We're pretty well into fall now and that means my regular bout of seasonal depression (or seasonal affective disorder) has settled into its usual guest room in my brain. I have it managed and all that but it's definitely something I have to work around and work with every year. Usually I'll find at least One Thing that manages to cut through the anhedonia and keep my attention so I don't go to bed way too early and fall asleep at 6pm every day.

Last year, my One Thing ended up being the history of the bible and other early Christian religious movements. I'm not really religious myself now and haven't been for a very long time, but I do find it fascinating. My family attended a Methodist church when I was a kid and we'd occasionally attend Lutheran services with family friends. Other than the requisite stained glass windows, these were usually very minimally-decorated churches. I was also fortunate to be able to visit France a few times when I was younger and was utterly fascinated by the (to my U.S. mind) ancient cathedrals we saw there. Notre Dame de Paris, Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre and the smaller Église Saint-Pierre next to it. We also saw the strikingly asymmetrical Strasbourg cathedral during Advent when a series of tapestries (commissioned by the infamous Cardinal Richelieu) depicting the life of the Virgin Mary were on display in the nave.(Not to mention the elaborate astronomical clock, with its automata that ring bells and cycle around at solar noon each day.)

I think it's easy to point to these visits, tourist-y as they may have been, as something that planted a seed of interest about medieval Europe and the incredible sway that the church had over people living in that time and place. Christopher Buehlman's excellent novel BETWEEN TWO FIRES, a medieval horror set during the Black Death and chock full of real research on the time period, helped water that seed. I'm at the point now where I'm picking away at a medieval horror novel of my own. It's not the first novel or novella I've taken a swing at and that's a good thing. I've learned a lot from previous attempts on my trunked pieces, and I've already avoided quite a few of the pitfalls I'd run into before. (Characters who actually have tangible motivations, what a concept!)

My main 'problem' now is that I get sidetracked by research. For example, there's a chapter I have planned that I've yanked out to turn into its own short story (I'll likely edit it and re-insert it into the book at a later point). In this short story, the two main characters encounter a (demon? monster?)-possessed priest in a small parish church and face off against it. This might seem simple enough but I've already fallen into rabbit holes learning about choir screens, the elaborate murals that used to cover every wall of pre-reformation English (and many other country's) churches, what sort of armor would have been worn during the 1350s (coat of plates, certainly not full plate!), and I've been deep-diving into saint relics to the point I have two different books on the subject ordered and on their way now.

I think I might have found my One Thing for this fall/winter, suffice to say. We'll see how many more books I ended up ordering in excitement and then not quite getting around to like the copy of the Nag Hammadi Library works I have still waiting on me from last fall.

That's all for now, and I hope you have a good one.

-Verdigristle 10.26.25