoroughly enjoyable, and not something that can be explained for the jokes to work.
My keyboard is being funky this morning. Uh oh.
I was thinking about the writers who initially inspired me, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lousia May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, etc. Then I started thinking about the women forgotten by history, about whom I’ve written plays: Kate Warne, Jeanne de Clisson, Giulia Tofana, Lavinia Fontana, Canaletto’s sisters, Susanna Centlivre, Isabella Goodwin, Dawn Powell, Marie Corelli, and those I still want to write about, like Anna Katherine Green and Marie Bancroft, and the various supporting actresses in Kit Cornell’s touring company. How to honor them?
I considered printing out photos and/or sketches, but wall space is mostly used for bookcases. Then, I thought about those tiny frames. I could nestle them in bookcases. Then, I remembered, in one of my multitude of holiday decorating books, seeing a tree made out of wooden spoons, and I thought, that makes sense. Forgotten women, wooden spoons, spoons as wands, kitchen, women’s work not recognized.
I could get those tiny photo ornaments you hang on trees and use those. Only there are a lot of them, so I’d have to make a bigger tree, such as gluing two spoons bowl to bowl to make it taller, and then the smaller spoons as branches. Which means a bigger base. Which could be an upside-down wooden bowl – again, bowls are often associated with women and their unrecognized work.
I was rattling on about it to an artist acquaintance who said, “You know this is an art piece, right?”
I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but I guess she is right. Something to work on after the holidays, gathering inexpensive wooden spoons (and then, do I paint them?) and a bowl from a thrift store, etc.
NOT something I can do before the holidays.
It doesn’t have to be a winter holiday piece; it’s relevant any time.
I could probably get a small wire tree, but the wooden spoons have more meaning.
“That’s part of what makes it an art piece,” my acquaintance said. “Choosing elements for their meaning.”
Oh. Okay.
Got some reading done in the evening. Slept well. Up early and out the door to the laundromat. The machine was out of quarters, so I had to use the card reader, which always worries me, so I’ll have to keep an eye on my card withdrawals for the next few weeks, to make sure the information wasn’t captured and misused. I prefer using quarters.
I started reading a wonderful book there called THE HOUSEKEEPERS by Alex Hay. Every chapter has wonderful surprises. It’s a delight.
Home, put the finishing spray on the backs of the test pieces. I think they work. I’ll move forward with the rest of the project. If I can get the materials, I should be able to finish it this weekend. Along with finishing the overseas cards.
On today’s agenda: writing, working on the Llewellyn almanac edits, maybe getting some work done on the non-writing creative project, tarot circle, cooking class. Oh, and folding/putting away the laundry!
Better get to it!
