Category Archives: writing

March 14, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday:  Green Wheat Field with Cypress by Vincent van Gogh 1889

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Title: Green Wheat Field with Cypress / Green Wheat

Date: mid June 1889

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 73 cm (28.7 in); width: 92.5 cm (36.4 in)

Collection: National Gallery Prague

 

What I love about this painting:

This painting is an example of the quintessential Vincent van Gogh view of his world. He shows us a sunny afternoon in swirls and strong colors, painting it the way he experienced it.

Vincent’s superpower was the ability to show us the emotions he felt as he painted a scene. In this case, I think he was feeling a sense of peace at being outdoors.

If you have stopped by this blog before, you know I am a writer. Art inspires me and I’m always imagining the story behind each painting I feature here. As a dedicated Vincent Fangirl, I can picture him having a good day, enjoying the harmony of a sunny afternoon in June, however fleeting those moments of peace were for him.

This painting was done one year before his suicide, during a brief a time when he was relatively happy, just before his final breakdown. The clouds, the blades of grass—each thing he saw that day is there, depicted with the emotions he experienced.

About this painting via Wikipedia:

The painting depicts golden fields of ripe wheat, a dark fastigiate Provençal cypress towering like a green obelisk to the right and lighter green olive trees in the middle distance, with hills and mountains visible behind, and white clouds swirling in an azure sky above. The first version (F717) was painted in late June or early July 1889, during a period of frantic painting and shortly after Van Gogh completed The Starry Night, at a time when he was fascinated by the cypress. It is likely to have been painted “en plein air“, near the subject, when Van Gogh was able to leave the precincts of the asylum. Van Gogh regarded this work as one of his best summer paintings. In a letter to his brother, Theo, written on 2 July 1889, Vincent described the painting: “I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto like the Monticelli‘s, and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too.” [1]

 

Wheat fields via Wikipedia:

The wheat field with cypresses paintings were made when van Gogh was able to leave the asylum. Van Gogh had a fondness for cypresses and wheat fields of which he wrote: “Only I have no news to tell you, for the days are all the same, I have no ideas, except to think that a field of wheat or a cypress well worth the trouble of looking at closeup.”

In early July, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo of a work he began in June, Wheat Field with Cypresses: “I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto … and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too.” Van Gogh who regarded this landscape as one of his “best” summer paintings made two additional oil paintings very similar in composition that fall. One of the two is in a private collection. London’s National Gallery A Wheat Field, with Cypresses painting was made in September which Janson & Janson 1977, p. 308 describes: “the field is like a stormy sea; the trees spring flamelike from the ground; and the hills and clouds heave with the same surge of motion. Every stroke stands out boldly in a long ribbon of strong, unmixed color.”

There is also another version of Wheat Fields with Cypresses made in September with a blue-green sky, reportedly held at the Tate Gallery in London. [2]

 

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Vincent Willem van Gogh, 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, struggled with severe depression and poverty, and committed suicide at the age of 37.

Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class family, While a child he drew and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially; the two kept a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions, and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation between the two when, in a rage, Van Gogh severed a part of his own left ear with a razor. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying from his injuries two days later.  [3]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Vincent van Gogh – Green Wheat Field with Cypress (1889).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Green_Wheat_Field_with_Cypress_(1889).jpg&oldid=670096634 (accessed March 13, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Wheat Field with Cypresses,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wheat_Field_with_Cypresses&oldid=1222477822 (accessed March 13, 2025).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Wheat Fields,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wheat_Fields&oldid=1277932418 (accessed March 13, 2025).

[3] Wikipedia contributors, “Vincent van Gogh,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vincent_van_Gogh&oldid=1279502999 (accessed March 13, 2025).

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March 10, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to Story part 6 – Plotting the End #writing

We have been working on plotting a novel for the last month in our series, Idea to Story. The previous installments are listed below, but at this point, we have our two main characters, Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the enemy, Kai Voss, a court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

We also have our ultimate enemy, Donovan Dove, Kai’s half-brother and most trusted advisor. I have landed on a working title that speaks to the genre, Valentine’s Gambit.

We have allowed the characters to tell us the story. Save everything you cut to a new document, labeled and dated: “Outtakes_ValentinesGambit_03-08-25.” (That stands for Outtakes, Valentine’s Gambit, March 2025.)

The Inciting Incident: The plot as it stood last week: Twelve-year-old Edward has been steadily declining in health since the deaths of his parents. Information has come to Val’s attention that someone highly trusted has cursed the young king with a wasting illness. She immediately suspects Kai and moves Edward to a safe place. The story is off and running.

Kai has also received information from his most trusted source that Edward is being poisoned. His suspicions immediately fall on Val, whom he believes wishes to take the throne and rule as a warrior queen. When he discovers the king has been taken from the castle (kidnapped, as he believes), he rallies the soldiers loyal to him and mounts a search.

Roadblocks arise as Val and her soldiers hinder Kai’s attempts to regain custody of Edward. Kai finds a way around them, leading to another crisis scene and a stalemate.

At the Midpoint, Donovan Dove springs his trap, capturing both Kai and Valentine and imprisoning them in his dungeon. He posts announcements in all the towns proclaiming that they are traitors who have tried to kill the young king. He assumes the role of regent and plans to behead them at dawn.

Val immediately comprehends what just happened and finds a way to escape. Against her better judgment, she makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to free Kai, dragging him to her grandmother’s house. Only now is the mage discovering the magnitude of his brother’s betrayal.

