Eric Witchey's Blog: Shared ShadowSpinners Blog

by Christina Lay

Having recently* spent four ten-hour days glued to my chair, editing a manuscript I had already rewritten and proofread to within an inch of its life before submitting to my publisher, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my personal experience with facing The External Editor; the editor you’re not allowed to lock in a closet and ignore.  With luck you might find it helpful, maybe in that “but for the grace of God go I” sort of way.

 There once was a time long, long ago when I felt pretty sure on my feet regarding this whole craft of writing thing.  After all, my friends loved my stories  and I sold stuff, so obviously editors thought I was pretty great too.

Then I made my first book sale to a small but professional publisher.  I awaited my first round of editing with confident excitement.  I knew my punctuation skills were lacking somewhat, but I’d been writing for forty years, selling short stories for twenty and I figured the manuscript would only need a light going over. I’d revised and edited it so carefully before submitting it, after all.  I’d done my best and it was pretty darn good.

Pregnant pause.

A year and two projects later, not much has changed.  Third book, new editor, same writer. When I open the file and see that there are 2,234 insertions, deletions, formatting changes and comments to deal with, I am still a bit taken aback.  This editor must be insane, I think.  A comma Nazi.  A speaker of some obscure dialect.

True, about a thousand of those insertions and deletions have to do with my shaky grasp of commas, ellipses, the overuse of italics, my tendency to write really long paragraphs and so on.  I tear through those, mindlessly accepting every punctuation and formatting change and (reluctantly) attempting to learn something in the process.

I suppose there are writers out there somewhere who have a firm grasp on all the rules of grammar and punctuation, who can diagram a sentence like a superhero, who outline their novels in advance and perhaps even know what they did and how they did it.

Being more of a jump-of-a-cliff-and-write-myself-out-of-the-resulting-predicament sort of writer, for me editing involves facing up to a lot of not entirely thought out plot twists, inexplicable character motivations and odd dialogue fragments that have little to do with the story.  What was I thinking? becomes the question I ask myself most often.

This is when the real work starts.  On the second run through the edited file, I move on to the deeper issues, the ones that require concentrated thought, the kind of thought that makes my brain hurt and my feet spontaneously carry me to the fridge.  From simple word repetitions to point of view violations to awkward construction to floating body parts, passive voice, faulty simultaneous action, all kindly pointed out by my sharp-eyed editor- these issues force me to deconstruct sentences, question purpose, recreate rhythm, delete, delete, delete and work the hell out of my dictionary. 

This is a process that takes many hours over the course of several days. I become completely immersed in the world of the book, which I am now convinced sucks beyond any hope of redemption.  A friend commented that this process sounds tedious.  I mean, come one, 2,234 corrections?  Oddly enough, and by odd, I mean I must be a masochist, I’m never once bored during this process. This is my craft, my chosen boulder, my art.  Besides, I’m too damn scared to get bored.

For the deeper I go, the harder the challenges presented, the more the fear kicks in.  Fear that I won’t be able to do it. I won’t be able to fix it. It’s too broken.  I’ve reached the level of my competence and cannot go higher – not in the ten days I have to get that steaming pile of hideous pages back to the editor!  I lie awake at night full of dread, self-doubt and the crippling realization that I don’t have the slightest clue how to write a good novel.

But they bought it, right? So there must be something redeemable about it. Possibly even, something good.  

Sitting at the keyboard, taking the editing process one comment, one syntax error, one failed metaphor at a time, I know I can write. I know I can do this.  Working with an editor pushes me beyond my comfort zone, beyond what I can do by myself. It forces me to be better than I am.

When I finally hit send and collapse into a puddle of depleted goo, I know that miraculously I have done better than my yesterday best.  And with luck and determination, the next book will be better, even though I know it will never be my tomorrow best.

*I wrote this post a while back (okay, years back) and for some reason I have forgotten, never posted it. For honesty’s sake, I feel I should point out that I’m not currently toiling to get a book ready for a publisher because, sadly, the publisher in question folded. And yes, I am still in pursuit of tomorrow’s best.

All week I struggled with finding a suitable topic for this blog.  I wrote and discarded several, but this morning I woke up with a complete blog about motivation in my mind. Hooray! However, In the process of research, I found that I had already written on this exact topic back in 2017.  In fact, the blog had returned to me exactly as I had written it then. This led me to explore writing on the topic by fellow Shadowspinners.  Wow! There are some insightful writings here. So if you are interested in finding out more about motivation, getting past writers block, applying incentives, or just showing up at the keyboard, these blogs are for you.

The Magic of Motivation

Mindfulness, 100 Days of Starting, by Eric Witchey

Showing Up On The Page

The D Word

A Note on Life, Death, and Characterization

by Eric Witchey

I’ve been a full-time freelance writer, teacher, and communication consultant for over three decades. I have trouble believing it, but the numbers don’t lie. Even after all the study and practice of those years, certain aspects of writing, especially fiction writing, remain a mystery. Chief among the mysteries is the concept of characterization. I’m not talking about the cognitive concept of character or about the many elements of crafting characters that can be listed and categorized. I’m not even talking about the deep psychology connected to character’s heart-driven agendas. I’m talking about the mystery of that tiny moment after drafts are finished and all the conscious work is done when the writer’s subconscious, the magical intersection of mind and heart, rises to the occasion of translating all of the above into a few perfect words that allow the illusion of humanity to form whole and believably in the mind/heart of the reader.

That mystery.

Last year, one of my best friends from high school died. Dave Lay got up, had breakfast, went to work, and dropped dead on the work site—a sudden and fatal heart attack. Everyone who knew him, and especially his family, will miss him and the joy he brought into so many hearts. Good peedinking to you, old friend.

During our teen years, Dave Lay and I spent endless summer hours peedinking, which to us meant aimlessly wandering fields, forests, and streams to see what we could see. We lifted rocks, flipped corrugated tin, rummaged through dumps, and dug in river muck just to see. From time to time, our rock and tin flipping took on a more serious focus. We hunted venomous snakes. That was never called peedinking. That was called snake hunting and was a focused, consciously practiced and skilled activity. In the photo, that’s Dave casually holding a pillowcase full of Timber Rattlesnakes and a few Copperheads at the Morris, PA. Rattlesnake Roundup.

