A Cabinet of Curiosities
in which our hero has fun with rabbits, magic mirrors, and more.
Dear Readers,
Work continues on The Blood of Seven Queens, though of course the work never happens fast enough for certain parts of my brain.
That’s maybe why it’s as useful for me to write these twice-monthly letters to you as it is for you to receive them. Slowing down for a moment to reflect on everything I have done over the past two weeks is a surefire way of calming down that part of my brain which is convinced I’m a lazy fraud trying to bilk well-meaning people out of their time and money.
Here’s what I’ve managed to get down this past fortnight with your support:
ART
I finished work on re-designing my white rabbit character, Albus Lepus, and I’m incredibly happy with the results. I already included one of the re-done images above, but here’s one more.
In fact, I had so much fun working on the white rabbit—and the new version makes illustrating with him so much easier—that I decided to do the same for the Big Bad Wolf. That one’s still a work in progress, but I may have something to show you next time.
WRITING
I finished the script for issue 2 of Seven Queens and was really pleased with where the backstory of Sleeping Beauty took me. She gets to be a much more active character in her story than in the traditional fairy tale, but in the end she still gets to find love too.
In talking with my youngest daughter, I’ve found that’s what’s making the difference for her with fairy tale reboots. In her opinion, it’s okay to change a lot about the plot of these stories, but you can’t deny the princesses their romances or else what’s the point? These reimagined young women can be badasses and fall in love. It doesn’t have to be an either/or. That seems to be Melody’s message to me.
WORLDBUILDING
I’ve been having a lot of fun with World Anvil’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” Challenge, where we’re all writing about fantastic objects in our worlds in response to one-word prompts. You can check out all the stuff I’ve done so far here, but my favorites are probably:
Elven Shoes, which links together the lore of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Cinderella;
Enchanted Paintings, which is my spin on the titular object from The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; and,
Magic Mirror, which puts an interesting twist on that old chestnut.
And that’s all for this time. My family and I are off to Florida next week, having decided that the university can take my job from me but they can’t take my family’s vacation away. I’ll report back on that in two weeks. But until then, I hope all is well and remains well in your neck of the woods.
Cheers,
Chris