This dungeon scene tells the reader that our true quest will be rescuing Edward before he dies from Donovan’s curse.

Now, we must consider the best way to end this mess. Something big and important must be achieved in the final chapters.

First, Val and Kai have to stop blaming each other and agree to work together.

  • Val’s grandmother has some tough love for both of them.

Second, they must gather a core group of talented people. Donovan has murdered the friends he used as messengers in his betrayal, but several other friends of each are in hiding. So, Val and Kai must leave her grandmother’s hut and rally their supporters.

They need a thief/spy and two soldiers, and Val knows where to find them. They also need a healer because Edward is near death. Val’s grandmother could fill that role—she is already named and her abilities are established.

  • They can build up an army if you choose, but limiting the number of named characters is crucial.

Third, they need a base, a place to live, and resources to gather while they devise the plan to free Edward. Grandmother’s hut is known to Donovan’s minions so they must move on.

What is the core conflict? For me, a good way to find the ending is to revisit the notes I have made as the story evolves. If I have been on top of things, each change has been noted, so I’m looking at the current blueprint of the novel to this point.

This is when I go back to square one. By seeing the whole picture of the story to this point, I usually find the inspiration to put together the final scenes that I know must happen. I sit down with a notebook (or, in my case, a spreadsheet) and make a list of what events must occur between the place where they escape the dungeon and the end. I save that document with a title, something like:

Valentines_Gambit _Final_Chpts_Worksheet_03-08-2025

At first, the page is only a list. The chapter headings are pulled out of the ether, accompanied by the howling of demons as I force my plot to take shape:

  • Chapter – Val drags Kai to a safe place. Discovery of the deaths of close friends.
  • Chapter – Donovan’s plan revealed.
  • Chapter – Evading Donovan’s bespelled soldiers.
  • Chapter – Discovering where Edward is being held
  • (and so on until the last event) Mage duel – ends when Kai casts a beginner’s spell to trip Donovan, and Val kills him.
  • Final chapter – Val and Kai reinstated as regents. Together they raise Edward to adulthood and he grows up to be a good, beloved king, Will they marry? It’s a romance, so yes, they will live as happily as people ever do.

I begin writing details that pertain to the section beneath each chapter heading as they occur to me. Once that list is complete, those sketchy details get expanded on and grow into complete chapters, which I then copy and paste into the manuscript.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room – what to do with scenes that no longer work now that we’re nearing the end. Something we all suffer from is the irrational notion that “if we wrote it, we have to keep it,” even though it no longer fits.

Let’s be honest. No amount of rewriting and adjusting will make a scene or chapter work if it’s no longer needed to advance the story. If the story is stronger without that great episode, cut it.

What you have written but not used in the finished novel is a form of world-building. It contributes to the established canon of that world and makes it more real in your mind. I urge you to save your outtakes with a file name that clearly labels them as background or outtakes. Not having to reinvent those useful sections will significantly speed up other projects.

Use the outtakes as fodder for a short story or novella set in that world. This is how prolific authors end up with so many short stories to make into compilations. It’s useful to know that with a few name changes, every side quest not used in the final manuscript can quickly be made into a short story.

Another good reason to save everything you cut in a separate document is this: I often reuse some of that prose later, at a place where it makes more sense.

That need to cut and rearrange is why I don’t number my chapters in the first draft. You may have noticed in the example above that I head each section with the word “chapter” (and no number) written out. I want to be able to find the word “chapter” with a global search when I do insert the numbers.

This is because (in my world) most first drafts are not written linearly. For me, the story arc changes structurally as I lay down that first draft, so chapter numbers become confusing. Nowadays, I put the numbers in when the manuscript has made it through the final draft and is ready for my editor.

Designing the ending is as challenging (and yet easy) as writing the opening scenes. It is so satisfying to write those final pages—one of the best feelings I have experienced as an author.

The sample plot that we have used for this series has a happy ending. This is because within the first five chapters, when we began writing our characters, it became a Romantasy and romance readers want happy endings.

Sometimes, we all want happy endings.

PREVIOUS IN THIS SERIES:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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March 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 5 – plotting treason #writing

We have been working on plotting a novel for the last month in our series, Idea to Story. The previous installments are listed below, but at this point we have our two main characters, Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the enemy, Kai Voss, court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

I write fantasy, but every story is the same, no matter the set dressing: Protagonist A needs something desperately, and Antagonist B stands in their way. In this story, Valentine begins as our protagonist, and we are setting Kai up as the visible antagonist.

The plot as it stood last week: Twelve-year-old Edward has been steadily declining in health since the deaths of his parents. His bodyguards, led by Val, believe the court sorcerer has cursed him with a wasting illness. Edward’s other guardian, Kai, and his advisors believe Val is poisoning him.

Kai’s most trusted advisor is his older half-brother, Donovan Dove. Donovan is highly educated and an accomplished mage. However, his mother was a commoner and therefore not allowed to marry his father, so he has been relegated to supporting roles, such as tutoring his younger brother in all aspects of magic and the other gentlemanly arts as befits the heir to their father’s earldom. Their father appointed him as steward of their lands, so he is in charge of running the family estate while Kai is away from home doing his job of tending to the young king’s education.

Donovan is thirty-eight, exceptionally handsome and charming. He gambles well and rarely loses.

  • His nouns are passion, desire, and deceit. His modifiers (adjectives) are suave, worldly, courtly, enigmatic, and devious.
  • Donovan’s verbs are shape, create, mold, conceal, charm.

