The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

Inspiration from Art, or, Why I Love Museums

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

The old adage says a picture is worth a thousand words.

The same is true for a house, a sculpture, even an old necklace.

Museums are a treasure trove of ideas. When I’m at school, I’ll spend hours wandering the corridors of various museums, notebook in hand. A damaged Sphinx provides a line of poetry. A painting inspires a scene or brings back memories (I have a fondness for Saint Sebastian after the Uffizi Gallery, so every painting of him I see reminds me of Italy).

When I was in high school, I often flipped through my massive European History text. One painting (I wish I could remember who painted it) caught my eye, specifically one individual. It was a painting of an Italian family, huge and varied in ages. Towards the back there was a young man, staring out at the viewer. Captivated, I later wrote a few scenes about him, alas, they came to nothing.

I always want to know what happens in the dark corners of paintings and photographs, or what has just been interrupted. Telling the stories myself is a lot of fun.

Slowly destroying the rainforests, one notebook at a time.

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

I finished the journal I was writing/planning in last night.

A new one is waiting for me, and another after that. This one’s special. My parents gave it to me for Christmas; it comes from Florence, Italy.

I’m almost afraid to write in it; this hasn’t happened to me before. There is so much potential in those empty pages. The book itself is so beautiful; I hope my words can do it justice.

I’ll take a photo at some point.

Libraries: What wonderful way to jumpstart the imagination!

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

I love libraries. Books spread as far as the eye can see, the quiet, the hiding amongst the stacks while perusing through an art book…ah! What joy!
To the library I went today, grabbing some fiction (Alexander McCall Smith, of course, along with some classic sci fi) and stumbled through the reference section.
Countless scores of topics live in the reference section, and from them millions of ideas conceived.
Research for The Continent commenced. I picked up a book on The Resistance during WWII, which I’ll attempt to read in the near future.

Recycling: Not just good for the environment

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

In my attempts to jump start short story writing after a long drought, I find myself going back to stories I’ve written before. Not just for inspiration, but for structure. In one case, I rewrote the story with different characters, setting and outcome, but kept the structure (and some key points) the same.

I wonder if this is a “bad thing.” It got me thinking about plotting short stories again. Heck, it got me to write the first draft of a story. But by taking the plot of a story and throwing in new characters, is this self plagerism?

Life in a Facebook Status

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

needs to find The Invisible Man

finished her book, has nothing to read and supposes that she could reread Master and Commander for the 12th time.

thinks she saw Neil Gaiman walking around outside of the MFA.

wonders where Kevin the Turkey has wandered off to.

is a doctor, not an astrophysicist

is thoroughly entertained by the fact that there is a Bow Street Runners computer game.

loved Star Trek and wants to see it again

feels like Phoebe on that episode of “Friends” when she gets a cold and as a result has a sexy singing voice…except no sexy singing voice here.

GAH. Why is LOST so awesome? And why do I have to wait for next season?

is on a boat.

wonders who would win: James Bond, Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer?

thinks there should be more fairy stories about the police.

lives in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.

 hurt her wrist blogging. It’s inevitable.

wonders if it is a good idea to reference Monty Python in her philosophy paper.

wishes that getting enlisted by Jack Bauer to save America from impending doom was a legitimate reason not to do homework.

A collection of some of my favorite statuses. 

Visual aesthetics of a story

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

I’ve been thinking about the aesthetics of The Continent. I see it as a movie; I need to do the preproduction work. Location scouting and set dressing are high on the list.

The Continent has a muted, understated feel, like a war movie (Master and Commander, perhaps, or Band of Brothers). Lots of browns, visually, the colors not vibrant in the least. It has an odd feel in my mind. Historical sci fi, kind of steampunkish (I use this term loosely), but The Continent is set in the near future (of an alternate reality). There are computers, indoor plumbing, etc, but it has the stately ceremony of the 19th century. Warships are more stately and curved, less angular, and certainly smaller.

CC//stevecadman

CC//stevecadman

 

 

There’s a sort of grandeur and intrigue missing from our world that is present in history. Romantic I may be, but we can’t compete with ships of the line and crazy archdukes. There was speculation, guesswork, a delay of information where battles could be fought after peace had been declared; today everything can be found immediately online. We’ve lost that mystery and sense of wonder. I hope that The Continent evokes it.