Ceallaigh's Blog
The last time I practiced my faith in the company of like-minded people was in 2003, when Sean and I were attending and occasionally leading an open circle of diverse Pagans in Bangor, Maine. Since then, I've been largely solitary, except for my correspondence with OBOD tutors in the Ovate and Druid grades. Part of the reason for this was Sean's education, our subsequent moves to Michigan and Nova Scotia and my immersion in both my writing career and the Gàidhlig community. I'm just busy. However, my primary reasons for solitary practice have had to do with the community itself; the lack of welcome I received when reaching out to local Pagans, the pervasive negative behavior I found on message boards, the open groups and rituals riddled with co-dependency and problematic practices. Because I'm so busy, and because I've been Pagan for so long, I just don't have the time or the energy for anything that doesn't meet my spiritual needs in a healthful way.
I'm getting a pile of spam on the web site blog right now, and while I'm notified immediately of all new comments and have an IP Ban module in place, I can't be arsed to chase these comments down two and three times a day.
The best deterrent for spamming behavior is moderated commenting, so that's what I'm going to do for a bit until things calm down. I'll have any comments you send me posted within an hour or two (unless you post them at 3:00 am), and I apologize for any lack of instant gratification my decision might cause. =)
This edition of Activism Updates is of the link spam variety, containing opportunities for activism in Canada and the United States.
Canadian Residents and Interested Friends
Senator Mac Harb reports via the Huffington Post that he has received a humanitarian award from PETA for introducing Bill S-210 to end Canada's commercial seal slaughter. He writes:
I was digging through my story and poetry notes folders this morning and came across a set of eight sabbat cards I created so long ago I was still using my old inkforthedead.com domain name (that domain is still active and resolves to csmaccath.com now). I'm not sure why I never created a CafePress store for them, but I did today, and you can buy them if you like!
I took each of the photos while on holiday in Ireland or Alaska, and of course, I wrote all of the greeting card verse. I'll likely add more cards and perhaps other items as the mood strikes me, but these are enough to be getting on with at present.
You can find the store at: http://www.cafepress.com/csmaccath
Today is for planning the next six weeks of my writing life. I've been fortunate enough to sell nearly all the stories and poems in my inventory, so while I'm waiting to hear back from agents about my novel, I thought I'd take a break and create some new things to share. One of the stories came to me whole cloth in a dream, and while the dream logic of it will likely need tweaking before it works as narrative, I'm still excited to finally be giving it some attention. The title came to me in the dream as well; Sing the Crumbling City. Another story is rooted in my distaste for the pseudo-philosophical concept of metanorms and my desire to write the evolution of a female anti-hero. It might be called Chachalmeca, but I'm not sold on the title yet. I also need to unearth a few unfinished poems from the journal I jotted them down in and polish them up.
I've written the final post in the ConLangs 101 series, ConLangs 101: The Primordial World Sea People, which covers the biological, syntactical, historical and cultural components of the languages I created for the Primordial World Sea People (PWSP) and their descendants. However, I've realized in doing so that I've tipped my hand more than I'd like in advance of the sale and publication of Twilight of the World Sea People. Also, strategically speaking, the post will have more impact and generate more interest in the book once it's published. So I'm holding it in reserve for now, with apologies.
In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed the series so far! Here's what I've covered:
After a six-week hiatus of the domestic goddess variety, I am officially back at the keyboard tomorrow, with business, blog entries and story outlines a-plenty to sort, and not necessarily in that order.
I've been looking for a Neverwinter Nights clip that expresses my feelings about this return to creative productivity, but I can't seem to find it online, and I don't have the game installed, so I can't pull it from the dialogue. At first I thought it was a Deekinism, but now I think it belongs to that goblin I rescued at the entrance to Undermountain, the one that gets hired to work at the inn and complains about it all the time. All I remember is this gravelly voice grumbling "Baaack to wooork!" every time I climbed up out of the dungeon and back into the inn's basement.
You know, if you have to explain a quip that thoroughly, it just isn't funny anymore.
I'm preparing to reinstall my operating systems today (Dhia! What an undertaking!), and while I'm waiting for various backups to complete, I'd like to share with you something I'm learning about writing your first book.
The hardest part isn't beginning the work, or straining against the limits of your creativity to craft the most beautiful words you can, or finding the time and the wherewithal to finish what you've started.
It's trying to sell your book when you're done.
Greetings Everyone,
Welcome to Issue #4 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Lughnasadh 2012.
In the third and fourth installments of this series, I discussed the biological and linguistic components of language construction. In this post, I'll be discussing the intersection between language and culture. The study of this relationship is called ethnolinguistics or cultural linguistics, which might be of interest to you if you want to delve more deeply into language theory. But my focus here is on conlang development for world-building, so I'll be offering you a more practical approach to the topic.