Work & Play

The two diverge and intersect for me in strange ways.  Writing is my work.  I want to write; I think about writing all the time, and when I'm not, I'm writing in my head, going over key scenes that I can so vividly picture I can sometimes smell them.  And yet, in an odd, cringing sort of way... I don't. 

Gardening is also my work.  It's not so much that gardening brings me joy as that I need it simply to maintain my baseline - to ward off unhappiness.  I just arranged two ornamental Boston Ferns around the yard, transplanted a blackberry root, three herbs, and bean and pea seeds, then gave everything a good drink of water.  All this after working the morning shift, which entails multiple hours on my feet and constant lifting.

Next I'll probably tinker with a flashcard app I found and am using to memorize the meanings of Tarot cards.  I want to be able to do a reading without flipping through the little booklet.  This is a course of study, a form of work, and yet I am as willing to do it as if it were play. 

Perhaps it's the mental props I developed last summer that are tripping me up and draining my confidence when confronted with a blank page that is supposed to form into story.  But perhaps those frameworks are just a shield for my ego.  Perhaps I don't truly believe that my writing will hold any importance to anyone but me, and who am I to count? 

Perhaps I should just stop thinking about it and do it, but that's so much more easily said than done.

Here There Be Monsters: A Worldbuilder Essay

One of the endlessly fascinating things about writing to me is creating the world in which your characters live; the rules by which they bargain with their reality.  Of course, writers do this all the time, but when not writing in the fantasy genre, I think it has to be a lot more subtle, because there are a lot more rules that we would be familiar with and more able to call on a mistake. 

My story is a fantasy story, and the cultures, regions and countries involved took a long time to solidify in my mind.  But it was really a labor of love, because once you create your own world, you want to imagine it as vividly as possible.  I read somewhere that creativity is nothing more than a person's ability to synthesize and collate all their previous experiences and everything they know into something new.  This is why it's so important for writers to not only do, but read.  Anything and everything. 

Non-fiction is especially helpful to me.  In the beginning (of my writing attempts), my worlds were huge masses of loose particled ephemera, waiting for my own personal big bang.  While this set of questions by one of my all-time favorite authors, Patricia C. Wrede, helped me train my world particles, like dancing fleas, it wasn't until a friend pointed me to this blog, about the psychological aspects of world building, that things really coalesced for me.  Stray Feathers pointed me toward Eliade's Patterns in Comparative Religion, at almost the same time that another source, unrelated to writing, pointed me to Joseph Campbell's magnum opus, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Now, I'm human.  I'm not only human, I'm a college student human.  I have read neither of these books cover to cover.  But I have read between a third and a half of both of them, and even that gave me some serious tools to whip out and begin shaping my worlds in ways that even I didn't expect.

An example is that today, I invented a demon bull.  This demon bull is a servant of the Moon Goddess of a culture whose patriarchal deity is the Sky God, or more often, the God.  The Moon Goddess in this culture is the keeper of prophecy and the underworld, and the demon bull is more or less her Cerberus.  This is relevant because, wait for it, according to Eliade, the Moon is linked with either horns or horned bulls in multiple religions!

It was also a bit of a quandary, though, because at the same time, I invented a random bit of street culture for the capitol city of the set of characters I was currently working with.  I can't decide whether to use:

Practically dancing, the Vizier jabbed both index fingers in the air like a street urchin flashing a thief-clan sign.

....Or:

 

Practically dancing, the Vizier jabbed both index fingers in the air like a street urchin imitating the Moon Goddess’ demon bull.

I think the first is a bit sharper, and takes less of a leap of understanding on the reader's part, but it's awfully hard to give up the symmetry of echoing a real-life folkloric trend with my fictional religion.

Mulch Update

It's been two weeks since my grand undertaking, and I think a progress report is in order.

First, the good: my garden is relatively weed free.  It is much more attractive.  Walking and working in the garden are a breeze.  Some of the plants, notably the 4/5 yo lavender bush, have perceptibly benefited from the attention.  I'm particularly glad about that, seeing as it was a garden warming gift from PapaBear.

