Vivienne's Adventures

I'm lucky enough to help watch over my nephew (who shall here be referred to as Little One), and he's just the cutest! I mean, look at his little face! Such a happy baby. ^_^ I love watching him and seeing him start to figure things out. He's at the age where he wants to eat Everything. …including me.  But I enjoy every moment with this energetic Little One and his squeaky-toy-like giggle. Being an auntie is pretty dang cool. Especially when your nephew is as adorable as this little guy (am I biased? Well, how could I not be ^_^).

  There's something perfectly delightful about being asked to draw on someone's skin. In sharpie. The semi-permanent-ness of that particular medium amuses me, because it's going to be stuck there until it eventually washes or rubs off.  I love drawing, and being asked to doodle on my aunts made for a fun experiment. What pens work, which ones didn't? (Turned out sharpie was the best option.) I think I ended up drawing a total of 5 or 6 doodles on 3 people. One of them insisted on having 4 drawings (you know, to be symmetrical). :D How about you? What fun things have you done with your families?

  I love writing! I've loved creating adventures and collecting names since probably early high school, at the latest. Back in high school, I never thought I could successfully attempt writing a book of my own...Cut to 2020. I now have 4 books in various stages of completion in my Christian Fantasy series, with a 5th to figure out, and numerous novellas and short stories.  I'm drowning in story ideas, and I love it! However, it is a lot to process, and I usually employ the help of my muse, Sylvia, and her cousin, Lapis. (Sylvia is the hot pink dragon in the pic above, and Lapis is the blue one that's trying in vain to read over my shoulder.) One of the many things I've learned since high school is that we all have a story to tell, and they're all important. MY stories are important. That's crazy! But it's awesome. :D

  Over the weekend, I got to spend time with my aunts, and one of them even went out on the water in kayaks with me! We, of course, managed to pick the one time over the weekend when the waves were nice and choppy.  It was so fun! I haven't been kayaking in ages, and it was admittedly quite freeing, even with the rolling waves trying to push us back to shore. (Now I know why my parents like kayaking so much.) When we did finally return, the waves were splashiest at the shoreline, and we got soaked. ...so did the inside of the kayaks. So, as you see in the pic above, we had to undo the plug at one end, and tip it over to drain the water. (I may have made it look easy, but that banana-yellow kayak was heavy! I barely managed to keep it upright.)

  I've been practicing archery for a while now, probably coming up on two years. Through all of that, I've come to love it more and more, and I've learned that:  1. Consistency is key. In other words, whatever you're doing, just keep doing that. All the steps. Nock the arrow the same way every time, draw the string back to the same anchor point on your chin, every single time. Also, check your breathing.  2. You're not always going to hit the exact center, but you're still going to try to hit the center with each arrow. Every arrow is a new chance to check your stance, maintain your grip, and aim correctly.  3. Even with everything I've learned, sometimes I shoot best when half-thinking about it, letting myself just get into the rhythm of things. It's like that with life, too.  Finally, 4. Archery (as with many things) is more fun when you go with friends. 😊

  I love tea! That's one of the first things people learn about me: I love tea, dragons, and books. I swear, if someone accidentally cut me, I'd bleed more tea than blood.  One of my more recent yearly rituals related to spending the summer as a pirate at ren faires happens to involve tea. One of my first faires, I found a booth, Spice Traders Teas, that sold various teas and spices, and I happened to try one called "Tortuga Truffle." Cut to three years later, the people at that booth go to several faires, and they know my by sight. In August, I buy obscene amounts of Tortuga Truffle, and drink almost nothing else.  Besides this particularly lovely, chocolatey black tea, I also love me some "Geronimo" from Tea & Absinthe, and Hazelnut Vanilla from Everything Tea. *Insert massive heart eyes* Now, when can I plan a tea party?

  Art is what I like to think of as free therapy. It's cathartic, healing, relaxing, and most of all, fun. I used to draw much more realistic pictures until I developed this weird tower-like doodle that in some places, was symmetrical, other times asymmetrical, in order to make a cool totem-pole-like image. Obviously, that's not what you see in the picture I chose for today's blog pic. My original tower-ish doodles morphed and changed and evolved into something more intricate. I can do almost anything I want with it. I've finally named my style of art "veraic," since it has a mosaic feel to it when you see a large picture. This picture is called "Zarking Pink Mountains," inspired by a story I was writing at the time. Interestingly, I had planned to fill in each space, but my sister objected, saying that it looked cooler as outlines. 😊

  If you’re a creative type, then you already know there’s inspiration in everything. For me, I don’t always find story ideas in music, but I see story ideas Everywhere. Sometimes a song grabs me by the heart and demands a story to go with it. The majority of my music stories has come from my favorite band, Poets of the Fall (they’re from Finland!). One song, “Hounds to Hamartia” sparked a spin-off to my main series that, when meshed with a Pinterest story prompt, has blossomed into a fascinating story I can’t wait to tell. I love listening with the intent of seeing where music takes you, 'cause sometimes you end up on a journey you didn’t expect.

  So there I was, having prepped a session of DnD for my friends, stressing that I wouldn't have enough material for their shenanigans, when to my delighted surprise, they took over the game and made 80% of my notes unneeded.  I adore my players. I'm actually running two games, and I'm in several others (ironically, this helps me keep my sanity, being in so many games). Of the two games I'm running, one is from a module and the other is of my own creation--well, story-wise. However, even though I spend hours prepping encounters and picking monsters, I can't tell you how much I love when the players take over, roleplaying an intense showdown even I didn't expect.  My players have put so much time, thought, and energy into their beautiful characters, and it makes me want to work extra hard to make a wonderful story to pull out these character's souls and make them Real.

  This is not my notebook--ok, actually it is. But I haven't looked inside of it since I bought it. You know why? I asked my pirate friends (from the pirate entertainment group I'm part of) to each take up to four pages and write something--anything. So yeah, it's my notebook, but my friend's stories. I'm saving it for a rainy day.  I have lots of stories, too, though, and I am currently finishing up my revision of the first book in my series. When I came back to my story after like, six or seven months, it honestly felt like meeting with friends I haven't seen in forever. I miss my real friends, being able to see them, hug them, and tell stories around the campfire with them.  But until then, I have their stories, and mine.

  So, last week, I got the once-in-ten-years chance to go hiking with nearly all my aunts (ok, ok, the only reason it's a once-a-decade chance is that rarely are they all willing and able to go hiking). It was a beautiful hike, though the air was somewhat smoky.  My favorite part was finally getting to the little waterfall at the end of the hike, and stepping into startlingly cold water to cool down. Well, it definitely cooled you off fast--that water was COLD!! But the best part, I think, was immersing myself in nature, and letting my mind refocus on my stories, especially one where I have the characters do a lot of hiking. It was nice to switch modes and become one of my characters for three and a half hours and spend time with my family.

  Hi! I'm Vivienne. As a writer, I tend to collect names and alternate identities. In the summer, I turn into a privateer named Vela Longbow, as part of a pirate entertainment group that performs at various PNW renaissance faires.  However. With Covid screwing everything up, I didn't get a chance to be Vela except at a friend's wedding. It was medieval themed *insert big heart eyes* and they put me in charge of the archery area. *Bigger heart eyes*  I love archery, I love being a pirate, and the chance to finally mesh the two was just what I needed this summer.