Author: Diana Whiley
Adelaide, South Australia
05/01/21
In music I find colour and emotion, hear wind and life. See a flotsam and jetsam of ideas flashing by like the artist John Wolseley’s artwork “Symphony.”
He portrays the Australian outback on canvas, singing the bits and pieces of history as it floats through sunset to dawn.
I found an exhibition of photos taken of Gansu Province in China, comparable.
Light and shadow playing across a desert of many hues. The moon a single eye of silver on the white of tents, a ballet. The River Yangtze a yellow ribbon, let loose in the wind marking the passage in time, and as enduring.
Threads of history and art combined.
A book “Chess Masterpieces, a 1,000 years of extraordinary chess sets,” brings these two together and juxtaposed with the Chinese Cosmic Board game I discovered.
The first chess game began in India and Persia and was developed in about 500 C.E. The pieces represented Four Divisions of the Indian army – chariots, elephants, cavalry and infantry. Eight pieces symbolized the army facing the legendary Alexander the Great, and battle in 327 CE.
This confrontation started an epic journey across time and place, culture and ritual, transforming and changing lives as the game itself changed focus. And along with it art.
Artisans created many amazing sets. Faberge, of the famous golden eggs is one of them and is filled with mystique. Like its amber set, the past trapped in resin; a reminder of nature’s cycles of life and death. Amber pieces and other forms lost and stolen, claimed and treasured into myth.
The number of variations on the game grow and are still interpreted today. Not only with strategy in mind but played for fun and the love of it. Written about in fantasy novels and other genres, the game playing its part in plots.
I have always enjoyed seeing large boards set up in Park lands, where large pieces are played by anyone who wants to; time whiled away as stories are swapped and as many created. A compendium of different voices and experiences hopefully opened and relived for generations.
My artwork “Warrior Queen,” is inspired by this and ancient Indian chess sets.
03/16/21
While looking for inspiration after the Xmas break I found books on Art journaling. I’d not consciously sought them out before and realized I should have done so ages ago. I am as new to this, as I had been to writing a journal.
One book “Art Revolution “ by Lisa L Cyr really impressed me with its… “alternative approaches, innovative ways of conceptualizing art.”
I was particularly drawn to certain artists in the book. I selected eight images, from five artists whose artwork mirrors my own interest in symbolism and spirituality.
Kazuhiko Sano appeals with his predominance of the colour blue and its vividness. He shows the duality of the mind and body’s reaction to nature. The portrait in blue, radiates light and for me, engenders a lightness of spirit. ( 1. ’Mysterium’ 2. ‘Atonement’ , 5. Portrait of singer Tori Amos)
Michael Mew and his images are reminiscent of Chinese paintings. A delicacy, a fragility of nature intersected by script – evidence of our human presence and interaction. ( 3. Rose 2’ 4.‘Peony 3’ )
Rudy Gutierrez, has art full of symbolism; body wrapped in vine, earth’s shelter and nurturer. ( 6. ‘Night blossom’)
Matt Manley. Carries the weight and scales of life. (7. ‘Sad time stretching Before and After’ )
Dave McKean, digital and surreal artist who is also re-known for his art in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Series. (8. ‘Café des Amis’ )
In response to these images I created the artwork “Ancestors Whisper.”
*
Dave McKean also commented on how art and writing intersect.
“… stories shape and reflect our culture. We tell them, respond to them and use them to understand our sense of self and history. In the hopes and fears of future dreams move beyond the surface to make an emotional connection…where it engages and lasts.’
I want to translate these aspects both in my art and the fantasy worlds of my novel as I build the culture and history of those worlds.
The well- known fantasy author David Eddings suggested it can take up to a year to fully realize a fantasy world. That was a relief. I have spent a lot of time writing copious notes but still need to weave more into the world.
I found Lapham’s Quarterly magazine a great resource. It has combinations on a theme. Explores the many writers, artists, scientists, inventors and more who over centuries contributed to a theme.
One of them focused on Trade. It included the Universal Barter system. E.g. Bows and arrows for jewelry. Jewelry for myrrh. Myrrh for maize. Salt for gold. Pottery for Salt. A legendary trade in spices such as pepper.
They conjured, sailing ships, ocean, islands, continents. Spices and scents used in rituals. Tools for trade. Language that spread and was learned, embraced and changed. Along with trade, games invented for pleasure and fun; for divination.
In ancient China, Liubo a Cosmic Dice game was invented with a Board conceived as a representation of the universe. Two players throw an eighteen sided dice, in turn, to move twelve game pieces - six representing dragons and three tiger. How to play has been lost.
The idea of it intrigued me. I decided to create my own magical Cosmic Board in the fantasy world of my novel “Song of Seed and Blood.”
I imagined, silver figurines placed above a board to create a pattern of magic and making; much like lace making where bobbins and thread move and undulate into place. One controlled by a being called the Savon, who is eons old. Her magic is failing and the consequence of it sets in motion the rise of darker powers.
It is only part of the story. Other aspects of magic follow and intersect.
12/22/20
I’ve always been inspired by myths and legends and have decided to write my own versions of the ones I really love, ones filled with hope.
My first legend focuses on Mongolia and my fascination with its people, the Steppes - wide sweep of charcoal soil and white capped hills. The wind and freedom where horses roam; are their life.
This tale is of the making of their instrument; of identity
Legend of the Morin Khuur
Zel was riding the wave of star song when he heard another, softer yet compelling undercurrent. He moved toward it then stilled as a palpable yearning struck.
It changed and shifted his perception.
