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Showing posts from March, 2018

Consumed by Fire: Story Week 10

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The Darvaza gas crater at night. Found on  Wikimedia Commons . Now, I think my son might be crazy. Like, actually crazy. But at the same time, with everyone talking about the end of the world, can he really be that crazy? "Mom, I know how to save us from the fire," he said. "Sure you do, honey," I said. "No seriously. This is how we are going to be safe." Then he takes out a bow and shoots arrows in each of the cardinal directions. "This land that I have outlined with arrows, it will be safe from the flames." "Son, this is absolutely ridiculous. There is no way this will save us when the world is in flames," my husband said. "No, really, this will work. We will be safe at the end of the world when everyone else is dead," my son said. My husband did not believe him. My husband left that day, and we never saw him again. "Okay so what's the plan? How will this save us?" I asked. "Here the earth is

(Reading) Notes from the Underground: The Burning of the World

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The Darvaza gas crater at night. Found on Wikimedia Commons . The world was burned. A mother and her son and daughter survived. Everyone else of earth died. The son had heard about the earth burning before it happened, but his father did not believe him. They had a falling out. The son made a bow and arrow, which he shot in each direction- north, south, east, and west. The ground did not burn in the fire that had been outlined by the arrows. He warned people of the fire and that this land wold be safe. They didn't believe him. The fire came and they could hear it encroaching. animals ran to the plot of land. The man refused to show up because of his fight with his son (hi pride and hubris). The fire burned everything and boiled the water away before ceasing. The world had to start agin from the ashes and the lone plot of land. The man named the animals as he told them what to do and where to go. The rabbit didn't want to listen to him, it wanted to live in the water. the s

Reading (Notes) Up with the Jones

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Portucala thellusonii, a hand-coloured engraving after a drawing by Miss S. A. Drake (fl. 1820s-1840s), from the 26th volume of the Botanical Register (1840), edited by John Lindley. Found on wikimedia . Yang Oerlang This story is from  The Chinese Fairy Book , ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). The daughter of the ruler of heaven came down to earth and got married. When she returned to heaven, she was pregnant with a son. The ruler was not happy and banished her to earth, covering her with hills. Her son was born, and he was very talented. Oreland has gifted in transformations, mastering many forms by the time ha was an adult. He went to the hills and rescued his mother from within. They stopped to rest and the mother was thirsty. Her son fetched her water from the bottom of the valley, but when he returned, she was no longer there. He searched for her, finally finding her skin, bones and blood stains on a rock nearby. She was divine, but her fathe

Week 8 Progress

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( Know Your Meme ) I think that looking back, I have completed everything mandatory for this class. I have put the work in and gotten stories up. Some of them might of gone up last minute, but they were up. At this point in the semester, I'm just happy to be staying on top of my work. And as a senior, well, I'm trying to find motivation to do the work. I think that overall, the level of work  have been completing probably isn't the best, but it is there on time. It's done. I completed it. So there is that. I also think that going forward it would probably be a good idea to work ahead, as I originally intended but never did. It's been that time of year where everyone has the campus plague and I somehow managed to avoid it. But if I had gotten it, I would have had major issues. I think that trying to work on my schedule and make sure that I'm not doing things last minute will be easier now that I officially have gotten in to grad school and am no longer hav

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

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( cheezburger ) I think that the overwhelming majority to the comments I have received in this class have been supportive. People tend to comment or leave feedback on things they like, which is good. But I'm still waiting on actionable feedback. Most comments talk about how cool of an idea this is, or I like your website, you are doing x, y, and z well. All of that is great to hear and can help, but it would be nice to hear that your dialogue is lacking, this element was hard to follow. Comments like that would really help me grow as a writing.  Now, I'm guilty of that too. I leave comments on things that I like, because, hey it's nicer and dent make me feel as bad. I think that I do a good job of sandwiching things to work on inside praise, but I don't know how well it is translating. Add into the fact that this particular way of getting feedback has yet to create conversations (for me), I just think it seems a little like shouting into the abyss. Does anyone c

Week 8 Reading and Writing

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Codiesta by Techfiesta. Found on  Wikimedia . This is my favorite image that I have found for use in this class. It was one of my most interesting finds, something that wasn't expected and, honestly, just really cool to look at. Looking back on my body of work for this class, I am proud of what I have done. I have tried new narrative styles and told stories I never thought I would. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone from a reader to a writer, something that, while I have dabbled, I never thought that I could do. My favorite thing I have written is my story on fate. I really enjoyed playing with the structure of the story, It really felt like I was writing a movie or something, like it was already there and just waiting in to be told. It wasn't nearly as difficult as other stories had been. Sometimes I look down at my screen and just think, I have no new ideas. Nothing I create from this is going to be original. And that is something that I will have to deal with moving

Magic Kettle: Story Planning Week 7

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Raccoon Dog of Nogeyama Zoo by Toshihiro Gamo. Found on wikimedia . The Magic Kettle Story Planning More detailed notes on the story can be found here . This story comes from The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1903). A man lived on the side of a mountain and found a kettle after hearing a weird noise. It was a kettle he had never seen before, but he needed a new one so he cleaned it and began using it. It turned into a creature on the fire, running around his house. He called a neighbor and they caught the creature in a trunk. They called for a salesman to get sell the creature. When they opened it back up, it was a kettle again and the salesman bought the kettle. It kept getting heavier as he moved away from he house. In the night, the kettle transformed into the creature. The salesman decided to create a show out of it and became rich. He returned the kettle and a fee for renting it to the man who originally found it. They all lived happily e