Welcome to the Wood Scribe Blog
Hi! I’m the Wood Scribe, part budding writer, part amateur woodworker, as much by choice as by genetics. Welcome to my blog!
This is not a self-introduction. Introducing myself now would be like publishing the results before conducting the experiment. Actually, scratch the ‘like’. This blog is an experiment. It’s an exploration, its ongoing mission being to learn more about myself. I’d like to share the interesting things I find with old friends and hopefully some new ones as well.
“But Wood Scribe,” you say with some concern, “that sounds like narcissistic navel gazing.” It sure does, doesn’t it? You can put those fears to bed though. Introspection is going to be a central theme of the this blog, but only in the context of the things that I’m doing. I have taken the first steps down two decidedly different but parallel paths, and my intent with this blog is to share my growth from those journeys. And all the cool **** I find along the way. So as this is the first post, let’s catch everyone up on the journey’s so far.
The Writer.
I started putting words to page when I was seven years old with the beginnings of an epic yarn called “Knighthawk’s Adventures”. A (intentionally?) comic pastiche of Tolkein so on the nose it could be called a pince-nez, it was rife with all the things you would expect a seven year old might find hilarious. And it was a great start. The next twenty years were spent making excuses for not getting serious about writing. But I never stopped penning. In margins, on scraps, in Word documents opened once, filled then forgotten, I never stopped. And thankfully, the day eventually came when I ran out of excuses. And I set out to spin another fantasy yarn. I have an allotment of my weekly hours dedicated to writing, and going forward I intend to treat it like a second job. This blog is meant to be an additional level of accountability for me. It’s been declared on the Internet. No takesies-backsies, the seven year old me would admonish.
I have a novel well on its way to being a draft:
“The land of Sadrudene sits at the meeting place of two worlds: The world of humans and the world of incomprehensible beings called Spirits, creatures tied closely to the natural elements of the human world. The two worlds usually exist harmoniously with one other, but something has set the two in opposition. Worse, the institutions that maintain the balance of the two worlds have been destroyed. As both worlds head towards calamity, the last Princess of Taiheia and the last Guardian of Sadrudene have to find a way to restore that balance before it’s two late. To defeat the forces against them, both will have to make sacrifices. Will it cost them merely their lives, or much more?”
The Woodworker.
A very different story. Where the flame of the pen has been like a burning couch in my living room that I feel quite guilty for ignoring as long as I did, the fire of my interest in woodworking has been peacefully glowing embers waiting for an opportunity to go fwoosh! That opportunity came a little over a year and half ago. I had just applied for a job in Japan and was killing the time until I learned the results by consuming everything I could about this country (spoiler, I got the job, woot). I happened across some video or other about traditional Japanese joinery, and I watched agape as two pieces of wood came together like that was exactly what they were meant to do. It was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever experienced, and that was just watching! Wood has so much potential, I feel, from the seed to tree, from lumber to shapes and forms limited only by the vastness of human creativity. I had to get in on that action.
I’ve set myself a tiny workshop, with a basic set of versatile hand tools. I’ve been teaching myself up to this point, combining early life experience with the near endless resources of the Internet. I haven’t been shy in seeking a mentor here in Japan and have had some luck ingratiating myself to the right people and have already received invaluable help, but that’s a post for another day. I’m making small things, practicing and learning as I go. What’s the goal? To make things. Just enough to sell to fund the continued journey.
Twibbles
I almost forgot to mention one other important thing that I plan to explore in this blog: My relationship with Twibbles. Twibbles has been an ill-behaved companion of mine for a very long, and it’s only been relatively recently in my life that I’ve given the little ******* a name. Twibbles is the manifestation of my anxiety disorder. He’s the one who shouts unhelpful things like “Look at all those other people and how much better they are, you’ll never be that good,” or “You know everyone that you haven’t emailed in the last thirty seconds hates you and never wants to hear from you again,” or the succint “You suck and should feel bad.” So yeah, Twibbles is an ****.
But Twibbles isn’t something to be defeated. I had fed him badly for a long time, not realizing that I was, and now I have to repair that relationship. So a theme that will be part of a lot of my writing in this blog will be how I’m coping with, placating, and ultimately rehabilitating Twibbles.
And that’s me! I hope to have a lot of fun sharing what I’m up to and how I’m progressing in my adventures.
