creative arts
Apr. 5th, 2007 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dichroicFiclets doesn't seem to be letting me log in - I could use an AIM ID instead, but then I'd be registered as another user and if I put more than one thing up there I'd rather have them in one place. I'm not convinced writing these is good for me, anyway.
I can see where it's a good release to exorcise an idea or question. The other thing I wrote was because all the strong characters in Manly Wade Wellman's stories who fight against black magic use Christian symbols and ideas, and the repetition of that started to bother me. What do you do if you're menaced by demons and you don't believe a cross is holy? It also bothers me that he seems to be equating any non-Christian magic with Eeevil (except Native American ways, and those only when practiced by actual Natives). Even simple curiosity about other ways gets punished consistently. It might be interesting to read a story sometime in which the good Wiccan turns back the bad Christian who, in his misuse of religion, calls demons instead of angels. I think that might be more of a debate than a story, though. More interesting might be a tale in which Christian and nonChristian practitioners team up to fight magic. Come to think of it, Wade Wellman did do that himself, in a few cases where John Thunstone teamed up with an Inuit or Plains Indian shaman, but reading those takes a good bit of ignoring the Noble Savage motif.
Otherwise, I think writing ficlets is bad for me because it's skimming off the cream. You get to do the fun setup of a story without actually having to make it work - like a would-be architect contenting herself with drawing building facades and never figuring how the rooms inside fit together. I'm not criticizing the site or the idea; for an accomplished story-teller who sparks off as many plot bunnies as the rest of us have dist-bunnies, it's something to do with the ones too feeble to grow into big rabbits. Or a way to play with ideas, or to collaborate with others. For people who just feel like writing something and don't care about developing a skill, it could be fun. It's also interesting to see how many false notes can be introduced, or avoid, even in a tiny blurb of 1024 characters or less. Also, for writers who want to practice something specific, like writing in a certain voice or POV or style, it could be a good sort of five-finger exercise. So maybe it would be good for me from that perspective.
I think what I need more, though, is the discipline to do that work of building. I don't even know why I care about getting better; I don't think of myself as a fiction writer, don't have characters popping up in my brain and wanting to get out on paper, haven't been telling stories since I could speak. I think it's mostly just curiosity to see what I could do. Speaking of which, since I couldn't get into Ficlets, here's the bit that had me trying to log on to the site in the first place:
I can see where it's a good release to exorcise an idea or question. The other thing I wrote was because all the strong characters in Manly Wade Wellman's stories who fight against black magic use Christian symbols and ideas, and the repetition of that started to bother me. What do you do if you're menaced by demons and you don't believe a cross is holy? It also bothers me that he seems to be equating any non-Christian magic with Eeevil (except Native American ways, and those only when practiced by actual Natives). Even simple curiosity about other ways gets punished consistently. It might be interesting to read a story sometime in which the good Wiccan turns back the bad Christian who, in his misuse of religion, calls demons instead of angels. I think that might be more of a debate than a story, though. More interesting might be a tale in which Christian and nonChristian practitioners team up to fight magic. Come to think of it, Wade Wellman did do that himself, in a few cases where John Thunstone teamed up with an Inuit or Plains Indian shaman, but reading those takes a good bit of ignoring the Noble Savage motif.
Otherwise, I think writing ficlets is bad for me because it's skimming off the cream. You get to do the fun setup of a story without actually having to make it work - like a would-be architect contenting herself with drawing building facades and never figuring how the rooms inside fit together. I'm not criticizing the site or the idea; for an accomplished story-teller who sparks off as many plot bunnies as the rest of us have dist-bunnies, it's something to do with the ones too feeble to grow into big rabbits. Or a way to play with ideas, or to collaborate with others. For people who just feel like writing something and don't care about developing a skill, it could be fun. It's also interesting to see how many false notes can be introduced, or avoid, even in a tiny blurb of 1024 characters or less. Also, for writers who want to practice something specific, like writing in a certain voice or POV or style, it could be a good sort of five-finger exercise. So maybe it would be good for me from that perspective.
I think what I need more, though, is the discipline to do that work of building. I don't even know why I care about getting better; I don't think of myself as a fiction writer, don't have characters popping up in my brain and wanting to get out on paper, haven't been telling stories since I could speak. I think it's mostly just curiosity to see what I could do. Speaking of which, since I couldn't get into Ficlets, here's the bit that had me trying to log on to the site in the first place:
Fiber Arts
The piece she knitted was nothing recognizable as a sweater or sock or hat, though its shape seemed to be deliberately crafted as she picked up a few stitches *here*, knitted a row or ten, bound off, then did the same *there*. If it had been extended to its full three-dimensional shape, it might have resembled a heat exchanger, with fins jutting off in various directions. The fiber she knitted varied from wool to wire to strips of shiny plastic, and now and then she linked in a feather or a microchip or a shiny glass bead.
"Soon, soon," she crooned as she worked. "Soon it will be done and then..."