After my own heart attack and subsequent quadruple bypass surgery in January of this year, I found myself dancing around a little survivor’s guilt over Dave’s death. He was so deeply loved by so many, and he was taken away young and strong and without warning. On the other hand, I told myself in my more maudlin moments, I would leave exactly the same gap in people’s lives as a finger being pulled out of a glass of water.

Then, family and old friends from my hometown sent me cards, letters, text messages, and notes on social media. I was surprised by how many and by some of the more unexpected ones. Notes came from old flames, from old friends, and from a few people I barely remember who had, over the years, found some of my stories and received joy from them.

Now, don’t get me wrong on this. I got a lot of outpouring of support and love from many friends I’ve made over the years. People I knew when I sold waterbeds and furniture reached out. People from college touched base. Folks I knew from full-time tech jobs in the late 80s wished me well. Friends made in the dozens of companies and government organizations I consulted for sent cards. Students and fellow fiction writers sent notes and cards and even financial support for delivered meals to get me through the period of time when I couldn’t feed myself. I could keep going, but the point here is that I was forced to accept that I have had an impact on the lives of others. The very worst I can justify for my maudlin moments is that my impact has been odd and sometimes twisted. Luckily, and with thanks to all these people, I do better than that most of the time.

Which takes me back to Dave Lay. Maybe I can’t justify my feelings of guilt that I’m alive when he is not, but that doesn’t mean I should feel the loss of my old friend any less. He was a very important part of my formation as a human being. He was family, and the last experience we shared, though we were far apart when we experienced it, was the chill of disorientation and sudden constriction in the chest.

As the spring wore on and I put hours and hours into peedinking as part of my outdoor cardiac therapy, all the above experiences collided in memory and heart to create a maelstrom of thought and feeling from which ideas were occasionally ejected whole into my consciousness. Somewhere in that mess, the mystery of characterization ran into the memories of aimless peedinking and the focus of hunting copperheads to become an insight into characterization.

I have rarely, in fact with a couple exceptions never, based my characters on actual individuals I have known. However, I suspect that all my characters are born from my own subjective experiences of all the people I have known. The conscious work with all the fiddly bits of character development to create an imaginary person who not only fits into a story but must be the manifestation of the story because their personal history, their ideologies, and their attitudes and aspirations are precisely what is needed to let the reader believe in the tale only sets parameters for the subconscious to mine my memories of my relationships with thousands of people.

The magical, mystical translation of experienced memory into just the right words at the right moment for the reader to believe in the reality of the character for a little while comes from all the people I have known—all of them at once. The best, most complete and emotionally powerful attributes come from the people I knew when I was youngest. Our oldest friends know our youngest hearts is true in life. In fiction, the truth is that the best hearts of our characters come from our oldest friends.

I have never, and will never, be able to create a character who captures the essence of family, music, and wonder that lived in Dave Lay’s heart. I’ll never capture the wisdom and kindness of Fr. David Foxen, Ph.D., a man who selflessly cared for a damaged young man who needed help. I’ll never encapsulate the love of children that drove Sister Francis Xavier into fits of rage born of her need to keep us safe from the world. I’ll never capture the cruelties, betrayals, and dangerous camaraderie of children playing unsupervised in barns, woods, and fields or of back-alley tribes of paperboys waiting for presses to finish a run so they could head out to their routes.

And on and on and on…

However, all those people, their words, their behavior, the truths, the lies, the wisdom, and the foolishness, were imprinted on a young heart and mind. They became, if not actual then much like, Jungian archetypes. Especially the innocent beliefs and awkward hypocrisies of our behavior as children learning to become adults became deeply impressed foundations for capturing and mixing together all the nuances of sociology and psychology of character that would come later.

The subconscious has no choice but to work with fragments of memory to build patterns of meaning around whatever scaffold of criteria we create. No character, no matter who purely we think it might match some individual from our lives, is ever built of one set of memories. Rather, character is what we remember of thousands of people, and all characters are built on the archetypal foundations of those purest hearts we knew so well when we were young.

-End-

(Source: Eric Witchey)

by Eric Witchey

We All Make Mistakes

We all make mistakes. We all chase illusions. We all try to learn from our mistakes so we can reorient and rebuild our visions and dreams. This is life, and I do hope I keep learning until my eyes close and my heart gives its last buhthumpa.

Teaching is one of the tools of my learning. At the very least, it forces me to recognize perceptual frames of reference in my students and reconsider concepts for presentation in new frames of reference that will help the students grow. That’s the worst case.

The best case is that questions will force me out of my own frame of reference so that I have new insights. Sometimes, that takes a while and new insight only comes when a contrasting experience allows a new connection.

That’s what happened recently. I taught a Zoom class on Character Arc, Dramatic Tension, and Suspense. The concepts might be interesting, but they aren’t the point in this little stream of words. What matters is that a few days later while talking to another writer, I heard them say something that connected to and contrasted against a moment from that class.

In the class, a student asked a very specific question about a moment in a scene they had written. The question showed that they had worked at their craft long and hard and come to a moment where they could articulate a difficulty that would lead to an answer that would move them forward. Questions like that always make me happy because answering them leaves me feeling like I actually helped. Certainly, our ability to isolate concepts and articulate questions helps define the trajectory of our progress.

The student had made a mistake in their writing. The mistake generated frustration. They turned the frustration into focus and the focus into a question designed to acquire skills that would help them change their outcomes.

To me, the nature of the mistake considered then articulated as a question demonstrated that they were engaged and learning.

A few days later during the conversation with the writer, we ended up discussing a behavioral pattern in students where they make certain types of mistakes in spite of available opportunities to change their outcomes.

The insight that struck me was that mistakes can be grouped into two types: Mistakes of Progress and Mistakes of Avoidance.

I’m fond of saying flippant things like, “If you want to learn faster, make mistakes faster” or “Screw it up until it starts to make sense,” or “Dare to be bad,” or the perennial answer to how to get to Carnegie Hall, “Practice, practice, practice.” The insight that hit me was that those kinds of statements imply my underlying assumption that the developing writers are moving through layers of discomfort in the pursuit of new craft skills. The underlying implication is false. Sometimes, writers move through their discomfort in pursuit of craft. Sometimes, we become comfortable in our discomfort and engage in behaviors that preserve the discomfort with which we have become comfortable.

Mistakes of Progress

Some mistakes demonstrate the writer is practicing craft. They are leaning into the knowledge and working to change themselves into someone with new understanding. Early development writers might ask questions like the following:

How much do character names matter?Do I have to have conflict?Are short stories worth writing?How do you come up with ideas?What is manuscript format and why does it matter?

