The Beginning

In the bright, sparkling world of today, almost everything is dependent upon some kind of technology. It makes a margin of sense, mostly: emails and Facebook save time and resources that would otherwise be spent sending a hand-written letter. Cellphones make it so you can call on the go rather than wait to get home or use a pay phone to contact the Otherverse (as in humans). The list goes on and on, and many despair over some uses technology has come to and how it has caused a kind of degeneration of the mind (chat and text speech, for example, showing up in high school essays, or the fact that students are no longer being taught to write in cursive because everything is typed these days and font settings can do that for you. I personally dislike the Kindle, or whatever it is they're calling it these days, because I am partial to the smell of books, new and old, and all the crisp secrets that they hide within their pages. Bookbinding is an altogether special kind of magic for me.)

Well. Everything in moderation, I say. I personally would rather send an email than give a phone call-- if I am talking to someone, I want it face to face so that I can see eyes, expressions, not just my wall as I try to hash through a bodiless conversation over a phone. But I digress...

Either way, the world revolves increasingly around the internet and electronic media. That means that classes are being held online, interviews are being held over Skype, and yes, potential employers could even be looking at your Facebook.

Or your blog.....*ding!*

Hello everyone! This is Maudlin's Shoes. It's going to be a bit of an experiment for me in many ways. First of all, we'll see if I can get any consistent readers with what I have to say-- that in and of itself, too, will be an adventure...what I have to say, I mean. But we'll get to that in a minute. The main purpose of this blog comes in a set of three: blogs can be useful for those in the writing world to prove workmanship, originality, scheduling, etc. That last can also be part two of the purpose: as a writer it is important to write every day, or, barring those of us still in school who have twenty essays a month to turn in (I exaggerate), at least once a week, as will be the chronology of this blog. The more you write, the more you want to write, and the better your skills become. I will be using this blog not only to explore my own opinions but also as a kite onto which I can tie my other projects, letting the breeze and updraft pull the rest out of the shlump they have been reduced to through work and priority.

No matter how busy we get, writers, our own work should *never* be reduced to the lowest priority.

So we now come to the last purpose of this blog: writing. My special love is fantasy and most of what I discuss will therefore follow in that genre's footsteps. From book and short story reviews, the pros and cons of fantasy creatures, personal cliches, writer versus writer, methods and theories, on entering the big, scary world of writing (as I am currently a student headed that way, it'll be rather fresh for all of us!) as well as fantasy across the cultures, from Ireland to Japan to China to Atlanta, GA...well, you get the idea. I'm sure we'll come up with much more as we go along.

But why is this blog called Maudlin's Shoes? The title is based off of a poem called "Tom o' Bedlam", a 17th century (at the latest) poem about wandering madmen-- or Bedlam Boys. The first stanza goes:

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam,

Ten thousand miles I've traveled.

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes,

For to save her shoes from gravel.

You can read more about Tom of Bedlam under that first link there on the side. But Mad Maudlin is the character here that I'm interested in. There have been many times I've considered myself, from an outside eye, as a rather mad-looking character wandering the woods barefoot, and in my more Romantic, imaginative times I could see myself filling those footsteps: barefoot, following the wind, living by the air like the Bonny Mad Boys...

So save your shoes, my friends. There are many pebbles to consider between here and whatever destination it is we're headed towards. Tie them up with a sash around your waist and get your feet dirty. It's time to feel the bare stones, mud, and grass beneath your feet....

Until next time!

Caitlyn