Wrapping up the Rat’s Year

In a bit less than a moon from now (January 26 ^th to be precise), it will be 春节 (Chun Jie) or Chinese New Year. It will be the year of the Ox, a slow-paced, hard-working animal, while 2008 was the year of the Rat —and in more than one way.

Being not only the mount of Ganesha, Hindu God of the beginnings, the Rat is a talented quick-witted and industrious little creature who was said, in ancient Chinese tales¹ to have outwitted the other animals and robbed the Ox of the first place on the Chinese zodiac (by jumping on its back).

It doesn’t seem like a mere coincidence that it became the mascot of one of my favourite projects of this year.
Wisp e-zine, a place for people to share their personal stories and creative endeavors with a focus on well-being and consciousness expansion, was thus born in May 2008 under the sign of the Rat, and is now in its 9 ^th issue.

Two books compiling the first 6 issues have been released so far² and another one is on its way. Aside from some content —of which the essential was provided by a great team of contributors, and gathered by bold scouts— I did the layout, some illustrations and the covers; so holding these books into my hands was no small reward.

Another project of this year was the Circle of Eights book³.
It all started as a fun game on this very website where I encouraged volunteers to continue writing a collaborative story with one of my last computer drawing as a starting point; after a first story which I updated daily for a week or so had gathered encouraging feedback⁴.
The story quickly expanded to more than a hundred comments, so that the page very soon became difficult to navigate, then spawning its own site here and various offshoots like the more personal Jorid explorations.

To date, the story continues to unfold in the most unexpected, often delightful, bizarre and most of all fun–tastic ways. A first book was made of it, with some of the illustrations I’ve been doing along the way (see Creations/2008).

What I appreciated the most in doing this book was that it’s not conventional by any means, there is no official thread to follow, and the reader is highly encouraged to make his own story so to speak, and get involved in the piecing together of the parts. An interesting albeit modest contribution to a renewal of traditional story-telling.

With all that activity, contents posted here mainly amounted to pictures, which I continue to do on a regular basis, as far as inspiration allows. Some of these are linked to the stories of Circle of Eights, some are not —at least not directly.
Be sure to come once in a while to see the updates and leave a little comment.

In any case, let’s hope 2009 will continue to bring new avenues of explorations and occasions to share, and let’s thank the little busy Rat for all this creative energy. It’ll soon be time to take the Ox by the horns!

Notes:

• 1 • I posted about that legend (mostly in French and Chinese) here
• 2 • Wisp, Volume 1 and 2 can be ordered here ; some of the technical parts of the publication process is shared here too.
• 3 • More on the book here
• 4 • See Janice’s Little Big Adventures which is also published as an appendix to the Circle of Eights book.