Donovan’s void is obsession and jealousy.

Our characters have told us what the plot is while we were creating them, by virtue of their personalities: their nouns, verbs, and voids. So, we’re going to allow them to continue telling us what the conflict is, and we will observe and create a framework, a series of guideposts to write to.

We will drop Val and Kai into the soup as soon as the main side characters are in place. We present them with a quest that appears to be the real one but is only a smoke screen concealing the true villain’s motives and allowing him to neatly get rid of them. This first quest gets the story moving and keeps the reader reading.

  • Regardless of genre or plot, this is the place where the characters are set on the path to their destiny.

For this story, we will use a four-act plot arc, dividing the story into quarters. The first act ends with the inciting incident.

The inciting incident is where the protagonists first realize they’re blocked from achieving the desired goal.  In this case, information has come to Val’s attention that someone highly trusted has cursed the young king with a wasting illness. She immediately suspects Kai and moves Edward to a safe place.

Kai has also received information from his most trusted source that Edward is being poisoned. His suspicions immediately fall on Val, whom he believes wishes to take the throne and rule as a warrior queen. When he discovers the king has been taken from the castle (kidnapped, as he believes), he rallies the soldiers loyal to him and mounts a search.

A roadblock arises, as both characters believe the other intends to kill Edward. Val and her soldiers are very good at what they do. Kai attempts to find a way around them, leading to another crisis scene and a stalemate.

The second act ensues with more action leading to more trouble, rising to a pitch when the hidden adversary springs his trap.

  • This is where personal weaknesses are exposed in our two main characters, offering the opportunity for growth.

The way I see this plot now, at the midpoint, both Valentine and Kai Voss are waking up in the dungeon and realizing they have been played by Donovan Dove.

Or, if they aren’t, they should be. After all, the struggle is the story.

Val immediately comprehends what just happened and finds a way to escape. Against her better judgement, she makes a spur of the moment decision to free Kai, who is still in shock. Only now is the mage discovering the magnitude of his brother’s betrayal.

This dungeon scene tells us what the plot needs to be from here onward, and what our true quest is: rescuing Edward before he dies from Donovan’s curse.

We must open each act with a strong scene, an arc of action that illuminates the characters, their wants and emotions. This allows the reader to learn things as the protagonist does. We have the chance to insert subtle clues regarding things the characters are not aware of, knowledge that will affect the plot.

The hints we offer at the beginning and through the first half of the book are important. Foreshadowing piques the reader’s interest and makes them want to know how the book will end. However, we want to keep the real villain and the depth of his villainy secret until the moment Kai and Val stumble into his trap.

Only then will the small clues that all is not as it appears make sense.

I work best when I create a broad outline of the story arc as the characters reveal it to me.  I also like to know how it will end so that I can write to that ending.

  • What moral (or immoral) choice will our protagonists have to make in their attempt to achieve their objective?
  • What happens at the first pinch point? How does the false information come to them?
  • How does Donovan keep his true motives secret until he has Val and Kai where he wants them?
  • How does Donovan dispose of the side characters who deliver the false information he has given them?
  • At the midpoint how is the health and emotional condition of Val and Kai?
  • How will Val and Kai set aside their animosity and learn to trust each other?
  • What is Donovan’s plan now that he has custody of the king?

At the ¾ point, Val and Kai should have gathered some resources and rallied their companions. They should be preparing to rescue Edward and planning how to face Donovan for the final battle.

Subplots should be introduced after the inciting incident has taken place. If you introduce them too soon, they can distract the reader, making for a haphazard story arc. In my opinion, side quests work best if they are presented once the tone of the book and the main crisis has been established, and only if they are necessary to the completion of the final, overarching quest.

How long do you plan the book to be? Take that word count and divide it by 4. Place the culmination of your first major event at the ¼ mark. The following two quarters are the middle. If you have set your first half action up right and have an idea of how the story should end, the middle and the ending should fall into place like dominoes.

PREVIOUS IN THIS SERIES:

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

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February 24, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 4 – the roles of side characters #writing

We are designing a fantasy story, and we are going to write it for us, writing as freely as we want. We’re writing like no one will ever read it but us, so it will be our story, flowing from our vision.

So far, we have created our protagonist and the initial antagonist and have an idea of what their quest is.

We have discovered that our novel might be a Romantasy, as the enemies-to-lovers trope seems to be developing. Now, let’s look at the allies that help our characters as they each strive to fulfill their quest. These are the friends and supporters who enable them to achieve their goals.

The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler, details the various traditional archetypes that form the basis of most characters in our modern mythology, or literary canon.

The following is the list of character archetypes as described by Vogler:

  1. Hero: someone who is willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of others.
  2. Mentor: all the characters who teach and protect heroes and give them necessary gifts.
  3. Threshold Guardian: a menacing face to the hero, but if understood, they can be overcome.
  4. Herald: a force that brings a new challenge to the hero.
  5. Shapeshifters: characters who constantly change from the hero’s point of view.
  6. Shadow: a character who represents the energy of the dark side.
  7. Ally: someone who travels with the hero through the journey, serving a variety of functions, including that of sacrificial lamb.
  8. Trickster: embodies the energies of mischief and desire for change.

Side characters are essential, especially characters with secrets because they are a mystery. Readers love to work out puzzles. However, the job of the supporting cast is to keep the attention focused on the protagonist and the antagonist and their quest.

