Returning to Old Projects
Main cover image from the original Bedlamite Diaries.
Back in May of 2020, I had an idea for a project. It was broad in scope and would have been a great way to develop my art and writing. At the time, it was the first summer of COVID. We didn’t have a vaccine, but case numbers were relatively low, and the world was enjoying a hesitant stretch of limited freedom from lockdowns and isolation. My children were on summer vacation, and I felt like I could carve out the time it would take to get the project off the ground. Then, once I had a good rhythm, I thought the momentum of habit could sustain me into the start of school and through the end of the year when I envisioned the project’s completion.
This was the Bedlamite Diaries, and if you’ve followed my accounts at all during that time you saw some of the early efforts through posts on Twitter, Instagram, and the blog I was using at the time. However, I underestimated a lot about the project. First, while I knew it would involve a large time commitment, it turned out to be exponentially more involved than I had thought. Plus, in an effort to keep the costs down, the platform I chose for site hosting was completely unwieldly and required manual methods of doing what most modern website hosting services do automatically. Finally, fall came and COVID returned in full force right as school was starting. My entire family was at home, working and learning remotely, which put a strain on our household in terms of space and time. At any given moment we could have as many as six zoom calls going on in our house. It was crazy trying to find a space for everyone to be able to do that, and while teachers tried their best, we as parents ended up shouldering a larger portion of the responsibility of helping kids through assignments, homework, and technical issues. Like so many others, we went into survival mode, and my project was set aside unfinished.
Fast forward nearly two years.
I keep thinking about picking the project back up. Every week or so, I pull out the notes, go through them, and let all those ideas rattle around in my brain. But, it’s still too big to take on. Too many threads pulling in all different directions, and too many other responsibilities demanding time and attention. Plus, the shadow of COVID still lingers, and while most areas of the country have opened up again, I don’t yet trust that we have seen the last of reduced access.
However, while the entirety of the project is too big, I think I could take on a select slice of it, a single piece of the proverbial pie. I’d already focused several of my public posts around the fictitious character of “The Naturalist,” a sort of everyday-man, who, along with his dog, gets sucked into the supernatural world. I may not have time to tell THE story, but I think I can tell HIS story.
With this in mind, I have resurrected my website, a new blog, and the Bedlamite Diaries have now become The Naturalist’s Journal (and other writings). I've kept some of my older content up as it either ties in or is still useful, but this is where I am going to lean in for a while in both art and writing. It will cover all the areas I’m interested in, from science and nature journaling to fantasy art and speculative fiction. So, I invite you to refamiliarize yourself with the Naturalist’s first few journal entries and look for the next installments coming soon!
