DeviantArt: paperdart's gallery

Shamayim

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:07:29 PDT

CrumpetsHarvey      ". . . I want adventure and heroism, maybe a run-in with the gods"
PaperDart             I will rewrite the bible!
PaperDart              Milton took too long about it anyway!

For HammeredPoetry Prompt 8: Story-telling and the Power of Three

Write a poem that tells a story. Expect it to be long-ish. Yep, going on a thousand words.

The story should have elements of fairy tales or the epic. See above.

It should use the power of three: whether its 3 challenges, 3 magical items, 3 gifts, 3 strangers on the road... The Yeshua-Ruach-El trinity/triumvirate.

The rhyme scheme is (I hope!) xAxA a la medieval ballads and the metre is loosely (loosely!) iambic tetrameter. Names are borrowed from the Hebrew.

Questions! (Any and all answers or other comments much appreciated.)

Does it feel like a story? Do you care about the characters?

Did you realise that it was a retelling? Did that affect the way you read it?

The technical side of writing this felt different between the "happy" and "sad" parts. Does that come across when you read it? In a good way or a bad way?

Last time I wrote something like this (Gwyar's Telling of Myrddin), way back when, the strict metre ended up fairly sing song. I have tried to avoid this, partly just by being sloppy about the metre, partly by 'artful' use of enjambent. What did you think of the metre/rhythm of the piece?

What did you think of the change of tense at the end? It wasn't in the plan, but it seemed to fit when I got there.

I suspect there ought to be more details, but perhaps there are too many details. Where did you think it was too wordy/terse?

Critique link for theWrittenRevolution: comments.deviantart.com/1/5316…

To be read out loud

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:08:35 PDT

An experiment with nonsense poetry, although I'm not sure it's nonsense poetry exactly. The sound of it makes me happy and perhaps that is sufficient merit.

splash

Fri, 30 May 2014 07:56:46 PDT

Picture taken (on my cellphone) and words written on the banks of Eersterivier in Stellenbosch. Stone thrown by my younger brother.

Callow's Class

Sat, 10 May 2014 01:55:06 PDT

Just over six hundred words for the new Writers-Workshop on metamorphosis. The idea is to write about reactions to change. Specifically, it's to write something that's about the reactions and not the change itself.

All the physics in this is real, except that charm and beauty are different generations of quarks (and the beauty quark is usually called the bottom quark these days, which I think is a shame ). The lecture on things only existing when we interact with them is not canonical, but it is the sort of thing particle physicists are known to talk about.

Lots of inspiration from various people I've known/heard about in academia. Special mention to the lecturer who covered the eightfold way (briefly and not examinably) in my first year at university, Richard Feynman, SilverInkblot 's Doc and the university in Patrick Rothfuss's novels, which I'm currently reading. Perhaps also Quirrell of Methods of Rationality.

I would love to know what you thought; particularly

Can you tell what I'm writing about, or is it too attached to my personal context?
Am I doing too much telling and not enough showing? I wrote this almost as a monologue and I'm not sure whether or not it works.
How did you imagine the narrator? Did you imagine a narrator? [How] Could I improve that?
Does this capture the university atmosphere? Any atmosphere? Is there something I could do to improve the setting/atmosphere?
I don't think this is about change as much as it uses change to explore a different idea. Is that an effective technique/use of the workshop?

Stack Overflow

Tue, 06 May 2014 15:50:00 PDT

Seven Days of Sci-Fi Day Two

Context: rolling a 20 in Dungeons & Dragons means exceptional success.

Glass

Sun, 04 May 2014 04:26:23 PDT

For Memnalar's Seven Days of Sci Fi (Day One). The prompt was "nonessential prosthesis" and the word to include in the story was "larval".

Glass is named for Google Glass, but more in an inspired-by than based-on kind of way. Most of the research here went into rhinoceros beetles. (Yeah, I googled them.)

conversation with consciousness

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 07:11:16 PDT

You might be justified in writing this off as what happens when physicists get high on sleep deprivation*, but I hope a little more than that might be visible. I'd love to know what you see in this, even if it's merely that it's incomprehensible.

