The witch of witches: Baba Yaga

28 Nov 2011 7 Comments

by mashadutoit in stories

Another area I’ve been researching for my book: Baba Yaga.  She’s fascinating.  In some stories she is the child-eating ogress, in some she is in charge of the world of the dead, or will show you the way to the world of the spirits, as long as you can prove that you are not intimidated by her.

There are many amazing images of her online.  These first two are on many websites, but so far I have not been able to find out where they are originally from.  Baba Yaga riding her pestle and mortar, sweeping up her tracks with a broom.

 

This one is by Rima Staines – see more of her wonderful images here.

Baa Yaga’s hut on chicken legs. According to some, it has no windows or doors, very like a coffin, and it has a palisade of human bones.  And you can also see her iron teeth:

And another Baba Yaga image, this one by Isabellart

The wind is getting under my skin

17 Nov 2011 4 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings

A quick digital doodle.   Got to release this irritable feeling somehow.

A whole new way to procrastinate

11 Nov 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in stories

I’ve found a whole new way to procrastinate – I spend my time looking for images for writing inspiration. These two fit with the scenes I’ve just been writing:

Benjamint

Image from Marty FM

…and Mistress Mouse gasped “Oh!”

10 Nov 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in stories

Writing my first full length book is an experience full of surprises.  I planned about two thirds of it quite meticulously but started writing when I realised that I had to leave some things open to allow for unexpected developments.

Now that I’m past the point I’ve planned for, I don’t know what is going to happen next.  I know pretty much how the whole thing will end, but the landscape between the point I am at now and the end is uncharted territory.

Here follows the last paragraph I wrote today.  Thing is, I have no idea what happens next.

 “I don’t know,” said Rebekka. “I don’t think I have anything in my pocket.” But as she spoke she patted her pockets and discovered that there was, in fact, something there. The key to her flat in her left pocket and in her right pocket, the one Hare had been trying to get a finger into, was a flat hard disk. She drew it out and Mistress Mouse looked on with interest.

 “A mirror” said the mouse and then “Oh!”. Rebekka had turned it over and they both saw that the mirror showed, not a reflection of what was around them, but 

 

How to baffle a ghost

07 Nov 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in stories

I’m reading a lot of South African folk tales as part of the research I’m doing for my new book.  Today I found a book called “Boere Wysheid” which translates roughly to “Farmer’s Wisdom”.  This is a great resource for Afrikaans superstitions and folklore.

For example, I now know just what to do if I’m ever chased by a ghost.  You  pull a small shrub out of the ground and upend it so its roots point upwards.  Apparently the ghost will be so fascinated by this oddity that it will forget all about chasing you.  Not sure what to do about indoor ghosts, but maybe upside-down furniture will be equally effective.

Reminds me of advice I’ve heard about how to deal with a poltergeist.  Mix lentils and peas together and spread them over the doorstep.  The creature cannot resist them compulsion to separate and count them, and hopefully in the process forgets whatever mischief it meant to do.

A strangely comforting trauma

20 Oct 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in books Tags: , ,

I’ve been very sick (flu!) and very busy, but at last have time for a quick review of a remarkable book:

The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers.

You just know that things are going to go bad from the moment when a very drunk Michael Crawford, on the night before his wedding, puts his wedding ring on the finger of an ancient female statue. In the middle of a stormy night. For safekeeping. He has reason to regret that decision very soon.

This book is not for the faint hearted. These vampires may sparkle at times, but they bite hard too.  And yet they are not just evil monsters. They fit into our world with Tim Powers’s convincing mixture of science, magic and poetry.
It also features real historical characters such as Byron, Keats, Shelly and Mary Shelly. In Tim Powers’s reality there is a close link between vampires and the poetic muse, and some poets are willing to put up with quite a lot of danger if it keeps them writing.

This is a cruel book. Fingers are shot or bitten off, throats are cut, eyes are gouged and many of these wounds are self inflicted. As with the other Powers’s books, you are taught very early on that the characters are not safe and wont be rescued at the last moment. This makes things a lot more tense and exciting, and in the end, also very moving. The hero and heroine are mauled and savaged and yet they survive. Despite being traumatised and permanently scarred, they remain true to some deep part of themselves, and to one another. I found that strangely comforting.

A tennis ball full of tadpoles

27 Sep 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in Inspiration

My dog Pippin picked up an old tennis ball on the Rondebosch common. He bit it open, carried it around for a while and put it down and walked off. This is surprising as he is obsessive about tennis balls. I went to have a look at it. It was full of tadpoles.

My father’s pond now has some new inhabitants.

An interview with author Debora Geary

05 Sep 2011 7 Comments

by mashadutoit in books, fantasy

Something a little different for my blog, an author interview.  Debora Geary, author of  “A Modern Witch” and “A Hidden Witch” was kind enough to answer some of my questions.
I’ve only read two of your books – “A Modern Witch” and “A Hidden Witch”.  In both of these I was struck by the importance of family and the bonds of friendship between the characters.  While some of them enjoy their personal space, in most cases they come to their rights when they are surrounded by friends and family. In fact, the strongest magic is created by several withes supporting one another’s skills. Why this emphasis on togetherness?

It’s where the books went.  I started off with three witches in three different parts of the world – doesn’t sound like a recipe for family and togetherness, does it?  But then, as I started to write Nell’s character, she needed a family.  So I gave her some kids, and a brother – and they rather insisted on taking over the story.  By book two, I knew what to expect, so Moira’s Nova Scotia clan wasn’t a surprise any more.
When I look back on the first two books, I can’t imagine them without that strong current of family and community.  But when I sat down to write A Modern Witch, I thought I was writing a book about witches and magic on the Internet.  The rest came from trying to learn a little more about the characters in my head.  It’s ironic – I’m actually quite a solitary person…
Quite a few of the characters are very young, and yet they play as important a role in the plot as the adult characters. In fact, the young witches are taken very seriously by the adults, and often given quite adult responsibilities. Does that reflect your own attitude?