The veil of time lifted dark space to reveal a world covered by blue. Mists of cloud drifted across it and called. He dived down to a land of charcoal, grey and white.
Snow, vibrating crystal energy draped immense mountains and below them a vast plain filled with wind song flowing through manes and tails to caress muscles and galloping hooves.
The pounding on earth opened his heart to an old yet new connection, one he’d thought lost. The longing surged and he flew down, russet wings a flame ignited above his sienna- gold body. He landed and waited as his ancestors raced toward him.
They slowed when they had his scent. All of them, except a lone stallion veered off. It came within a hundred feet of Zel and reared a challenge.
Zel spread his wings and sent forth the breath of making. It wrapped around the stallion and held him firm. The stallion rolled its eyes then broke the contact suddenly and leapt forward, teeth going for Zel’s neck.
The action momentarily stunned Zel then he lifted straight up and away to hover above the stallion as it screamed its rage.
Stop, he commanded, but there was no reply, no link between them.
Shattered, Zel eyed the stallion for one long moment then swept up into the blue sky.
He flew above the plain searching. There were several herds and tried again for contact, this time with the mares. None responded.
By days end he was nearing despair when a flicker of light on a distance hillside caught his attention. He moved toward it, skimmed over strands of aspen to an open clearing.
Three rounded structures emitting smoke stood to one side and next to them an enclosure holding a dozen ponies. Penned, confined.
A mist of rage blurred his vision as he swooped down and landed. A short gasp followed and he whipped his head around to meet small, but intense dark eyes in a creature barely five feet tall. It spoke. “By the herd, how wonderful you are.”
Zel froze. He understood the words. How could that be?
You are not of the herd. Who are you?
“Sukhe,” he said and laughed. “You’re real.”
What are you?
“You don’t know?”
Zel snorted, wings rising. Suhke added hastily. “I am son of Bogdo and our yurt is the biggest. My uncles occupy the other two.
”What are you? Zel repeated
‘Oh…We are the Mountain people of Mongolia.’
People - you breed?
Sukhe’s face flushed. “I am thirteen – a boy still but I will know about that soon. If the Gods will it."
Zel stared. There was such intense longing in those words. He was intrigued and delved deeper. Almost took a step back. The boy was blind.
Yet he’d seen him - the Wanderer God. But… and he looked back at his kin penned and found rage again.
“Please don’t be angry. We love our ponies,” Suhke said and the herd’s song suddenly burgeoned from within him so joyful and so strong with love - and as well, for him. How could that be?
Another voice called out, “Suhke.”
“My mother. I will have to go in but…,’ then said in a rush. “Can I touch your wings?”
Are you worthy?
“I want to be,” the words burst from him.
Zel moved closer. The boy reached out and touched him - here finally his legacy.
The song vibrated between them and Zel showed him how to keep it going - with horse hair strung into a bow. Special wood carved with a horse’s head. A long neck and triangular body with strings.
Zel blew into his mouth and Suhke said. “A Morin Khurr.”
Yes. Yours. Your skill. The first. Special as you are and will be to your people.
“And part of you. Will you come back?”
I must wander but we are now forever linked
And a star shone in the blue sky.
Suhke saw it, saw Zel open his wings and fly toward it. Watched for a long time then turned to rejoin his family, his heart full of faith and promise.
08/02/20
Looking for a sense of belonging is a universal theme. It impacted my teenage years as I clung to the coast near my Uncle’s holiday house.
A two story prefab place, it sat on a headland, at its end a rounded hill called “The Bluff.”
My siblings and I called it the Magic Pudding, ever pulling us back to climb it and hope secret wishes were granted. The added mystique, of Antarctica’s ancient tales travelling up the vast ocean directly to its summit; space and freedom.
It attracts the whales who come to the bay for birthing. Their joy crashes with waves onto the shore. Droplets sinking into skin with ancient song and ritual.
One day the governor of our state decided the headland should be pristine and free of buildings. My uncle was forced to demolish the house and all others scattered across the headland. It demolished part of me too.
I created my own myth of belonging and transformation to get it back.
I built my first fantasy novel around it, my character Eryn assuming parts of those imaginings and whale song. Their haunting themes flowed from body to mind in a journey of discovery and meaning.
I found another author/ artist’s journey in his graphic book akin to my attempts to recover what was lost. “Notes from a Shadow City” by Jeffrey Alan Love.
A young man sets off on a journey to research magical swords. He becomes stranded in a strange city and has forgotten his name. His search for identity is evocatively portrayed by a paragraph of writing and opposite it, a page with artwork that compliments his story as it unfolds.
Deceptively simple it poignantly portrays his absence of belonging. Tantalizes us with the promise he will find what he seeks as he encounters others who act as guides. The ending is open ended, the journey not finished but with hope.
Many myths have spirit guides in their stories. Use totems to represent them. The idea has always appealed to me. I look to all the living creatures on Earth and mythical fantasy ones too, and hope one day I find my guide.
06/21/20
How did my writing develop into what is now my style of writing?
I look back over the beginnings of my fledging writing and what stands out, is my first introduction to metaphors and similes.
It changed the way I thought. My imagination took flight. I could say such things as, my grandma is like bacon when it sizzles and pops. My description not just the colour of her skin but about her sharp wit.
The world of my conjured metaphors grew. I experimented with short prose. With colour I add emotional texture.
Conflagration
I stand before the headstone. In one hand I carry a box of matches and in the other a folded piece of paper dense and square. I place it upon the sleek blackness, the paper’s whiteness startling… like a falling star.