Now, the bad: my garden is only relatively weed free.  Now, I think I want to practice a mildly tolerant form of gardening, especially since I want to avoid non-organic weed-prevention/plant care products, and don't have the pocket book to buy organic products or the knowledge of what to buy even if I did.  So, relatively works for me.  As long as that's the way it stays.  Some repeat offenders are bramble shoots, crabgrass, and mint.  (Of all the plants I had to ignore planting instructions for why did it have to be mint?  I shall have "She should have put down a root-barrier" engraved upon my headstone.  Or tattooed across my forehead.)

Lastly, a caveat: I goofed.  I weeded that sucker on Monday the 13th, laid down what cardboard I had on Tuesday the 14th, laid down several years' worth of figure study newsprint on Wednesday the 15th, forgot that newsprint is very very light, came back that afternoon to nekked peppal all over the yard, replaced the newsprint and weighed it down with the four 1-cubic foot bags of garden soil I could afford that day, and came back on Friday the 17th with three 2-cubic foot bags and one 1-cubic foot bags of garden soil that I was able to buy that day.  Goof #1, I could already see where the weeds were beginning to grow around the cardboard/newsprint.  Goof #2, eleven cubic feet of garden soil wasn't enough.  It covered everything, but just barely. 

Ok, one more thing - it's really part of the last lastly so it doesn't even really count; it's a caveat to the caveat: I really, really hate that I bought garden soil from a chain home improvement store.  Is that a redundancy?  Chain + home improvement store?  Anyway, my point is that I would have much preferred to use my own compost, as Anna Hess did with her asparagus bed (her own compost, my ever-present on board editor says in the back of my head), but I just don't produce that much compost, and I figured buying soil this once would be better than letting PapaBear spray and rototill.  I hope to keep things nailed down enough that the total garden kill mulch won't have to be repeated and I can manage with the minimal amounts of compost that our deciduous tree-less household can produce.

So there you have it.

Tiger Patch

  Here at the newly rechristened Many Fingered-Pie (a title that is a bit garbled, admittedly, but it fits), I freely concede to the charges of being inconsistent - a glance at the archive dates alone will prove that - scatterbrained, and, included in the new subtitle, haphazard. 

  Who is my accuser?

  Myself.  And by extension you imaginaries reading this ill-advised article.  Hmm, "article."

  Also included in the new subtitle, I tend to really like things, and get excited about doing things, only to sally forth to do whatever latest shiny idea has caught my eye and discover - I like it much more on a theoretical level.  That usually doesn't keep me from trying to do, or, once the shine has temporarily worn off, from coming back and giving it another go once my head of enthusiastic steam has built itself up again.  It doesn't even keep me from gleaning a modest enjoyment and satisfaction from the practical side of the project at hand.  That just doesn't seem to be enough to keep me faithful and true for more than a few weeks, months at the most, at a time.

  I suppose the root of my problem could be considered a mixture of short attention span combined with a real struggle with the expectation of instant gratification. 

  Of course, my problem could also be that I'm a fickle, wishy-washy twit.

  Usually, my spurts and lapses of interest cause no more trouble than persuading me to spend way too much money on something I will not consistently use (and driving my family nuts), but with gardening, it's a somewhat different proposition.  There is a distinct need to be on top of the ball.  Hard work is needed, and often.  If it's time to plant, and I'm not in the mood, I need to either get the heck off my seat-warmer or miss an opportunity not easily regained.  That's what happened this spring with my garden.  I wasn't in the mood, and my seat remained warm.

  There are excuses, naturally, some of them even valid.

  For one, last spring, I planted a beautiful, luscious, lovely, spec-TAC-ular white zucchini - an Italian heirloom, no less.

  It was eaten alive by squash bugs.  Organic product controls listed in my bug reference book, Good Bug Bad Bug, were beyond my means at the time.  The only viable option under preventative action once I discovered the infestation was "hand pick."  I found myself not up to the task.  Yes, I know.  My failings are many.  Sigh.

  An interrelated reason for my lack of enthusiasm was that here in the central Piedmont of North Carolina, we had a winter that was so underwhelming it left us looking at each other and asking, "What happened to January?"  It must have seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread to the local insect population.