Warm regards,
The Wood Scribe
This is not a self-introduction. Introducing myself now would be like publishing the results before conducting the experiment. Actually, scratch the ‘like’. This blog is an experiment. It’s an exploration, its ongoing mission being to learn more about myself. I’d like to share the interesting things I find with old friends and hopefully some new ones as well.
“But Wood Scribe,” you say with some concern, “that sounds like narcissistic navel gazing.” It sure does, doesn’t it? You can put those fears to bed though. Introspection is going to be a central theme of the this blog, but only in the context of the things that I’m doing. I have taken the first steps down two decidedly different but parallel paths, and my intent with this blog is to share my growth from those journeys. And all the cool **** I find along the way. So as this is the first post, let’s catch everyone up on the journey’s so far.
The Writer.
I started putting words to page when I was seven years old with the beginnings of an epic yarn called “Knighthawk’s Adventures”. A (intentionally?) comic pastiche of Tolkein so on the nose it could be called a pince-nez, it was rife with all the things you would expect a seven year old might find hilarious. And it was a great start. The next twenty years were spent making excuses for not getting serious about writing. But I never stopped penning. In margins, on scraps, in Word documents opened once, filled then forgotten, I never stopped. And thankfully, the day eventually came when I ran out of excuses. And I set out to spin another fantasy yarn. I have an allotment of my weekly hours dedicated to writing, and going forward I intend to treat it like a second job. This blog is meant to be an additional level of accountability for me. It’s been declared on the Internet. No takesies-backsies, the seven year old me would admonish.
I have a novel well on its way to being a draft:
“The land of Sadrudene sits at the meeting place of two worlds: The world of humans and the world of incomprehensible beings called Spirits, creatures tied closely to the natural elements of the human world. The two worlds usually exist harmoniously with one other, but something has set the two in opposition. Worse, the institutions that maintain the balance of the two worlds have been destroyed. As both worlds head towards calamity, the last Princess of Taiheia and the last Guardian of Sadrudene have to find a way to restore that balance before it’s two late. To defeat the forces against them, both will have to make sacrifices. Will it cost them merely their lives, or much more?”
The Woodworker.
A very different story. Where the flame of the pen has been like a burning couch in my living room that I feel quite guilty for ignoring as long as I did, the fire of my interest in woodworking has been peacefully glowing embers waiting for an opportunity to go fwoosh! That opportunity came a little over a year and half ago. I had just applied for a job in Japan and was killing the time until I learned the results by consuming everything I could about this country (spoiler, I got the job, woot). I happened across some video or other about traditional Japanese joinery, and I watched agape as two pieces of wood came together like that was exactly what they were meant to do. It was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever experienced, and that was just watching! Wood has so much potential, I feel, from the seed to tree, from lumber to shapes and forms limited only by the vastness of human creativity. I had to get in on that action.
I’ve set myself a tiny workshop, with a basic set of versatile hand tools. I’ve been teaching myself up to this point, combining early life experience with the near endless resources of the Internet. I haven’t been shy in seeking a mentor here in Japan and have had some luck ingratiating myself to the right people and have already received invaluable help, but that’s a post for another day. I’m making small things, practicing and learning as I go. What’s the goal? To make things. Just enough to sell to fund the continued journey.
Twibbles
I almost forgot to mention one other important thing that I plan to explore in this blog: My relationship with Twibbles. Twibbles has been an ill-behaved companion of mine for a very long, and it’s only been relatively recently in my life that I’ve given the little ******* a name. Twibbles is the manifestation of my anxiety disorder. He’s the one who shouts unhelpful things like “Look at all those other people and how much better they are, you’ll never be that good,” or “You know everyone that you haven’t emailed in the last thirty seconds hates you and never wants to hear from you again,” or the succint “You suck and should feel bad.” So yeah, Twibbles is an ****.
But Twibbles isn’t something to be defeated. I had fed him badly for a long time, not realizing that I was, and now I have to repair that relationship. So a theme that will be part of a lot of my writing in this blog will be how I’m coping with, placating, and ultimately rehabilitating Twibbles.
And that’s me! I hope to have a lot of fun sharing what I’m up to and how I’m progressing in my adventures.
Warm regards,
The Wood Scribe
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