Hello! Welcome to my blog. I suppose I should introduce myself and say a little something about what this is and why I decided to write it.
My name is Jasmine. I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to creative expression. I dabble in painting, writing, playing musical instruments, sewing, making videos, photography, and leatherworking – to name a few. Something inside of me is driven to create things out of nothing and I grow restless if I am unable to do that.
My primary reason for starting this blog is to grow a place where I can express my creative endeavours. Arguably, I do a lot of that on my YouTube channel already, but I want this to be more centered around works in progress and where I see them going. Specifically my writing. I hope to finish my book and have it published over the course of the next few years. I feel that, to pay proper homage to my writing, I should have a dedicated corner of the internet in which I can focus my pre-author (and then hopefully author) energy.
That is not to say that I intend to explore only the writing side of what I do. Ultimately, I would like to create a place to share in my excitement of all things I dabble in. As writing has been a big passion of mine ever since I accidentally stumbled into a book idea at age twelve, it’s understandable that it will be a proportionately larger part of what I write about.
So now that you know what I’ll write about, how often are you likely to hear from me? Not… much. I would estimate roughly once every two to three months. My reasoning being that I will be busy with my other projects and I might not have anything I feel is right to express here.
I look forward to writing here more. Until then, stay safe and stay creative.
A year of specifically focusing on my writing is coming to a close. Without going too much into what I have managed to acheive (that will come later after the end of the year), I thought I’d talk about my focus for this final short month of 2025.
Consistency is, of course, the major theme. When I was chatting in the WorldCon Seattle Discord, I was invited to join a server full of writers called The Goblin City. Sot far, that has been an incredibly engaging and fun way to make sure I’m thinking about writing almost every day. I have mostly been using the goals tracking sections, but have found the weekly activities keep me in the right mindset, and the word crawl activities are fun – the latter being a themed sprint tracker where the idea is to mark off time spent writing (or wordcount) against a goal. There are two weeks and you don’t have to reach the end (but you should feel proud if you do). Activities like these have helped prevent weeks without writing from slipping by when other things are happening in my life. I have found my brain responds well to activities I do as part of a group, even if the outcome is for my eyes alone at this point.
The writing itself is going remarkably slowly. I think that is largely due to sneaking half an hour here and fourty minutes there. Long stints writing seem almost non-existant at this point in the year. However, now that I’ve recognised that, I’m surely more able to make the time. I know I won’t finish the first draft of this novel by the end of the year, and that’s okay as long as I keep working on it. I recognise I did write other things during the course of the year and I have a busy life.
I have been thinking about how I can better utalise the writing programs I use to keep things better organised. At the moment, book notes are all jammed at the end of a Microsoft Word file, which makes it really hard to know what my overall wordcount is (roughly 5000 words are notes). It’s also difficult to find an exact note when I go looking for it, as it’s a lot of scrolling that loads slowly, with the main distinguishing factor being that I used different fonts for different sections of notes. I have a note book that I hand write things into as well. I doubt this would change if I started using a different writing program, as I enjoy analogue processes. Working on the screen for my day job, followed by writing on the screen gets me very tired of looking at a screen.
The two main programs I am currently looking at are Obsidian and EmberWrite. Obsidian is highly recommended and extremely versatile. The offline application is entirely free with no subscription fees with the option of paying a subscription if I wanted synching at any point. There does seem to be some element of setup required to get it streamlined for writing, however there’s such a big writing community using it that I suspect it will be relatively straightforward to use someone’s template. EmberWrite is new and still in beta. The full version is looking to be released in February after a very successful Kickstarter campaign. I have backed this, which gets me the license to download it onto three devices, no subscriptions required. I have downloaded the beta and the onboarding process is extremely well thought out and detailed. I already feel like I could get started on that one. Given how tired I am by everything running on subscrptions, I don’t mind the fact that neither of these sync across devices (at the levels I would be using). I crave simplicity and the gaurentee that I won’t turn on my computer one day to find a software I use has been updated beyond recognition with features I don’t want. Running offline is a bonus as far as I see it, provided I practice good data saving principles.
I will check back in the New Year with a comparison between the two and my reasons for picking whichever one I go for (or a secret third option that I am yet to discover).
In the meantime, here is a short ~300 word piece I wrote as writing practice recently. Enjoy.
The Rain A few light drops misted beneath the lone streetlight. Cobblestones glistened on the ground, reflecting pinpoints of coloured light from the shopfronts that lined the road. Red, green, purple. Now overwhelmingly lime green as the electric ad on the side of a bus stop abruptly changed.
Bartholomew turned a large iron key in his tea shop door. It was his life’s passion. Recently repainted, yet the dark red that lined the windows on the door was already beginning to peel and lift. A thick drop of rain landed on a nice part of the muntin where the paint held strong. Bartholemew wiped it away forcefully. Three more drops appeared to take its place, mocking him.
