Mythology and Folklore

Mythology Crash Course Truthfully, I did not know much about mythology going into this course, so I have been able to grow tremendously in my knowledge of them. I chose to do my final story lab on the crash course mythology videos, because why not test my knowledge of what I heave learned over the past few months. I learned a lot about things I already knew, such as what mythology is and what it generally entails. However, watching these fundamental videos allowed me to pick up on anything I had missed over the course of the semester. What I found most impactful int he videos was the comparison of myths to the direct expression of its subject-matter that enhances belief and vouches for rituals. Going into this class I truly assumed that I would deal more closely with Greek and Roman Gods, however, I learned a ton more about society and ancient and modern cultures.  Mythology gives us a great window into our past and shows us just how much our modern soc...

Rash Behavior. Dire Outcome A man in love is often blinded, whether it is by love itself or other emotions such as passion, jealousy, lust etc. Point is, men often react with their first emotion, typically offering little time for evaluation.  A man in, what he thought, a committed relationship, made his way home from a long day at work. Upon entering his home he noticed his girlfriend's laptop sitting on the kitchen table open to a string of emails. Having called out for his love and received no response, the man peered at the screen for any indication of her whereabouts.  His eyes narrow on the name of another man and widened with anger at the site of times and locations being shared in order to meet up. He noticed the date decided on was one week away. Having seen enough the man bent the laptop beyond its ability, snapping it without a second thought. While the laptop laid useless on the floor, the man sat and brooded over his humiliation.  The words on...

Flow of Ideas  For my StoryLab, I returned to the Advice to Writers website. More specifically, I chose to read an article that I disagreed with, unlike my previous story labs. The article that I chose was,  Never Look at a Reference Book While Doing a First Draft .  The title is what caught my eye because it tells us to do the opposite of what I have been doing throughout this course. Not only in this course, but all other writing works that I have published often have an inspiration. No, I do not let it control my flow of writing, but it does help with generating a flow to expand on. If I were unable to use aids while writing, I know it would come out choppy and not at all how I intended. The article told me to not use a thesaurus, which is impossible for me to do. I always catch myself whenever I repeat a word a ton, and it is typically due to the word flowing best with my message. So, I often replace the word after much research within the thesa...

Scorpion and the Rabbit A hot day is typically much warmer for a rabbit due to the hair covering its body, so as the day approached high noon and the rabbit quickly finished up its morning rounds in hopes of finding a shaded spot next to the river.  As rabbit hastily made his way across the prairie, he offered little regard to his surroundings for all he could think of was how miserably hot he was. It was then that he heard, "Hey! What were you are going, you better not step on me!"  Only slowing his pace a little, Rabbit looked around to see where the voice had come from. Just when he was about to give up he spotted a black speck following behind him.  "I am sorry my dear friend, I did not see you on my trail. I am desperately seeking a place to rest for the next couple of hours, I am so hot I fear I am about to die!"  The Scorpion laughed at the rabbit, "you are so weak, you do not deserve to be among the animals of the prairie....

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language For this week's story lab I chose to focus on a trend I noticed within my writing. I need to start providing the audience with a deeper sense of the stories tone. For example, I need to deepen my narration surrounding characters emotional involvement in a story, which can be done by explaining something such as body language.  Originally, I wanted to find an article that focused on how to write dialogue, but the article I chose dealt with writing body language. The reason I chose this article is that it provides a new perspective on characters and what is going on beyond the words presented. The article listed expressions typically exchanged in conversation followed by ways to verbally express those emotions, such as being awestruck or expressing grief with body language.  This article will be beyond helpful as I continue to correct my portfolio stories, I felt that there has been emotional connection and e...

How the North Start Came to Be Long ago in a land far, far away there lived a man with two sons of the same age. The firstborn of the twins, Sirius, was a kind gentle boy loved by all since the day he was born. His brother, Canopus, was quite the opposite. Canopus found great difficulty in growing up hidden behind his brother shadow. Not only was he full of deceit but he also had a cruel, harsh soul. Sirius and Canopus fought regularly, which often ended with Sirius begging for his brother's mercy as he knew a fight with his brother is not worth upsetting their father.  One night, their father came home to find destruction throughout the house, with Canopus being the leading cause. Disappointed and worried about what the future may hold for his two sons, the boy's father desperately prayed to God as he was seeking guidance for his two sons, but more importantly, Canopus. When God heard the prayers of the boys troubled father he was discouraged for he had previo...

Group Project **The updated version of this story can be found on my portfolio ** It was that time of year again, group projects were being assigned. The weak were being separated from the strong within groups, as it is typical for the workload to fall heavily on one member. However, who would that member be? The whole class was buzzing as groups were assigned and designated a working area. Each group consisted of four members, and as Margot walked down the aisle of her advertising lecture she carefully summed up her three teammates.  The tallest of the three, Jim, had the most exhausted persona. His clothes were wrinkled beyond repair, hair was poking out of the top his baseball cap and had nothing but a pencil tucked into his flannel shirt pocket. Unbeknownst to Jim, a sheepish blonde girl, Julia, had just sat down to his left and was presumably the second member of their group. Julia looked nervous and confused like she scared to interact with any...