For that reason, I recommend keeping the number of allies limited. Too many named characters can lead to confusion in the reader. For the sake of simplicity, I am limiting the number of characters in each party to 3 trusted cohorts.

The quest is simple: Our protagonist and antagonist are co-regents of twelve-year-old King Edward. Both seek to keep him alive, but they have radically different ideas about his upbringing. Both believe the other is the cause of Edward’s wasting illness.’

At this point in the planning process, Edward is a MacGuffin, and if he has a personality, it will emerge as time goes on. So, how does Val’s party line up?

  1. First is the ally who is also the trickster. This character is as yet unnamed, but they are the core of Val’s spy network and will be fun to write. This ally will also serve as the sacrificial lamb, bringing pathos into the story.
  2. Val’s second in command fills the role of paladin, a common fantasy character trope. He is a trusted officer in the royal guards. He does not trust the spy, bringing friction and mutual distrust into play and offering opportunities for our spy to vent his humor at the paladin’s expense.
  3. Val’s third ally is a healer, a woman who was young King Edward’s nurse when he was a baby. She also has the role of mentor when wisdom is required.

Our sidekicks are as yet unnamed, BUT we might have our novel made into an audiobook. Thus, we must consider ease of pronunciation when a name is read aloud.

Every core character that the protagonists are surrounded by should project an unmistakable surface persona, characteristics that a reader will recognize as unique from the outset.

Kai Voss will also have three trusted allies.

  1. Kai’s much older (illegitimate) half-brother is also a sorcerer and has long served as Kai’s mentor. He is also the Shadow, the suave, worldly character who subtly brings the energy of the dark side.
  2. Two soldiers have sided with Kai, both firmly believing they are the salvation of the young king. One is the paladin, a man who believes in honor and loyalty to the king and the traditions that he believes in.
  3. One soldier has the role of herald and will be the sacrificial lamb when he uncovers an uncomfortable truth.

From the moment they enter the story, we should see glimpses of weaknesses and fears. We should see hints of the sorrows and guilts that lie beneath their exterior personas. These characters are not the protagonist, so their backstory must emerge as a side note, a justification for their inclusion in the core group.

Old friends have long histories, and the protagonist knows most of their secrets at the outset—but perhaps not all. Unspoken secrets will emerge only at critical points if and when they affect the protagonist or antagonist, and only if they  provide the reader with information they must know.

If these friends are new to the protagonist, their stories should emerge in the form of information needed to complete the quest.

In real life, everyone has emotions and thoughts they conceal from others. Perhaps they are angry and afraid, or jealous, or any number of emotions we are embarrassed to acknowledge. Maybe they hope to gain something on a personal level. If so, what? Small hints revealing those unspoken motives are crucial to raising the tension in the narrative.

As writers, our task is to ensure that each character’s individual story intersects smoothly and doesn’t jar the reader.

To do that, the motivations of the side characters must be clearly defined. You must know how the person thinks and reacts as an individual.

Ask yourself what deep desires push this character onward? Just as you have done with the hero of your story, ask yourself what the side characters’ moral boundaries are and what actions would be out of character for them?

  • Write nothing that seems out of character unless there is a good, justified reason for that behavior or comment.

We want to create empathy in the reader for the group as a whole, but we want to keep the pace of the plot arc moving forward.

Certain plot tricks function well across all genres, from sci-fi to romance, no matter the setting. In most novels, one or more characters are “fish out of water” in that they are immediately thrust into an unfamiliar and possibly dangerous environment.

In our current manuscript, it is our antagonist, Kai Voss, who will be thrust into the unknown by a traitor acting on their secret agenda, and we will talk about that in our next installment.

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February 21, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh 1888 

Artist: Vincent van Gogh  (1853–1890)

Title:  Starry Night Over the Rhone

Genre: landscape painting

Date:1888

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 720 mm (28.3 in)

Collection: Musée d’Orsay 

Exhibition history: Van Gogh and Britain, Tate Britain

 

What I love about this painting:

Vincent’s night sky is shown with reverence, the vault of heaven above shining the light of hope over the darkness of the world below. His colors are dark and intense, yet bright where light is needed—a kind of purity in execution that was one of his gifts.

In April of 2022, Fellow writer, Johanna Flynn and Greg and I joined friends to attend an immersive exhibit of Vincent van Gogh’s life through his work. We roamed freely inside an everchanging exhibit that flowed through many of his most famous works and zoomed in on bits one wouldn’t ordinarily notice.

The classical soundtrack was the perfect accompaniment. For several hours, we were immersed in Vincent’s visions of the world he loved but didn’t fit in.

The exhibit was such a moving, emotional experience. I felt as if I had seen into the man and his art.

That day, I became a Vincent van Gogh fangirl.

Vincent’s stars are surreal, yet they show the truth of how he saw the world.

About this painting, via Wikipedia:

Van Gogh announced and described this composition in a letter to his brother Theo:

Included a small sketch of a 30 square canvas – in short the starry sky painted by night, actually under a gas jet. The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colorful figurines of lovers in the foreground.

In reality, the view depicted in the painting faces away from Ursa Major, which is to the north. The foreground indicates heavy rework, wet-in-wet, as soon as the first state was finished. The letter sketches executed at this time probably are based on the original composition.

Colors of the night

The challenge of painting at night intrigued van Gogh. The vantage point he chose for Starry Night allowed him to capture the reflections of the gas lighting in Arles across the glimmering blue water of the Rhône. In the foreground, two lovers stroll by the banks of the river.

