Ipede’s story has been haunting me since he first sprang to life back in `95. I was in a computer course, learning how to use Lotus 123, Wordperfect, Wordstar 7, Harvard Graphics. Gosh, such memories! I don’t even remember which program I was testing when he sprang up in a crazy, random paragraph, but I do remember that I had to access the program via DOS-prompt and that I wrote his story out in a song-rhythm.

Ipede badgered me to write his story today. Since he has not been this strong in my head in a very long time, I complied. So, enjoy! Perhaps there may be a continuation to his story with Waterlily after all!

In which Ipede discovers a flaw in his geas

On a side-housekeeping note, I’ve added the “google friends” thingo on the sidebar, so if’n you’d like to follow this blog via google/blogspot, you can now do so.

Bah. So I am still awake, because I’ve been fighting with Saltwater Orphée and because it’s cold, and I’m hungry. This rather inevitably led to my writing another fictive fragment for Domus Exsulis. One which involves warm kitchens and over-friendly Ogres, and a whole lot of links to the embedded, hypertextuality of this world, which I am fiercely fond and possessive of. Now’s a good time to be working on Saltwater Orphée, I suspect. So, anyway! Meet the Kitchen Witch. I’m wondering if she’s going to end up in the novel. I hope she’ll end up in MY novel and not run away with the dish and the spoon or some nefarious briber of storybook characters. But we’ll see. She’s been murmuring about absconding the grounds with some brigand from the Ferahia. Oops. See, I’m still writing in character. See why I can’t sleep?

The Kitchen Witch Grumbles

Sorry for the over-usage of this new category I’ve just been pretty artistically active, lately. This is a painting based off a digital squiggle meant for Learie’s story over at Domus Exsulis, way back in 2001. As some of you already know, that story has been taken down (it will be re-written and incorporated into Saltwater Orphee, the novel based on the world of Domus Exsulis). It’s one of my more archetypal paintings so I’m rather fond of it. As with the other paintings, if you like it, do click through to the deviantart page where the full painting in a higher resolution can be viewed, as well as some backstory…

Two recent results of my return to digital paint.

If you like either or both paintings, then do click through to see the higher-res, full-view versions. Thanks!

This has been sitting on my dining table (the art half of it, since I am a grad student in a single space dwelling) for nearly 6 months now. It was near-complete in March, but since the painting of it entered the grand narrative of how things got so skewed in my life this year, both good/bad, I was a bit afraid to finish it. Today I decided it was time I did, and to embrace the story of what the painting taught me and the lessons I learnt while painting it. I send it off soon to its owner, the lady who commissioned the painting in a charity auction to aid Norilana Books and Vera Nazarian.

I’ll be scanning it tomorrow to add to my deviantart gallery.

A story-fragment featuring The Arbitrator has been posted in Domus Exsulis. He is a new character who will be getting his own story soon. I may be revealing the new name for Lumen Procellae there. This will be the name that will be used in the novel I am writing based on whatwas once known as StormLight’s Realm, a hypertextual project of interconnecting and colliding stories started in 1997 as a labor of love. I have put up and removed stories, pruned others and evolved others. Three major stories have since been removed since they are part of the novel, Saltwater Orphee, which I hope to have finished by next year. Kieran’s story is next; considering the fact that the bulk of it was written 10-12 years ago, I begin to find a lot of the prose, if not the story itself, cringe-worthy. I have removed the preface, and within the next three months will remove his story entirely.

If you are one of my readers who actually liked the darned thing, this is your chance to reread or whatever before I take it down. My goal for Domus Exsulis is to keep posting frequently, spontaneous bits of fictive fragments that will develop the world and the back-story, but to have the main stories reworked for publication/submission. This way, I get to keep the world fluid and fresh for newcomers. A site redesign has also been quietly in the works for the past few months, if only as a vision in my head and several pages (paper) worth of story-boarding. Now that I have the tools needed for the job, it will happen.

For now, do get to know a brief shadow of The Arbitrator, and I hope that when the story is finished and if it gets accepted/published somewhere, anywhere, you will be as intrigued by him as I am. He is a rather dodgy character but we do like them dodgy magical types, we do!

Lately, the myriad inhabitants of that stormlit isle we now know as Lumen Procellae, have been quite vocal. Perhaps this is because the teller of tales has been kept too busy dissertating and incapable of working on their novel. We do not know what this strange activity heralds. We do know (yes, all of us half-mad, fae creatures within the head of our teller of tales!) that it feels rather nice that she’s paying us this much attention. Bits of spontaneous prose have been added, continuing the overlapping narratives that started as a hypertextual adventure in 1997. We suspect there will be more of such spontaneous narratives in the future as the teller of tales sheds herself of the strange rules and protocols that have been governing the way she writes.

gradons and garden-bottoms and rivermaidens, oh my!

Once upon a time, mythopoetica.com’s Afterimaginings newsletter had a Webbed Feet category to share unearthed web-treasures. This web-adventurer’s notion of binaried and pixellated beauty may not be yours, but that’s besides the point. The point is that there has lately been an over-reliance on Web 2.0 which obscures, rather than enables our finding these hidden pockets of beauty, be they visual or intellectual.

Needless to say, Webbed Feet is now back! Not sure of the frequency of these editions, consistency is not my forte, so I’ll just post them when I post `em. If any of you would like to curate your own Webbed Feet edition, do let me know via my gmail addy. The id is mythopoetica, of course. I’d love to have other people also share sites of quality. Let’s break past the binary lockdowns and walled gardens

The Art of Daniel Conway
I discovered Arcipello (Daniel Conway)’s art on deviantart and love the way he works in the motif of floods and water into his visually stunning dreamscapes. His website is a visual treat and should be explored.

The Modern Historian
Stepterix is a bona fide historian, since he’s pursuing a phd in history. His “this day in history” daily posts are a treat to read as they’re both informative and visually appealing. They’re also available as twitter and rss feeds. If you’re a history geek or love these bits of information, I highly recommend this site.

The Faery Crossing
Originally, a lot of the sites that I looked for on my Webbed Feet postings would be faerie sites. Over the years it got harder to find the sites that spoke to me of faerie without being tacky or twee. This site was one of them and I am glad to see it is still around and still possesses visual magic. Also, the font-lover in me goes “squee” at this site.

Design is Kinky
Art and design news, and well-curated exhibits. Design is Kinky indeed.

Aunt Violet’s Book Museum: (a home for decayed gentlewomen)
If you love old books, old dust-covers and decorative binding, then this website is a treat to visit. The collection includes literary ghost stories, swashbucklers, the novels of H. Rider Haggard and the e-zine The Weird Review. Run by the author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, this site is a reminder of how a simple, no-frills html design which is well-curated is a visual treat on its own merit - even more so!

This Stormlit Isle has been on the internet for over ten years. And I’m beginning to feel that it is close to the time where there should be a change of sorts.

Not all the stories will be removed, fear not! Merely the main novellas, the ongoing stories that will become part of the Domus Exsulis novel (if I ever get around to writing it this century). I’ve already done this with the Ferahia story, so it shouldn’t be too drastic a step!

E.T.A.: Learie’s story has been removed but that was always part of the plan. Along with the Ferahia novella, the story will be converted into something else.

While the idea for the What the Woods Mean anthology is very clear and strong in my head at the moment, as is the layout for the`zine that I want to bring out, I simply do not have the time or the energy. My Ph.d. is taking up most of my time and my brain-space, and what’s left is procrastination and my struggle to work on my songs and my stories. So, no indie publishing route, not yet at any rate. Maybe I’ll consider it later down the road.

Pity.