Vacation Time

I took a 6 week vacation from many of my activities so that I could enjoy summer, house-guests, visiting California, etc.  For the last week I have been down in Santa Cruz, staying with my mom and my dear friend, E.  (Check out her poetry blog CrazyCurlyCues.)  While I was down south, my mom’s writing group, the Inkslingers, was kind enough to invite me to their monthly meeting and to read for them.  I read my shortest story to date, Catkin, and received some excellent feedback.  It was also really wonderful to hear what others in the group were writing: high fantasy, a YA adventure/mystery story, and a non-fiction self realization/empowerment book.  I wish I had a magic door that opened one way into Seattle and the other into Santa Cruz, so I could visit all my good friends here – especially the redwood trees!

Sunlight in the Redwoods

Wizard and Warrior - Photo Shoot

Something I enjoy doing is dressing my friends (and sometimes myself) up in costumes, hauling them out to a picturesque location and taking pictures.  It was chilly (intermittent sleeting, to be precise), but they were quite gracious about it, and the winter woods were a wonderful backdrop.

Warrior charging gleefully down the path.

Wizard and mossy tree.

Yes, I am epic.

"I think it went that way."

Maybe some blue lightening striking the sword?

Glowing orb.

Movie Poster: Now we are both epic.

Every Journey Starts Somewhere. . .

I am a rambler not a hiker.  I love paths that wind though huge trees, cross little creeks and lead onto the ferny brae.  The sense of wonder and of longing I experience in my small woodland rambles is akin to that which I frequently find in reading and writing fantasy fiction.  It is not surprising to me that so many of our myths and tales should begin with a journey into the forest.  It is this place, the primeval Forest, that arose as central in the fantasy world I am creating.  Idhua is a continent where the Forest lies in the vast, magical interior, while the fringe lands, the tracts between mythic wood and uncharted seas, are where the people flourish.  I, too, flourish best where there are both trees and coastlines.  From the redwoods and the curve of Monterey bay of my childhood, to the cedars and wild driftwood adorned beaches of the Pacific Northwest where I live at present, I have always been happiest on some place between wood and sea.  I am inspired by the land and as I take those rambles, I am sometimes on the road to Elfland myself.