Each small square of paper cries a blankness where music once danced; where black, plump notes slid easily into the lie your fingers and heart made of the pain. Your face transformed into glory as you played the piano while I burned with anger and denial.
I open the paper, let the creases ink an indelible map within, and strike a match. The paper is alight. A conflagration of memory absorbed into sky and stars.
The use of the colour black created the impact I wanted. Like the singer Prince, colour in his deeply melancholic song, “Purple Rain.” an analogy for pain and bruised spirit. Colour and also sound. Rain falling. Music a cascade.
The author Virginia Wolfe, spoke of the importance of sound and style, “the wave in the mind, the rhythm before the words.
*Ursula Le Guin also. “If you are hearing what you write, then you can listen for the right cadence, which will help the sentence run clear. Beneath words there are rhythms to which memory and imagination and words move.
The writer’s job is to go down deep to feed the rhythm, find it, move it, be moved by it and let it move memory and imagination to find words.”
The sound within me, and love of myths turned me to the fantasy genre. Glimmers of where my writing could go formed connections to landscape and the monumental possibilities floating around moon, stars and the dawn of a new day.
* Song of Seed and Blood
In the light and resonance of constellations I move like liquid iridescence. I am at one with space and time. Nova’s burst, comets streak and I fall to earth a wandering seed
Layers of Earth encase me.
I squirm upward through the remnants of bodies, old and young. Seek and find moisture and rise, within the pavilion where beetles dance and in pollen’s silken heat, emerge and stagger pink blush.
I am the legend of the night flower.
* Book. Ursula K Le Guin “Conversations on writing “ with David Naimon.
* Foundation concept for Bk 2 in fantasy series
05/22/20
Improvisation is a key aspect of Jazz my brother used to say, as he played his clarinet, his notes crooning his emotions into view, into colour into movement - into me.
My response followed a trajectory of its own; brain storming and a bouncing off each other.
It’s something I really miss while I have not being face to face with friends. The seeing and feeling first hand of their emotions, body language and an energy that ignites synapses.
I needed an alternative. I unearthed a notebook I’d forgotten about with a list of some of my favourite books. How each of them impacted on me.
I first picked out and am reading again, “Dune” written by Frank Herbert. A book of the 1960's and considered one of the best Science Fiction books ever written.
I’d forgotten the intensity of it. The way he built tension between characters, as well as in the reader, through the characters’ inner dialogue that showed the betrayals, the choices made and the reasons why. Very Shakespearean in its monologues and emotional impact. The language of another time as captivating.
The world and culture Herbert created is an amazing mix of science and of the inner mind the latter that he turns magical in its myth making and presentiment.
As I am following his journey I realize I have not as yet fully formed my own fantasy world. Much of the magic and source within the land I know but places and culture are still not quite there yet.
I am at the moment using my art to push that part to the surface. Thinking of it as a stage with sets, a production with the actors waiting in the wings.
I find my dialogue is flowing better as I review my scenes and chapters. I make sure of what really needs to be there. Though I am still struggling with the transition between chapters and scenes.
I tend to want to jump right into the action and get moving. My emotions as edgy, like a rollercoaster lately. No doubt an effect of the isolation.
At last chapter 4 of my novel is finally making sense, coming together. For some reason the starts of this chapter has been the most difficult to visualize. Probably a consequence of the changes to my original idea as I incorporated other storylines.
I had to break the novel into three parts. With so many pages it was easy to get overwhelmed.
I have to remind myself too, that the authors I like to read have had years to prefect their writing. Brandon Sanderson is a case in point with his scope and depth - and he also finished Robert Jordan’s, “Wheel of Time.” An incredible epic journey.
l wanted to write an epic journey but soon realized with my origins in poetry and its sharp tight lyricism I had to make it smaller, more manageable.
Poetry is still one of my greatest inspirations.
As fantasy often includes ceremonies and ritual words I can still contribute that side of myself. Here is one from my novel.
Breath
The essence of life
Undulates with the light and dark
Reflects on what will pass and what will be.
Fire cleansing, renewing.
The wheel of growth rising with the flow of water
into the resonance of Earth;
a singing at its core.
And in the ‘Distance Of Longing’
shall blood be called from the depths
of dark energy to one who walks
the path of two souls.
One who will be harbinger
Of life and death
As the pattern and the song
Must needs be weft once again
Into the grace and harmony
Of all things.
05/01/20
I always stopped in front of the sculpture of Artemis whenever I visited the Adelaide Art gallery. Its marble solid and hard flows like silk where hands carved and shaped cloth and culture. Yet every flaw, age had wrought, brings it close.
It sends phantom tingles in my hands. They are coloured like the earth’s rich red- brown and immersed in clay – becomes a bowl on the sideboard bursting with fruit. A zephyr of air brings in the fragrance of orange blossom. Scent and memory.
My Grandpa’s glass of tobacco
His pipe filled with the exotic mix
of other hands picking, selecting and blending
the flavour of their distant lives
into smoke, into the mist of mountains
carrying the voice of sky into the timber
of his wisdom:
“no rules - no half attempts’’
This offering a bowl open
to the world.
The layers of the Grand Canyon in Colorado are open too, tells stories of beginning and change, the river’s course making patterns and correlations to us. Other unfolding stories. Our emotions engaged and influenced by beauty, grandeur and that indefinable something beyond us and yet part of us. Nature in its many forms.
I rediscovered the book, “In Their Branches.” A project where writers recalled how trees affected them over their life. Grief and pain, revelations; separations and moving house, away from familiar surroundings.
Trees were often their confidant and solace. Mine too.