Gathering his coat around himself, he shuffled towards the bus stop. He really should take more care to stay out of the rain. Everyone was telling him this nowadays.
Don’t forget your mask. Always bring an umbrella.
He harumphed to himself. The rain felt perfectly fine on his skin. Besides, he was too old to worry about long-term effects.
The seat in the bus stop was cold metal, somehow seeping the warmth from his legs through several layers of fabric. The arm rests were an awful affair, twisted triangles of metal that set him sitting at an angle to avoid leaning against their lumpy frames. This was why no one could have nice things these days.
That, and the damned acid rain.
It fell from the sky in a furious roar, splashing back off pockmarked cobbles and working relentlessly to strip statues of their faces and remove any shapes deemed too adventurous. The street shrunk to a small, sheltered rectangle surrounded by smears of bright light. The ad flickered momentarily, settling on a horribly distracting orange.
Behind Bartholomew, paint lifted. Releasing its hold.
Yesterday brought to a close five days of virtually attending the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention – Seattle WorldCon. Last year I had an in-person membership, this year was my second WorldCon and my first virtual membership.
The time zone difference was not too bad. I am 19hrs ahead of Seattle, meaning it was feasible for me to attend any panel from Seattle’s midday onwards without changing my sleep schedule. This was a bonus for a couple of the readings I attended, as they were comfortably after work in my time while being quite late in Seattle time.
Technical challenges meant that many of the streams and recordings at the start of the first day were compromised. I woke up at the tail end of dropped streams, as things were starting to come back – further cementing that my decision to keep the same sleep schedule was the right one for me. After the shaky start, most of the issues were fixed. Sadly, it does mean that some of the earlier recordings were lost, however this is a danger of virtual attendance and there is now a healthy list of recordings ready to watch back until the end of the year. I am happy to have the option to replay those.
The thing I was most unsure about, going in, was the social side of things. Something I enjoyed most last year was bumping into new con friends around every corner. The Discord experience filled that void brilliantly. I made an effort to engage with various open discussions before the con started, and I found it very gratifying to write notes in the panels I was actively watching (particularly if they had no replay. Anonymised for panellist privacy, of course). By the second day, I started to recognise names and, while it wasn’t quite the same as being in-person, it was a different side of an equally engaging coin. I didn’t manage to make it to any of the virtual meetups, but I did talk with some people close to my timezone during our end-of-day when most of the con was asleep.
I certainly found that I had more of an insight into the work going into running the con through the virtual experience. When I was in-person, I barely looked at the Discord all day and experienced what was right in front of me. Virtually, I had a pretty good overview of most things posted to the Discord.
I suspect I will attend LA WorldCon virtually next year. It is the same timezone difference and the virtual experience is a great way of being involved without the time, resources, and stress associated with travel. It was not as different from the in-person experience as I had initally anticipated, although it almost goes without saying that there wasn’t the chance to explore the city, eat the food, or bump into people outside the Discord. I did miss that aspect, and found myself often thinking fondly about my experiences in the UK last year.
For the curious, I have included the full list of panels and readings I attended live. Days are marked as I experienced them in my timezone, so imagine one day earlier than marked for the con timezone. My favourite panels were ‘Researching the Occult and the Paranormal’ and both the ‘Worldbuilding Through…’ panels. All three readings I attended were delightful and I really can’t choose a favourite.
Thursday: -Improbable Research Dramatic Readings (second half) -Echoes and Otherworlds in East Asian Speculative Fiction -Researching the Occult and the Paranormal -The Second Novel (first half) -Opening Ceremonies
Friday: -Worldbuilding Through Geography and Environments -Looking Back at Chinese SFF (second half) -Reading: Ng Yi-Sheng -Reading: Wayne Rée
Saturday: -Ties that Bind, Break, and Heal – SFF Families -The Medieval Night Sky – The State of Astronomy in the Middle Ages -Reading: Wole Talabi -Worldbuilding Through Mythos, Magic, and Beliefs
Sunday: -Hugo Award Ceremones
Monday: -Sifting through History (second half) -The Moon is Nigh: Cislunar Exploration in 2025 -Closing Ceremonies
Great news! The poetry collection including several of my haiku has now been published through Quillkeepers Press. Ikusei is released on Amazon, with both eBooks and physical copies available. I love the linework images included throughout the book. My section starts on page 63.
Relatedly, my SciFi short story is days away from being published in The MockingOwl Roost quarterly magazine. I have linked the tab that shows all magazine issues – my story will be in Among the Distant Stars, which will be published on the 15th of August.
