=P

I've been writing a lot more recently, and I'm pretty pleased that I'm able to get words on paper again. I decided to just start setting time aside and to force myself to just do it. It's helped a ton towards feeling inspired and motivated. Although I think doing other artistic things and allowing myself to indulge in self expression is helping defeat the writers block too.

Yesterday I decided to do something I had always intended to do, that is combine a couple of my hobbies in the form of tarot and writing. Basically, I did a simple 4 card Johari Window spread for each of my primary characters, and read the meanings of each card in relation to the characters position in the story line. It helps to define motivations, and to get a clearer sense of how the characters might be feeling. The interesting thing about this excersize is the characters aren't real, so it's not like you have worry that the cards are wrong. You just get a feel for it, and see if it fits into your idea for how you want these characters to act within the story. The layout I use for my Johari spread is pretty simple.

1.          2.
3.          4.

1. Public Persona -- How everyone in the story views the character, how the character wishes to be viewed.
2. The Characters Blind Spot -- What the character is doing without knowing, what others might say behind his/her back.
3. The Characters Secret -- what the character is hiding about him/herself that they don't want others to know.
4. The Characters Motivation -- the factors that drive their reactions within the story.

It was a fun excersize, like I said. It really helps to give the characters some foundation, and even if you don't really agree with the cards you can manipulate the meanings to give more depth to your story telling. Next I think I might do a fools journey for my main protaganist.

On another topic! Miss JQ was curious about my Jellyfish earings. So I thought I'd slap up a pick of one or two of my favourite pairs I've made for sale. After I'm done here I'm going to finish up one more set (going for white jellyfish with hematite beads for this pair) and get it tagged so I can take them all with me downtown tomorrow, and finally get them in a shop! I'm thinking, depending on how well they sell, I might use the money I make off the initial ones to open up an etsy shop. So far I will only be selling the jellyfishies, but I'm having a lot of fun making them right now. I hope to get some more colours of thread soon, and some new gems to use. I really want to make some mini-jellys out of the cream thread with jade shards!

White size 20 embroidery thread, blue and white seed beads, opalite shards.

Size 10 black crochet thread, black and pewter seed beads, red bamboo coral shards.