13 February 2004. Today, I worked on layering at Paint Shop. For the first time since I started this attempt of mine to master Paint Shop, I worked with pure shapes and colors before putting in my long division template, and adding words. I later experimented with different layers of gray. The way that lets the auditor into daylight seemed pretty effective to me. I seem now mainly to be discovering things I want to do but don't know how to do, such as shrinking or enlarging a single layer of my piece. So far every time I try this, I shrink or enlarge the whole thing.

"Marauders" was the first "quantity" I selected for this piece (which has no title yet). I liked the sound and thought its dramaticality should inspire other interesting words that did something effective with it. I doubt that the words I eventually chose do so. I picked "music" because music is almost an opposite of marauders. "Iron" seemed weird, and--I thought--hardened music enough to possibly yield something close to "marauders." Is a forest a kind of marauder? I don't really know, but I did like the concept of music's creating a forest by multiplying iron. Forests have a huge number of connotations, too, always a plus in poetry. I'm refined, so considered "lay" as a "simple narrative poem"; I'm not against the sexual meaning, however. To complicate things, because I felt "lay" was too simple," I added the B, hoping to suggest "bay," to go with marauders as pirates, and to enlarge my little very generalized landscape. Because b is close to p, I consider "blay" a pun for "play," too.

Another awkward exercise, in my opinion, but I'm learning, I'm learning. And, yow, am I having fun!