In the meantime, I am frequenting the Seattle WorldCon Discord often in the days leading up to con kickoff. This will be my first experience with a virtual membership. I’ve already browsed the Virtual and Streamed offerings and set up a busy timetable with any panels I’m remotely interested in joining. Recorded panels will be announced in the near future, so I am hoping that I can catch up most panels from my schedule that occur before midday con-time (midday is my 7am). I will also be working my day job as per usual and I suspect a lot of the panels I’m interested in won’t fall neatly during breaks.
Because the best posts include cat tax, here is one of my cats. She lives indoors and likes to accompany me outside when I take out the compost. She’s partially trained – although her recall takes a lot of time, she gets it done eventually.
We’re a bit over half way through the year, which means it must surely be time for another check-in.
The first three months of the year were busy. While I successfully hit all my writing goals during the first month, I knew that the cadence of LARP weekend, rest weekend, repeat from the beginning of February through to late March would slow that side of things down. With that said, it was a very successful series of LARPS. Each for a different campaign, and one closing out the campaign I had previously been helping with for the last few years. Likewise, I finished the pretty box I was making for another LARP, which am very happy with.
In other exciting news, I have a craft stall in August, where I will be selling soap, candles, small paintings, pins, and prints. I don’t expect to make a profit from it at all, considering how much I have spent on craft supplies as enrichment, but it should be good fun!
The prints pictured here were draft copies and a little more washed out than the finals. They are a scan of a painting I did in Christmas 2023 – one of my favourite paintings to date.
The small paintings are newer originals. I had a lot of fun playing around with backgrounds and trying different ideas on a scale that was both quick and didn’t matter a whole lot if I made a mistake.
I have a small handful more, painted since taking this picture, all of which I am very much looking forward to selling at my first stall.
Of course, my biggest goal has been my writing. I have been focusing on the novel, still with the misguided belief that I might be able to finish the first draft by the end of the year. Progress through the chapter plans has been going well, although it was never truly feasible to get through the full plan by the end of the year, given my cadence seems to be roughly one chapter a month – and I had more than twelve chapters left to write.
For the past six months, I have been attempting to improve my descriptive skills, although each chapter is still relatively bare bones compared to where it needs to be in future sweeps. I think I have improved in that area, and I am now turning my attention towards dialogue and characterisation.
Alongside the novel writing, I have also made some more short story and poetry submissions. I have a short story lined up to come out in mid-August, which I am very excited about. It is the same short story I mentioned in my last post as having potential. I also have a handful of haiku earmarked for later in the year. It’s just a matter of patience with those until the publication date is set.
I have another short story submitted for consideration, and a handful of other poems submitted elsewhere. I should know the results for those by the end of the month, which I’m trying not to think about too hard until we get there. It is out of my hands, and many other people submitted pieces that I’m sure are good.
Going forwards into the next few months, I am aiming to clean up and submit one of my longer poems. There is also a short story rattling around in my brain, inspired by the idea that gold is created when neutron stars collide. Depending on whether I need to creatively re-juice away from the novel, I may also begin writing that piece.
What a year. In 2024, my main goal was to finish existing big priorities before taking on new ones. This was complicated somewhat by Covid recovery stretching between the initial infection in January though to getting my energy back in June – although according to my resting heartrate record, it was September when that returned to normal.
My big priorities were similar to previous years.
LARP: This was my last year on the writing team. I had anticipated this nearing the end of 2023 and had initially hoped that the remaining 2 games of the campaign would both take part in 2024. Due to circumstances outside of our control, and running the game in a time of weather and Covid uncertainty, the first game had been delayed from 2021 to 2022 and the timing of the 4-game campaign ended up being 1 game per year, rather than the more typical game every 6 months. This meant that, as I entered my 4th year on the writing team, I found that my commitments and resposibilities outside of the team had changed drastically. I have spent aproximately 1/3 of my son’s life on the team. I had anticipated 2-3 years, and so it was no wonder that I was beginning to find it difficult to balance extracurricular activities with fulfilling my share of the writing. Recognising that something would need to shift, I verbally mentioned my commitment to 1 final year during the planning for 2024 and formalised it in writing by mid-year. Despite game 3 being mere days before my flight to the UK, I had the most fun I have ever had behind the GM table thus far – keeping track of plot that had been run, handing out plot that needed to be run, and making sure we hit our main plot beats. I am confident I will return to the GM seat at some point in the future, but not for the next few years while I navigate the intensive period of successfully seeing my son into young adulthood, and generally being a hands-on and active parent. It may be a bittersweet decision, but at the end of the day I am able to recognise it as the right one. My mounting frustration as the year drew to a close with trying to ‘go out with a bang’ and leave the team with something awesome, while knowing that I did not have the time to give to plot writing, has cemented that I made the right choice. And I will be there in the crew room as Senior Crew at the final game, ready to see the story come to a close, even if I am not there in the meetings or in front of the page as the game writing is finished!