Melaleuca
As I grew our melaleuca straddled
the side drive, white flowers observing
the rise and fall of friends and lovers,
secrets held in green arbour
clutching at hair and clothes,
little reminders lining carpet and cars.
When I left, it kept growing, its branches
dancing devil winds across the roof.
Dad hated it Mum adored it, my eyes
reaching for its wealth of years
at every homecoming.
04/07/20
In our current crisis, we are seeing a time of reflection and concentration on self, the world and our place in it. The fragility of humanity when such a thing happens. The loss and rebuilding. Creativity increased and shared.
What we can look forward to again.
I never know when it’s going to hit
That different side of love
The different side of you
That takes my breath
Warms my soul
In the air on the road
in the places I roam
on a postcard or text or two
walking in the door
lunch at a café
working on a book
and the character speaks your name
takes your face
becomes the empty space
I’d missed
01/31/20
I am looking for a small side project to engage in while working on my novel. It helps motivate me, as well as gives me a way to look at my work from a different perspective.
I saw an exhibition of Japanese stencils at my state art gallery once, the templates for silk printing. Their delicate, intricate lines were as fascinating to me as the end product.
Much like lace making and its intricate winding of thread and bobbins into shape.
An Australian artist John Wolseley reminds me of lace making. He created a sense of movement, a pattern in his painting “ Symphony.” Bits of bark, birds, odds and sods flow through the air in a rhythm you can almost hear.
The stencils and lace have their own story. Years of history and culture. All underpinning the movement and spaces that convey the emotion and action in their making.
The artist and writer, Shaun Tan’s story “The Arrival,” with only images is a wonderful example of emotion seamlessly flowing. He also creates pauses, like spaces in his narrative.
I’d like to go into the spaces between moments to explore the before and afterward. What can they tell me? How can they be interpreted, expressed?
I’ve always had a secret yen to make a film. I see all my stories in cinematic form and have wished sometimes I had a recorder to voice what I see. It brings me back to how much music also plays its part in films.
I have several lyrics I had set to music. How could I interpret them with images? Where to start?
I can already imagine going back to the botanic gardens; nature ever one of my greatest inspirations. Use the video on my phone to take micro shots. Pan the surrounding area then zoom in.
Find the spaces, shadows and mystery in the Needle Pines. The droplets of spray from the fountains. Reflections in the lily pond and hopefully a dragonfly or two. A start.
Once I’ve made a story that I feel works, I’ll look at posting it up on You-Tube.
12/30/19
A last note for 2019 as a New Year dawns. I wrote this piece thinking of the EARTH, of BEING.
I Wait.
There is a desert inside me shifting dunes
of red and gold that sparkle white bleached bones.
They speak of rivers that once
cascaded ancient memories, ones folded
into the fabric of what was, and wait
only the breath of awareness.
I try to bridge the gap.
I spin the kaleidoscope of what is known
of place, of colour. I open myself to the blade of grass, the teardrop of water, the grain of sand and hear the tales of reflection and change - the compelling voice of shadows and death.
It pulls me down into the deep pattern of beginnings.
Watery streams gulp whale song. Its resonance gathers the collective embrace of every living, organism’s promise and rises in vapour. Air balloons travel across our vast globe and absorb the tenure of screaming sun and annotate years.
Forests have gone. Time cemented the stride of mankind, divided the giving and taking beyond reasonable limits. But still, a small ember flies and touches another, becomes a conflagration of consciousness.
It bursts inside me, roars the name of ‘Life,’ and resurrects hope.
11/27/19
With a clearer view of where my writing is going these days, I am curious to see what has changed, what my writing was like years ago.
I rummaged around in my cupboards and found folders of my earlier writing - old novel extracts ranging from crime fiction, a completed western and fantasy.
It was like looking at another person. My style was simpler, even a little naïve at times yet written with confidence.
Much happened later to dampen that confidence. I worried too much about what others thought. Was confused on what seemed the right way to approach my writing.
Was my story entertaining and interesting enough?
The sheer need to write and the imagination I have pouring from me overcame the doubts enough to persevere. Still it is a roller-coaster up sometimes down the next. Up now.
I am going to use some ideas from one of my old fantasy pieces. It was based on the myth of Pegasus and the Chimera. I have a large book of the story. I read it over and over again as a child, fascinated by the images and fierceness of the horse and rider as they battled the beast.
The feeling of being that child again moves through me. Like the poem I wrote.
Pastels
Rolling the chalky substance
like a child again.
Seeing the world for the first time.
No fear, no limit to the imagination.
Purple trees and rainbow grass
The hide and seek excitement of play
Not knowing what’s just around the corner.
Ever driven forward.
Being too bound by the mechanics of writing can at times override that something waiting to be born.
I take much from the Western writers I’ve read with their rich mine of characterization. Their characters were a Mix of strength and vulnerabilities who make mistakes but move on to do what is right. Pioneers amidst lawlessness who cemented their place and stood for the people; empowered by self-realization.
Today I am happy with my reflective exercise. There is much I can reinvent from my old writing as well as bits and pieces of my old self.
I take heart from one of my favourite western writers, Loius L’Amour, who was quoted as saying:
“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”
Writing a novel is demanding. It takes time for my thoughts to form something I can work with, then express. I’m a dreamer which is frustrating sometimes but I find my varied interests bring a lot into whatever I’m creating - science and history my top interests after art and writing.
The past affects the present as I’ve mentioned previously - memories carried on - a legacy that can evolve into something new. The recipient adding their perspective.
When creating my fantasy world I have to develop the values, the culture and history of the inhabitants. It ends up being a lot and many events take place before what happens in the book.
