Under the Sea

I have once again reached the most terrifying part of a novel -- the slippery slide to the finish. Except I'm like one of those chickenshit little kids who sit at the top of the highest slide wailing that they're too scared to let go and just slide. So, even though I began yesterday by sketching out the entirety of the first of the Scary Slide Chapters, I ended up going for a drive into Perth. There was some logic there; my mother needed a ride to the airport. Having gone all that distance, my father and I ended up going to the Aquarium of Western Australia, hence the rather trippy photograph above.

It was an interested experience, being that the main reason I wanted to go is because I have been writing three novels involving the machinations of four gods, each having most sway over one cardinal element. The West is Water, and he has been haunting me a lot recently. It's partially because he is the most human of the four, and by consequence the least human. He's a very curious wee creature, my Inamoran. As I walked around the aquarium I felt him with me. He's barely my height -- about five foot four -- and light of foot, and has this lovely lilting light little voice. ...ha ha, that makes me sound insane. I swear I'm not. I've had an overactive imagination since I was very small, and my greatest regret is that I am paradoxically too logical to have ever had a proper imaginary friend even when so very tiny, because I knew it was impossible. Hence my love for reading and writing fantastical stories, I suppose.

But I walked these waters, the places that he loves, and I took some photographs. I decided to share a few of them, just because it might aid me in getting back to the Slippery Slide of Doom. I'm a lousy photographer at the best of times, and my camera can't cope with lowlight conditions very well, so I apologise for the quality. But still. It's the song of the sea.

So, I need to go for a walk into town to visit a bank machine, as I am going horse-riding tomorrow afternoon. So much for the writing? Ha. My excuse is that I haven't really got a lot of opportunity to do it at home, and I need to go down to Margaret River anyway. I rode both a camel and a donkey in Egypt last month, and as a consequence ended up wanting to ride a horse. I can claim it as research, anyway; in the older stories the characters ride horses. Mostly. Ha. I also need to do a tiny bit of shopping and work out what I am making for dinner, how domestic of me. But I might read a chapter or two of the book I acquired yesterday, the second part of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. It's only taken ten years and one Singapore Airlines flight from Heathrow to Changi for me to finally get around to doing it. But really, my thoughts on that series so far is an entirely different entry.

In the meantime, there have been various soundtracks to my writing as of late, but I feel the urge to share this Jean-Patrick Capdevielle piece. He is the composer who first brought us Emma Shapplin, whose voice I have loved since 1999. This video is a song from his pseduo-opera Atylantos, and considering the fate of Inamoran...well. Atlantis has fascinated me since I was very small. When I was twelve or thirteen I created my own Atlantis, which eventually morphed into the enclave of the Ossu'heim, Inamoran's sole remaining children imprisoned between worlds and oceans by the curse of another god. Stories within stories. But I adore this song, even ten years after I first heard it.

Funnily enough, it's not my favourite -- that would be Bellezza Divina. But it's so much story in so little space and is absolutely beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful things, in case you wonder what my little imaginary friend who accompanied me to the aquarium looks like, I have had a commission of him done by the wonderfully talented Calicot over at DA.

He is on the right; the woman on the left is she who will be Chaesha, goddess of East and Air. They're actually both in their proper human forms in this picture. Which reminds me, last night after getting back from Perth I watched television (which I never do) and then I did write for a bit. But I started writing a short story about Janerin's human wife, Janerin being the god of North and Earth. Now that's procrastination, folks. I'll write, but not what I am supposed to!

...we're all doomed.