R is for Rainlings

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, plus some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  Also, be sure to check out my fellow A to Z bloggers at the Master List.)

        “The Rainlings” is another of the short stories in my collection.  As I explain in the End Notes, the roots of the Rainlings go back to my childhood.  When I was about 10 or 11 years old I got on a kick of drawing thatch-roofed cottages with simple perspective.  I was extremely pleased with my little drawings, and I especially enjoyed drawing these cottages enclosed in falling raindrops.  I have no recollection of where that idea originally came from or why I did this.  Many years later I was reminded of these childhood pictures when I was photographing water droplets on the leaves in my yard, and the light and reflections made it look as if some of them contained tiny cities.  This was the idea behind the rubber block print After

Rain (2022).  A little more time passed, and I started to think some more about what sort of person might actually live inside raindrops, and what it might be like if they existed in our world.  And that’s when I wrote the story.

        This series of moments illustrates how there are ideas that I keep revisiting in different ways and through different mediums for years - and in this case for decades.  For some reason this idea just keeps capturing my imagination.

        R is also for Reviews, which are so vitally important for indie authors.  But I already went into that back at F, so for today’s Marketing Moral: Check out my art.  Unlike a book, you don’t have to take a gamble on whether or not you might like a piece of art.  All you have to do is look at it.  And if it makes you happy, you know you could actually buy it and have it for your very own, to gaze at and enjoy any time.  You can always see all my available artwork on my web site NydamPrints.com.

        Proper Moral: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but beholders can learn to find beauty in ever more places.  If you look for beauty, you’re more likely to find it.

        Do you like long walks in the rain?  Or would you rather curl up inside while the rain patters on the windows?

[Pictures: Raindrop Cottage, pencil drawing by AEGNydam, ca. 1982;

Raindrop Cities, photograph by AEGNydam, 2021;

After Rain, rubber block print by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]