Last December I said I’d likely never write another novel. And what did I start doing before a month had passed? Writing another novel. Never say never and all that. The story of how this novel, The Storytelling Cat, came to be would make for an interesting essay on creativity and art in itself.
Later in this post I’ll explain more about the creation process, together with info on how to get the novel – a free download is of course available – but for now there’s something intriguing you should know: This book is unlike any other I’ve written; there’s a lot of peculiarity involved.
That the protagonist is a cat with human knowledge is the least odd thing about this book.
The cover of The Storytelling Cat is one of my favorites (of my own books, that is), though I’m not objective. You see, I painted it myself!(more…)
Writing, drawing, composing music, and basically every form of art consists of two components: the artistic one and the technical one. That is, to express ourselves artistically we must first and foremost have something to say, but it’s not quite enough. We must also have the skills to do that. So, what happens when we lack the skills?
We’ll talk about all this in more detail – and we’ll have to start with understanding that the term “lack of skills” is somewhat misleading – but first a couple of examples, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.
As a sculptor, I have a great artistic side. I can visualize forms, shapes, flows, colors and textures, and I can see my artistic ideas in material form. Piece of cake.
The thing is, I have precisely zero technical skills when it comes to sculpture.
I don’t even know how to hold a chisel (is that what it’s called?) let alone use it. So, practically, I am not really a sculptor.
Writing, however, is a bit different. And this leads to certain misunderstandings and issues, as I’ll show you.
I only started painting very recently, since I always considered myself unable to hold a brush. Maybe I still am, but thank goodness for digital tools…(more…)
My iambic pentameter generator has been one of the most popular posts of the blog. To be honest, I’m not sure if that’s still the case or not. Since I completely revamped the blog (actually even earlier), I removed Google and Jetpack analytics. In any case, today we’ll be looking at, essentially, the reverse scenario: We’re making a very simple iambic pentameter checker.
Just in case you need a reminder, an iambic pentameter line consists of ten syllables, of which every other is stressed. For instance, “And you, my sinews, grow not instant old” (from Hamlet).
So, how can we create a JavaScript iambic pentameter checker that tells us if a line is an iambic pentameter or not?
I couldn’t resist using AI to generate this image of Shakespeare using a laptop. Like all tools, AI tools can be fun and useful, if one understands their limitations…(more…)