I want to explore and expand on that history with art and writing.
Because I don’t have the relevant mastery of figure drawing, I’ve discarded the idea of doing a graphic novel. Instead I will do versions of illuminated manuscripts, in my style.
Illuminated manuscripts were originally created centuries ago to revere and pass on religious knowledge but later changed and evolved into straight storytelling.
William Morris, the father of modern pattern and design of the 1800’s was a prime example. He too was fascinated by illuminated manuscripts. He started illustrating his poetry but wanted to revive and reform the book using the model of 15th Century illuminated manuscripts.
He combined his innate feel for the beauty of line and shape with story. Created what the contemporary graphic novel does today, art and words enhancing each other in a different way.
Where to begin and what will I include?
Artifacts are one.
The great Roman Empire has innumerable ruins throughout Rome and other cities. The artifacts found there tells us about the people and how they lived; what they believed in and crafted. The recorded foundations of their beliefs and their Lore.
Myths and legends abound with their own specific set of ways to explain the world, using nature, it’s the seasons. Totems, musical instruments, ceremonial items and cloth. Making discoveries like the great voyagers of old. Their stories are a valuable resource and stay in the psyche. Certainly mine. The naming of the new, the wonder of what was possible can change our perceptions. Be a guide too. I see the illuminations as such.
Here my poetic side can take over as I build up a number of words and songs that are part of the lost Lore of my fantasy worlds. Here is one of my lyrics which I’ll likely adapt.
Night Closes In
Too long the night closes in
Listen, my heart cries
Why did you lie?
Too long the shaking begins
Memories, fire and stone
They won’t let go
Too deep the longing moans
In velvet dark
cold stars burning
Too strong the leaping heart
beats a tattoo
blood ink sinking
( chorus)
Life and Soul
How could I know?
My heart dies
Why did you go?
Too long the night closes in
Whispers shout her name
Slow wave drowning
Too long the wishing begins
Pictures ghost a face
dark ash binding
Too deep the sorrow clings
To opened mouth
sleek taste cascading
Too strong the tender skin
meets a caress
warm hand breaking
(Chorus again)
(Bridge)
What unnamed glance
What unspoken test
Broke the heat of our connection
Left me aching undone
My life forever caught
in distant blue
What images will I transform from the back story that fit into what comes later in my novel?
The beginning of magic. Those who first wielded it. The formation of their city.
Already the reflection and planning, just as writing my journals has done, is affecting and changing my perspective, bringing a greater clarity to the content of my novel.
I want the artwork to have an authenticity that draws the viewer into the world of the novel.
Some of the pieces I’m creating will stand alone and will be available as photo prints. Others I’ll put together in a book : “The Book Of Ethalon.”
Once it’s completed I’ll print the book in the same format size as a graphic novel.
Here is look at my first two illuminations.
SYRN
THE TEMPLE OF CALIAD
Note : My lyrics set to music available to listen to on my web site:
WEBSITE NOTE: Diana now has a portfolio of her art on this site. Check it out at:
10/10/19
As I touch an old ornamental fan, wooden slats painted with violets, memories open and unfurl of my Great Aunt’s house steeped in Victoriana.
I was seven when I stayed with her and picked walnuts from her garden. Opened them to reveal halves like a map. She’d travelled and mapped her life with her husband, a diplomat in India. She’d brought back a silver tea set and brass vase (now mine).
It ignited my enduring fascination with the legendary Silk Road and trade.
Her sister, my Grandma used stars as her guide. She often won at the race track when she was guided by Astrology. I went with her one day and watched the horses run, entranced by the beat and flash of the jockey’s colours.
We shared an orange, its juice stabilizing her diabetes, the memory of its segmented pieces overlaying her skin, a drop of blood and needle.
With another needle she stitched together my love of textile and pattern. She died when I was nine. Another connection, another loved one gone.
I often wonder if that was the start of the longing -a longing for what could have been - that added layer of family knowledge lost in time.
I’m sure it influenced my reason for writing fantasy. In the creating new worlds and other races, I could explore my characters sense of belonging - be it a place, a people or the seeking of its meaning.
It’s a journey also I wanted to express in my art.
I started sketching first, enjoying the intensity of the light and shadow; the marking with dark lines like map making. A map of joy and passion, of life and death, of light still shining through like I’d seen in the Old Masters - Monet, Turner and Vermeer. Monet in particular liked charting the light of the day in his famous haystack paintings. The changes in colour inspired me to experiment.
I tried digital art and found it suited my style. Using a black background I bring in light and colour to give atmosphere. Pick a face, an object or landscape and with a seeming randomness at times, meld the layers. And like bark, layers come off too, leaving behind the final piece.
Creating something new is like my experience of watching a cello being made.
The body exudes twists of complex muscle.
Inside a hollow palpable silence;
It is still young.
Nodes are inserted.
Without them, strings have no tension
And tension draws the best from fingers.
Lacquer is applied with slow precision.
Gloss in the long sweep of curve
Hardens to a sunset resonance.
The imprint of hand and heart
transforms sound. Its first voice
raw; transcendent.
08/15/19
I have just finished reading my latest copy of the magazine “Heavy Music Artwork.”
I started reading the magazine a few years ago, first hooked by the artwork then by the artists’ creative processes.
Many of the artists are also members of the band and the songwriters. The way they translate their ideas and values into the visual, reflect the mood and content of the music is both enlightening and empowering.
Their philosophy on life is an intriguing mix of thoughts on rituals and myths, religion and big themes like the state of the world, the Universe and our place within it.
