Writing - Elvish Aging Story

Writing - Elvish Aging Story - by What-even-is-thiss

Wait a minute, if elves take hundred years to grow up that has some weird implications.

So... if we say a human comes of age in fantasy worlds at 16, that means it takes an elf 6.26 years to age one human year. If we say the age of maturity is 18 that's 5.55 years.

So then... okay with people that live a long time have to see their human friends die and probably see them like pets yeah that's been explored to death. But what about a human just seeing their friend not grow up?

Rynyalla - The Marches of Winter

Rynyalla - The Marches of Winter

A short story I wrote.

Art - Blank pages

Art - Blank pages

Beginning art is paralyzing.  I know that from having lived as an 'emerging' or 'young' artist for so long.  Beginning ideas, putting words to thoughts, brush to page, or ink to paper is a paralyzing task.  It's a vulnerable proposition, committing.  I used to think of myself as being generally noncommittal, floating through life where the currents take me, but I've begun to realize that in fact to be a good artist, you need to have a sort of sense of stubbornness to you.

Beginning things starts with the simplest of things for me.  Sometimes I watch ink run down a page, or the interaction of people.  I scrawl notes on scrap paper, quick little ink drawings of gestures and facial expressions.  I concoct elaborate scenarios and scenes in my mind of how moments might have played themselves out.  The exchanges of people, the gestures, the way they look at each other, their worlds and what they see.

Pull back the camera, look at them, study their motions, imagine their home life, their relationships.

Their thoughts.

And then I throw it all away and ask them.

People are blank pages until you ask.

I'm no longer paralyzed by creating new things, there are no new things to create, only existing stories to be cataloged, imagined, and shared.

Humans of New York - Poland

Humans of New York - Poland

"I lived in Poland, so we were persecuted from the first day of the war. First they took us from our home, then they put us in a ghetto, then they made us march, then they sent us to the camps. I was separated from everyone, but my brother later told me that my father froze to death. But I have children now, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren— a great big family, all of them educated. Look at everything that came from just one person who escaped. Just goes to show that you can never kill a people with hate. There will always be someone left to carry on.”

http://fenrisravynn.tumblr.com/post/60912719592/humansofnewyork-i-lived-in-poland-so-we-were

Reflections - NY Cab Driver Story

Below what follows is a story, that has been circulating around the internet for some time.  I read this story a few years ago, thought "that's nice" and then that was it.  I mean, as a writer, it's altogether too easy to fall into a peculiar trap of disregarding everything you read.  You understand the essence of story, the construction of fiction, and how it makes you and your audience feel.  But to immediately disregard everything does something to the soul...it taints it, depresses it, shades it in greys.

So I try not to ask myself too much about whether something is 'real' or not, and just enjoy a good story for what it is.  But then people attacked its legitimacy, people who are more cynical than me, and there's something inherrently desparaging about that.  To say that someone is outright a liar.  There's a difference between attacking and searching for truth, one is pursued for intrinsic gain, the other is an assault on intellectuality.  So Kent Nerburn wrote a follow-up.  Which I would like to archive here to think more on.