This is inspired by renga (Eastern collaborative poetry) -- we may have deviated too far in too many ways to claim that it precisely is renga. The left aligned parts are written by me and the right-aligned by Brent Harrison. There was no particular plan to it, beyond the format and there was no outside discussion. Some parts are definitely better than others.

If you notice and understand all the references and allusions here, you are more educated than either of us, although not necessarily more than both of us. I'm curious as to what of that sort is noticable and if there are too many obscure references for this to be follow-able. (If anyone's interested in an annotated version, that would be possible too.)

Any thoughts, whether on the content, the language, the form or something else, would be eagerly received.

*Most of this was not actually written while sleep deprived.

penguin

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 05:06:44 PDT

Senryu written while tourist-watching at Boulders Beach.

Rabbi Jesus: A Christmas Play

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:41:29 PST

1. If you've read this far, I assume you aren't freaking out about this being blatantly Christian. If you are (or aren't, for that matter), can we agree to talk about it nicely? This piece was, however, written to be performed in a church, by children. It's not meant to be a masterwork of apologetics.

2. I thought dA had a section for children's theatre. I guess it's changed. As you've probably gathered, this is intended to be performed by kids. My ten-and-eleven-year-olds needed some simplifications ("synagogue" became "church"; "legionary" became "soldier", for example), but mostly managed the script as is. If you have older actors, better readers or more time to practise (we had four hour-long rehearsals in total), I'd guess that wouldn't be necessary.

3. Not included is the brief introduction I gave at the beginning, explaining a tiny bit about Israel being under Roman rule. Maybe two minutes worth of talking? Five if you include the legionnaire-wannabes knocking the Christmas tree off the front of the stage. Altogether, with the carols trimmed slightly, this ran to about forty-five minutes.

4. The carols could be done by a choir. We had the audience/congregation join in with them, though, which kept things lively.

5. I'm unlikely to change anything about this now, but since I'll probably be writing another one next Christmas, suggestions are still welcome. And comments of any kind would be awesome.

Riot

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:46:12 PST

A sporadic attempt (can a single attempt be sporadic? -- one of a sporadic series, I suppose) at poetry during the reprieve from papers on quantum mechanics and statistical physics and other such things. (Though I love those too.) I feel rusty.

Thoughts, opinions, criticisms are always welcome and encouraged!

Sharing

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:45:36 PDT

Toadstool Chronicles will hopefully be a series of standalone flash fics for ~Flash-Fic-Month 2012. This is the third tale.
<tale two|

Fractions

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:18:29 PDT

This should be said by a twelve-year-old in her school dress with no idea that she knows what the multiplicative invertibility of the rationals (bar zero) is. It is another sprout of this, inspired by some very helpful commentary in a #CRLiterature crit event (Thanks, =futilitarian, $lightningmonkey, ^Beccalicious, *Vocable, =CJWilde, `HaveTales-WillTell!)

The second stanza is a reference to =SilverInkblot's poem Half, to which this is a kind of response.

Brownie Management

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:29:51 PDT

Toadstool Chronicles will hopefully be a series of standalone flash fics for ~Flash-Fic-Month 2012. This is the second tale.
<Tale One||Tale Three>

Koppin and Dubb

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:46:29 PDT

Toadstool Chronicles will hopefully be a series of standalone flash fics for ~Flash-Fic-Month 2012. This is the first tale.
||Tale Two>

How To Learn Mathematics

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 05:15:25 PDT

I previously wrote about learning maths here. I got some very helpful feedback on it at a #CRLiterature crit event (in no particular order, especial thanks to ^Beccalicious, $lightningmonkey, =CJWilde, `HaveTales-WillTell, *Vocable) and realised a lot about what I was trying to do, but perhaps less about how I needed to edit the piece I'd actually written. So this is one product of that session, unashamedly addressed to the student of mathematics, although hopefully not exclusive to her. I'm also trying to do a piece that addresses the not-student of mathematics (why yes, I am mildly maths-obsessed, thank you for noticing), but that's proving to be more difficult.