Depicting colour was of great importance to Vincent; in letters to his brother, Theo, he often described objects in his paintings in terms of colour. His night paintings, including Starry Night, emphasize the importance he placed on capturing the sparkling colors of the night sky and of the artificial lighting that was new to the era.

The Great Bear

In September 1888, when Vincent van Gogh painted this picture on the banks of the Rhône, he saw the city of Arles looking south-west. The Great Bear will never be visible in that direction. On the other hand, he only had to turn his head to the north to see the constellation in exactly the position depicted. This painting is therefore an assemblage of a terrestrial plane and a celestial plane.

The Star Flowers

In 1888, when he painted the night sky, the stars resemble flowers. By the time he painted The Starry Night in 1889, his technique has evolved, the brightness of the stars being symbolized by concentric dotted circles. [1]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Vincent Willem van Gogh, 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, struggled with severe depression and poverty, and committed suicide at the age of 37.

Van Gogh was born into an upper-middle-class family, While a child he drew and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially; the two kept a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.

Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions, and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation between the two when, in a rage, Van Gogh severed a part of his own left ear with a razor. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression persisted, and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself in the chest with a revolver, dying from his injuries two days later. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh, ‘lightballs’.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Starry_Night_Over_the_Rhone_by_Vincent_van_Gogh,_%27lightballs%27.jpg&oldid=979586430 (accessed February 21, 2025).

[1] About this Painting via Wikipedia: Wikipedia contributors, “Starry Night Over the Rhône,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Starry_Night_Over_the_Rh%C3%B4ne&oldid=1272866843 (accessed February 21, 2025).

[2] About the artist:  Wikipedia contributors, “Vincent van Gogh,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vincent_van_Gogh&oldid=1276412810 (accessed February 21, 2025).

 

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February 17, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 3: plotting out loud #writing

Last week’s post, Idea to story, part 2: thinking out loud #writing, discussed how plots evolve as I design the main characters for a story. Our two main characters are Val (Valentine), a lady knight, and the enemy, Kai Voss, court sorcerer. Both are regents for the sickly, underage king.

The plot as it stood last week: Kai Voss has tired of being merely a co-regent. Twelve-year-old Edward has been steadily declining in health since the deaths of his parents. His bodyguards, led by Val, believe the sorcerer is the cause. This idea of the plot will evolve as we get to know our bad boy better.

At this point in our ruminations, we think we’re writing a novel, but we won’t know the final length until we’re much further along in this process.

Today, we’re going to design the plot for Val and Kai Voss’s story.

You’ll note that I say it is also the antagonist’s story. I say this because his story is why Val has a quest. So, today, we’re going to do a little more thinking out loud. Let’s take the notebook and the pencil out to the balcony and let Val’s story ferment a bit.

We had a good look at Val last week, so now we’ll meet and get to know Kai Voss. I know it seems backwards, but this is how I work. Good villains are the fertile soil from which a great plot can grow. Once we know who he is and how he thinks, we can help him make plans to stop Val and her soldiers.

First, I assign nouns that tell us how he sees himself at the story’s outset. I also look at sub-nouns and synonyms, which means I must put my thesaurus to work. The sorcerer’s nouns are bravado (boldness, brashness), daring, and courtliness. 

Our lad is definitely a charmer.

Kai also has verbs that show us his gut reactions: defend, fight, desire, preserve.

You will note the word defend is the lead verb in Kai’s description. What must he defend, and how does Valentine threaten him? At the age of sixteen, Val ran away from an arranged marriage, abandoning a woman’s traditional role. As such, Kai believes she is a bad influence on all the women she comes into contact with.

As we flesh out his character, we realize that he fears what Val’s very existence represents—a woman who escaped being forced into marriage and who successfully makes her own way in the world. Now thirty-five, she is captain of the royal guard and is a co-regent of the young, sickly king. Most importantly, her advice has a substantial impact on the young king, who sees her as a mother figure.

Kai is also thirty-five and while he has never found the right time for marriage, he feels compelled to defend the traditional roles of male supremacy. He must preserve what he believes is best for the young king and, through him, the country.

As you can see, the plot idea has already changed, veering away from a simple good vs. evil hero’s journey. I am finally realizing what kind of story is really trying to emerge.

  • By golly, I think we have fodder for an enemies-to-lovers romance here.

A character’s preconceptions color their experience of events. We see the story through their eyes, which colors how we see the incidents.

  • Val is a commoner who came up through the ranks of the royal guard and found favor with the young king’s parents. She has a great deal of disdain for the feckless nobility that inhabits the court and Kai can sense it. Her goal is to keep young King Edward alive and raise him to have compassion even for the least of his subjects.
  • Kai is a privileged noble with no idea of how the ordinary people really live. He also has one more noun, one that overrides all the others and informs his subsequent actions: fear. Kai’s goal is the same as Val’s, which is to keep young Edward alive, and failing that, to make sure the traditional ways continue.

However, Kai sees a dark future and must teach Edward the values of his ancestors, to ensure that the nobility retains their rights of absolute power.

He believes that the peasantry must be guided by their betters and will be cared for by the nobility. After all, his family treats their serfs well, so he is under the impression that the other lords also act fairly. Fear of what the future holds for the country means he must also position himself to step into the role of king if Edward dies of his wasting illness.

Our characters are unreliable witnesses. The way they tell us the story will always gloss over their own failings. The story moves ahead each time they are forced to rise above their weaknesses and face what they fear.

What are their voids? What words describe the primary weaknesses of your characters, the thing that could be their ultimate ruin?