Telling a Story As I read EmpoWord's  Telling a Story  I learned invaluable information that will hopefully add a new dimension to my writing. Having taken countless writing classes throughout my academic career, I feel that I am a strong writer. Since high school, I have undoubtedly grown in my abilities, however, I have yet to have an opportunity to explore storytelling. I thought this chapter would only offer tips on how to propel a story, however, it went beyond storytelling and offered advice on how to expand the narrative of any work. I honestly thought I would only skim through the material, but overall I am glad that I chose to read this chapter for I found it majorly fascinating.  Notes:  "We're all stories, in the end. " - Steven Moffat, Doctor Who  I have never heard this but I truly appreciate it  What makes an interesting story:  Not only descriptions, but narration to create impactful and beautifu...

The Foolish, Timid Rabbit There was once a foolishly naïve girl living along the Pacific coast. Each day, she would wake up, work out, grab brunch, get a massage, get dressed, go out, pass out and sleep, all to do the same thing over again the next day.  As Wednesday afternoon arrived, or hump day as she would call it, the girl, Cassie, waited in the lobby for her daily massage appointment. While taking the last crucial sips of her pumpkin spice latte, Cassie's name was called. Her ear's perked at the sound of her name and she eagerly jumped up to follow her usual massage therapist, Jolean.  Cassie went through the typical motions of getting a message: took off her clothes, got under the blanket face down and waited for Jolean to re-enter the room. Finally, she felt the warmed oil massaged throughout her body sending her into a conscious slumber. Still half awake, she felt her muscles relax one by one, feeling as if she had flipped to her side hours ago....

From Jataka Tales: The Princes and the Water-Sprite Jataka Tales As I enter into week 5, I am still going to try and cut my note length. During week 4 I attempted to shorten my notes, however, I still found it difficult to take away main themes in the writing rather than story altering details. So, this week I am going to try and gear my focus towards writing technique rather than the story itself for the purpose of getting inspiration for my own writing efforts.  Jataka Tales, Reading A:  The Monkey and The Crocodile  Mostly dialogue driven  Straightforward with simple keen conflict   How the Turtle Saved His Own Life Simple tail, not much conflict  Ignorance runs the theme  The Turtle Who Can't Stop Talking  Most famous of the tails  Great imagery  Straightforward moral at the end of the story as part of the plot  The Ox Who Won the Forfeit  Kindness is the best motivator  All t...

Writers Write This week I chose to give my elementary story writing a break in order to go back to some basic fundamentals. In doing so I went to the website  Writers Write  and browsed through their articles until something stood out and related to me and my writing journey. Of all the articles offered by the site, I found only two that answered a few of my own questions, "Why You Need to Read More" and "3 Simple Ways to Kick-Start your Writing".  Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with reading. I either love a book or I lose interest about 1/3 of the way through, however, I have such a strong desire to read more because I feel that hearing stories told through someone else's voice can have the most influential impact on your writing style. That being said, number 1 on the list of 10 reasons why you should read is "You can't write if you don't read". However, I disagree with number 10 on the list, "You are less likely to...

Venus' Vanity **The updated version can be found on my  porfolio !** Venus the goddess of beauty, love, sex and fertility, otherwise known as Aphrodite, embodied divine beauty unlike any other. Her unmatched grace was that of the gods, given to her as a symbol of power. Her head graced with golden locks, sparkling from the ocean's salty mist. The goddess of love's skin lacked any imperfections and retained the most dashing pink hue. Driven by her confidence she wed Vulcan, the god of fire and metalwork, but pledged her love to Mars the Roman god of war. Assuming her beauty allowed her countless admirers, Venus spent her days being waited on by the most rugged of soldiers, each under Mars' command. Being that her beauty was unmatched, Venus grew in her confidence. She knew that attracting men from all over was the greatest power of them all, as it allowed thousands of men to be at her disposal. Unaware of her husband and lovers watchful eye as she grew i...

Horrific Rescue There were once three sisters living on the outskirts of town: Laurabelle, Annabelle and Emmabelle. The sisters could not differ more regardless of their shared identical DNA as they are triplets.  Their mother, Gabrielle, was preparing for her weekly visit to the town in order to secure supplies for the coming week. Due to the absence of their missing father, all responsibilities were now up to the girl's mother. Gabrielle asked the girls, mainly Annabelle and Emmabelle, if the had any special requests. The girls quickly listed of all their desires as they pushed their mother out of the door.  As the mother began her venture to town, the girls remained home to finish the chores. Nonetheless, it was only Laurabell who would typically be cleaning as the other sisters wasted their breath on insults and gossip.  Emmabelle and Annabelle have dealt with their father missing far worse than Laurabelle. Both believe Laurabelle is to...