Writing Submissions: Since early in the year, I started submitting poems and flash fiction to open publication submissions. This was to keep the writing muscles working between LARP writing, while being short enough to easily pick up and put down during my lunch breaks. I had two main bursts of submissions. One close to the start of the year, where I submitted a work of flash fiction and a poem. The second, directly after WorldCon when I felt both inspired by talks I had seen and well-rested from my break. My poem from the start of the year was accepted, although unfortunately the publisher had to downsize the project from the initially planned multi-volume set down to just one book. I received a very apologetic email informing me that the poem was unfortunately not one that had been planned for the single volume. I still consider this a huge win! I have been working on a ~1500 word story for a few years now that I managed to finish in late 2024, and I think it has great potential for a future submission once it has the rough edges sanded off and polished. Speaking of sanding and polishing…
Art: One of my proudest achievements in 2024 was creating a ring at a local Lost Wax Art workshop. It’s almost a little hard to believe that I made this! First, I made a wax model of what I wanted, then it was sent away to be cast in sterling silver. As the final step, I sanded and polished it to perfection. I am hopeful that I will be able to use the skills I learned in the workshop to make similar rings in the near future.
I have also continued on my crotchet journey, with the vague plan that I might put together a craft stall at some point. I have a literal pile of friendly skulls now, as well as a few animal friends. A craft stall is maybe not an immediate 2025 plan. It’s something to work towards. While the year involved less painting than I would have liked, I did manage to pick up some new brushes and canvases during a sale and painted a puzzle piece as part of a friend’s birthday gift. I am currently in the middle of painting a LARP prop for a game of magic and fairies (amongst other kinds of folk).
What’s in store for 2025? Well… I’m not entirely sure yet, but I do know that I want to focus on one main goal: Finish the first draft of my novel. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just needs to be the first sweep through expanding the chapter notes I already have into mostly written chapters. Beta reading a work during the first half of 2024 helped me realise that I was still being entirely too concerned about expanding all instances of anything I had written in square brackets (or other notes I had left for myself) before considering a chapter ‘first draft done’. The notes in square brackets can stay for the next sweep – as long as each chapter is mostly written.
I do also want to continue submitting smaller works to open anthology submissions. This is secondary to the main goal and serves a few purposes. It’s a small detour with a set deadline – this should allow me to try some of the enticing other ideas I am sure I will have along the way in bite-sized portions. Entertaining ideas outside of the main work should help to keep the creative juices flowing and help move me along from stagnation if I get too fixated on a particular section. It’s also a big mood boost to finish something and submit it, even if the chances of being accepted are incredibly slim.
I would also like to post more regular updates here. Perhaps smaller ones surrounding milestones in the writing process!
On August the 8th to 12th, I attended the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention. It was my first Worldcon (my first trip out of the country, even) and was attended by over 7000 other people, many in-person and some online.
Although I was going with other people, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect and hadn’t really had the chance to look into everything the convention would entale in advance. Given I was running a weekend LARP mere days before hopping on a plane, most of my energy had gone into desperately trying to avoid sickness and burnout while preparing and planning both a weekend LARP and a three-week trip. That was largely successful, but did mean I was relying very heavily on other people’s planning to see me through the whirlwind few days between landing in London and catching the train up through York to our accomadation on Sauchiehall Street (which I have been reliably informed is pronounced much like ‘suckie hawl street’).
I planned out all of the panels I was interested in just a day in advance, which was cutting it quite close to the line but meant they were fresh in my memory. I do think I made a rookie mistake and overdid it slightly on the first day with my original nine planned items! Luckily, I recognised this and ended up going to only four – which was still a lot, considering I also explored the entire main floor, caught up with some people I knew, and spent a significant chunk of the evening at the Brisbane 2028 bid party and hanging out with new first-day friends. I had intended to make it to the ceilidh, but maybe it was for the best that I didn’t because I was shattered the next day!
Three to four panels/performances/lectures per day was about right for the rest of the con. There were a number of fantastic-looking events with planned recordings that I ultimately decided to skip in favour of other events that were in-person only, or being social. I have until the end of the year to finish working my way through those, and there is an online watch party planned for November where people will have the chance to catch up together.
There were a wide range of topics available – all the way from author panels, science, tech, RPGs, performances, readings, meet ups, and more. Even given the various interests of people in attendance (readers, hobby writers, published authors, academics, scientists, artists, volunteers helping to run the con…) I was very unsurprised that thousands of unique people could simultaniously have something to do that was taylored to their interests.