  The best excuse for the tendency toward garden deterioration near the middle of summer, even when I do get out there in the spring is that overheating through exertion is a sure fire migraine trigger for me.

  So my poor little garden languished while my "People say I'm easily distra - SQUIRREL!" attitude found other momentary points of focus.

  Well, bugs and all, my focus has rolled around again.  In August.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm a closet masochist...

  Anyway, I'd like to get my garden in shape at least for a meager fall crop of greens, so I set out into the jungle.  I live at home, and while it is my garden, PapaBear has quite the veto power.  When we have different ideas about what should be done, it can get... a bit sticky.  (Another reason I lost interest, an attempt to avoid conflict - because I'm a coward - except, duh, letting the garden go feral caused even more conflict).  He wants to spray everything.  I don't.  So I've been looking for an eco-friendly, quick-result method to tame my tiger patch.  I settled on this kill mulch, no-dig technique from the Walden Effect homesteaders (whose delightful month-by-month ebooklet series you can find here).  My beds are, well, maybe just a wee bit worse off than hers, but I'm hoping it will still work.

  So, here are the ubiquitous before and after pictures:

Before.  *Hangs head in shame*

In between. A good two year's worth of figure drawing newsprint supplemented the cardboard I dug out of the garage.

Aaaaaand after!  *Pats self on back*

  I shall be keeping a weedy eye out, as I've already flagged some trouble spots.  Developments shall be logged as they occur.

ABCdery

A garden starts in winter.  Breath fogs as the ground freezes, old stalks rustle and fall down.  Clearing begins in spring, when the old material can be turned over and buried to help feed the new.  Daydreaming about what to plant where is a winter survival tactic; afternoons spent pouring over the seed catalogs with their brightly colored pictures, so cunningly sent out in the dead of January.  Except by the time the frosts are far enough apart to count, “where” questions are mostly settled, and it’s time to start thinking of “when.”  Frosts are a central pillar around which gardeners plan and hope.  Good pea plants are born of hard frosts, but less hardy plants, like tender greens, need warm soil to grow in.  Hard frosts tell a gardener when to plant indoors and when to move indoor seedlings out.  In mid spring when all the frosts are gone, transplanting and direct sowing can begin in earnest.  Just like magic, or seems like.  Keeping watch, day after day, over a stretch of ground that looks empty and then spotting the very first tiny leaves one fine, sunny morning.  Later, when the weather warms up even further it’s time to plant the heat lovers like tomatoes, peppers, and basil; a late start for a late crop.  Maybe as far back as the first day of February another set of tomatoes and peppers have been started indoors, and now is the time to transplant them; a very early start for an early crop.  Now starts the long haul towards harvest time.  Other than a rogue hail or windstorm, the garden is relatively safe weather wise until the real heat of summer sets in.  Perfidious pests are another matter and must be dealt with severely.  Quietly multiplying aphids, voracious Japanese beetles, legion squash bugs and distance jumping grasshoppers, all make an appearance.  Rightful garden denizens like ladybugs, tachinid flies, and soldier bugs seem in much shorter supply.  Scented herbs, both aromatic and sweet, dominate the air.  Trailing vines of peas, cucumbers and melons act like common thugs in their attempt to dominate their own little portion of the world.  Underneath the shading leaves of larger bushes, less heat resistant plants shelter, and grow as best they can.  Vital water flows in the muggy cool of morning and the sticky heat of evening.  With the passage of June and July, the heat really sets in, causing weariness even among such veterans as the tomatoes.  X-acto blades clear away dried and dying vegetation.  Yielding its harvest, the garden goes mostly dormant in the weirdly mirrored, yet polar opposite image of winter.  Zooming oppressively by, the summer will soon be replaced by the cool of autumn, but not soon enough.

Yunte Huang on Charlie Chan

Whenever I have a spare moment lately, I've been reading "Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History" by Yunte Huang.  I'm about half way through the book.

I owe my knowledge of the book to a commenter on a FaceBook page that I follow.  After I became aware of the whitewashing scandal of The Last Airbender film, I discovered Racebending, a discrimination awareness group focusing on the entertainment industry. 