Opinions, as always, are very welcome!

Just to be clear, I don't think you can learn your times tables by breathing negative space; but I'm not sure you can understand compact sets without it.

Abstract

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 03:30:24 PDT

My little brother says the substance of the universe wouldn't burn, it would twist into weird shapes and portals would open. I'm not sure that hasn't happened already, though (cf. general relativity), which raises some interesting questions.

This is partly a response to =SilverInkblot's series "A Poetic Education". I think she's protesting the institutionalisation of learning, which I definitely get. But part of me says that learning should be able to transcend institutionalism and is beautiful regardless of context. Fractions are beautiful even without chrysanthemums, although that certainly doesn't mean the two shouldn't be combined.

Not sure how any of that comes across or if this even makes sense, but it's an attempt!

Queen of Geeks

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:53:58 PST

*nix, Mac, MS. (Okay, I apologise. I thought it was at least a little bit clever.)

"The next question was - what makes planets go around the sun? At the time of Kepler some people answered this problem by saying that there were angels behind them beating their wings and pushing the planets around an orbit. As you will see, the answer is not very far from the truth. The only difference is that the angels sit in a different direction and their wings push inward." -- Richard Feynman on the theory of gravitation

This is a retelling of the Baltic myth/folk tale Eglė, Queen of Serpents for #transliterations' Modernising Myths contest. When I started thinking about the contest, I decided that half the reason we enjoy myths and legends is that they are about something old and different: trying to modernise them took away my favourite part. Presently it occurred to me that the people who originally told these stories didn't exactly live on Mount Olympus sipping nectar and nibbling on ambrosia either. So that culture shift was a real thing that could, in fact be modernised. So that's what I tried to do.

In the original story, Eglė finds a serpent in her clothes after going swimming. He refuses to leave until she promises to marry the serpent king, and she does so, not thinking that her promise could be enforced. But the next day a carriage pulled by serpents arrives at her door and despite her family's resistance she is forced to go with them. The king of the serpents turns out to have a rather handsome human form and Eglė is not unhappy in her new home. Eventually, her children ask to visit their grandparent and she convinces her husband to let them go. While there, her brothers try to force first her sons and then her daughter to reveal how to summon their father. The daughter bends under pressure, the brothers summon the serpent king and he is killed. In her grief Eglė turns herself and her children to trees. Eglė is the Lithuanian word for spruce and the children are named similarly. The sons become strong trees, while the daughter is swayed by every passing breeze.

This format seemed like the best way to build atmosphere and advance the plot without getting too hung up over the details of the characters, which tend to absent from myths. Newspapers and such have a quality of being almost certainly right on the whole, but rather shaky abut the details. which appealed. I'm not sure I've got the balance of different kinds of articles and different aspects of story quite right, but I think it's at least at a point where you can see what I'm trying to do. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted and seriously considered, whether they relate to that or to any other aspect of the story.

If you made it through all of that:

Examination

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:47:21 PST

For #HammeredPoetry's 60 Extraordinary Words (or fewer). The idea is to depict an 'extraordinary' moment in under sixty[one] words. Not sure how I did here. Opinions?

Things I'm particularly interested in:
Is it actually interesting?
The formatting. Yes, no, is it really concrete poetry?
Do I achieve the sense of a particular moment? I think this may be too stretched out. Do you think I could improve it? How?
There's not much concrete imagery -- just the footsteps, and perhaps the pen. More felt overdone when i was striving for minimalism. Do you agree? Disagree?
Anything you want to tell me!

New Posting of an Itinerant Minister

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:01:33 PST

I wrote this with books on my feet in between discussions with siblings about Tolkien, Lewis, churches, plantations and hangman strategies. I don't know whether that's good or bad. I don't even know if this is technically free verse. I do know that the End rhyme to end all rhyme prompt/contest is just about to end and this is what I've got. Opinions?

