An impluvium is a feature in a ancient Roman home. Roman homes (well, the homes owned by wealthier individuals) had open air atriums in the central areas. The impluvium was located in the atrium and was designed to hold rainwater that fell in though the open space. Rain water would fall into the impluvium and the trickle down into a kind of well so the water could be used immediately or in the future. Imagine what it would be like to have this atrium in your home. To be able to watch and smell the rain as it descends into the open area. All those little rain drops are like the ideas that cascade down on writers every moment of every day. Do you have a impluvium where you store your ideas? How do you decide what ideas to nurture and what ideas to discard?
11 comments:
I guess my impluvium is my brain or whatever that lump of goo in my skull is. Off topic or not really we actually do have an impluvium in our house. I had no idea what it was called until now so thank you for telling me what it was!! I always learn something new whenever I come here.
Dafeenah
First, I love the word impluvium and will be looking for ways to work it into every day speech. :)
As for my personal impluvium, I'm hardcore into spiral bound legal pads. I usually have a small one on hand at all times and I buy full sized ones for ideas that make it out of the pool and into full length projects.
My impluvium for my ideas is in my head and in a word document.
I am really enjoying your A-Z entries!
I saw one of these in Spain!
My ideas aren't always gathered so neatly. They're everywhere from e-mails sent from work to home, scrap pieces of paper in my purse, and word documents on my computer. Both the story you're reading now and my current WiP were based on dreams. I had to scribble down what I remembered when I woke up!
How lovely; much nicer than our water butt collecting rainwater off a wood shed!
I have a box full of index cards to collect all my brain-rain: my head is so muddled that I need somewhere organised to hold my thoughts.
Hi Heidi .. how beautiful and how practical .. the logical Romans!
Bits of paper, or articles or hand written notes, or stored in Word .. rather too many for comfort - a declutter coming!
Love these posts and great to meet you in the A - Z .. Hilary
The notion of an impluvium is rather romantic on one hand, but on the other, think about rainy season. Y'know, when the rain just keeps coming, day after day, all day, all night. Think mold and mildew. The rain would smell delicious; the mold and mildew, not so much. As for storing thoughts, I'm a fan of spiral bound notebooks. Another fun post, ma'am. Thank you.
Seeing this impluvium and the atrium included with it really makes me want to create a character who can afford that sort of house, just so I can live vicariously through that character.
What an awesome post!
I'm new to your blog, drawn by your blog title. It sounds so interesting to me, combination of the dutch and Swiss. I think the word 'impluviu is wonderful. It reminds me of the ambulacum (? spelling) we had at school, a simple walkway with a wonderful title. Thanks, Heidi. It's good to meet you.
So that's what those things are called! Impluvium. It seems a rather cumbersome word for such a beautiful thing. 4 syllables and not particularly musical - unless I'm totally misreading the pronunciation. In any case, good to learn what the correct term is. Your A-Z challenge is interesting - clearly a fantasy writer. Good stuff.
So that's what those things are called! Impluvium. It seems a rather cumbersome word for such a beautiful thing. 4 syllables and not particularly musical - unless I'm totally misreading the pronunciation. In any case, good to learn what the correct term is. Your A-Z challenge is interesting - clearly a fantasy writer. Good stuff.
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