Some writers roll their eyes at questions like these because they feel the writer is showing that they are beginners—as if that’s a sin of some kind. However, all these questions imply that the writer has encountered some level of discomfort in their pursuit of craft. Perhaps the questions are not as sophisticated as they will be later on, but they are born of engagement and pursuit of progress. Thus, they deserve respectful answers. We were all there once.

Later development versions of those same questions might look more like this:

Does the reader internalize the cultural mythic significance of a carefully chosen name that represents a thematic role in the story?When working with combined Person vs. Self and Person vs. Person conflict sets, how does arrangement of tactic group climaxes influence reader internalization of emotional-psychological change?How do you use your short story practice as part of your development of longer works, and do you use the shorts as marketing material?When working with creativity brainstorming, how do you select results that become the seed values for the stories you choose to turn into projects?When working with manuscript format as the input to workflow for an intermediate press, what kinds of XML artifacts can I control to make the conversion to the publisher’s electronic format easier for the book designer?

Still later questions look something like this:

Why is that student struggling with the syntactic relationship between character history and diction?How can I better explain the nested elements of emotional change so it is a less abstract concept related to already printed stories and more concrete as a usable tool for writers approaching a broken page or new concept?Why am I making the mistake of writing an essay on mistakes instead of working on the current novel I want to finish?

Which brings us to a pause.

All the questions above, except for the very last one, are questions that demonstrate the willingness to engage in discomfort in pursuit of change. They are questions born from mistakes of progress.

The last question represents. . .

Mistakes of Avoidance

Mistakes are. That’s all. Sure, I could say they are unavoidable. That would be true, but it’s sort of obvious. I could say mistakes are how we learn. I could say that people who want to learn must make mistakes. In the history of people writing about mistakes, thousands of cliches, aphorisms, and similes have been catalogued to remind us that we will all, every one of us, make lots and lots of mistakes.

Some of these cliches, aphorisms, and similes become habitual ways we think about mistakes beginning very early in life. Our relationship with mistakes can be a source of shame or guilt. It can be a comfort when faced with inevitable setbacks. It can be both.

And that’s where I find myself when I engage in mistakes of avoidance. These types of mistakes are mistakes I make then justify in some corner of my mind and heart as an indication that I’m making progress. Simultaneously, I can feel like I’m failing and moving forward even though I know I’m doing neither because of the type of mistake I’m making.

WTF, Eric? That makes no sense at all.

Except it does if I step back and really find the patience to let myself unravel my own convoluted behavior. A mistake of progress comes from engaging at the edges of my skill and discovering some element of craft that I could not have experienced otherwise and that will require me to engage in focused practice to develop.

Mistakes of avoidance happen when I avoid engaging at the edges of my skill then justify my actions as progress even though I’m resting on some imagined laurel or set of status quo skills. Mistakes of Avoidance are only actually mistakes if they are overused. We do, after all, have to do things like research elements of a story, engage in characterization studies, play with voice, research markets, and engage in revision to existing works. We have to compose new material, and we have to get some kind of feedback from peers or beta readers.

However, all of these can become mistakes of avoidance when we engage in them without also, sometimes separately and sometimes simultaneously, working at the edges of knowledge, understanding, and skill in craft.

My personal favorite mistake of avoidance is procrastination by production. When faced with a problem in a longer work, one that would require me to focus, isolate, analyze, and discover new skills in order to move the project forward, I step back and justify spending hours and hours composing new short stories. Mind you, I’m not saying finishing short stories. I’m saying composing.

I’m quite comfortable pounding out page after page after page of material I’ll never look at again. In fact, I convince myself that I’ll rewrite all those new magical pages—that they will be the best short stories I’ve ever written. I avoid the harder work by engaging in comfortable work, and the days go by. And the days go by…

This essay is another perfect example. I’m writing it instead of working on the characterization issues that are blocking progress on the current novel. I composed the first half of this essay over the course of a couple days, then I had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery, then as part of my recovery I finished composing this essay, and now I’m revising it after spending three days telling myself I’ll work on the novel today. Except for the whole medical emergency bit, this essay is self-referential. I am procrastinating, and I know I’m procrastinating, and I’m telling myself this is just fine because I need to do this essay “at some point.”

As with this essay, mistakes of avoidance often include an illusion of progress. While it is not one of my personal favorites, the mistake of endless unconsidered revision is one I see in writers quite often. Having drafted a novel-length manuscript or a short story-length manuscript, writers will set about revising the manuscript over and over and over again. Often, they will treat revision as if it is some subset of reading. That is, they start on page one, paragraph one, line one, word one and make changes as they move along from word to word to word.

The activity feels like progress, so it is quite easy to justify continuing the process. However, page-by-page, line-by-line revision is rarely useful in terms of craft development or even project development until the overall dramatic content of the story has been considered in terms that allow reorganization based on character changes, oppositional elements, thematic intents, and climactic convergences.

Changing a line of dialog outside of an understanding of character psychology manifesting in immediate agenda and/or personal social history as a modifier to the immediate agenda does not improve the story. It only changes the lines and provides the illusion of progress—a mistake of avoidance.

Years can pass without significant improvement for a writer if they persist in revision that “feels good” without developing a deeper understanding of why the feel good changes will improve the experience of the reader. A writer can engage in constant activity that feels like progress without ever risking improvement via mistakes of progress.

Perhaps the most common mistake of avoidance is research. “The rapture of research” is a mistake of avoidance writers often have to face. I certainly have to admit to this one. Give me a good rabbit hole to run down, and I’m happier than a door mouse at a tea party. So many of us can easily get caught up in chasing after the next interesting detail we think we “might” need to understand in order to tell a particular story. Days, weeks, and years of highly focused, organized collection of details that lead us to new details that, in turn, lead us to new details can easily be justified as progress while never pushing us up against the edges of our craft. After all, anyone who has taken a degree in any discipline, and especially anyone who has worked with formal content research in any form, has the necessary skills to chase down the underlying research on C02 scrubbers in a submarine, the consequence of designs, failures, redesigns, successes, applications in WW1 vs. WW2, and current use in modern nuclear and diesel-electric submarines.

Fun, but useless unless the story has a POV character who is an environmental engineer on such a submarine. Even then, it is only useful if that character is faced with some psychological/moral/ethical pressure that requires them to engage with that detail in a way that demonstrates personal change.