Val – Arrogance, pigheadedness, and fear of being tied to a brute.

Kai Voss – Arrogance, obsession, and a misplaced sense of honor.

Now that we know our two characters share some of the same flaws, we can set them both up for some hard lessons in reality. What those lessons are will emerge as we progress.

But now I know that, in the end, they will find common ground, as the true enemy has been hiding in plain sight all along, pulling their strings.

In the next installment of this series, we’ll look at plotting the side characters. We’ll discuss the ways they can be used, not only to deliver needed information and provide moments of humor, but in other, more nefarious ways as well.

I know we haven’t delved into designing how Kai’s sorcerous skills work or explored Val’s ability in the martial arts. Trust me, we will get there before we wind up this series.

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February 14, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Winter in the Country – The Old Grist Mill by George Henry Durrie

Artist: George Henry Durrie (1820–1863)

Painting: Oil on canvas, 26 x 36 in

Date: 1862

What I love about this painting:

George Henry Durrie is one of my favorite American artists. In this painting, he shows us a winter’s day in New England in 1862. Snow covers the ground, but the sun is shining, lending a rosy glow to the day.

The stream bears a light skim of ice, but though the millwheel is covered in snow, the mill is not idle. This late (or early) in the year there is no wheat to grind, but the grain from the previous autumn’s harvest has been turned to flour and shoveled into bags and barrels and stored for sale as needed.

A horse-drawn sled crosses the log bridge, loaded with white cotton bags of flour. Perhaps the driver intends to take advantage of the good weather and deliver them to the local General Store or Mercantile.

Durrie’s horses and cattle are as true to life as his landscapes are. One can almost see the muscles moving beneath the glossy coat as our horse pull the sleigh.

If you are writing a story set in an era of lower technology, I strongly suggest you go to the art of Durrie and his contemporaries to find inspiration for worldbuilding.

About the artist, via Wikipedia:

George Henry Durrie (June 6, 1820 – October 15, 1863) was an American landscape artist noted especially for his rural winter snow scenes, which became very popular after they were reproduced as lithographic prints by Currier and Ives.

In Durrie’s time, winter landscapes were not popular with most curators and critics, but nevertheless, by the time of his death, Durrie had acquired a national reputation as a snowscape painter. Durrie died in 1863, at age 43, probably from typhoid fever, not long after Currier and Ives began reproducing his paintings as prints.

Durrie’s paintings, depicting idyllic rural life, a world of stability and home comforts, held great appeal for the middle class and the working class, as an visual antidote for the growing industrialization of America, and the uncertainties of a boom-and-bust economy. The American ideal of a land of self-sufficient farmers, captured by Durrie’s paintings, was being replaced with factories belching smoke, along with a rise in urban populations, foreign immigration, and crime brought about by crowded conditions and poverty. The American descendants of the early English settlers felt that their values and way of life were threatened by these new developments and turned to nostalgic images such as Durrie’s for comfort. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:George Henry Durrie – Winter in the Country, The Old Grist Mill.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:George_Henry_Durrie_-_Winter_in_the_Country,_The_Old_Grist_Mill.JPG&oldid=995260526 (accessed February 10, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “George Henry Durrie,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Henry_Durrie&oldid=1244671369 (accessed February 10, 2025).

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February 10, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story part 2: thinking out loud #writing

Over the years, I have learned many tricks to help people get their ideas out of their heads and onto paper.

Nearly everyone says they have an idea for a good story. What separates writers out from the crowd is this: as time passes and they think about it, they write those ideas down. Ninety five percent never get beyond this stage but for a few, thinking about it on paper ends and they dive straight into writing it.

Most will begin without an outline. They are flying blind, or in author speak, “pantsing it.” I am a planner, but I’m also a pantser. I begin with a document that details what I think the story is, a loose outline. I sit somewhere noisy, like a coffee shop or my apartment balcony, and let my mind wander, taking notes as the story comes to me.

When I first began writing, I didn’t know how to construct a story. As time went on and I attended writing classes and seminars, I learned how arcs shape every story, plot arcs, and character arcs. My loose outlines became more detailed. Eventually I began making an Excel workbook as a permanent storyboard/stylesheet for each series.

ANY document or spreadsheet program will work. I think of outlining as pantsing it in advance—a visual aid for when the writing gets real. If I have an idea of how the story should go, I won’t run out of words before the first draft is done.

Once I have the bare bones of the story down on paper, I begin fleshing out each scene. The outline becomes my first draft, and I save it with a new name.

Once that first draft is finished and in revisions, some scenes will make more sense when placed in a different order than originally planned. So, I update the outline with each change. This allows me to view the arc of the story from a distance, so I can see where it might be flatlining.

Sometimes, an event no longer makes sense and no matter how much I love it, I have to cut it. (I always save my outtakes in a separate file for later use.)

In last week’s post, I went over the questions I ask of each writing project before the words hit the paper. Two important questions are what genre do I think I’m writing in, and what is the underlying theme?

I love reading character-driven fantasy so that is what I write. A world emerges from my imagination along with the characters, and I make notes as bits and pieces of that environment occur to me.

Humor is crucial when you write fantasy that has some dark moments. I have a deep streak of gallows humor that often emerges inappropriately to my family’s regret. Humor in the face of disaster will be a theme. This theme comes out in most of my work.

Next, I create a brief personnel description, less than 100 words for each prominent character. I note the verbs, adjectives, and nouns that describe the character, as those give me all the necessary information. This is just a paragraph, but it contains the essential information.

