As long as the day is full of time...
Here is some astonishingly beautiful art by the Taiwanese Mucha, Mr. James Jean. It is (probably) a title page from his painted comics story "A Frog's Eye View", to be featured this October in One Thousand and One Nights of Snowfall, the Fables original graphic novel. The story will tell Flycatcher's background and how his wife and children were lost in the Homelands when the Empire invaded his kingdom.
In other news, I checked out a few books from the library on Japanese history. Started reading one; The Japanese Experience by W.G. Beasley. It seems pretty informative and probably what I'm looking for. Not sure if I've mentioned this here before, but re-typing my writing (after my computer deleted everything on it) has been a good thing; it's forced me to revisit and change several concepts and specific names, etc., that I've changed in my head but did not go back and re-work everything according to these changes. I've also added a lot, both in new scenes and more and better description of characters and setting. I'm also considering alternate names for the character of O-Aki; while her name looks right aesthetically, it does not at all sound right when pronounced. Some alternates I'm considering are Akiha ("autumn leaves"), Akie ("autumn wind", which sounds right when pronounced - ah-key-eh - but looks wrong on the physical page), and Akika ("autumn scent").
So I'm very excited about the Shiki Monogatari, which is by no means anywhere near completion, but is coming into a good shape.
I'm also reading a book my brother Daniel got me for Christmas, Taiko by um... Eiji Yoshikawa or something. I can't remember. It's really good, it's a historical novel about three military figures; Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Yoshitsune Hideyoshi. He's also got another huge novel called Musashi; I read the dust jacket blurb at work today, and it sounds even better than the one I'm reading now. Thanks Dan!!
Well, gotta go now. Cold pizza in the fridge calls.
In other news, I checked out a few books from the library on Japanese history. Started reading one; The Japanese Experience by W.G. Beasley. It seems pretty informative and probably what I'm looking for. Not sure if I've mentioned this here before, but re-typing my writing (after my computer deleted everything on it) has been a good thing; it's forced me to revisit and change several concepts and specific names, etc., that I've changed in my head but did not go back and re-work everything according to these changes. I've also added a lot, both in new scenes and more and better description of characters and setting. I'm also considering alternate names for the character of O-Aki; while her name looks right aesthetically, it does not at all sound right when pronounced. Some alternates I'm considering are Akiha ("autumn leaves"), Akie ("autumn wind", which sounds right when pronounced - ah-key-eh - but looks wrong on the physical page), and Akika ("autumn scent").
So I'm very excited about the Shiki Monogatari, which is by no means anywhere near completion, but is coming into a good shape.
I'm also reading a book my brother Daniel got me for Christmas, Taiko by um... Eiji Yoshikawa or something. I can't remember. It's really good, it's a historical novel about three military figures; Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Yoshitsune Hideyoshi. He's also got another huge novel called Musashi; I read the dust jacket blurb at work today, and it sounds even better than the one I'm reading now. Thanks Dan!!
Well, gotta go now. Cold pizza in the fridge calls.