The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson

24 Aug 2011 1 Comment

by mashadutoit in books

It’s been a while since I’ve written a review, but The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the best books I’ve read in years. Fantastic story, compelling characters, interesting issues, vivid writing – I just loved it.

 

It is set in America “after the bombing”. The United States is no more. America has suffered a severe nuclear attack. Millions died in the initial attack, and millions more in the aftermath, struggling to survive in the new pre-industrial world. Getting food by growing and hunting it, avoiding the “scavengers” – the people who live from the looted ruins and hunt one another.

What is more, the outside world is actively preventing any kind of reconstruction, using their space age technology to destroy any attempts to build up an industrialised civilisation.

About sixty years after the bombing seventeen year old Henry is living in a coastal farming community. He has a rather strange view of history, learnt from old Tom, one of the only people who still remember the “old times” before the bombs. This is a combination of truth and tall tales, and in fact, this is a strong theme in the book – the importance of story telling and the need for “lies”.

Henry has to make some hard choices when he meets outsiders urging him to join the “resistance”, a group people who vow to fight the outside worlds attempts to “keep America down”. He learns about betrayal and regret, and what it means to be an adult in a harsh world.

The setting of this story is just awesome. Trees growing on the abandoned highways, crumbling sky-scrapers, flooded cities. Kim Stanley Robinson always loves to dwell on the detail, and its never just “description”. The landscape is as important to the plot as the action.

And apparently there are more – a whole series of “Orange County” books. Off to the library to find some more!

Drawing a different kind of strength

21 Aug 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings Tags:

I’m still fascinated by the Tarot.  This drawing is of “Strength”, one of the figures in the Major Arcana.

This card stands for a different kind of strength than that one usually thinks of. ” Perseverance, courage, resolve and composure – qualities that help us endure when times are tough.”   Patience and tolerance, guiding rather than using force, compassion and reliability.

This card is usually depicted as a woman subduing a lion, and here is my version.

 

The rats are fighting under the floorboards

20 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress, All my drawings

A detail of a drawing I’m colouring in Photoshop.  Still very rough.  It’s very late, the gas heater is puttering away next to me keeping the winter’s night at bay, and every now and then the rats start a little fight under the floorboards.  Time to go to bed.

Writing Tarot

19 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in 2 Work in progress Tags: ,

No new drawings, because I’ve been swamped with got-to-pay-the-rent work about which the less said, the better.  In the evenings I’ve been working the outline for my new book.

I’m still discovering who the characters are and why they got to where they are. I needed a way to help me figure these things.  Problem is, it’s easy to slip into the groove where  my main character is, essentially, me.  And the secondary characters are suspiciously like characters from my favourite books.

To “throw myself a curve ball” as Brendon says, I’ve been doing tarot readings for each of my characters.  This helps me figure out who they are and what they care about.  I’m fairly new to reading the tarot.  It’s quite a fascinating process.  I tend to be a bit skeptical about the mystical side and use it mainly as a tool to help me consider many different sides of a question.  But I must admit that I got some pretty uncanny results.  Either there is something more going on than I like to admit, or the human tendency to recognise patterns where there are none is even stronger than I suspected.

For example.  One of the characters is the “love interest”.  He will develop a crush on my main character, although at this stage it is unclear whether the relationship will get anywhere.  I asked the question “Tell me more about this young man.”    The first card, that stands for “the heart of the matter” and such issues as “central issue” and “outstanding feature” was the Two of Cups.  The second was The Lovers.  That made me stare.

The Two of Cups is all about  attraction, particularly between two individuals, “recognising that a bond is developing”, making an exclusive connection.  It is the minor arcana equivalent of The Lovers. The Lovers deals with the urge for union, the strong connection between two people as well the commitment an individual makes to certain beliefs and values.  And, of course, sexual and romantic love.

So that was quite appropriate.

The reading I did for my “evil” character was just as apt.  Her heart cards were the Three of Swords and the King of Pentacles.  The Three of Swords is about betrayal, hurt and loneliness.  The King of Pentacles suggests qualities of reliability, competence, the ability to succeed, “working towards a goal with resolve”. Her reading was a study of contradictions.  Reconciling these  has helped me think about this character in a much more complex way, figuring her out as a human being rather than the symbol of evil she was before I started this process.

Of course, just the act of laying out the cards and looking at them helps me think.  Such amazing, potent images.

She’s quite willing to use that little red gun.

24 Jul 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings Tags:

I’ve been reading Charles de Lint – and this came out of my pen:

She seems quite ready to use that little red gun.

 

 

Drat, I messed up her face

21 Jul 2011 2 Comments

by mashadutoit in All my drawings

I was drawing on the wrong kind of paper for pen and ink, and I messed up the face of this odd little person:

So I cheated and fixed it digitally. Not sure which one I prefer, really.

I quite like her expression.  Seems like she has something on her mind:

Pearls, claws and keys

19 Jul 2011 Leave a comment

by mashadutoit in All my drawings, Art Tags:

Now that I’m finished with doing illustrations for my Strange Neighbours stories,  I indulged in drawing whatever came out of my pen.  And what came out of my pen was this:

I have no idea what this means.  I was listening to Charles de Lindt’s “Moonheart” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” on audiobook. Maybe that had an influence.

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