Sometimes it takes a while to know what a character’s void is (a deep emotional wound), but it will emerge by the time the first draft is done.

The protagonist in the following example doesn’t have a story as she is just an illustration of what I do. But it would be easy to write one for her if I had a few other people figured out.

How I get a story out of my head and onto paper:

What is the core conflict? Is it the Quest for the Magic MacGuffin? Is it a coup followed by a struggle for power? It’s a fantasy, so a wide range of options are open to us.

Who are the players?

Excalibur London_Film_Museum_ via Wikipedia

Valentine (Protagonist) Hates her name and goes by Val. (Arms master, 36. Black hair, brown eyes, suntanned.) VOID: Deep sense of failure. A convergence of bad choices led to a stint in a dungeon. VERBS: Act, fight, build, protect. ADJECTIVES: wary, sarcastic, hopeful, dedicated, considerate. NOUNS: sorrow, guilt, purpose, compassion, wit.

Does Val have close friends? If not, will she gather companions? This question is important. If she doesn’t have friends at first, I will leave space on that page to add them when they emerge from my imagination. As I contemplate Val’s story, perhaps a love interest will show up later, or maybe not.

What happens to take Val out of her comfort zone? Sometimes I don’t have the answer to this for quite a while. Other times, it’s the spark that starts the story.

The entire arc of the story rests on how I answer the following question. What is Val’s goal, her deepest desire? Currently, it looks like she’s hoping to regain her self-respect. That will become a secondary quest when a more immediate problem presents itself.

What stands in her way? Who or what is the Enemy?

Let’s name the enemy Kai Voss. What is his deepest desire? How does Kai Voss control the situation at the outset? Once I know who the protagonist is and what they want, I give them the same personnel file I give all the other characters—I identify a void, verbs, adjectives, and nouns for him.

Once I have Kai Voss described in a paragraph, I can determine the quest. Kai Voss is the key to what Val must achieve. A believable villain is why Val’s story will be fun to write.

Later, after I have the characters figured out, I will work on the plot outline and try to shape the story’s arc. This is where roadblocks and obstacles do the heavy lifting, and my outline will contain ideas I can riff on. Val will have to work hard to achieve her goal, but so will Kai Voss.

Information and the lack of it drive the plot. Val can’t have all the information. Kai Voss must have more answers than Val and be ruthless in using that knowledge to achieve his goal. My outline will tell me when it’s time to dole out information. What complications arise from Val’s lack of information?

With each chapter, Val and her companions acquire the necessary information, but each answer leads to more questions. Conflicts occur when Kai Voss sets traps, and by surviving those encounters, Val gains more information about Kai Voss’s capabilities. She must persevere and use that knowledge to win the final battle.

Having my characters in place and an outline helps keep me on track when I am pantsing it through the first draft of a manuscript. New flashes of brilliance will occur as I am writing and will make the struggle real. But two fundamental things will remain constant:

Val’s determination to block Kai Voss and wreck the enemy’s plans is the plot.

Val’s growth as a character as she works her way through the plot is the story.

Next week in part three of this series, we will take a closer look at Val and Kai Voss and see how their strengths and weaknesses drive and help create the overall arc of the plot.

Credits and Attributions:

Excalibur, London Film Museum via Wikipedia

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February 7, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A closer look at ‘After the Rain, Gloucester’ by Paul Cornoyer

After_the_Rain_Gloucester_by_Paul_CornoyerTitle: After the Rain Gloucester

Artist: Paul Cornoyer (1864–1923)

Medium: Oil painting

Style: Pointilist/Tonalist/Impressionist

What I love about this painting and why it deserves a closer look:

Paul Cornoyer was a master of depicting weather. In this painting, a hard rain has just passed, and the late afternoon sun attempts to emerge behind us. It casts a rosy glow over the wet pavement and rising mist, a rare moment of beauty that is the only apology bad weather ever makes.

This painting is considered representative of the Ashcan School of art, an American art movement depicting urban scenes.

I especially appreciate the way Cornoyer depicts the far reaches of the city of Gloucester Massachusetts in the distance, using a pointillist technique. The church tower looms, a ghostly presence dominating the skyline.  Near the church, smoke from a distant factory hangs low, an ominous presence that lingers and then drifts away.

It’s as if the artist has just stepped outside and shows us the cold dampness of a rainy day to us. The sheen of water on the street and the way it reflects the surroundings is masterfully done, one of the finest examples of water in art.

Cornoyer is one of my favorite artists. While he isn’t as well-known as some others of that era, he was nonetheless a master and is deserving of an important place in American art history. His work is as meticulous and moving as that of John Singer Sargent or Childe Hassam.

About the artist:

Via Wikipedia: Paul Cornoyer (1864–1923) was an American painter, currently best known for his popularly reproduced painting in an Impressionist, tonalist, and sometimes pointillist style.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Cornoyer began painting in Barbizon style and first exhibited in 1887. In 1889, He moved to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian alongside Jules Lefebvre and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.