In many cultures animals have been used in ancient ritual and ceremony. Totems and shaman spirit walking to name but a few. A way of infusing the attributes of the animals into our body, linking us with the primeval. It can be a twice edged sword.
I thought about that and how it pertained to my life. The part music has played in it and converged.
A Piano Solo
Fingers traced the polished octave of ivory ghosts,
the hot winds of the dark heart connecting to my childhood
where I drifted across red hills to the ancient call to water;
river reeds a dangerous slither against skin.
Above, white corellas danced the blue sky layers into night
And the intimate grotto of constellations;
Music of the spheres reaching past injustice and cruelty
To immortalize majestic, lost spirits.
In the Heavy Music Artwork magazine, the duo, “ Mothmeister” make their own tribute to animals through taxidermy and ritual. They create surreal photographic images with these animals and paired with individuals who are masked. Despite the suggested anonymity, the portraits are intimate and posed very theatrically and with intensity.
I’ve felt that same sense of intimacy at the theatre seated twenty feet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet as it unfolded. The body language as much as the voice of the actors stayed with me long afterward. Potent. And like being a part of, and listening to the bards and performers in the time of travelling shows.
I shared that experience when I learnt contemporary dance.
With body and mind I sought to interpret the meaning behind the choreographer’s story. Inevitably included my own point of view – which was also The Point.
A duality that can cause tension. Like a metaphor.
Arms pivot to the gilt edge
Of a finely wrought blade slicing through air
Make music of their own
Fly in their own sky, arc and extend toe to toe,
Vibration moving from the floor
In waves up through my poised backbone
A delineation; life or death.
Tension often causes conflict. An essential ingredient when novel writing.
The inner conflict of the characters being as important as conflicts brought about by outside influences.
I write up detailed backgrounds for each character. Won’t always use all of it, but it’s there and I can mix up what happens to them. Bring out their fears; push them into situations contrary to what they’ve experienced or have hidden.
In books I’m reading I want to see into the characters mind. To move with them as they evolve. How they cope. How they are challenged and wait for their philosophy on life to be revealed.
Absorb and appreciate their differences.
Note: Heavy Music Artwork #10 Vol 3 April 2019.
07/19/29
The Botanic Gardens is one of three places that have defined much of my life.
Needing some thinking time I drive to the Gardens and step through the gate and onto the main path. I walk through an avenue of giant Figs, old and gnarled. They look the same as the first time I came as a child scuffing through their leaves.
Their air of permanence is a balm to my overloaded brain and offers a serenity that escapes me at the moment. A place that pledges renewal and permanence yet at the same time stimulates.
I zero in on my favorite sections. The strand of nettle pines where I imagined mysterious creatures hidden and waiting to reveal themselves. When they didn’t, I determined to make them come alive on the page.
The Lily pond with its mixture of pink and white blooms and seed pods, their faces uplifted to sky and the Universe. Majestic back drop for theatre productions in summer, gowns of silk swishing over green ululating lawns as the legend of Arthur and Camelot unfolded.
Other stories. Water puppets translating legends and bringing into being the universe of multiple gods; great swirl of creation.
The Botanical museum with its seeds and propagation. Large books from centuries ago detailing new discoveries of flora and fauna. Cabinets with plant fibers and woven skirts alongside vials of scents and oils. A place of memory - past and present.
I turn to the other two places for opposing reasons. Both inspire imagination. The Hills around my Aunt’s farm that spelled freedom; open space and hills to roam and be myself.
The house I lived in from nine years old to late teens with land opposite filled with small dunes. Behind them, the Adelaide airport. A dreaming and fantasy time of far off dunes, of Egypt and the wonder of shifting shape and ancient tales.
They live in me, brought out when the wind stirs, when I hear planes overhead, and smell new growth.
After wandering, thinking, I leave the botanic gardens with a new confidence and a question. Who in my novel do I really want to take my first journey with?
Now I can answer. Now I can shed the complicated plot line I tried to encompass.
It will make my friends laugh. Many times I’ve changed my mind about what I’m writing. Have even done so, here, in my journal.
It comes down to really understanding myself, my motivations and needs. Like a tendril of vine testing the air, the light I’ve come back to my first concept - water crystals, whales and music.
Now Ben and Eryn’s story can be told with my full commitment.
07/04/19
Tapping into my own experiences is one part of how I create the backgrounds for my characters.
I try to use all the five senses - smell, taste, sight, sound and touch. In each of these are numerous variations, personal experiences. Taste can be salt spray from the sea. A lover’s warm skin. Fragrances lingering as an aftertaste.
One of my strongest memories comes from the smell of apricot jam cooking. A ritual. My introduction to the seasons as I stayed over holiday times at my Aunt’s farm.
We cut apricots together and I tasted more than a few. Later the jam jars lined the pantry shelves, amber and gold jewels I can still see clearly. As I do many other experiences on the farm, many a first.
The orange hills around the farm I likened to dunes from afar and heard whispers on the wind of ancient people and times. The Murray River, brown-green and dangerous. I’d been afraid of the slimy reeds on my skin and the opaqueness of it since swimming there. A fear that remains and I often think of such things when writing.
When at home the house was filled with music. Mum and dad played the piano - my dad often pulling out his flute. My younger brother and I learnt the piano. He added the clarinet, his reed- crooning sounds like smooth jazz nights. My eldest brother strummed the guitar.
It was only my younger brother and I who played together, and realize now, how often we stuck together through the underlying, sad notes in our family.
Individual experiences make each of us unique. All help to form responses. A stepping stone.