On that note, there are a few different ways people could enjoy their con. While I personally attended a mix of panels and socialising, I am aware of some people who spent most of the time enjoying the social activety centered around the bar (dubbed ‘bar-con’), which is always a bit of a hub for people gathering between events. There were also a variety of spaces for people to sit and hang out in the main hall, and another entire hall filled with art, books, and stallholders who were all very lovely to chat with. On the second day, I spoke to a delightful person over lunch who was enjoying predominately the science track panels. I was mostly interested in learning about science and perpectives that I perhaps hadn’t considered for my own work, but I didn’t limit myself too much and included whatever looked fun and informative on my personal schedule. The only category I ended up avoiding was tech, as I found a lot of the talks reminded me too much of what I do for work. Maybe I will attend some of the tech talks another year. There really isn’t a ‘right way’ of enjoying the con. I think the only rule of thumb is doing what is enjoyable to the individual.
I was pleasently surprised by the sheer number of textile crafts that attendees had with them. I had my crotchet, which I had successfully transported across the world, accompanied by my stitch picker and a thick needle – and a second needle that I had found abandoned on the floor of one of the panels. Knitting and crotchet were very common, but really anything that was portable enough was in someone’s bag somewhere at the con. It was a delightful conversation starter, and gave me something to do during the pre-panel wait.
Speaking of wait times, I missed out on a couple of panels because I arrived too close to the start time. I had the biggest success arriving 30mins before the panel started (when the previous panel was leaving) and anything up until 15mins before was generally fine. That meant that I had the most success with back-to-back panels that were within 5mins of each other, or were not one of the very crowded popular panels.
COVID safety policies were somewhat light, although masks were ‘heavily encouraged’. We all wore masks from the moment we hopped on the first plane to our arrival home, with some mask-off time for eating and when we were away from the crowds. There was a chat for self-reports in the Discord and I am sure that, from reading the chat, I must have been in the presence of people who unknowingly had it. Through a combination of luck and the masks, we all managed to avoid it. Something I am very thankful for, as I only regained my energy from my January infection two months before WorldCon.
There is so much more I could say, even in this broad overview. Because this is already quite long, I will finish up by saying that I found the whole experience delightful and inspiring. My top three favourites out of everything I attended in-person were: Dune! The Musical (performance) – This was an absolutely delightful musical portrayal of Dune. I even went to see it a second time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it was so good. It’s on Bandcamp and I highly recommend listening to it.
The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space (panel) – A brilliant author chat between Adrian Tchaikovsky, Justina Robson, Nnedi Okorafor, and Johnathan Thornton (the moderator). Everyone on the panel had the chance to speak and it was all very well presented and interesting.
Fighting Fungi in Space (science) – An informative talk by Andy Pitt about the challenges of fungi growing in space, particularly on space stations, and possible solutions that are safe for humans and bad for the fungi we don’t want.
The last year has flown past. My lack of updates here has in no way been a reflection of stagnation on the creative front. In fact, I would venture to say I am creatively quite energised. So what have I been up to?
Over the last year, I have worked through several projects. I thought it would be worth mentioning what they were here, as well as where the creative future is likely to go from here.
LARP I helped write and run a weekend game, part 1 of our small campaign. This game had been a long time coming, after being delayed for a full year by Covid. I was our GM “on the ground”, which meant that I was in an NPC role where people would know where to find me for out-of-character questions (such as rules clarification, or notifications of intent to do something that would need a degree of scene setup) as well as in-character RP. It was exhilarating, overwhelming, and exhausting. I am glad it went as smoothly as it did. It is a lot of work to run a LARP, and I would like to think that I learned a lot.
A few months after our weekend game, we ran a day game for the same LARP. This was many times faster and less complicated to write, given we needed less plot, although we did run into logistical issues when we discovered that flooding had caused the entrance to our planned location to collapse in a small landslide! Our Plan B location worked out, and we managed to run the game in between a cyclone, road closures, and delayed flights (I had wonderful weather 1400 kilometers away from the cyclone and got back just in time to fulfil my end of last minute game prep).
Looking towards the future, game 2 will hopefully be later this year. That will involve a significant amount of writing and general preparation.
Art My work ran a paint and sip style midwinter party in mid-August, where we painted a sunset harbour scene with the silhouettes of buildings poking up between the sea and the orange sky. I drew inspiration from the colour gradients and silhouettes later in the year and painted a special gift using gouache with techniques I had not tried before on my own. It is a little messy in places, but came out almost exactly as I had imagined it in my mind’s eye. I am probably the most proud of this out of everything I drew and painted last year.
I also did some digital art with the intention of printing it as small, A5 art prints. As with the above picture, these were gifts and only ever intended for one person. I did enjoy trying something familiar with a new framing surrounding the awareness of how well the colours involved might print. I struggle somewhat with getting my digital art to look crisp, and it lacks some of the passion that my art done in a physical medium posses. This tells me I should practice more.