I've tried to edit and improve, but I have struggled to find anything to change. Part of me feels like I'm just stating the obvious here, part of me thinks it's awfully contrived and part of me thinks it only seems obvious because I've lived it.

Mechanisms

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:37:31 PST

Etymoetry (flit flitter)

preview image

Ed. 12/11/11: third stanza

Butterfly

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:46:03 PDT

NOTE: This didn't play properly for me the first time it loaded, so if it skips or goes much too fast to read, it's not the file, it's just that it's not finished loading. (I think and hope.) It'll get there.

An attempt at digital poetry for ^nycterent's challenge. It hasn't worked out exactly as I planned, mostly because I ran out of time; there are things I would change if I had infinite time. I don't, though, and I think it's good enough to be worth posting.

(Not sure about the category, but it had to allow animated gifs!)

Stock used (11 stock images!):
[link]
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Msunduzi

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 08:27:15 PDT

We cross the Msunduzi river every morning and at this time of year (late winter) the sun catches the trees in the mist beautifully. I think it's a very African scene, although I don't know how well I've captured that here. Thoughts?

animated.css

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:28:22 PDT

Like I have time to be writing poetry. I really liked the idea though, so it got itself written. Is it actually a poem? I think it has a grain of poetry in it, at least.

Pinpricks

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:42:39 PDT

FFM 28
(Yes, this is really stretching the definition of flash fiction, but let's call it artistic license. Or something.)

It was originally trying to be a prose poem, but that didn't exactly work out. I'm not sure what it is now, except that it's an entry to the #transliterations Photocopier Contest. The picture I'm describing is up there in the preview (I hope). I like parts of this and dislike others. This contest was ridiculously hard when I came down to actually having to write for it. And when I found a view I thought I could write about, I realised I couldn't photograph it. So I got literal:

Then I was even more confused about what I was trying to say. Any help in understanding what my poor confused mind was attempting here and/or how to attempt it better is appreciated!

P.S. I believe somebody put the stars just where they are, but He's leaving us to figure out exactly what that means. Just to be clear. The other stuff up there is less clear but more pretty. And possibly more accurate because it's less precise. Or something.

Xander's Robot

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:19:47 PDT

FFM 21

Saved from the obscurity of my scrapbook by also being for this commissions* thread. (That means it has been edited, but less than if I didn't have to write another one of these tomorrow. And the next day. And the - oh, you get the idea? Awesome.) =SallyDaVE commissioned a piece about 'a robot that falls in love with a pirate vampire'.

It's also for today's 'Over 900' challenge from *Flash-Fic-Month - to write a flash fic (less than 1000 words) that's over 900 words.

*No, not commissions for money.

Innocent as Serpents

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 16:32:44 PDT

Somewhere north of Los Diablos . . .

'You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but I can’t think why I’d make this up. Atticus did say he wanted to meet you. I’m not sure how that will work if you don’t believe in him.'
'Atticus?' He wasn’t committing to anything.
'A friend of mine. A teacher, sort of. The forest [people] are even more different from us humans than we are from each other – which is a lot, apparently.'
He grinned.
'Anyway, some of us, the more flexible ones, get along. Atticus and I for instance.'

Curious? Download the whole story in PDF form here. (Or use the link in the sidebar.)

Stock Credits:

Cover Art/Preview Image

[link] *Katanaz-Stock
[link] ~Sifra-stock
[link] =Bundy-Stock
[link] ~ShadowxKissed
[link] ~NiennaAlatariel
[link] ~agonybliss

'Atticus'

[link] *Katanaz-Stock
[link] ~Sifra-stock
[link] =Bundy-Stock

'In the Climbing Tree'

[link] ~ShadowxKissed
[link] ~NiennaAlatariel
[link] ~PirateQueen-Stock

'My Locket'

[link] ~Imaginationstock
[link] *Eirian-stock

fireworks

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:56:06 PDT

I like how the mood reverses when you read the pivot line the other way. (i.e. reading it two lines - one line reverses the mood of reading one line - two lines)

This haiku is for #the-haiku-club's Soma-Nomaoi contest.

