We define ourselves by the stories we tell each other. Myths, fairytales, fantasy, scifi, fiction, drama, superhero movies, et., they are all different ways to look at ourselves in a mirror. Consider metal illness and cognitive developmental disorders.
It’s a Father’s Day weekend, and we have a lot to celebrate. My son’s graduation ceremony is on Father’s Day! He earned his doctorate in physics! He is also a great dad to a little girl and his birthday is a day before. It’s a full weekend of joy! Fatherhood can be complicated and all complicated things make great stories. I’ve considered which of my books has the most interesting father story and decided that Mirror Shards must be the one. So I’ve setup a giveaway of that ebook on Amazon for the next 5 days. Happy Father’s Day! When we are young, our conscious thoughts rarely extend beyond the immediate reality of our lives — playing with toys, visiting playgrounds, eating snacks, and receiving love and attention from our parents. Children seldom think beyond the next day or two. The ability to envision a longer future signifies maturation. As we grow older, our mental horizons broaden, we become more aware of the world, develop an interest in others, and learn to plan for the future. Yet, as we age, these horizons often narrow again. Some interpret this as a kind of selfishness of old age, but it truly reflects…
When I was about five, I was obsessed with Swan Lake. I adored the score and played the record over and over again. I remember attending the ballet, but it was the music and the story that truly captivated my soul. The music, written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between 1875 and 1876, is sublime. Even now, I can pinpoint where we are in the story just by hearing a few chords; the ending still brings me to tears. But what affects me the most — is it the music or the story? Here’s a quick summary of the story: a princess, cursed to live as a swan during the day, regains her human form at night. One evening, a prince, out hunting, encounters her and falls deeply in love. While court intrigues attempt to lead the prince to choose a bride and a malevolent witch tries to deceive him, these elements pale in comparison to the climax. Ultimately, the prince forsakes his humanity, transforming into a swan to join the woman he loves. Together, they fly away, a happy couple. Swan Lake embodies a mythic story archetype, echoed throughout fantasy and fiction. Consider Twilight, where a lover surrenders her humanity…
Setting and characters dictate how the story will play out when told. The same story can be told in a Victorian setting, as a space opera, or as a modern day fiction. “Pride and Prejudice” in space? Sure! Darcy can be a dashing if deeply flawed space captain alien. The setting won’t change the story’s emotional tone all that much, but the details will be substantially different. Darcy can be a mage…or a dragon…or a merman…or a an enchanted sward in a fantasy novel. Darcy can be man or a woman or anything in between — it’s the character traits that matter. Imagine “Beauty and the Beast”. How many different ways can this story be told if the setting changed? Millions! In fact, we know that some readers look to read the same story over and over again set in another time and place and variations of characters. Humans get a lot of pleasure from repetition and the ending we expect (happy or not). This is one of the reasons that some people read exclusively in one genre — when personal life is complicated and unpredictable, a little surety is appreciated in one’s entertainment. People search for emotional resonance that…
It’s the start of a summer and thus a start of a county fair season. This year felt different — the carny people were gone!
Phrontistery is an ancient Greek word meaning “a place for thinking.” I love cool words and phrontistery not only feels good on the tongue, but its meaning really appeals to me — it describes a space specifically dedicated to thinking! For many people, bathrooms are a perfect phrontistery. They are for me, too. Showers score high as well. But I think I do my best thinking when I write. With my fingers on the keys, I can clarify my thinking and also discover ideas that must have been hovering around my subconsciousness, ready to be revealed to my eyes through my fingers. Writing is a metaphorical phrontistery for me. And probably in the days when diaries and journals were popular, many others found capturing words in a tangible medium clarified one’s thoughts and opinions on all sorts of matters. Luckily for my friends and family, I write mostly fiction — my phrontistery cleverly hides the true identities of many. Lately, I have been devouring books at a high rate. As a result, my little collection of notes (over a thousands and counting) has been growing. I consider my notes app as part of my phrontistery. I jut down ideas for…
There is a whole genre of coming-of-age stories — stories that describe a transition from childhood to adulthood. The transition could be fast, forced by some external events, or painfully slow. And sometimes, it might not happen at all — we all know people who we charitably describe as having “arrested development” issues. This is how Wikipedia defines the coming-of-age genre, too, adding: “Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past. The subjects of coming-of-age stories are typically teenagers.” But is it correct to place teenagers as protagonists in coming-of-age books? In Victorian times (1937 to 1901), the female protagonists used to be about fifteen or sixteen — girls of marriageable age! For these children, coming-of-age meant going directly from playing with dolls and right into a marriage bed. Boys were perhaps a bit older, 17, their swords changed from wood to metal over the telling of their coming-of-age stories. Think of The Vicomte De Bragelonne or The Count of Monte Cristo, written in 1847 and 1844, respectively. The young count and Edmond were just teenagers when their stories got started. Edmond got to live to be an old man.…