Once again with my work, I also made a small pottery piece. For something that I made with severe time pressure on account of needing to leave early, I am quite happy. It took me back to when I had a potter’s wheel and abundant clay as a child, although there were no wheels involved for this. It is neither fired nor glazed, so I do need to be careful with it.
I have also been working on a heavily ambitious art-related Secret Project. Hopefully this is something I can talk about later in the year in regards to how well it turned out (or things that went wrong). Either way, I have learned a lot so far.
Writing If I’m honest, I haven’t managed a whole lot of novel writing, nor have I finished any of the short stories that I was hoping to share here. That is, ultimately, fine. I have been working on other things and only have a set number of hours in my day. I did, after all, write my part of the aforementioned LARP.
This month, I have been reviewing my novel writing and how I can work it into the routine of my day a bit better. When I was working from the office, I found that I could write during my lunch breaks. But an hour is just long enough to get truly into it, and I would find that I would often get snatched away from my world just as soon as I had warmed up. I have some ideas, although I do need to also be mindful of the upcoming LARP and make sure I leave sufficient time set aside for that.
Camp NaNoWriMo next month looks similar to how I treated NaNoWriMo when I last did it back in November 2021. I am seriously considering using that to direct a writing-focused portion of time.
Sewing I made a costume inspired by the New Zealand blue mushroom – the werewere-kokako. It is one of my favourite mushrooms and I jumped on the opportunity to make it into a LARP costume. In full, I needed to make trousers, a corset, wings, and a shirt that would work well with both the corset and the wings. I don’t yet have nice photos of the costume being worn (that is on my list!) However, I am incredibly happy with my wing design and the way they naturally sit like a flowy cloak when not spread wide. I wanted to design something that would stay out of the way when not in use, and look striking when I did want people to look at them. I also knew that, ideally, they shouldn’t stick too far out behind me, as I would constantly whack them into things otherwise.
I currently have a couple of different fabrics set aside to make button up shirts. I have the pattern waiting and ready to try as soon as I feel like starting the project. I’m interested to see how making something that is not a costume (for once) would go.
Photography and Video I don’t consider myself to be amazing at photography at present. That aside, I made the conscious decision last year to improve. There is no better way to get good at something than to practice, so I have been taking photos of some of my costumes (amongst other things). At present, a lot of that involves becoming familiar with the self-timer feature. I started with my extremely simple Gideon Nav costume and friendly neighbourhood witch at Halloween.
Various croppings of this second Gideon photo have become profile pictures across scattered social media sites. I am hoping to photograph my werewere-kokako costume in the near future.
On that note, I did video some of the elements of making that costume. All footage I need to review and see if a sensible video can be salvaged from it. I was under some time constraints and setting up the camera for key parts of the sewing was often forgone in favour of speed (potentially a good thing, as I literally finished it, put it on, and arrived at the LARP with bare minutes to spare). I did manage to review and make a video from the footage for making a Regency style dress, which was from ages ago. They take quite a long time to edit, so I think I need to be okay with the fact that they are simply done when they are done and not a moment sooner. Most of the sewing videos I make are focused around how I did something, rather than being a tutorial. In many ways, this does mean that they will be enjoyable whether I finish them in the same year I make the costume or much, much later.
That’s all for now. I shall aim to update in less than a year’s time. Hopefully with good creative progress, perhaps even some insights.
Before I post more snippets of writing, I thought I would spend a moment of introspection. In the past I’ve written about some of the creative things that I am doing now and what I hope to achieve in the near future. Lately, I’ve been thinking about longer-term creative goals.
I think part of that is because the latest instalment of the Covid saga has meant that I haven’t attended a LARP in over a year, and that’s a big outlet for a significant portion of my creative energy. I have heard LARP described as the intersection between acting, storytelling, and crafting and that’s a description that I find accurate. People who are interested in LARPing are generally drawn to one or multiple of those – and I sit somewhere in the middle enjoying everything.
Acting I did drama classes for about six years, which ranged from traditional theatre and theatre sports to various genres of short film. I had intended to continue that when I started university, however I quickly found I didn’t have any spare time to put towards learning lines or performances. Near the end of university, I signed up with an acting agency and appeared in small, unnamed parts for TV. As my weekends were dedicated to balancing being a parent with study, I had to turn down most roles. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the occasional moment on set.
Storytelling Stories have been a part of my life since before I can remember. Before I learned to write, I was telling stories that my parents would write down for me. When I was 12, I got given an old laptop from my dad’s work and I used it almost every day to write the stories that floated through my mind. Like most things, I virtually had to stop writing during university. I came out the other side missing writing terribly, and of course now I have a novel on the way and about 14 others filed away in my head to write in the future. Alongside that, I am on the writing team for a LARP, although that has been somewhat unpredictable as we are at the mercy of Covid when it comes to being able to run the first game of the campaign.