Dreamflowers

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:13:06 PDT

For =oblivion00's #Writers-Workshop on distorted perceptions. Just under 250 words.

Excerpt from a longer piece. (For the curious, this forest is probably just outside Los Diablos. I think. )

If it wasn't clear from the excerpt, the dreamflowers distort/disable visual and auditory perception, while mildly enhancing touch and smell. (Most of this effect is probably just because there's nothing else to focus on, I think!) Monica (the narrator) is taking Bailey into the forest to meet her friend and mentor, Atticus. (That detail's not all in the excerpt, but hopefully there's enough to make sense!) The pleasure in the meeting has largely been distorted into frustration for both Bailey and Monica, though.

Toccata and Fugue: Cauchy

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:45:29 PDT

For #transliterations prompt #7. Also partly inspired by an article of Tom Körner's on maths essays. (Read: If Cambridge Mathematical Tripos students write essays then so do I. Or something like that.)

I'm aware that the practicality and entertainment value of this piece might be on the low side, but it was very interesting to write! If I have made some ghastly mathematical error, please tell me. There has been an inevitable lack of rigour in trying to make it at least vaguely readable, though.

The Optimist's Daughter

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:55:00 PDT

This was supposed to be for the March Reading Challenge. Hah! Better late than never, I hope.

If you want more information with less opinion, the wikipedia article is not bad. It doesn't have any astronauts, though.

Herself

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 13:45:19 PDT

Thought it was time to put up a picture of my actual self again, not just the little paper aeroplane. Call it in honour of keeping things real. (Yes, I seem to be alive. )

From *AfricanObserver's camera.

Buying Time

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 06:46:38 PDT

Iambic tetrameter. Don't know if this rhyme scheme has an actual name (Can I just pronounce xaxa as if it were a Zulu word? 'KAH-kah', but more clicky?)

Question: I pronounce indefinitely something like 'indefnittly', which preserves the metre here. Is that just terribly uneducated of me, or is there a way of making it work?

Rendezvous with Death

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:44:58 PST

This will be my entry to the #CRLiterature 'Return Your Shopping Cart' contest.

It was inspired by John Quinlan's painting 'I Have aRendezvous with Death', which was inspired in turn by Alan Seeger's poem of the same name. I think the poem captures my first impressions of the painting better than it conveys the ideas one might arrive at by studying the piece.

~~I think the image at the end is probably a little tired, but I couldn't figure out something better;~~ I cut the last stanza. Might shorten the ending further still. Hmm.

I'm not sure the whole thing isn't a little too purposelessly depressed. Does it seem kind of melodramatic to you? Any other comments or criticism are welcome too!

The Guilt List

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:51:41 PST

This is for ^M€G, who threatened me with if I didn't write creative nonfiction. I actually wrote it a week ago, but I only got around to proof reading and tidying up today.

I could win a Scrabble game with my lecturers' initials. I don't really like the initials thing, but almost every single one of them is highly googlable. And imagine if someone found this while looking for an email address to get help with Maths. ~~For the same reasons, I've made this dA-viewable only, which is probably overkill.~~ (Now open to the world for viewing.)

The part of me that's [irrationally] worried I'll be lynched for writing about myself has turned advanced crit off. If you poke me I'll turn it back on. or you can talk to me in the comments. Or just tell me whether or not you thought this was interesting, and possibly why. I'd appreciate that.

Three Act Structure

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 11:20:56 PST

Perhaps this will be useful to somebody. I may or may not write more like this.

I think it's a little brusque, because I was trying to keep it short. Let me know if you think it would be better longer.

Triptych

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:45:44 PST

#transliterations second prompt is to translate this into words:

Prose poem, or at least an attempt. Does it make any sense at all? The three 'stories' are meant to form a progression.