I imagine who my newly formed characters could be, and what formed their core values and what eventually changes them. Endeavor to make them recognizable in the way they think and act.
Ideas are the foundation of writing. After starting this journal I looked back to the first idea I had that set others in motion.
I’ve always been fascinated by snowflakes. They are all individual and beautifully geometric. I imagine snowflakes bouncing together and making their own music like wind song and water, a slow trickle that can become a cascading roar. Energy. Vibration.
I read about Pythagoras, a scientist and mathematician from 660 BC who believed a vibration and resonance emanated from all planets and combined to from a harmony, a balance in the Universe. He called it “The Music of the Spheres.”
It gave me the foundation of the magic in my fantasy world - music, resonance and mathematics – or more specifically geometric pattern that linked to the elements of life.
For me, I was always going to base my characters on Earth, where magic is not a given but mainly appears in myth. I often wished many myths were true and imagined my characters having special abilities but unknown to them.
My first character was a musician, a violinist. I picked this instrument as I have always been deeply affected by the sounds of violin strings. Believed the emotional connection I felt would help me to express mine, and hers. But being a fantasy novel I wanted more for my character Eryn - another reason for her passion for music.
I gave her the ability to hear Whale song, gifted to her by the Whales themselves, those wonderful sentient creatures. Their song and themes, both haunting and somewhat other worldly suited my thinking and would help form a link to something beyond our world.
Eryn’s character was also haunted by her dad’s recent death but did not suffer alone. Supported by Ben, who she’d grown up with since she was five. Like a brother. Seven years older and a glass artist. One who saw patterns within his creations that stirred within him both longing and echoes of past nightmares.
These two characters were part of my first novel, the one I set aside while I grappled at that time with my own griefs. I still wrote short stories, unable not to create something as well as ideas burgeoning from my interest in biology and science.
In nature there is a golden ratio called the Fibonacci that forms shape and growth; innate properties locked into seeds. These days seeds can be genetically engineered.
I’d first read of the possibility in a science fiction book I read in High School, “The Day of the Triffids,” by John Wyndham. His main character, a scientist modified plants. Not considered very ethical for the time. When they were affected by a meteor shower, they turned into killer plants.
It had me thinking years later of this scenario and I wondered - what if seeds from space came down to Earth instead? Who could have sent them and why? What kind of plants would they turn out to be?
One came easily to my mind - the Amazonica Victortia Lily. A plant I have always been fascinated by and visited in its pavilion in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.
I researched its history. The seeds of the Lily plant had been taken from the Amazon in the 1800’s to England where it was propagated for the first time outside its natural habitat. I could imagine, the Amazon both a mysterious and dangerous place being infused with magic. From it my character Del was born and I started another novel.
I’d written 10,000 words when I had an epiphany. There were similarities and possibilities in the new novel that could marry with my original one and its characters. It made sense to combine them, four main characters, who all had abilities unknown to them.
I could transform the old and meld it into the new. Am now doing so with a plotline and an ending which has given me the room to fully explore the dynamics between the characters and their situation.
05/29/19
As I draw and sketch in the shadows that define the overall image I am currently making, I think of the darkness, the underbelly of emotion and motivation that often drives a story.
Much can drag a person down into the depths of rage and despair, or a cold precision. The reasons, how or why – a slow decline over time or linked to a sudden circumstance that tests core values.
I felt moved by and appreciated the effect of the former, in the first lines of the poem “Family Trees” by the African Poet Tsitsi Jaji.
Mother was a mango transplanted by moon-light, she glowed split cream. On unknown days she would burst into bruises. Or leak tears, but it was just a skin game, fruit do that, seeping out ripe juice. When inside all is sweetening. The real hurt was slower, deeper.
Background information on a character determines reaction and response. I create detailed notes on my characters, which have a flow on affect as I refine my plotline.
In my fantasy novel “Song of Seed and Blood,” one of my main characters Del, transforms into the Victoria Amazonica Lily. The flower itself is pollinated at night by a beetle that turns at first pink then white. Del absorbs people to become the flower. Two lost days then she returns to normal.
Does she like it? No, which forms that core of her - regret, guilt and a wanting to understand and stop it. She cannot. It is part of her and only the beginning of her journey into another transformation.
I had to think about where she came from, her reason for being on Earth. Who knows about her and the ramifications of the act itself – one Seed in the coming rise of darker arts across worlds that affect the balance of dark and light in the universe.
Her partner and love interest Li, in turn has to have the capacity to accept and understand; to be willing to help her. I gave him ancestors both of Druid and Mongolian Shaman, his childhood full of myth and legends. And as such, many of them with a dark underside.
Jared, her counterpart is driven by his mother’s death from cancer. A biologist and scientist with an ability to see patterns where others don’t. He finds out about Del and wants her blood while she is transformed, to create a drug to combat cancer. He is determined to get what he needs but finds himself one step behind her. In his frustration he falls prey to an outside influence who promises the power to get what he wants.
He considers his motives pure. But how far will he go? What else is in store for him?
My job is to keep up the suspense. In plotting I use many of the steps used to create crime fiction. Set up clues and motives; consequences and the result. Usually a death or more. The influence of place on the overall atmosphere and the mood of the characters.
In fantasy, world building and the part magic plays in it are crucial to the atmosphere. Forests that are sentient. The cities and where they are situated. The list is endless. A feast of imagining and one I enjoy.
Note: Poet Tsitsi Jaji and her book of poems “ Carnaval “ part of a series
Seven New Generation African poets By Slapering Hol Press at www.writerscenter.org
05/09/19
As a writer and artist I move from one to the other, each contributing,rounding out my ideas, and as often taking me in new directions.