I currently get advertising emails about ETSY whalebone corsets because I spent time searching for details about hiking footwear for English women between 1780 and 1820. How much time did I spend on that research? I don’t know. I have a whole Pinterest file full of shoes and riding clothes, but I don’t actually have a character who needs them yet. I do have a character from that period who might, maybe, need to hike across a highland landscape, but I don’t yet.

A mistake of avoidance.

The illusion of progress that comes from feeling like I’m engaged while sitting firmly in the center of a comfortable set of skills I already have.

The real issue in the project has nothing to do with hiking shoes. It has to do with my having failed to face the definition of the underlying psychological scars of a rift between family members and the main character’s need to take personal responsibility for personal choices in new relationships. What a difficult, messy, emotionally triggering space for my heart and mind. Researching shoes is a lot easier than applying mindfulness skills to separate my own emotional reaction from the emotional damage of the character and the impact of that character’s personal history on their decisions in the dramatic moment.

Another personal favorite mistake of avoidance for me is to teach the same material repeatedly. First, I’m teaching rather than producing, so it’s easy to believe I’m engaged in valuable activity. I am, but it is only valuable if I don’t allow it to become more important than my own production and growth as a writer. In fact, the teaching only has value if I continue to grow, experiment, and explore my own boundaries. Teaching the same material over and over is comfortable, but it is not progress for me. It might help others, which only serves to make it more seductive as a mistake of avoidance.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have to teach old material to new students who need it. However…

Teaching can be a way of pressing against the edges of my own skills, but teaching the same material in the same way over and over is a pretty good indication that I’m falling back on complacence. Even teaching something as simple as emotion-driven fiction, a concept I’ve been teaching for over 25 years, can be seductive because it is universally useful to writers and the apparent simplicity of the concept creates a bias in the direction of repeating the form of presentation. It’s so easy to feel justified in presenting the same concept in the same way over and over. However, the result is neither production nor new engagement with the concept.

A mistake of avoidance.

By stepping back, examining the concept, seeking new layers and understanding, testing them in story development, and testing them against students, new questions will arise, new nuances of understanding will appear, and new skills will improve stories under development. The mistake of avoidance becomes a mistake of engagement because of awareness, conscious focus, desire, and application of will.

-End-

Cynthia Ray

Many writers find that prompts help to get the creative juices flowing.  Prompts tickle the imagination, acting like the proverbial grain of sand in the oyster that results in a pearl.  Some writers have created their own system of prompts, and others use personality tools like the Enneagram or the Meyers Briggs to give depth to characters, or perhaps utilize an online prompt generator to get an idea for a story.

As a Tarot reader, I turn to the cards for inspiration and guidance.  A Tarot deck consists of 78 pictorial cards, 24 “major” arcana, and 54 “minor” arcana.  Arcana means secrets, but these secrets are hidden in plain sight.  The pictures are a symbolic language, representing archetypes, life lessons and energies.  You don’t need to know anything about Tarot to use the pictures as writing prompts.  All you need is a Tarot deck that appeals to you.  Most tarot decks come with a book that gives meanings, but Tarot card meanings are easy to find on line if you want to go into more depth. Using the Tarot as a tool to generate writing prompts is an effective and fun process.

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

The simplest way to create a story using Tarot cards, is to shuffle your deck and randomly select three cards.  Let’s say the first card represents the past, the second card represents the current situation, and the third will indicate the next step, future or ending.  For example, I randomly selected these three cards as a story prompt: Three of Cups, Knight of Swords, and Two of Swords.

In the first image, called the three of cups, three women celebrate together, dancing in a fertile field.  For my story, I decided these ladies were green witches, celebrating Mabon, the fall equinox. (I love the little pumpkin in the corner of that card).  These witches are powerful, beautiful, and an integral part of the environment in which they live and practice nature magic. Without them and their practice, the world would fade in beauty, eventually becoming barren.

Next comes the Knight of Swords, an action-oriented fellow on a white horse. Is he a friend or foe?  I designated this eager knight, dispatched by the king, as a big problem. He has a mission to search out and destroy all magical creatures in the kingdom. He righteously believes he is serving the highest good, ridding the world of evil. 

His appearance on the scene causes quite a disruption. His actions endanger the very fabric of life itself in the kingdom. However, as the knight interacts with the witches, he comes to understand and appreciate them, and the importance of their work, and cracks in his self-important armor appear.

The Two of Swords shows what might happen next.  The Two of Swords typically represents choices and hard decisions.  Our knight must decide whether to accept that he may be wrong, and act on new information, risking his life, or choose to remain true to his allegiance to the king, and old ways of being.   Either way, he will have to give up something of value. Both choices require sacrifice.

The  witches also have to decide how to deal with the crisis, and the knight.  Should he live or should he die?  Should they flee, or stay and fight?  Can he be trusted, or is his new found conversion a sham?

In order to find out more about what happens next, I drew one more card from the deck. Luckily for all involved, it was the Sun.  The Sun is one of the warmest and happiest of the Tarot cards, indicating a happy ending for all.  I can draw as many cards as I need to help me write the story, if I get stuck.   Perhaps you saw a different story in these cards;  that is the magic of Tarot.

To inform a more complex story or novel, the following method is recommended. Different decks may have different names for the cards, and different pictures, but the general idea remains the same.

Divide the cards into three piles:

The 21 Major Arcana (Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Heirophant, Chariot, Strength, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Start, Moon, Sun, Judgement, World)The Court Cards.  These consist of the Kings, Queens, Knights and Pages (Some decks may have different names for these characters, e.g. Princess and Price instead of Page)The Numbered or “pip” cards.  These are the Ace through Ten of Wands, Pentacles, Cups, and Swords.

When you select cards, you can pull them randomly, sight unseen, or you may choose to spread the images out in front of you, and pick images that speak to you.

Choose cards from the Major Arcana for the Theme of the Story.  For example, the Fool could represent a journey, or a new beginning, or  the Tower is a theme of major disruption, things falling apart. You can select one or as many as needed to inform the story.

Use the Court Cards to develop characters for your story. There are 16 court cards, and some writers have linked these to the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types. The numbered cards and the court cards are associated with different elements; wands represent fire, cups stand for water, pentacles represent earth and swords are air. These elements add color and meaning.

Pull from the stack of numbered pip cards to get prompts for the plot line. These cards depict life situations and problems to be solved, or energies at work in the lives of the characters.

Would love to hear if you try this, and your experience, or what other systems of prompts work for you.