It seems incomplete and rather flavoured as a translation, but perhaps that's inevitable.

A Stolen Moment

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:17:47 PST

For , as part of ^nycterent's holiday giving project. I hope you like it, Christy!

This is an acrostic, so you can read the first letter of each line as well as reading word by word.

Stolen Moments

Not Politics

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:11:01 PST

For #HammeredPoetry's Subject and Object. Doesn't fit perfectly, but if it's allowed, I'll go with it.

This is a more contrasty version than the original. Is it too contrasty and weird-coloured now? I also made a desaturated version, but I suspect that I only like it because b/w is stereotypically 'arty'. But maybe not. Hmm.

The piece does not live up to my vision, partly because I had to take out about a third of what I originally planned to write. I'm not sure if I could write more with a finer instrument. (This is done in eyeliner; koki [felt tip pen, sharpie (?)] might be a little finer.) I think the writing needs to be fairly large to work, though. I also wanted to write two independent but related lines down either side of the necklace, but I ended up editing the the linky bit out of the main poem, and realising I would only fit a couple of words down the side anyway.

I don't want to demean prayer, or politics, or the issue of religion in schools. I think those are all big, important topics. I do think that we, as religious and non-religious people, all have a tendency to get so caught up about our rights and about protocols and about a million little things that we forget what's really at stake. Trying to expound on it more just sounds ranty and off-putting, which is why this needs to be a poem. Just, I don't think the poem as is gets the point across either. It's a wannabe poem.

If it would be helpful, I can put the original words somewhere, but this is getting overlong already. Any help you can offer would be gratefully appreciated!

Footprints in Clay

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:17:59 PST

Uh.

For #HammeredPoetry's Escape Voyages prompt: a sequence of six disparate mini-poems comprising five fantasies and one fantastic truth.

I'm not sure what I think of my attempt.

Questions, if you're so inclined (other feedback is wonderful too, of course):
Does it make sense without the prompt? I originally intended the poems to be six scenes from one woman's life, but I'm not quite sure how to make that clearer without overdoing it. (A subtitle for the sequence - maybe 'One Life'? Titles for the poemlets?)

Part three was previously

In her dresser drawer:
_hearts,
_minds,
_lives.

Does the current version fit better?

To See the Sky

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:13:04 PST

#PresentsFromSanta - for ~nimbusphoenix

This is what I incorporated from her wishlist:
A water planet that is literally all water and no land.
Tears of; joy, sadness, love, anger, etc. (you may choose)
[Ed: Not really, but it was part of the inspiration] A love story that was not meant to be.

This is definitely soft SF. The science is all rather vague, but I think (hope) it enhances the story.

The Frailty Tree-hugger

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 03:04:05 PST

An experiment in surrealism. This is for ^GwenavhyeurAnastasia's mathematics and poetry project, using the n+7 technique. (Maths and poetry? How could I resist?)

I like the idea of a nonhuman observing the sweep of our history. (Which is what I'm seeing here.) In fact, I think this might be somewhat better than the original. Thoughts?

There are mouseover definitions for the more obscure words.

Holiday Game

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 11:20:55 PST

Join the game here!

The photo is this one:

The Trapdoor in the Cellar

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:01:25 PST

A collaboration with the lovely ~openmeadow, sprung out of #Adopt-A-Writer.

You can see her version here.

The idea is to make a serial out of this. Neither of us has done that before, so it's quite the adventure, but rather a fun one. Advice and criticism are most welcome. I'm particularly curious about the plausibility. (All fantasy is implausible, but some fantasy is more implausible than other fantasy!)

Writers-Workshop Stamp

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:49:20 PST

#Writers-Workshop is awesome. I thought we could use another stamp to remind people of it! Come visit:

Template by *SparkLum
Hand image by ~Yello-Dog

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 06:02:04 PST

For ^Halatia's Show Me Your Blurb workshop at #Writers-Workshop. The novel is by Anne Brontë.

