The Space Between Heaven and Earth

Eleven months ago, my betrothed and I walked the desert to lie before the stars, so that their light might pierce our shells and share with us our true names. For the names given by family and friend are mere nicks and scrapes on the surface of a person’s true nature, and as the elders say, “Only the stars can show us who we are.”

Before the stars gave us the names we sought, our people called my betrothed the second son of Ammon, and me the second daughter of Nu. We went west from the great river, crossing the high dunes with a warm rain sitting soggy on our shoulders, and did not speak throughout the morning. I followed my betrothed, watching the dunes, counting our steps, spotting the few subtleties of landscape we’d been taught to navigate by, and soon we came upon our destination.

We did not see the monolith until it was right in front of us, for it had stood hidden, a giant grey slab of stone against the grey storm. Its walls inclined toward a single point high above, directing our eyes skyward, and we paced slowly around looking for the entrance to the sacred cave.

Mirel Wagner – No Death

Music! Why not, right?

Mirel Wagner. I wish I could listen to lyrical music while writing. Want to wrap myself in the darkness of it–and it’s easy to do.

The Eye of The Story

Imagine the brutal gray clouds and black specs of indeterminable debris that make up the body of a hurricane, all circling around a calm and blue skied center: the eye of the storm. These elements of the storm define the eye by outlining it. The eye is the negative space; the part of the storm that is not storm.

The elements of story do the same, circling around a common theme yet never making direct contact. Like a powerful storm, a powerful story enforces and reinforces itself by moving around this central point in conjunction with all of the other elements. Character, plot, sub-plot–everything must echo this central theme, working through it, playing with it. Eroding it and distilling it into simple human truth.

The I of the Story

Examining my own stories, the eye is often a clear reflection of my life at the time of writing. Who I am, what I want, what I’m dealing with. It’s interesting how this subconsciously worms its way into our work. A form of therapy quite related to the analysis of dreams.

Working/production/joke title “Muromai and Kielle Forever” is about a boy and girl, lost far from home, fantasizing about getting back one day, not truly knowing what home really is. They cross the country only to find that it isn’t so much a place but a carefully cultivated feeling. This is something I’ve been dealing with for about two years now, having moved from family and friends in California to Indiana with my partner as she ventured into graduate school. I only just made the connection this morning waking from a dream.

What stories are you telling, and what sits at the eye? Is it you?

From now on… (a change of plans)

Okay, so, turns out I’ve been way too stuffy about this blog and it’s really killed my voice. Starting now, this will be more like a scrapbook, sometimes featuring new snippets of my writing, but most often featuring “Story Fragments” from around the web. Pieces of the world I stumble upon that inspire me, who knows, maybe they’ll inspire you, too, and we can talk about them

“Ovoo” (Mongolian Ceremonial Cairn)

“An ovoo (Mongolian: овоо, heap) is a type of shamanistic cairn found in Mongolia, usually made from rocks or from wood. Ovoos are often found at the top of mountains and in high places, like mountain passes. They serve mainly as religious sites, used in worship of the mountains and the sky as well as in Buddhist ceremonies, but often are also landmarks.” -Wikipedia

I found my way to the ovoo after reading some pretty inspiringly wacky talk about “Egyptian Texts,” which offer some…alternative suggestions as to how the pyramids were built. Basically, these super zen Egyptians with a knack for “second sight” through a third eye could use telekinesis. So yeah, that’s the pyramids, stonehenge, machu picchu…

This upsets me. Why discount our ancient ancestors’ intelligence and brute/”zerg” strength? Yeah, okay, they hadn’t climbed the ladder of civilization as high as we’re at today, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the same capacity to think as we do. Baby’s play with blocks. Human civilizations in their infancy played with huge blocks.

Anyway, this led me to cairns, which are slightly smaller collections of blocks laid out in slightly less precise fashion (generally a pile, but often stacked very intricately). Cairns are neat, and serve a multitude of purposes from waypoints/landmarks to help a traveler find their way, to places of religious ceremony/worship, to mass graves…and I’m sure there’s more. Pretty cool.

I’m currently writing a scene about a pair of four year old Gods who are forced on a rite of passage long before they’re ready for it. A cairn of some kind will make an appearance.

World Building

World building is exactly what it sounds like. It’s sitting down and writing a creation story or drawing maps; creating character sheets, inventing languages and cultures, magic systems and weather patterns.World building can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a serious momentum killer. It’s important not to be consumed by it.