Racebending's latest project is highlighting and critiquing the upcoming Akira film that follows The Last Airbender pattern of filling all the main good-people roles with Caucasians (although for Akira, and this makes the situation particularly ludicrous, they retain their Japanese names), and, on occasion, making the staggeringly generous decision of allowing the main bad character to be played by a person of color [sarcasm cleanup on aisle four].  On a post about it - I believe it was the one announcing Kristen Stewart's gracing of the cast with her presence - someone posted a link to an NPR article about Yunte Huang's book.

Huang's writing is wonderful, and the book is interesting and quite engaging.  According to Huang, his book details four versions of the Charlie Chan legend,

" The first story, of course, is the man himself, beginning with Chang Apana, the bullwhip-toting Cantonese detective in Honolulu. Then there is Earl Biggers's story, unwinding from the cornfields of small-town Ohio to the old-boy parlors of Harvard Yard, followed by Chan's reinvention on the silver screen, a legend annealed in Hollywood and America's racial tensions. And, finally, there is Chan's haunting presence during the era of postmodern politics and ethnic pride in contemporary America."

But in addition to being in bulk a biography of Chang Apana, the real-life person who inspired Bigger's character and providing a look at Hawaiian history that's in-depth enough to serve as a framework with which to view the rest of the book, Huang also relates and reflects on  some of his personal experiences, both from his childhood and days as a student in China and his studentship and eventual professorhood here in America. 

The book is a must read for history buffs, classic movie fans, and those who simply enjoy being treated to an alternative point of view from the mainstream Caucasian culture. 

Bad Guys and Good Guys and Good Bad Guys and Bad Good Guys

...Not to mention Bad Bad Guys and Good Good Guys.

I'm just wondering if I might be thinking about something in one dimension.

For Creative Writing, I have to write an 8-22 page short story (by Dec 9th! Yikes!) and I thought a campus alert e-mail sent out over this last summer would make a good starting point.

A person was accosted by three guys, one of which had a gun.  They took the person's car, but before they left, one of them told their victim that the reason they were doing what they were doing is that their mother was sick, and they couldn't think of any other way to get money to help her.

Now, whether or not what he said was even true, the reaction of the victim cries out (to me) to be explored.  What would you say to that?  What would you be too afraid to say but would think?  "Oh, well, that makes everything all right - wait! Here, let me give you my wallet, too" or "Pull the other one chum, it's got bells on."

In an idea workshop, I explained this to the rest of the class, but they didn't seem to get what I was getting.  One person wanted me to write about the guy who told the victim about his mother instead of the victim.  But one of the most important things about the scenario to me is not knowing whether or not he was telling the truth.  It doesn't matter whteher or not he was telling the truth but knowing if he was or wasn't would spoil the whole thing for me.

And then I started to think about why this had such a pull on me.  Am I being too one-dimensional?  Seeing all bad guys as just bad guys, or was I justified in thinking that life is not an episode of Flashpoint, and sometimes bad guys really are just bad guys?  Or do I need to step back and look at my assumptions?

Well, that's always a good idea.

So.  I admit that life happens, even to people who are otherwise good, clean upstanding citizens.  What would I do if MY mother were desperately ill and my family had no way to help her?  Not armed robbery ( I don't think), but I'd definitely let my grades go to hell... which in my family is probably worse than armed robbery.

*sigh*

Ok, I'll admit it: I'm only here because I'm in super-procrastination-ninja mode.  Why yes, I did just work the word ninja into a sentence about paper writing procrastination, yes I did.

Dear Imaginary Readers.

Dear Imaginary Readers.

I think I'm back.  Think, because sometimes, from day to day, I feel like a completely different person, and as a full time college student, this is the time of year when the world seems to come unglued around the ears.

Looking back at some of the posts from the beginning of 2010, I'm amazed.  And not in a good way.  Another blog author I read talked about the rising level of maturity she could see in her own writing after sticking with her blog for a number of years.  She said you just had to stick with it.  Well, I didn't.  Then.  But I hope to give it a try now.