By Cheryl Owen-Wilson

The captivating magic of Christmas has enveloped our home

from sparkling lights in every corner, to Jerome, our holiday gnome.

My joy and delight this year, is in our 2 yr. old granddaughter’s eyes

as they light up when saying “Wow, cool!” at each decoration, in awe struck surprise.

She is after all, the reason for the season to be sure.

And my deepest hope, is that for her curiosity, there is no cure. 

But before we begin our celebration, let us bid a final adieu,

to the news filled year of Two-Thousand and Twenty-Two.

From Roe vs Wade, to climate change, we as a country are split, and fractured.

Is there a way back from the news cycles feeding our discourse to keep us captured?

Perhaps we should look to the brave men and women of Ukraine to resolve our insanity.

Their pride in holding on to democracy, is a shining example for ALL, of humanity.

Please take a moment to view the photos sent from the new James Webb Telescope.

     Seeing such clear images of our vast Universe filled me with an uncanny spark, of hope.

Now, I would be most remiss, if I didn’t add the easing of COVID and it’s restrictions to my list.

     For me, having in-person gatherings, is nothing short of pure heavenly bliss.

Then there is the man who can take us to outer space and back,

all while giving us electric travel to compensate, for the oil we lack.

So why? Oh why, did you feel you must,

be the king of the Twitter’s sphere, Mr. Elon Musk?

And after 13 years, the Na’vi of Pandora are back and battling the sky people once again,

this time from the depths of the ocean, with help from the whale-like Tulkun.

Speaking of films, while it wasn’t an Armageddon, Bruce Willis save the world mission,

NASA did accomplish flying a spacecraft into an asteroid with stealth-like precision.

Yes, from advancements in Cold Fusion to future moon travel, science’s advances,

            are giving us much to strive toward, in improving humanity’s chances.

Unfortunately there are many we had to say good-bye to in this past year,

            So here is my attempt to capture those who caused me to shed a tear.

How many of us are holding on after the passing of Fleetwood Mac’s, Christine McVie?

            Well, “Don’t stop Believin’, Hold on to that feelin’, as I’m sure, would she.

From “You Ain’t Woman Enough”, to “Don’t Come Home a’Drinkin’ With Lovin’ on your mind”,

            Miss Lorretta Lyn, the Queen of Country music, was truly one of a kind.

And I’m sure the voice of Vin Scully will still be heard in a whisper, or a resounding call,

when he shouts from the Heaven’s saying, “It’s Time for Dodger’s Baseball.”

The entire country mourned when after a 70-year reign, Elizabeth the second was laid to rest.

            A true Queen in every sense of the word, head held high, she did her very best.

Now let us raise a glass to the spirited and gutsy Kristey Alley—Cheers,

            to this outspoken woman who gave us laughter for many, many years.

Naomi Judd sang out while dancing across the stage, swaying in rhythmic time,

that–Love Can Build a Bridge, Between Your Heart and Mine.

The same sentiment flowed from Thich Nhat Hanh. He showed us how to be—Here,

            all while walking in “Peace with Every Step”— My wish for all in the coming year

Firefly’s Dance, an original painting by Cheryl Owen Wilson

by Christina Lay

I’m here to provide a little insight into the goings on at a professional writers’ conference and why you as a writer or publisher might want to attend. But naturally, as a writer, the first thing I feel compelled to do is look up the meaning of “fray”.

fray1 | frā | verb [no object] (of a fabric, rope, or cord) unravel or become worn at the edge, typically through constant rubbing: cheap fabric soon frays | (as adjective frayed) :  the frayed collar of her old coat. • (of a person’s nerves or temper) show the effects of strain.

fray2 | frā | noun (the fray) a situation of intense activity, typically one incorporating an element of aggression or competition: nineteen companies intend to bid for the contract, with three more expected to enter the fray. • a battle or fight: he charged into the thick of the fray and went down fighting.

Okay, well, there’s more there that applies than I’d hoped when I decided to procrastinate by looking up that word.  The first meaning; to unravel or become worn at the edges, applies to me, and possibly a whole lot of other people, after the last couple of years we’ve had. Emerging from the inner sanctum to attend a large gathering of Others at the opposite end of the country is quite a daunting feat after years of reduced contact, minimal productivity, and a whole lot of couch time. I understand that the fear remains, real concerns, but if you can, the time is here to start re-raveling ourselves.  I want to say I’ve accomplished a big fat zero in my personal time of fraying around the edges, but hey, look, I’ve helped bring three new books into the world, and the world needs to hear about them.

On to the second meaning, which is what I was thinking of in my oh-so-clever title.  “A situation of intense activity”.  I attended as a vendor, which means not only do I have to gear up to be intensely around Others for four days, I have to get my sh*t together, order all the books, ship the books, find the book rack I bought five years ago, discover I’m out of business cards, discover my PayPal payment system is obsolete and dysfunctional, pack, cajole someone into taking care of my hell hound for a week, find my passport, and so on to apparent infinity.  Then I have to get up at 3 AM to catch a flight to New Orleans (New Orleans is a blog onto itself).  

Oh, I’d so much rather just be a tourist, or at least, a free-flowing writer at one of these conferences. As a vendor, I get to sit behind a table in the dealers room and talk to an endless stream of people. Give my pitch, my spiel, my raison d’etre, to a whole bunch of industry professionals who are kind of enough to stop by and show some interest. As an introvert, this is just shy of hell. So why do it? The benefits are not exactly quantifiable. I don’t sell that many books, barely enough to pay for shipping them back and forth.  But as a micro-press with zero marketing dollars, I’ve decided that this is one of the best ways of getting the books into the view of the most people who might actually read them, write reviews, remember them if they ever happen to get on an award ballet, and so on.  I met a rep from Locus, a bookseller from Puerto Rico, a small publisher from Scotland, lots of interesting writers and readers, and a massage therapist who writes zombie cookbooks, so hey, it’s win-win. Also, I connect with writers who might like to write for this blog.

As a writer, there are tons of interesting panels to attend, and lots of industry professionals who might someday give you a lift up, and visa versa. Let’s not forget our own worth in this game.  As a writer, you might be lucky enough to get invited to be on a panel, like my friend and cohort Cheryl Owen-Wilson, who was called up to speak on a panel titled New Orleans: Old Souls and New Rhythms, along with the likes of old soul Andrei Codrescu and new rhythm Alex Jennings.  Or, you can do a reading, and hopefully reach a few new readers.  Hopefully, it’s inspiring to be with your tribe and be re-energized after our hundred years of solitude (okay, two years, but you know how it feels!)

