New Year, New Changes...

It's always surprising the amount of time that can pass without us ever being aware. In the four months since my last post, so many things have happened in both my personal life and at work... many things happened even without my realizing it, some for good, others for the not-so-good. But, such is life. We are forced to take the good with the bad or to take nothing at all.

As things change around me, it has forced me to re-evaluate my place in everything. I have had to make some decisions concerning which path in life I am best suited for. And, it has convinced me to refocus my attention to my writing and the direction I would like to see my creative endeavors take.

It is clear to me, more now than ever, that writing is the path I want to take in my life. There are so many things that are welled up inside me, so many emotions, so many ideas, that I'm afraid I will tear myself apart if I do not find a way of expressing it all.

With publication in mind, I've taken several, albeit small, steps toward my writing future. I have signed myself up for a subscription to a well-known writing magazine as well as an online subscription to the writer's market website. I've joined a writing community forum and have been editing a short story for a competition next month. Several of these things have been long overdue, but, I have started them now and will continue to seek out new avenues that might help me in the future.

So, here's hoping that by year's end, I'll have a substantial portfolio to send off and a loaded arsenal of writing ideas and inspiration for future use!

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I is for...

... Iron Maiden

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ---Edgar Allan Poe

---and not the English heavy metal band from East London...

Day 2 in the realm of morbid/macabre torture devices finds us back in the Middle Ages (there was definitely a fashionable trend of imaginative torture devices during this time). Though, the Middle Ages isn't really when we should be turning our attention when we discuss the Iron Maiden. In fact, there has been some debate as to the exact appearance of this monstrous creation.

It's probably easiest to relocate such a torturous thing back to a time when it seemed everyone was as skilled at exacting a confession as they were at creating the tools to exact those confessions. It's easier to blame ancestors from several hundred years ago than to accept that anyone of civilized disposition would be capable of doing such horrible things with such terrif…

Y is for Yeth Hound.....

Yeth Hound--- one of the incarnations of the "Black Dog" myth, this one located specifically, in Devon, England.

"Black Dogs" appear in myths across the world, most are associated with death and bad omens... i.e. Hell Hounds.

The Yeth Hound is said to be the spirit of an unbaptised child that takes the form of a headless black dog. The Hound wanders the woods at night making pitiful wailing sounds (though, I'm unclear as to how it makes wailing sounds without having a head).

The Black Dogs were possibly one inspiration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ghost dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles-- "an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen."

Heed Not, the Lonesome Cry
Heed not, the lonesome cry, the baleful wail echoing through the woods. Seek not, the black hound's sigh, look not where the headless creature stood.
One sound, your limbs will shake, your heart filled with the deepest dread. One glimpse, your sou…

V is for...

... Vrolik Museum

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ---Edgar Allan Poe

How about a morbid museum?

Still used by the medical faculty and students at the University of Amsterdam, the Vrolik Museum is a unique collection of odd bones and skulls, pathogenic specimens, and an assortment of anomalous embryos.

The collection was amassed by Dutch anatomist, Gerardus Vrolik (1775-1859) and continued by his son, Dutch anatomist and pathologist, Willem Vrolik (1801-1863). And since Willem's death, various donations have expanded the collection even further. Most specimens are human, though a few zoological specimens have trickled into the collection. Preserved remains, plaster casts, and various models show an assortment of congenital deformities and malformations.

This is one of those places that isn't for the faint of heart---certainly not for those who are easily moved or triggered by…

From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

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