Welcome To the Mist and Shadows

Posted: July 22, 2009 in General
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WELCOME TO MY WORLD

This website is part writing journal, part blog and part repository of stories both of adventure and fantastical in nature.

As a writing journal it tracks projects I am working on, their progress, ideas, updates and all other things writing related.

As a blog it features things of interest to me; sometimes they will tie in with my writing, other times not.

As a repository of my stories, it showcases various short stories of a variety of types freely available to download and read. They can be found in the Pure Escapism part of the website.

What is in the name you ask? It ties in with the main setting of my writings and, while hints and references may have cropped up in some of the stories, the true meaning behind it is a mystery for another day.

Enjoy your visit and please feel free to browse and comment.

Pantsing vs Plotting

Posted: May 21, 2013 in writing
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When it comes to writing, there are two main ways of doing it – pantsing vs plotting.  Each is a perfectly viable method, depending on the person involved.  What works for one doesn’t work for another.

Pantsing (or seat-of-your-pants writing) is when a writer has little to no idea of the plot of the story and just sits down and writes, seeing where the story and characters takes them.  At the other end of the scale is plotting, where often detailed notes are made before the story has even started, mapping every aspect of it out.  You can even do a bit of both, to varying degrees.

For examples of plotting there are these two images.

 

That is the plotting done for Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

That one is for The Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowlings.

I’ve tried out both styles.  Tears of the Mountain was done by plotting – I still have all the noted pinned to a corkboard.  The rest have mostly come by pantsing, with some elements of plotting.  I may make a few rough notes, but in general, the story goes where it will.

The Most Cultured Flashmob Ever?

Posted: May 19, 2013 in Art, General
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The Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has just been reopened after being closed for ten years for renovations, which seems an awfully long time.

To announce and celebrate the reopening, a flashmob took place that recreated one of the most famous works in the Rijksmuseum – The Night Watch (or more officially The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out), by Rembrandt.  This wasn’t your standard flashmob however…

Sounds of the Past

Posted: May 5, 2013 in History, Music
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It amazing what you can find when you aren’t looking for it. The other day I was perusing youtube when I noticed something in the suggested video lists – something called The Oldest Known Melody (Hurrian Hymn no. 6 – c.1400BC)

Intrigued, I clicked on the video and was met with the following.

As always I did a bit of looking up on it, and discovered a bit more. In 1950 in the ancient port city of Ugarit (preset day Syria), a series of clay cuneiform tablets were discovered which contained fragments of noted music, the Hurrian Songs. The most complete was the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, or Hymn no 6, the oldest surviving substaitally complete noted music in the world. It turns out that while it is notated, no one can agree as to how exactly to translate it, and their are at least 5 rival, substantially different interpretations of it.

Even so, listening to something that may have been played 3400 years ago is an amazing thing.

The oldest complete musical composition in the world is the Seikilos Epitath, from somewhere between 200BC and 100 AD.

In the image of it, you can see the notations above the lyrics that accompanied it.

It sounds like this.

Doctor Who Meets Metal

Posted: April 19, 2013 in Games, Movies, tv shows
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I went to school during the 80s, so as a result I heard a fair bit of Metal – I even have a collection of it still on my old cassettes, which haven’t been played for years.

Yesterday I came across this – Doctor Who Meets Metal.

Needless to say I was deeply impressed – one of my favourite TV shows with the music of it done in metal style.

Took a further look at the guy doing it, and he has over 100 videos of various metalised versions of TV shows, movies, games and of course other forms of music.

Some of my other favourites so far are Skyrim, Lord of the Rings and BBC Sherlock.

Ancient Stone Structure Beneath Sea of Galilee

Posted: April 12, 2013 in History, World Building
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As a history buff, this is the kind of thing I find interesting – beneath the Sea of Galilee in Israel, a massive, mysterious stone structure has been found, and no one is exactly sure as to its purpose.

It is also big – 70 metres across and 10 metres high. It was first spotted by sonar scan in 2003, and even a dive on the site hasn’t really worked out much about it, who made it, its age or purpose.

The full write up is available in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

As a writer, I like scattering such unknowns around my worlds, random monuments to past ages and cultures that remain mysterious and unexplained.

Short Film – The Reward

Posted: April 9, 2013 in General
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The following is a short animated film, around 9 minutes in length, about a pair of unlikely adventurers. It is very much in the heroic fantasy style of adventuring (think Conan) than the high fantasy style.

There is also a kickstarter project to turn it into a series.

For such a short film, it packs quite a tale into it.

Mars Colonisation Simulator

Posted: April 5, 2013 in Games, Space
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I have mentioned before how much I’d enjoy to explore a new world, where none had set foot before, and how it was unlikely to happen in my lifetime.

There is of course Mars One and its plans to sent one way colonisers to Mars by 2023, but I doubt it will happen, and even if it did, the fiance would never agree to it. if not for those two facts, I’d probably jump at it, even if in effect it is a suicide mission. It’d give me plenty of time to write, for starters.

The closest I think I will come is a Mars colonisation simulator I found yesterday, called Mars Colony Challenger – I haven’t tried it out yet and it is still in alpha, so there are still probably bugs to iron out.

It is also a simulator, not a game.  As such, you are trying to establish your base and keep it running, to find water, grow food and the like.    It can be played multiplayer, and you can even take the rover out for a spin to explore the surface of mars – just watch out for storms and don’t forget to keep it charged.

When I have a moment I will have to grab a copy of the demo and give it a whirl – sounds like the kind of thing that might interest me.

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