New Orleans: Old Souls and New Rhythms. That’s Cheryl in the middle, flanked by Alex Jennings, Darrell Schweitzer, James Cambers and Andre Codrescu.

How about that second clause in the second meaning of fray: “typically one incorporating an element of aggression or competition”?  I’m happy to report I experienced no sense of aggression. Competition however, is always just there under the surface. There’s a pecking order, a ranking, a who’s who, to be sure.  Honestly, we’re all there to network (shudder, I really dislike that word) and who do we want to network with?  Well, Ellen Datlow the award-winning editor of short story anthologies perhaps, or Andre Codrescu the Nobel prize-winning radio commentator, or that guy from Locus (no, I didn’t get his name).  Some who attend will focus entirely on that aspect, to their detriment, I believe.  I think it is the unexpected connection, the bookseller from Puerto Rico or the zombie cookbook guy, who is going end up helping you in an unforeseen way, and better yet, maybe become a friend.

I’ll be honest, this year just getting there felt like a big achievement to me, and I did not put my full energy into doing the things one is “supposed” to do.  I keenly missed the presence of Stephen Vessels, who was entirely in his element at our first two conferences. Stephen chased down organizers and got us readings, Stephen networked like a king, Stephen sold books, both his and the rest of the Labyrinth of Souls series.  It felt bittersweet to have his final work, Fall of The Messengers, on the table, and I wish I could have channeled some of his aplomb at meeting and greeting all those potential readers and promoters.  You don’t have to be a Stephen Vessels to get a lot out of these conferences, but it helps.

Fourteen Labyrinth of Souls novels! Stephen Vessels fantastic SF masterpiece, Fall of The Messengers! Sure, I had to spend four days in the soulless depths of a Hyatt conference hall, but I met lots of interesting writers, sold some books, and introduced these lovely books to some lovely people.

Have I said anything helpful? I doubt it. One of the things to unravel lately is my ability to write a coherent post, but I hope this, my first in a few months, will help get me back into the fray and help convince you, dear reader, to stick a toe in as well.

Fall of the Messengers by Stephen T. Vessels on Amazon For some reason, the hardcover isn’t appearing online. I suggest you order it from your local bookstore!

Bayou’s Lament by Cheryl Owen-Wilson on Amazon

World Fantasy 2022

By Cynthia Ray

Desire is the engine that drives our will.  Do you know what you want, what you desire with all of your heart?   When we truly want something, we take definite steps towards obtaining it.  In fact, we are pulled towards our desire, like iron to a magnet.  It’s a powerful, fiery force.

Our fiery desire is what keeps us going when we run into difficulties on the path to winning the object we yearn for.  If I decide I want to become a published author, I may not know that writing a book can be a long and difficult journey, and only my desire and determination will get me through to the final chapter. 

To better understand this fundamental creative process, let’s turn to Tarot, my favorite symbolic language. The Magician has a lot to tell us about how to get what we want in life.  He knows what he desires, and is the process of creating it.  The Magicians red cape signifies Desire that drives Will. He is asking us what we want to grow in the beautiful garden of our life.  The first step is knowing what we want!  Be clear about that.  Be specific.

Inmage from the Holy Order of MANS Tarot deck

The wings on his headband are a nod to the Roman god Mercury, who was the messenger between the world of gods, and the world of men. Likewise, the Magician within us brings ideas from the world of thought to the world of action and manifestation. The Magician is the part of our psyche that makes things happen. He holds a hollow wand, pointed up, while pointing down with his other hand, directing energy.  He knows he can direct power and energy, but is not the source of that power. He is connecting with his muse, his higher self, Life itself.  All the power that ever was or ever will be is here now, all we have to do is tap into that source and direct it into our life’s work. 

The table in front of the Magician holds the tools of his trade. They show us that in order to manifest or create anything, we must journey through four worlds; the Archetypal World, the Creative World, the Formative World, and the World of Results, represented by the wand, cup, sword and pentacle.  

We begin our journey through the four worlds by picking up our wand, which stands for our will, our intention, our fire.  We are in the Archetypal world.  In this first world we identify our desire, what we want, deciding what we will pursue. WE WILL.  We wave our wand and direct our attention to the object of our desire. Keywords associated with the Magician include attention, concentration, singleness of purpose.  Here, we might decide to write a historical fiction novel.  The Idea or Archetype of a book exists, and we pull upon those patterns to know how to proceed. 

Then we raise our cup, full of emotion, feeling, imagination, and water and drink deeply.  We are standing in the Creative World, where we let our wonderful imagination do its magic.  What period of history will the story take place in?  Who are the characters?  What do they look like?  What are their problems? What kind of world do they live in?   What will happen to them?  What is the story about?  We create many things in this world, and allow our imagination to run wild, but as we begin to narrow it down, we step into the Formative World and pick up our sword.

In this world, our sword flies through the air cutting away what it not necessary, forming a solid plan out of our many ideas.  We work out the story in detail, we sit down every day and write, we move post it notes around on our wall, we cut away things that don’t work.  We make the story come alive.  We edit.  We make choices. The sword is our inspired action.  At last, after months, or years, we have a final draft in hand, the result of desire, will, inspired thought, creative endeavor, hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

We have arrived in the World of Results.  The Pentacle is our  book, published. Our historical fiction novel makes its debut into the world.  We feel proud of our accomplishment, hoping it provides enjoyment, food for thought and makes someone’s life a bit better.

Everything we create in our world, all that we grow the garden of our life, applies these principles.  The Magician might be a great image to post on your desk, reminding you that you are the Magician of your own life, and you have all the tools you need to create something wonderful. 

Wishing you many inspired journeys through the four worlds, and results that fill you with satisfaction and joy. 

Ghost Story Weekend, by Eric Witchey

I love Ghost Story Weekend!

In fact, I love it so much that I hope to haunt it long after my passing has caused WordCrafters to pass it on to another writer-in-residence. After all, don’t you think a Ghost Story Weekend should have a few ghosts-in-residence?

I’m preparing to travel to the Oregon coast to act as writer-in-residence for Ghost Story Weekend. Every year on the last weekend of October, writers get together to pound out 24-hour spooky stories then read them aloud to one another on Saturday night. Sunday morning, we do a round-robin in which each author says one thing they liked and one thing they think will take the story closer to publication. Elizabeth Engstrom founded the program in the 90s, and she handed it off to me and WordCrafters in Eugene in 2014.