Edit 05/12: Completely rewritten, based on lots of lovely feedback and a growing conviction that Charli + sparkly love story = bad idea. Not entirely certain that it's better, but at least I might stand a chance at fixing this one.

Edit 24/11: Broke up the run-on sentence at the end. Still debating making a change to the different names Helen uses.

Classics often (in my experience) have rather dry blurbs that leave one feeling like reading the phone book would be more interesting. I'm not sure if I've taken this one too far in the opposite direction. Does it still sound like a classic? The last line felt a little tacked on, but I think it's necessary to round the blurb out.

If anyone's interested, the novel is available from Project Gutenberg.

The Old Version
_{The tyranny of status and position in strait-laced Victorian society has crushed one love; will it allow another to bloom?

Gilbert Markham's life is ordinary and comfortable: too comfortable, perhaps. When an enigmatic widow moves into desolate Wildfell Hall, he is intrigued. As he gets to know Helen Graham and her son, his interest becomes more than mere curiosity. Then he discovers that she is conducting an affair with her landlord.

Helen Huntingdon has paid for her mistakes many times over. Now she is ready to sacrifice everything to do what she knows is right. Obscurity suits her and she can ignore the rumours that begin to circulate the nearby village – until attractive Gilbert Markham starts jumping to conclusions about her activities. She has come to value his opinion and companionship very much; so much that she finds herself unwilling to lose them.

Anne Brontë draws heavily from her own experience in her second novel, creating a starkly realistic setting. She exposes the weaknesses of her society, yet leaves the reader with a sense of hope, earning the novel its place amongst the classics.}

Technical Mishap

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:24:39 PST

For #ScreamPrompts #1 (The kleptomania prompt, not the internal editor one, if you were in any doubt. My perfectionist self is too proud to take help.) I'm playing catch-up, having ditched NaNoWriMo.

At just under one thousand words, I'm calling this flash fic, although it might be a short story denied its full quota of words. I've gone a little out on a limb with the perspective, but it didn't seem right to stick too closely to any one character's head. You are most welcome to tell me how to improve it. (Does what's going on make sense? Could you empathise with the characters?)

to anyone who knows where the name Laika comes from.

Gwyar's Telling of Myrddin

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:44:39 PST

Forty-two lines of alliterative verse in the style of 'Gawain and the Green Knight', for #HammeredPoetry's prompt Being Someone Else.
If you don't recognise the Welsh names, the mouseover text gives their better-known versions. No mouseover in the title, but Gwyar is Morgause.

I've deviated a little from tradition in terms of Merlin/Myrddin's mother, probably because I'm biased towards the first versions of the story I read; and in Gwyar/Morgause surviving to old age, because that's kind of critical to the poem. Other deviations are the skewed perspective of the narrator (or possibly a hole in my research). I'm not sure that the poem will make much sense without some knowledge of Arthurian lore, but that's what it is.

_{For & , this is where I ask for feedback.}
It's intended to be iambic tetrameter, but I never seem to get metre quite right, so feel free to tell me where I messed it up. Other things I'm interested in feedback on, if you care to give it are:
if I've sacrificed any sense of natural speech to the metre
if the way I've split the stanzas works
if the narrative is excessively jerky and how to fix it (I'm swinging between thinking that I tell too much, that I tell too little and that I've just been staring at this poem for too long.)
if the narrator character is solid and/or believable
whether or not the audience is clear. (I'm imagining a group of peasants, not entirely sure that old Gwyar is sane, but too awed to interrupt or contradict her.) Not sure how to put more emphasis on the audience without losing the idea that Gwyar is more aware of her past than her present, and is at least half talking to herself, although she wouldn't admit it!

Thoughts on Cape Honeysuckle

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:01:12 PDT

As per the title. A set of haiku.

The Sewing Shop

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 06:57:28 PDT

This is for `IBinsanity's 'Gothicness of Setting Workshop. I found this fairly challenging, and while there are parts of this that I really like, there are others that I really don't.