After returning from his studies in Paris in 1894, Cornoyer was heavily influenced by the American tonalists. At the urging of William Merritt Chase, he moved to New York City in 1899. In 1908, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery (formerly the Albright Gallery) hosted a show of his work. In 1909, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician. He taught at Mechanics Institute of New York and in 1917, he moved to Massachusetts, where he continued to teach and paint. [1]

Quote from Cornoyer’s bio on Questroyal Fine Art: In New York, Cornoyer worked in a predominantly tonalist style, creating city and street scenes that received praise from critics and won awards. He favored rainy and snowy views of Washington Square Park, Madison Square Park, and Fifth Avenue, rendered in subtle grayed tones. Contemporaries observed that rather than conveying urban chaos, Cornoyer preferred images of calm amidst the bustle of the city. The poetic nature of his work and his sensitivity to atmosphere and color were duly noted. [2]

Credits and Attributions

IMAGE: After the Rain Gloucester, Paul Cornoyer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:After the Rain Gloucester by Paul Cornoyer.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:After_the_Rain_Gloucester_by_Paul_Cornoyer.jpg&oldid=786054148 (accessed February 6, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Paul Cornoyer,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Cornoyer&oldid=1118249028 (accessed February 6, 2025).

[2] Paul Cornoyer | Questroyal (questroyalfineart.com) (accessed Feb. 6, 2025).

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February 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

Idea to story, part 1: novel, poetry, memoir, or short story? #writing

Stories are universes that begin with the spark of an idea and burst into existence.  When an author has this fledgling thought, it grows, expands, and won’t stop nagging at her. New authors often don’t know how to make that idea into the kind of story they have always wanted to write.

The basic premise of any story in any genre can be answered in eight questions. I have listed them before, but here they are again:

  1. Who are the players?
  2. Who is the POV character?
  3. Where does the story open?
  4. What does the protagonist have to say about their story?
  5. How did they arrive at the point of no return?
  6. What do they want, and what will they do to get it?
  7. What hinders them?
  8. How does the story end? Is there more than one way this could go?

Question number two is where, once the first rush of creativity passes, many would-be writers give up. They experience a momentary lull in creativity and don’t have the tools to visualize what to write next.

When we have a lull in creativity, we wonder how to free the words and get the story back on track.

It helps to consider what kind of story those ideas want to be.

Sometimes stories want to be novels.

Has the story decided what genre it is? Mine always come into existence with a setting, and that determines the genre. If your story wants to be a novel, ask yourself what the central theme is.

  • Theme is a core thread, such as love lost and regained, or coming of age, etc.

If you have a theme to write to, the plot will emerge more easily.

Will you “pants it” through the plot or create a plot outline? Outlines are just me thinking out loud on paper.

There are times when my stories want to be poems, because poetry is emotional and emotion powers my words. My poetry details the fantasy that is the memory of my childhood home.

It describes the way I felt about lake where I grew up, the forest surrounding our property and the swamp that bordered our driveway. A river emerged from the south end of my lake, and I write about the memories of fishing with my father.  To the west of the lake, the high hills rise above, dominating the western sky from every view in the county. When I see those hills, I know I am home.

When poetic words have a grip on your imagination, write them down. If you want to learn more about the different genres of poems and how to write them, here is a short list:

Free verse  is a modern construct that may not rhyme but the cadence and pacing of the syllables have rhythm.

Traditionally structured poetry includes Odes, Haikus, Elegies, Sonnets, Dramatic Poetry, or Narrative Poetry.

In my misspent youth, I was a musician and wrote lyrics for a heavy metal band, so I tend to write lyric poetry. I have a friend who writes sci-fi poetry.

Much of my work is in the form of short stories. In the beginning of your writing life, you work might be short forms too. Will you “pants it” or write little outlines? I work both ways when it comes to short stories.

I’ve written more than a hundred short stories in the past few years, enough that I can put together several collections. I am working on editing one as we speak.

If I have learned anything over the last decade or so, it’s that a collection of stories can’t be a bunch of random tales shoved into a book. To make a coherent collection of stories in one volume, I must consider several things.

What genre? Or will it be a mix of genres? This is a risky choice but could succeed if a specific theme binds the stories together.

Another thing to consider is whether or not I have enough stories featuring a recurring character or location to bind the collection together. I do for one series but will have to rely on a theme for the other collection.

You’ve noticed that I’m repeating myself—but trust me, a fiction project is easier to create if you know what genre you are writing for and can see the central theme that will bind it together.

Sometimes new authors say their project is a memoir. If a new writer tells me this, I always wonder if they have read any. If they haven’t read any memoirs, there may be a problem. Reading the memoirs written by successful authors is the best way to learn how the plots of outstanding memoirs are constructed.

Memoirists should ask two questions of their work. Will you detail actual memories or write a fictionalized account? Do you dare to name names or not?

  • Naming names could be opening a can of worms, so think long and hard before you do that.

Some new authors have no intention of publishing a memoir. They just want to write a family history, a fun project. Here are some considerations if you fall into that category.

Are you just curious, or are you searching for an identity, trying to discover who you are and where your family comes from? Research from a site such as ancestry.com or gleaned from family bibles, letters, and other collected papers will greatly help you.

Will you include photographs or interviews with older family members who may remember something about your family’s history?

This is a project I’ve thought about embarking on, but I know I would never finish it. I don’t need another unfinished project laying around.

When we have the spark of a story, an idea that won’t let us go, we can spend years trying to get that vision out of our heads and ready for publication. It takes an incredible amount of work and a continuing habit of self-education to grow as a writer.

Getting your book to the publishing stage can be expensive. When we think we have our novel, memoir, or short story collection finished, we must consider hiring a freelance editor—even if we plan to find an agent and go the traditional route. We never submit anything that isn’t our best work.

But if you are in the “just starting out” phase, please know that you are not alone. When you hold the finished product in your hand, you will know the struggle was worth it.

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