Two anthologies collecting stories from Ghost Story Weekend are available by ordering from your local bookstore or by purchasing on Amazon:

Dead on Demand: Edited by Elizabeth EngstromGhosts at the Coast: Edited by Dianna Rogers, whom we all miss and who is with us in her ghostly form.

The current ghosts-in-residence are Stephen T. Vessels, who passed away at the end of August, 2021, and Diana Rodgers, who gave up the mortal coil in 2018. I hope they are there with us again this year. I have no doubt that once I join them in the beyond we will do a respectable job of keeping the spooky alive. For now, Dianna and Stephen will have to bear that responsibility.

As I approach the weekend, I can’t help considering the possible prompts that might help me and others reach through the veil between the world of the living and the world of beyond. What questions, comments, or objects will help us all scare the bujeezus out of the other writers who attend?

My good friend, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, attends every year she doesn’t have a calendar conflict, and I, in turn, attend her Science Fiction and Fantasy weekend in the spring. She brings prompts to both events in the form of “roll-ups” she has created. They are always much appreciated and useful. We also dip into a small library of strange and wonderful books for ideas. Between Eric the Younger, a horror writer named Eric Lewis, and me, Eric the Elder, we manage to bring along a pretty hefty library of horror story material. My current favorite is a calendar given to me by Kim Hunter, who is also an attendee. Every year, she augments the experience with a swag bag of spooky paraphernalia, including wind-up ghosts, glowing pens, pop-up mummies, and general boo-foolery. Becky Christine, one of the essential support people without whom the event could not take place, always creates an amazing collection of story support material. Her swag bags include things like individual pages taken from spooky source books, tarot cards, spooky dice, images, and evocative objects.

Add the above to the fact that we are already staying right across Coastal Highway 101 from a rocky shoreline where crashing waves spray a brass plaque commemorating the deaths of teens who thought they were strong enough to beat the power of the sea, thus warning others of the dangers of getting too close to a watery spirit that can sweep away a life in moments, and you have a recipe for endless creativity and wonderful terrors appropriate to Samhain. Don’t even get me started on the nearby haunted lighthouse…

As we approach the night when the veil between the mortal realm and the beyond is thinnest, I search out little tidbits of craft and motivation to email to the group of would-be horror writers. My hideous plan is to get the ghostly muse percolating behind the scenes before anyone shows up for the event. I paraphrase case study ghost investigation entries from the huge book, Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond, by Hans Holzer—my personal go-to for strange. I send out links to web sites of spooky settings all over the world. I pull concepts and locations from travel books dedicated to the strange. There’s an entire travel industry around exploring spooky places. I even dig into my own photo stores of ghost towns and haunted places I’ve visited, including abandoned mines, asylums, sanitariums, and in one case an abandoned old-west haunted hotel.

Of course, none of these are useful if the minds receiving them don’t harbor some innate curiosity about what could be, might have been, and would be fun and spooky.

This morning, I pulled some ideas from the spooky Page-A-Day calendar Kim sent me early this year. The email that went out looked like this:

From the Kim Calendar, boo date 10/22/22. Haunted Objects Sold on eBay:

A wristwatch that cannot be changed from 11:29, the exact time the original owner was murdered.Sold items and furnishings from a demolished haunted mansion in Clovis, CA.A self-refilling ceramic water bottle.A haunted Ziploc bag that has healing and restorative powers for foodstuffs and even for people.

And now I’m thinking of a ghost wearing the watch, haunting a mansion being demolished, carrying a self-filling bottle, and their body preserved in restorative Ziploc body bag sealed in the wall of the foundation…

Are you a ghost if you were murdered at 11:29 then put in a healing Ziploc bag that revives you, but then you suffocate, but then you revive, but then you suffocate?

Is the water bottle haunted by the spirit of an extreme runner who died of dehydration on a desert ultra-marathon?

Did a Peruvian Incan runner live in a mansion in Clovis, CA?

Did some writer buy the Clovis writing desk?

Were the Clovis people of ancient America responsible for the haunting of the mansion?

Inquiring minds want to know. Next Saturday night, perhaps we’ll find out the answers to these and other questions.

Boo!

Eric

I think of this sort of questioning as spinning up the silly generator. If I have to draft a story in 24 hours then present it orally to 15 or more other writers, including some highly accomplished professionals, I’m going to need to get my free-association brain working at peak levels. To do that, I start practicing a week or two beforehand by looking at images, concepts, stories, and objects then asking the questions that might lead to a spooky story.

Personally, I think in terms of the now defunct Weekly World News. I try to find that sort of mindset and brainstorm as if I’m going to write a fictional news article for that magazine. You know the type: “Batbaby and Bigfoot Team up to Defeat Canadian Carnivore Aliens.” That kind of story.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that’s the kind of story I’ll be writing at the event. It might be. I kind of like the idea of ancient Clovis People haunting a mansion and carrying refilling ceramic water bottles. Imagine the impact on modern archeology if those bottles and body-preserving Ziploc body bags were discovered in the foundation of a demolished mansion.

“Archeologists Discover Clovis People Magic Still Working”

The interview with the ghost would be glorious!

Right now, sitting at my desk, I see a Tupperware container with three pulp novels in it. I also see a bottle from my pharmacy, and on the floor there’s a receipt from Costco.

Engage Silly Weekly World News headline maker. Archeology is already loaded into the system.

Pre-Noah’s Flood Novels Preserved in Plastic.Costco is the Reincarnation of Clovis People’s Marketplace.Construction Workers Uncover Pre-Columbian Tupperware. You won’t believe what they find inside!Clovis People Invented Anti-Depressants. Ancient Pharmacy Uncovered.RCMP Finds Hidden Sasquatch Library. Clovis People Ghost Librarians Curse Canadian Cops.Ghost Librarian Sells Tupperware.Ghost at Little Lending Library Busted for Distribution of Stolen Pharmaceuticals.Clovis People Ghost Racks up Debt at Costco. Police Want to Know Where She Got her Card.She says she can’t get Kirkland anywhere else and the meat department is great.Zombie Selling Tupperware Door-to-Door in Clovis, CA. Residents too Afraid to Say No.Archeologist Possessed by Clovis Librarian. Science Shattered.

You get the idea.

An explicit change to my filters will give me different results.