The posts with specific "-day" appellations like a book review every Thursday and a story serial every Saturday and some sketches every Friday weren't necessarily a bad idea, but I doubt I'll have the time or inclination to do them EVERY Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

I'm not going to be ambitious this time around.  I'm not going to dream about having a massive following.  I'm not even going to give in to the temptation to constantly check the "Overview" and "Stats" pages from the dashboard.  And, the second week of December, I'm flying across the country for my best friend's wedding, and before that I have finals.  So above all, I'm not going to be a slave to this blog.  I have a life (I do!) so I will only post on my schedule.

And I'll try to make sure that what I want to say is either worth being said or at least said the best way I know how before I hit that Publish button.

Dredge

A school paper from last semester...

Frost and Snow Fall, Mingled with Hail


Ubi sunt? Where are they now? Winter becomes a personification of Death; falling snow as an emblem of loneliness. A snow covered, wind-battered wall as a picture of man’s infinite sorrow. And yet, in the distance, the light of hope in heaven is pinpointed on the horizon, and the wise man sits “apart in private meditation” (Greenblatt 113). These are some of the stronger themes and motifs in The Wanderer, a poem of lament from pre-tenth century England, enriched, as is characteristic of poetry of the time, with beautiful and creative kennings, a formula of descriptive words used to stand in for a noun. The elegiac poems of Old English literature shared much in common while still displaying a certain individuality, laying the groundwork and using many of the same themes and ideas as later writers such as “Donne, Arnold, Tennyson, and Milton” (Greenfield 2). In turn, Greenfield conjectures that the De Consolatione Philosophiae, written by an imprisoned Christian awaiting his execution might have influenced the authors of Beowulf and The Wanderer (34). The Wanderer and another elegiac poem The Seafarer “were, in earlier criticism, disintegrated into pagan and Christian strata” but now are both “viewed as unified structures and the product of the cloisters” (Greenfield 217).

The theme of Ubi sunt pervades such poems as The Wanderer; mournful cries of “‘where has the horse gone? Where the young warrior?’” echoing throughout (Greenblatt 113). Traces of the lament can even be found in Beowulf, which has sometimes been described as an epic, although in his essay The Monsters and the Critics Tolkien declares that “no terms borrowed from Greek or other literatures exactly fit” and rather describes it as “an heroic-elegiac poem; and in a sense all its first 3, 136 lines are the prelude to a dirge … one of the most moving ever written” (31). With such a powerful emotional pull being even stronger in The Wanderer, it is hard to believe any other ideas could have room to breath, and yet the entire poem is full of vivid imagery that stand in good harmony with each other and with Ubi sunt. The first part of the poem shows the unnamed protagonist as a broken, weary soul who longs for close companionship and family to unburden his sorrows on, mourning, “often before day dawned I have had to speak of my cares, alone: there is now none among the living to whom I dare clearly express the thought of my heart” (Greenblatt 112). The haunting sea that the protagonist seems doomed to roam forever, empty and restless, is a symbol of the wanderer’s exile.

After this, the poem changes directions in two ways; namely that the character of the wanderer seems to have undergone a change to be more thoughtful in a philosophic way and less self absorbed, and the language of the poem itself varies slightly in that it only once more references the sea; all other notations as to allegorical surroundings site things to do with dry land such as horses, walls, and “snow, the herald of winter” coming to bind the earth (Greenblatt 113). And all this leads up to the poem’s end; an exhortation to look to God and the next world to provide the stability that this world lacks.

Greenfield claims that the syntax of the verse’s opening lines suggest that Christian values are already being hinted at through delaying the “conventional association of ‘wretchedness’ and ‘lone-dwelling’” and replacing it at first with “often the lone-dweller experiences mercy” (76). But just as easily, the reading could be interpreted as avoiding reference to Christianity, and slowly revealing the wisdom the wanderer finds through his long years of suffering and his final philosophical conclusion, almost as if the listeners – or, today, readers – were experiencing both the pain and the somber joy for themselves.

