A few small repairs for Nano

It’s an ‘on track’ word count. And I am ok with that. I had hoped for more today, but found I hit a couple of blocks. There is a book I really want to read for background of one of my two protagonists, and I really am at that stage where it will be relevant to the scenes. I was able to go on with writing from the other protags POV, but I know that cup will run dry soon when they have to meet again and I find myself without the scenes of the first. So this weekend will be book reading. I don’t think it will take me too long, and hopefully by Sunday I’ll be in a position to add a few more words to the cup so I can not fret so much on my work days about getting them done. I did discover yesterday the need for a new element to the plot, and ergo, a new character, and I think it helps, and I’m discovering more about a secondary character too, which is quite lovely.

For NaBloPoMo, I’m adapting this meme here. I tried it once before on my Dreamwidth blog, but only got to the first entry. So repeating that… you get a favourite song, Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin. I could try tell you what it is about this song that I love and have loved since first hearing it, but I think I’ll just leave you with haunting, thoughtful pyromania.

Lyrics here.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.

Nanolomo: The Complete Adenvtures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

I’m not sure how well-known outside of Australia these stories – and art work, especially – are. Even if you didn’t read, or had read to you, the stories of the gumnut babies Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, their friends Ragged Blossom, and Mr Lizard, and those dastardly Banksia men, if you’re Aussie, you know the image of a gumnut baby well. These you can see on the cover here, whose dress and life is based on the gumnuts produced by the eucalyptus tree.

Taking an educated guess, I’d say the illustrator and author of these stories, May Gibbs, was trying to create a kind of Australian fairy in that very Victorian/Edwardian vision of what a fairy was (certainly not the darker Celtic Fae, but rather a kind of sweet creature who hopped from flower to flower). It would be an interesting question to explore – the creation of Australian folklore and tales in the absence of one that immigrant Australia could call its own. How indeed do the gumnut babies sit along side the Aboriginal Australian dreamtime legends and storytelling – not uncomfortably, but Gibbs was certainly, and not surprisingly, employing a more English tradition in her depiction of the Australian bush and Australian nature.

And I think that is good thing. Being blessed with a gift for illustration and wonderful detail (I don’t have a copy of the book on hand but I remember the pictures of both the Australian bush and under water scenes, with clever detail that uses the minutiae of nature in creative ways) though, Gibbs saved it from being merely twee and sweet and gave us something quite beautiful. For me personally, I think it gave a connection back to Australia (as a child, I was brought up in Jakarta) that I think was vital, for it only became a lived experience when was 9.

The stories themselves… I think there was something a little deeper in them than most of the other children’s books I read. There was adventure, but there was emotional connection, and fear, and friendship too. But really, I’d give these to someone just for Gibb’s lovely illustrations.

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And who else is writing for Nanolomo? Click to find out!

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.