Occasional Musings
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
A Writer’s Life
Here in my blog you’ll find reflections on stories, history, art, ideas, and words: everything that makes me want to write. I’ll post thoughts about my books and the adventures of a writer: the travel, research, accidental encounters and imaginative glimmers that go into the making of a book. From time to time, I’ll post excerpts of writing new and old.
History
Odd quirks and surprising corners of history fascinate me, so you’ll also find some historical tidbits, mostly on the eras and places I know something about: medieval and early modern Europe, especially England, Flanders and France, with the occasional foray into more modern periods. Research for a book often turns up odd flotsam and jetsam that I can’t find a place for in the book at hand. Sometimes, people, places or events that get no more than a passing mention in a book open onto deep wells of story that would hijack a whole book, given half a chance. A blog seems a great place to share these.
Art
Art — the fine and performing arts, along with all kinds of story — is a wondrous house of mirrors that continually fires my imagination. On occasion, I’ll share some of my favorites.
Ideas
I am by nature a historian of the imagination, of words and ideas: and history never sits still. It’s always happening, all around us. I expect some reflections on current events, ideas, language, ethics and politics – history in the making – will show up here, as well.
Fantastic Worlds
Finally: I’ve always been drawn to deeply imagined and finely drawn worlds, whether those are the wildly fantastical universes of J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula LeGuin, and Sir Thomas Malory, or the more realistic and wonderfully varied worlds of the Norse sagas, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Dunnett, Toni Morrison, and Lisa See. To read these authors’ books is to step through some magical mirror into another place and time, to lose yourself in a journey of the imagination. What makes some worlds satisfying – deliciously thick, shimmering with light and shadow, seemingly infinite, and infinitely interesting… or conversely disappointing, failing to achieve anything more than an occasional glimpse of such depth while remaining mostly mired in flimsy and stilted shallowness? I suppose that’s the age-old question of what makes art great: but it’s a question endlessly worth pondering.
That’s what blogs boil down to: ponderings. Here I’m happy for you to share mine.
“If you open it, you must follow where it leads…”
Jennifer
September 22, 2024