“Motley” or “A Little Bit of This and That. …Mostly That, Really”

I chose today’s main title for a variety of reasons – which is only appropriate, given the word’s first meaning: “Having elements of great variety or incongruity; heterogeneous.”

A motley minstrel boy!
“Air of Attraction” by Michael Cheval.

It likewise means “having many colors; variegated; parti-colored”, which I like for no better reason than that I like the idea of colors. This adjective can also be a noun meaning “the parti-colored attire of a court jester”, which I like mainly because court jesters often have a minstrel-like role, and if you don’t know I love minstrels, than you haven’t been reading this blog for very long.

Say, does this happen to be the first time you’re reading this blog? If “yes”, hello! Welcome to Ever On Word! Don’t be a stranger. ^-^ If “no,” things around here may still look new to you because, for the second time since this blog’s beginning, I have changed its visual theme.

That’s one of the motley things I wish to mention today. Goodbye, “Connections”, hello, “Rusty Grunge”! Like the background? It’s custom-made. More details on that in a future post.

I also thought it was high time I verbally celebrated my 200^th post! It’s a bit past due, I realize; post 200 went up on Christmas. But I’d call late better than never, in this case. So here’s a huzzah for my little milestone. When I hit my first hundred, I celebrated with some personal blog-related stats. In the name of tradition, let’s do it again! In the past hundred posts…

– 8 were related to publication of short stories of mine. Those short stories include fairytale-based “Mercy Denied” and “Tale as Old as Time”, mythology-inspired “Shadow Lights”, and, what I guess could both be categorized as somewhat supernatural, “Superpower Outage” and “Train of Thought”. 2012 was a good year, Deshipley-short-story-publication-wise. I’ll have to restock my supply of short fiction and keep an eye out for more places to submit!

– (Speaking of fiction, as I usually do), 18 were episodes of two serial stories: The first eight a fairytale comedy, “Blood, Sweat, and Tears”, the latter ten a whodunit inspired by my summer employment at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.

– (Speaking of the Faire, which I also do a lot), 4 were dedicated to my real-life experience at Bristol, chronicling everything from my audition and the original monologue I performed to the development of my character and Rennie skills, and what a grand impact the summer has made on my life.

– Another 4 included pieces of non-serial original short fiction: The five-minute flash, “The Great Fountain of Dummar”; the spontaneous blog anniversary gift to myself, “The Mysterious Affair of Pansy’s Pearls”; modern parable “Belief or Truth”; and in the form of a poetic parody, my Christmas gift to my readers, “A Visit to Avalon Faire”.

– Another 8 included reviews: Seven book reviews (type “review” in the little search box if you wish to see them; there’s no elegant way to link to all that!), and one review of the latest (*cough* FREE *cough*) album from my favorite Christian rapper, t.Jay.

– 7 were “HYSRT!” (“Hey, You Should Read This!”) posts in accordance with my 2012 blog resolution to share posts by other bloggers that I felt, hey, you should read. I mean to continue such features throughout 2013, though I think I’ll back off the pressure of trying to find one for every time my posting day falls on a Saturday. Just whenever I randomly happen to find a gem I want to share will be often enough.

– 3 were guest posts by some of my characters, Bruno, Allyn-a-Dale, and Gant-o’-the-Lute. I’ll definitely have more characters do the talking for me in the future – one, because it’s fun to write in other voices; two, because now that I’ve let a few of the folks in my head have their say, I’ve got others who will be (and have been, Scarlet) clamoring for their turn.

So, that’s pretty much everything I wanted to say, and then some. To the readers who have joined me over the past year, thanks for coming along for the ride. To 2013, let’s do this thing!