Blessed are the Creatives, the artists, poets, musicians and writers. Obviously, “blessed” does not mean the same thing as financially rewarded, but then I never met a Creative who would trade creativity for whatever skills, say, an accountant needs. Patience? Love of detail? Pleasure in perfect sums?
Yesterday I was playing with paintings I made for my book, because they just didn’t say what I was trying to say. Know the feeling? It’s not good enough! I was a professional portrait artist long ago, so I know about faces, but then even the tilt of an eyebrow speaks volumes.
The villain in the story is Axam, a very popular and good-looking man who is a murderous basta with a winning smile and excellent people skills. We like our villains to be ugly, the uglier the better! But real-life villains do not necessarily conform to our stereotypes, and I think this makes them even creepier-and much harder to detect.
I’m including the original painting, an experiment with a lithograph effect and a scratchboard effect. I WOULD LOVE YOUR OPINION ON WHICH ONE EXPRESSES THE SCENE BEST.
Here’s the scene: 14 year-old Lemli knows he has killed a picu, the sacred rodents of Tua…
“You know Lemli,” he said pleasantly and almost dreamily,” A picu is small and slow and sometimes they come right up to you. You can easily pick one up and hold it by its hind legs and just slap it into a tree trunk.
It would squeak when it hit, don’t you think? Then it would go limp, maybe skitter for awhile. A strong man could do the same to you. Do you think you would squeak? Do you think you would skitter a bit before you died?”
Then he smiled his charming smile. “But why would anyone do that? You are a quiet girl, and you can keep secrets, can’t you?”
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