My favourite haunt in my city of Adelaide is the Art Gallery. At one time I spent three months going each week to view a different painting and responding to it.
Back then my default was writing poetry even as I worked on my novel. But I was also fascinated by the artists, their personalities and motivations – all fodder for background information as character most often drives a story. And woven into its fabric, is its theme, which could be about belonging, a journey into the mind or as many other permeations. Epic journeys and coming of age. All important in understanding the character as he or she moves forward.
Besides writing speculative fiction I have also written literary and general fiction. One story I called, “With These Hands,” was based on my own experiences as a child.
My youngest brother was born with several disabilities. When he was an infant my mother massaged his legs and arms. Pushed them into shape, trying to get his brain to make new pathways.
It worked. When he was three years old he did walk. My mother’s persistence had paid off and I like to think it rubbed off on me. I lost it for a while but it was still there waiting.
Persistence plays a large part in finding an audience; being read, viewed and heard. As do setting goals and creating specific projects.
I am currently making a commitment for the next few weeks to draw every day - a face or figure using many of the pictures I’ve accumulated from magazines. Fashionistas, dancers and musicians, of the latter David Bowie who loved to change his look.
The reason behind the exercise is my intent to write a graphic novel. My figure drawing needs work. The writing I will create and revive from that dialogue I mentioned in radio plays. And once again read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.
As I continue this journal I remember what matters most from my past. How my brother’s love shaped me and does still. He’d always been interested and encouraged me in my writing.
I am not abandoning my first novel but transforming it.
Writing a novel is a learning experience, a journey in itself and of self.
Change too, a vital part of the process. Knowing by adapting, it is not a dismissal of what is already written - more ideas and characters reformed and molded to fit.
My favorite books are those that make me cry, make me think as I experience how others coped through their lives.
I want to give that to my readers. So I am going to write up a plan. One that will help me remember all these things as I write. To remember to draw on my own experiences of loss and love, pain and joy. To face my fears and find that inner core and confidence in my abilities I once had.
After responding to the poem “Catalyst” I thought about all the other forms of writing I’ve done. One in particular stood out - a radio play.
Different from audio books, it can only use dialogue to portray the sense of place. To reveal, the values that the characters hold. And done well, sharply defines emotional undercurrents.
In that form, it actually helped me to see my characters more clearly.
With that in mind, I intend to spend more time reading my writing out aloud. To listen for those hidden nuances and hope I get them right.
By writing this journal I’m hoping to fully immerse myself in my writing again. To express the depth and intensity that I enjoy and appreciate in other writers. To regain my purpose and drive.
I read a haiku poem recently called ‘Catalyst” by Anita Virgil. Only three lines but very relevant to now, to this…writing a journal.
Not seeing
The room is white
Until that red apple
It is often easy to miss what is right in front of us. I am going to put a plan in motion to keep myself motivated as well as tap into my emotions. Creating conflict in writing can, and is often too close to the bone.
I intend to go back to my first love and read a poem every day and respond to it. See how the poem is relatable to my characters, the novel’s flow and plot line.
Here is my response to the poem Catalyst:
Black script curves
Undulates in a river’s meandering ease
Until meaning slaps like a wave.
Immediately after I’d written it, the word hidden sprang to mind. What had I forgotten that is hidden in my characters? What drives them?
Each character is an individual. I will try to regenerate that feeling of discovery, of that first insight into who the character is and the journey they will take - the reason behind the journey in the first place.
04/05/19
I started my writing life as a poet. Its brevity suited me. I loved searching for the right metaphor that I hoped, would convey the emotion I wanted to evoke. I think it was my form of journal writing.
It came to a great halt when my brother, a songwriter, died of cancer in 2002.
I couldn’t get past his absence for a long time. But eventually, with the help of music and a need to write something in his memory I resurfaced.
The knack of writing poems seemed to have deserted me. Luckily I discovered Neil Gaiman and his Sandman series. It hit a chord – his big themes of Universe and myths
Already an avid reader of fantasy I looked at what I loved about the genre and came up with some ideas. Ideas based on that connection I wanted with my brother again, and with music.
Many fantasy books used crystals as focal points in their magic. That appealed to me too. I’d always felt there was resonance in rocks. So, I began my journey into novel writing – a big step for me and wrote 100,000 words.
When I had nearly finished, the drive that had kept me going left me. Looking back, I realize that writing the novel was part of my grieving process. Odd not to know it, but I think I blotted it out. Tried to see it as creating something new, of being constructive.
Even now I struggle at the idea of finishing it. Sacred to let go of what it represented? Probably. It’s difficult. Hopefully I can get past it and believe an ending is not forgetting.
I let work take over for a while. Enjoyed teaching Creative Writing and drawing, after going back to University. Also worked in mental health, looking for answers. My mother had had clinical depression all her life.
I’d always felt helpless and hoped by seeing others, trying to help them it would open a window into my mother’s mind. It didn’t but I came to understand we all have our inner struggles, and by just being supportive we can make a difference.
I kept writing bits and pieces all the way through. Concentrated on short stories but still had the characters from my novel popping up in my head. I had to visually represent them.
I’d previously learnt to draw and dabbled in oils but I wasn’t truly satisfied with the results. That’s when I turned to digital art to see what I could do. It suited my style. I love to grab images, often random - my subconscious obviously telling me which ones, then layering them. I’d often end up with happy accidents just like in watercolour As well as flops.
I have now revisited my original novel and am revising, adding new aspects. But will I finish?
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