While Beowulf is a mixture of the heroic and elegiac, Greenfield again points out that The Wanderer is “in the tradition of the Classical and Christian literary genre of the consolatio” (218). However, it is interesting to note the distinction made by another author, Hill, who compares Beowulf to two other poems of a slightly later period; The Battle of Brunanburh and The Battle of Maldon. He states that while these latter two were “composed carefully by makers who understand complexly the situations and persons involved” they are “simply much more polemical when compared to Beowulf and its inset stories. They are shaped more as arguments than as presented worlds, arguments regarding entirely justified violence” (Hill par 9). According to Hill, these other stories have a political undercurrent where “traditional loyalties are appropriated to model new ideas of loyalty to a state” (par 5).

Regardless of how one interprets The Wanderer, its inherent beauty of imagery remains unchanged, and the human sorrow of the nameless exile calls out to the reader; the poignant image of emptiness and loss captured in the wanderer’s dream of home when “he wakes again, the man with no lord, sees the yellow waves before him, the sea birds bathe, spread their feathers, frost and snow fall, mingled with hail” (Greenblatt 112).

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. Print.

Greenfield, Stanley. A Critical History of Old English Literature. New York: New York University Press, 1965. Print.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984. Print.

Hill, John. "Shaping Anglo-Saxon Lordship in the Heroic Literature." Heroic Age 3 (2000): n. pag. Web. 30 Nov 2009. .

A Review of Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn

Wow. There’s a lot to discuss here. I placed Midnight Hour on hold from the North Carolina Digital Library about a month ago, because a) I thought I was getting an audio book and not an e-book, and b) because I thought it sounded mildly interesting, and if it wasn’t, my mind could just wander and I could let the pulp just wash past me.

Not so. Set in a world described to be the real one, its inhabitants are largely unaware of the supernatural creatures cohabiting this ‘real world’ and instead of working largely to continue the deception and concealment, the plot works toward a revelation – dragging most of the characters with it. This is especially interesting to me, because in my current WIP, I’m doing something similar; I’m almost positive that by the end of my book, the ‘real world’ inhabitants will become painfully aware of my magic-users from an alternate reality.

Vaughn has an interesting and detailed take on werewolves, in some aspects similar to Terry Pratchett in his Night Watch story arcs, most of which feature Sgt. Angua, a female werewolf. In Vaughn’s mythology, her interpretation leads to some rather disturbing sexual elements in the beginning of the story, but as the MC progresses through the story, she also shakes off the exploitation she has been suffering at the hands of her pack’s alpha male. Whereas Pratchett develops an idea of “Good dog/Bad dog” (as in the desire to be a Good Dog and the fear of becoming a Bad Dog), Vaughn explores the idea of needing companionship, needing an alpha, needing the approval of the alpha. In this vain, I was favorably impressed that Kitty separates herself from Carl, the pack leader, and does not enter into a different sexual relationship. Vaughn therefore shows the need for Kitty’s reliance on herself rather than simply on a different and better man than Carl.

Also, throughout the book, the author explores the different balances the individual members of the pack maintain between their “wolf” and “human” selves. Carl is portrayed as almost completely wolf-like, while his “mate” Meg, who schemes throughout the book, is portrayed as more human, therefore having the ability to scheme. Kitty lets her Wolf influence her actions throughout the novel, but in different ways at different plot points. In the beginning, as mentioned earlier, she lets Carl take advantage of her because of her Wolf’s need to please the alpha. Later, however, she completely surrenders to the Wolf’s more aggressive side, attacking and killing a rogue werewolf created by one of Meg’s plots to get rid of Kitty and dethrone Carl.

While I did find the book to be compelling, I have to wonder if the books in the rest of the series will be as good. It's hard to maintain depth of character when there are a lot of books with the same character in them. Once you work out the issues, they're worked out; anything after that seems shallow. The second book is on hold for me, but I have my doubts.

As a note on style, I have to say, Vaughn is excellent when it comes to dialog. She knows just when to have markers and when not.