Add a different set of items, objects, images, or concepts: a musty rag, cobwebs, and a broken cell phone.

Phantom Caller Only Connects on Broken Phone.Cobwebs on Cleaning Rag Open Portal to Afterlife.Mother Returns from the Afterlife to Clean Son’s Apartment.Magnet Fisherman Finds Broken Phone. Deceased 911 Operator Still on the Line.

If I choose to take away my favorite filter, the Weekly World News, replacing it with, say, a pseudoscientific journal filter like The Journal of Irreproducible Results, everything changes. As my father used to say, “There’s no such thing as supernatural. There are only natural phenomenon science can’t yet experimentally explain.”

Note: You can find collections of articles and original editions of The Journal of Irreproducible Results on Amazon.

An article about a conversation with a ghost might look like this:

Dialogs with Six-Dimensional Intermittent Manifestations of Transtemporal Spatial Phenomenon.

Add a different filter, war news from Ukraine.

Colonel from the Crimean War Returns as YouTube Pundit.

This endless process of variations on themes, application of filters, and the spouting of total nonsense as fast as I can manage it inevitably leads to opportunities for a ghost story that I can write in a few hours. Because we have 15 or more people to read stories, we keep the length of the stories under 2000 words. Years when we have more people, which has not been possible since Covid began, we limit the word count even more.

Some years, I only manage one story. One year, I produced five, two of which I later sold. We have others who produce three-to-five stories in the 24-hour period. Universally, the people who produce that many stories step back from the idea that then need a “good story” long enough to spin up their brainstorming brain and kick out ideas they draft into rough form very quickly. Once they have a few stories in rough form, they pick one to refine a little bit before they read. Composing at around 2,000 words an hour, more-or-less, leads easily to three or four possible bad draft candidates from which to choose for one set of revisions prior to presentation.

This year’s Ghost Story Weekend was sold out the week it was announced, so you might not be with us via Zoom or in the room. None-the-less, you can be with us in spooky spirit. Friday, at about 7 pm., start spinning up ideas and pounding out pages. Saturday morning, keep the process going. Around noon, pick one of your story starts/drafts and finish it as much as possible before dinner. For fun, and in all its early-draft flawed glory, read it aloud by candlelight to someone. Sip some wine. Chat. Hand out candy to tick-or-treaters. Whisper gratitude for having known those who have gone before us through the veil.

When the candy is gone and the hangover has subsided, ignore the stories for a week.

The next weekend, rewrite your scary story, polish it, and send it out.

Have a glorious Samhain!

-End-

by Cheryl Owen Wilson

For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by all mythology surrounding spiritual realms where the dead can, and do, communicate with the living. My childhood into young adult years were spent amongst my mother’s family in Southern Louisiana. It is the place where my first memory, at around two years old, is of a great aunt’s open coffin sitting in another aunt’s living room ready to receive visitors. It was, and still is, a culture where voodoo and hoodoo, if not practiced, are at the very least still believed, right along-side rosary bead prayin’ and Holy Water anointin’. My grandmama once told me, “Our dead walk beside us every day. Listen and they’ll tell you their stories”. I’ve been listening ever since.

I now live in Oregon. Yet, as those of you who read my blog know, I still delve into the world of the dead through my writing.

So when I discovered our local art gallery, Maude Kerns Art Center, held an annual Dia’ de los Muertos juried art show I decided to explore the concept of honoring our dead through my art as well. It was 2013 and my first foray into juried art shows. I soon learned having some writing skills came in handy as an artist’s statement is required explaining each entry. This year marks the 29th year for this art show!

Some years I’ve dressed as my painting adding performance art to my resume’. Here are a few of my entries:

“Silent Salene” and “Stairway to The Departed”

In “Soul of The Bayou” she slumbers beneath the bayous depths watching over long-lost souls and on this one day, the Day of the Dead she rises in their memory.

In “Black Birds Call” the symbolism of marigolds dropped by the birds like breadcrumbs, leads lost souls out of the mists of the swamp and into the light.

“Day of Dead Meets Steampunk”

In “Dia de los Muertos-Marigold’s Embrace I have envisioned ravens assisting delivery of in the marigolds as they guide the spirits.  The woman is dressed in mourning purple as the earth takes her back sewing her lips shut with their vine tendrils.  

“Dia de los Muertos Fortune Telling“

The Fortune Teller’s face is painted in honor of the day.  She wears a cape lined with purple, surrounded by purple, a color symbolizing mourning on the Day of the Dead. A raven (another harbinger of the dead) delivers to her a tarot card etched with vibrant marigolds. Both the raven and the marigolds will help the Dia des los Muertos Fortune Teller guide the lost soul trapped in her Crystal Ball out, and to its loved ones on this special day of celebration.

Madonna Rising—Dia de los Muertos Street Art

The Madonna is often displayed on Dia de los Muertos alters.  It is believed she will assist in communication with dead loved ones.  In my painting I’ve featured her as graffiti, placed on an old brick wall. She is clothed in purple, symbolizing mourning. A raven flying past the wall delivers marigolds to her.  The marigolds will then guide the dead’s spirit to their loved ones through both their aromatic scent, and vibrant golden color—a color featured on the Madonna’s halo and carried throughout the painting. 

A Cosmic Death’s Embrace on Dia de los Muertos

I’ve reimagined many of photos NASA has shared of the far away galaxies through my art.  In this piece, Carl Sagan’s quote—“The cosmos is within us; we’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”—came to mind again and again.  With hearts renewed upon meeting on the Day of the Dead, these two are locked in an eternal embrace.

“Ophelia of the Dead”

“Stardust to Dust“

“Dia de los Muertos by Moonlight” There are many faces to see in nature such as those seen within the twists and turns of tree limbs. When viewing my art, you will often find a tree. In my Day of the Dead artworks those trees will be reminiscent of the eerie gnarled  trees of my youth in the bayous of Louisiana.  For this painting since skeletal figures in all forms are a part of the Day of the Dead celebration, the tree limbs forms one on a moonlit night. The purple background is a symbol of our mourning.

For my 2022 entry, “Bayou Cemetery by Skull Light”, I imagined yet another of the many faces playing hide and seek in nature. For this piece it is. a sugar skull rising from a Bayou where grave head stone have long been forgotten. A raven, thought of as a guide to lost souls, provides a path by dropping the Day of the Dead Marigolds for loved ones to follow.

You can find more of my artworks at Mecovisions.com.

How do you honor those who have gone before you?