Crafting I have always pulled things apart to find out how they work – and had some success with putting them back together. LARP is one of those things that gives me both focus and a deadline, which is important for getting anything done in a reasonable amount of time. This is an interesting one, because I love making things with my hands, but getting started is the hardest part. I often make things in bursts when I have a reason to finish it within a given time frame – a painting for a birthday present, editing a short highlight video for someone, sewing one of my son’s things back together, that kind of thing.
Without LARP, I crave the chance to act and make things. Over this past year, the urge to run away with the theatre or join an agency had been steadily growing. I didn’t realise exactly how much LARP scratched that itch until it stopped. But it got me thinking, there’s nothing to stop me from pursuing those acting dreams in the future when my job in software has had a chance to marinate. Ideally, I will have published a few books by then and maybe that will be around the time things start to shift towards being more creatively focused. As much as I enjoy working in tech now, the satisfaction is fleeting. Nothing as lasting as being able to hold a book in my hand and flick through the pages while taking in that new book smell and reveling in the fact that I created that. There’s something about holding a book, DVD, or something I have created in my hand that speaks to me. One day I hope to share that.
It’s small steps until then. A page of writing, practicing those acting skills, getting better at what I do. It’s just a matter of time.
Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I had been writing more short stories, both as writing practice and as a way of putting some of the ideas rattling around in my head onto paper. The short below is one I wrote during the end of NaNoWriMo. I let it sit for a while, then did a quick proofread before deeming it ready to head out into the big wide world. I have kept reworking this piece on the lighter side. The idea was to avoid overthinking. NaNoWriMo ended up working well following the write what I can manage concept. I wrote 10,000 words at the end of a very busy month and I consider that a success. I will update further in the new year. Until then, stay safe, and enjoy my short story.
Greinewood
The forest stood like a blot of darkness between the streetlights. The upper branches of the trees reached into the sky, black silhouettes against red sunset clouds. This was the kind of forest that was welcoming in the day with its warm mosses and sunbeams, but as night fell the dark branches clacked together as if to warn unwary strangers. Stay away, they seemed to say.
This particular stretch of forest was not without its fair share of folklore, either. Dusk was a special moment, a thinning between the otherworld and the mortal realm. As the last rays of sunlight snuck below the horizon, the shadows stretched out from the forest. Their dark fingers swaying in the breeze as the space between the footpath and first tree trunk hovered on a thread of liminality.
Eolande stood under a streetlight. The wind tugged at the faux fur on the collar of her coat as the soft glow of her phone screen illuminated her face. Thinly disguised streaks of mascara smudged her cheeks. Tonight had been a disaster. She pulled her hands deeper into her sleeves, allowing only the tips of her fingers to stick out against the persistent, chilly wind that danced across them.
She zoomed the maps app out, taking note of the forty-five minute walk home along the outside of the tree line. Zooming back in, she saw what looked like a small dotted path through the green of the trees. She tapped her finger against her screen with increasing frustration as the app stubbornly refused to redirect her route and tell her how long it would take.
She raised her eyes from the screen and cast them along the treeline. Very little stood out in the mass of leaves that swayed and tumbled in the darkness. As she ran her eyes back along the treeline the edge of a pale wooden sign, peering out from behind the leaves of a small bush, caught her eye. Her phone torch revealed the beginning of a gravel path by the sign.
She gingerly picked her way through the damp grass to the sign. It was well-maintained and a thick coat of dark green paint filled the carved words that read Greinewood Track. Carved below the title, read Cara Road connection 10mins with an arrow pointing into the forest. Pulling up the map again and zooming in to the end of the track, Eolande realised with satisfaction that she knew her way home from Cara Road. It was not far.
The path was uneven at first and the heels on her boots were ill-suited for navigating tree roots. However, after a time, she became accustomed to watching her step in the small circle of torchlight. For a time, the only sound that interrupted the rustle of leaves and clatter of branches in the wind were the occasional car passing by on the road. As Eolande ventured further into the forest, even those faded away until she was left with only her thoughts. She supposed she should be frightened, walking alone on this dark track. But she wasn’t. If anything, she felt more peaceful than she had all evening. At this time, she was supposed to be celebrating her birthday with her so-called friends. The hurt and anger at what had happened faded, as if blown away by the wind. Somewhere, deep in the forest, an owl hooted.
The simple monotony of the walk stretched on, each new corner in the track prolonging her return to reality for a moment longer. Her boots were beginning to pinch her toes and she slowed to give herself a chance to find a log or something to sit on for a minute to rest. As she scanned the sides of the path, her eyes caught on a purple petunia. The flower lay alone on the side of the path, the deep purple of its petals standing out starkly from the brown earth that skirted the grey stones of the path.