And we haven’t even discussed the vampires yet! But maybe that’s for another day…

Bits of Brains & The Fall of Civilization

No, my dears, this post isn't about zombies. Well, not really. And, ok, maybe "fall of civilization" is a bit melodramatic. Anyway.
In my psychology class, the professor handed out a packet on education in other countries; specifically Japan. The discussion was about how our educational system favors reading and mathematics so much and neglects music, the arts and physical education. There was a list showing the different hours per school year each subject got in a typical Japanese child's education from 1st to 6th grade. The hours for right-brain vs. left-brain activities balanced out pretty equally. The point was to illustrate something he was trying to tell us about creativity. Apparently, you can't be creative if you don't know anything, and the more rounded and extensive your education is, the more creative potential you have. Gah, what I would have given to be educated in Japan.
Similarly (or they seem similar to me, anyway), in my anthropology class a few sessions back, I got quite an interesting insight into the minds of my classmates. We were discussing the rise of civilization and the prof asked, "What do you think of when you think of civilization?" What answers she managed to squeeze out of us ranged from "Skyscrapers" to "Government" to "Highways" ... really. Exasperated, the professor asked, "What about the arts? What about science?"
What about the arts? What about science? Is this limited perception of civilization held by more people than just those in my anthropology class? A tall building, a long road and someone to tell you what to do. I don't know, maybe we are talking about zombies here.

Preparations and Dub vs. Sub

Good evening, imaginaries:
I'm really excited about doing my English paper this semester, because it's a Wolrd Lit class, and the teacher has given us free reign from the 1600s on ward. Anything goes. Authors, characters, books, etc. So with this vast sea to choose from, what shall I do? (As if I didn't already know.) I'm going to write about Baba Yaga! I've already got two books of fairy tales from the library, and I'm going to order this later tonight. I really should have been a folklorist. (was anybody else as breathless as me when they found out folklorist was actually a job?) Part of the final grade for this class is a visual presentation, and I like to prepare videos with a mixture of pictures and text with music - I already have the PERFECT music chosen out; I'll post it when I get it done.
In other news, I was sick over the weekend (very, very glad that I had the posts scheduled from Wednesday all the way to Monday), and so I didn't get to watch the four English dubbed episodes of One Piece that Hulu releases every Saturday until last night. Major anime-habit high. Now, I know there is a lot of, haha, let us kindly refer to it as "debate" in the anime watching community about whether dubbed versions or subtitled versions are better. I say, why does one have to be better than the other for everyone? Now personally, I prefer dubbed versions because, while I love listening to the voices, I manically HATE any and all subtitles. [Redundant] period. I can't watch English soundtrack movies with subtitles, and I can barely force myself to watch Japanese soundtrack shows with subtitles. I would literally rather watch it in Japanese without the titles and try to figure out what's going on by the actions of the characters. Once I (sometime in the distant and vague future) learn to speak Japanese, it'll all be good :D

Notes on Openings

A few notes on yesterday’s serial… I’m leaving it to stand as it is (call it posterity), but if I were to do it again, I think I’d cut out the opening 1st person segment. It seemed funny when I was writing it, but all those acronyms were hard to keep up with and looked a lot more off-putting in blog form than they did in Microsoft Word. There were also a few wording issues I would change in the later portion, but all in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I was thinking about where I chose to start the story, both narrative-wise and sequentially; because actually, that opening was the third one I wrote. Also I’ve been looking at how I’ve chosen to open some of my other WIPs, and I’ve been studying the various blogs that post reviews of people’s opening page. It’s interesting how many people want to start off with a calm, almost ruminative sequence, sometimes one where the MC is waiting for something to happen (as in the first opening I wrote featured Mockin’bird sitting on the front porch waiting for the arrival of Gully, whom she had never met) and then pick up the action from there. One of the other opening habits I have is to start off with an unknown person saying something, usually to the MC. Now, I’ve read a lot of the articles out there saying, “Show, not tell,” and admonishing the beginning writer to start off with strong action – one article complained about books that start off with a summary of the MC’s life, and to a certain extent I agree; but I have to say, I’ve read several stories that follow the basic template I’m interested in that have a charming “Part One,” so to speak; they paint beautiful pictures and really ground the readers and gives them a vested interest. These stories include “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, “Spindle’s End” by Robin McKinley, and to a lesser extent “Dealing with Dragons” by Patricia C. Wrede. If you can pull it off, I don’t see any reason not to do it. So. There’s my two-cents worth.