A Fairy Out of Her Tale - Dear Diary - 41. Scene 41

16th January 1995

Dear Diary of Calligraphy Fails,

If you had eyes I would tell you to look at the pile of books I just dropped next to you. They were so heavy I thought I was going to burst my stitches carrying them from the library. The dictionary alone is like two bricks in one!

And the worst part is that it might have been all for nothing. I got all those books to help me learn the funny alphabet, but none of them tell me how to read the funny letters. They all either show me how to write them, or show me a word written in the language with the translation to my beautiful Fadalesh. How am I supposed to learn that way?

I guess I’ll just have to treat this as an art project instead of a language lesson…

There’s this one book that’s for children to learn how to write. It has all this cute characters speaking in speech bubbles I can’t read and sort of showing the step-by-step of how to write the letters.

Hint: if you need a step-by-step guide on how to draw your letters, maybe you should find easier letters.

I’m now going to use the page next to this one for my first practice. I’ll use my favourite purple pen so the page looks pretty. I don’t think the squiggles will come out as anything other than horrendous, but who knows? Maybe with one whole page of practice I might get one to look nice.

That’s what I’m going to do! I’ll write the first letter the books shows me over and over again. Until it actually looks like the one on the book. And if that works, I’ll use another colour pen to write a different letter, and then another one…

I have the whole afternoon. You’re not going anywhere.

Hold on! Change of plans!

Just as I picked up the book from the giant pile, some piece of paper fell from between the books. How come I didn’t see it there before?

It’s just a thin strip of paper with what seems like one word written on it. I kind of like the look of it - it’s properly like an artwork. Maybe I should draw that instead? I can ask Lóránt what it means once I’m done. My first word in this new land!

Here it comes!

And so we have our first scene with an accompanying picture! (scroll down to the first comment to see it)
Sure, Nessa's attempt at writing a new language is not exactly the most beautiful thing to look at, but hopefully she'll improve overtime. She has plenty of time to practice after all...
But what does that word mean? Will we ever know? Is it even plot-relevant? Or is it there just to look (not) pretty?
My original plan for FOHT involved having every scene be followed by an illustration. That got scrapped in part because I ended up never having the time for proper artwork, in part because a runaway kid scared for her life wouldn't be in the right mind to draw the cute things I had in mind.
But now Nessa is sort of safe and almost happy, so maybe the promised artwork will follow soon...
 
SHAMELESS PATREON SELF-PROMOTION ALERT (attending to a special request  ): If you like the idea of an illustrated diary, please consider becoming my patron to help me make sure I have what I need to keep both the writings and the artwork going. It doesn't cost much for you, but means a lot to me! (look in my profile for details) 
 
SPECIAL NOTE: I'm going away to Manchester this weekend (playing at the National Concert Band Festival). I'm 95% sure I'll be able to post Friday's scene as usual, but Sunday's scene is definitely getting postponed to Monday. If it turns out I can't post on Friday, you'll see a new scene late-ish Thursday instead.