She bent to pick it up. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” The words slipped quietly out of her mouth.
Never thank the good folk, lest they believe you owe them something in return.
She shrugged and slipped the flower loosely through a buttonhole on her coat. The stem was solid and the petals showed few signs of wilting.
Checking the time, she realised she had been walking for close to ten minutes already. Buoyed on by the realisation that she must be close to home, she began to walk again. The map suggested she was perhaps not as far as she thought. The track followed parallel to the road for a time before twisting deeper into the trees, then finally looping around to the road end. She peered up the gentle incline to her right. A streetlight flickered through the swaying leaves. It would be easier to carefully make her way to the top. Her map agreed that she would be closer to home this way.
Never leave the path.
She hesitated with one foot still on the path. If climbing the hill proved too difficult, she could always come back and take the long route. Tiny twigs tried to pluck onto threads of her clothing as she pushed past and carefully felt for each new foothold in her heels. She smiled at the absurdity of the situation. This was exciting. Her feet would be sore for her shift tomorrow, another in a long list of unremarkable days working retail. She would have to confront her friends about their decision to bail on her birthday outing last-minute, a difficult and unpleasant conversation. All that seemed far away. A chuckle escaped out into the forest air and mingled with the whisper of the trees.
The light grew brighter and, as she crested the hill, she found herself face to face with an interesting sight. The light was not, as she had presumed, a streetlight. Instead, a gently glowing ball hovered between two trees that had reached together above the forest floor and inosculated, creating a natural oval between their fused forms. A figure stood beside the trees, watching her approach with gentle curiosity.
“Hello,” she said. A sense of relief flowed through her. She felt like she had finally found something she didn’t know she was searching for.
They peered at her with catlike, violet eyes and extended a hand. “You want to leave, don’t you.”
She nodded.
“What is your name?”
“Eolande.”
“Come with me, Eolande.”
Gingerly at first, then with confidence, she walked forward to meet the figure. Whatever was through the archway between the trees that shared their life sap, that was where she belonged.
She stepped through, and darkness crowded to fill the forest once more.
I have not updated here in so long that I had to remind myself where my blog even was. That is fine. Things have been moving creatively and that is what matters.
On the writing front, I have been working on three exciting endeavours. The first, was a D&D short. I wanted to make an exciting game of political intrigue and magic that both served as an introduction to D&D for new players (thus including elements like fights, stealth, puzzles, and plenty of ability checks). I also wanted to make it a bit different from the linear “you do this, fight these, get this, get rewarded” kind of game, so I stirred a great many plot twists into the story. I asked the players extra questions before game start that would fit their characters into the world and make it feel like they had inhabited it for far longer than the moments the game had been running. Overall, it was a lot of fun and one piece of feedback I got was: “Even after the big bad had been revealed, I still wondered whether maybe we had made the wrong choice and there would be another plot twist.” Mission accomplished.
The second thing I have been working on is writing a LARP. Not my short evening event as anticipated (the uncertainty of lockdown was too… uncertain for that), but instead a full campaign. That might seem odd as surely a full campaign must include even more uncertainty than an evening game. Right? Not quite… The main difference is that there are other people also working on it and my main role as a GM is to be part of the writing team and do drawings for props, rather than the logistics. Although Game 1 has already been postponed until next year due to the currently ongoing lockdown, I am very excited to be part of this project and have already learned so much.
My third writing project is, of course, my novel. Before this current lockdown started in August, I was spending an hour during lunchtime two or three days a week to write. It was going so well, even though an hour is not quite enough time to get deep into the writing headspace. This November, I decided to do NaNoWriMo again – but a slightly modified version. The 50,000 word goal is more of an indication than a target. The main goal is to write something for at least 30mins each day. I then mark how many words I write, and at the end of the month I will see exactly how much closer I am towards finishing my writing goals. I made this choice for the sake of quality. Sometimes it is better to produce less in a day for writing that directly contributes to the intent of the chapter. With all the other things going on, I also wanted to mitigate the stress of feeling like I should be doing more, when I entered NaNoWriMo knowing my capacity was well below 1667 words a day – largely due to working full time and making sure my son is learning during lockdown.
Finally, I mentioned the idea of writing many interconnected shorts. However, the mental workload of creating and maintaining an entire new plot and making it make sense with every new installment seemed like more than I was willing to take on at this present moment. Instead, I have been writing one-off shorts, which both allow me to practice specific areas of writing as well as committing some of the shorter stories that bounce around in my head to paper. I am thinking that this blog may be a good place to share the one-two page works.
That will be all for now. Stay well and stay safe.
Creative Adventures 