I just scraped in over the minimum word count of 500 and I think you can see that I was struggling to stick to description even in such a short piece. Possibly I needed to do more research. I think the ingrained habit of describing setting by implication came back to bite me here.

For the purposes of this piece, I was thinking about an audience of young-ish, ambitious people; I tried to work from those kind of values in creating the setting. I'm not sure that I handled that part of the workshop particularly well, though.

Thoughts? Ideas on how to improve? Anything?

Dracontology

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:04:55 PDT

*Flash-Fic-Month 7

Also for =Calyptra and *PiccolaRia's contest.

'dracontology' was ^Memnalar's word of the day yesterday. (I'm using it in its etymological sense, rather than as a synonym for cryptohydrozoology, for those who care.)

Elaine is a semi-autobiographical character. No idea if it shows, or if I'm the only one who gets it. Comments and criticism welcome! (On that or anything else that comes to mind.)

Numbers

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:20:37 PDT

*Flash-Fic-Month 6

The challenge was to use exactly fifty-five words; I used =oblivion00's prompt to write about someone with synaesthesia. (Giving numbers personalities is a rarer form of synaesthesia, but it fascinates me because I do that a little myself. I didn\'t make up the characteristics of the numbers here--I just know that seven is an absolute jerk. He's a great conversationalist when he gets over himself, though.)

In the Forest

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:25:28 PDT

*Flash-Fic-Month 5

And also an entry for ^PurpelBlur's Imagination Expand 3 contest. The line ". . . the rose was transforming into some creature . . ." was compulsory.

The tokoloshe is a creature in African mythology; it steals people from their beds.

Fortress

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:26:07 PDT

A haiku for 's Sea Contest.

In the Beginning

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:01:24 PDT

*Flash-Fic-Month 2

=futilitarian gave the prompt "Creation myths of the minor planets". The visual prompt was . Obviously, these artists don't necessarily endorse my views.

This is more about making people think than about taking sides. Cosmology and theology both seem to like capital letters and concepts most people struggle to understand, It's not intended to precisely parallel any particular creation story.

I would really appreciate feedback of any kind on this one. I've never done anything like it before, and I'm not sure what works and/or doesn't.

^{Rather inspired by a recent visit to one of the cradle of humankind attractions where I was rather appalled by their science, and by their outright, but unacknowledged, atheism. ('Source: Wikipedia' is not an appropriate reference! And while you're welcome to be an atheist if you want to, a museum shouldn't be atheistic any more than it should be Muslim or Hindu or Christian or Buddhist or any other such, unless it acknowledges the slant.)}

A Fishy Story

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:32:37 PDT

*Flash-Fic-Month 1

The challenge was to write a dramatic monologue; I half-used =medreaming's prompt "Don't argue with the fish, just do what it's telling you to".

Thanks to =Calyptra and *ThornyEnglishRose for their advice. More is always welcome, of course!

Mythology

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:04:38 PDT

Hermes was also considered the patron of tricksters.

The last piece for #ScreamPrompts #4: an anonymous confession.

Donna and James featured previously in Hurricane and Driving Lessons for this prompt.
----
Edit: Anything you once read about Apollo was totally due to your bad eyesight. It said 'Hermes' all along. Also, I have no idea what *wyldhoney is going on about.

Driving Lessons

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:14:56 PDT

Lookitme! I'm actually doing it!

Second part of my #ScreamPrompts #4 flash fic 'trilogy'. (The 'first date' confession.) The first part was Hurricane.

I'm kind of letting go of the rules and just writing with these things. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but it actually makes the process a lot more fun! (It's still hard work, if you were getting worried. ) It occurs to me that if I'd ever believed in an internal editor, this is what killing it off would be like.

Hurricane

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:57:33 PDT

#ScreamPrompts #4. (It's intended for the deathbed confession.)

This is the first piece in a kind of trilogy. The second piece is Driving Lessons.