A Couple Of Notes
A Couple of Notes
In The Crossing (current WIP novel) I hesitate to refer to the camp of travelers as refugees or exiles, since although they left their home in order to escape war and being threatened (also raided, plundered, etc) by local armed forces and mercenary types... they weren't specifically evicted or told to leave, nor forced out because of their culture, race, beliefs, or any other such sort of thing. Not... directly.
It was more like, they wanted to remain peacefully neutral and not join the fighting, and being in small unfortified villages and hamlets in the countryside, they simply were easy targets for people who wanted to pick up supplies in quick raids... because of where they lived, and not because of who they were (except for their choice to be neutral). The survivors of the raids found these conditions intolerable, and decided to pack up and leave instead of moving to join any of the (sort of) neighboring fortified burgs that were at war with each other. This doesn't quite fit with a lot of what I read about current common definitions of 'refugees' and I don't wish to confuse people nor in any way minimize the plight of people in the real world on planet Earth who have become refugees or exiles because of their religion/beliefs, culture, ethnicity, or other sorts of differences. I also hesitate to refer to them as 'nomads' because although they have taken up a nomadic sort of existence, it is more of a temporary thing (they hope) like pilgrims or pioneers traveling out of necessity while they seek out a new home to settle in, and not an inherited, cultural way of life like I think the word 'nomad' usually denotes. Likewise, I don't want to refer to them as 'travelers' because it seems in some parts of Europe, that word (in English) specifically is used (perhaps as slang) to refer to the Romani people and their cultural way of life, which is also not what is going on in The Crossing. Sometimes in hash tags I am putting 'traveling people' because I am not sure what else to refer to their current nomadic sort of way of life as, since although they might accurately be referred to as a type of pioneers (in Bennuma) that term could also be confused with a specific time period and the geographic area of North America... and similar issues with the term 'pilgrims' exist, in addition to that term typically also designating having religious reasons for traveling, or 'making a pilgrimage'.
Perhaps eventually I might figure out what would be a term to use that I'd consider ideal, or at least acceptable. For now, it's something of a muddle to me.
Also note: regretfully, I cannot currently be sure to post updates to the Crossing WIP novel @bennuma-crossing according to a regular schedule (as also, the informational, sometimes-containing-short-stories, worldbuilding sort of background blog @legends-of-bennuma) but I am trying to do so without huge gaps in time between posts. After section 1.7 of The Crossing, I plan to get into what I currently consider to be chapter 2... the novel being more or less a first draft, someday after the thing is completed perhaps the novel will be divided differently chapter-wise, I don't know yet... admittedly I sometimes get in a muddle over where to make chapter divisions.
More Posts from Voice-of-bennuma and Others
Huzzah!
So, btw... I have another blog for writing stuffs, it's fairy tale soup for when I can't focus on my more serious writing and play with short stories old-school styles.
Duck.
"Never shall I Ever be a Soup!"
Illustration for the opening story @onceuponasoup
Digital painting using GIMP :)
Read the Fine Print (if you can)
An obscure artist of some sort gains sudden attention and fame from creating a series of new art pieces entirely different from before, with each piece including cryptic markings or symbols of a sort that nobody can decipher and the artist mysteriously declines to comment on.
An old school friend of the artist visits, and the artist tells this friend something that no one else has been told: the artist does not know what the symbols are, because all of the new art pieces were made while under the influence of something the artist says is "like absinthe, but not" ...and the artist afterwards can never remember anything that happened for the entire night after drinking it.
The artist agrees to let the old friend stay over and do an experiment, wherein the idea is that the friend would keep out of the way until the artist got to the point of putting the cryptic symbols on a new art piece, and then come out and ask the artist what they mean. They are hoping that the artist will be able to give an answer at that time, and then the next day, the friend can tell back to the artist what the answer was.
So they go to a very strange shop in a remote area and buy a bottle of the drink that has no name and where the shopkeeper always acts like it's the first time the artist has been there, in spite of being a very regular customer by now. That night, the friend sits someplace hidden but with a view of the entire room, and prepares to watch and wait while the artist plans to drink the drink and spend the night making art...
...and is surprised to find that when the artist takes the first drink, it's actually a potion that summons someone or something, that plans to possess the artist. However, becoming aware that there's someone else hiding in a corner of the room, things take a different turn.
(post a reply if you have any fun ideas about what might happen... or if you play with making a short story of this, please do make a mention of it so I can read it)
WIP novel progress
(see @bennuma-crossing for most recent and all previous sections of the story, skip pinned intro post if desired)
Starting chapter 3 of my WIP-titled story "The Crossing" ...about a camp of people who fled a bronze-age equivalent war zone in a magic-deprived portion of a fantasy world, who come across a traveler from a different (magic-rich) part of the world, who shows up and helps the people from the camp when they need it most, only asking to travel with them in return.
Who is this stranger, where did she come from, and what is her real objective? How will they find a new home where they can live in peace and safety, and what part will be played by the (arguably) most broken man in the camp?
(note: though originally intended to be an adventure story, future chapters may contain a love story, but rest assured I will be keeping it SFW)
also, if anyone happens to prefer blogspot format for reading long posts, you can find the same story on my blog here:
I know I have OCD issues...
...when I edit a tiny part of a larger section of writing for something small, but have to re-read over the entire thing several times in a row in order to check for typos; and the nagging feeling that I've missed one remains. This after having already done so many times back when the section was originally posted, and... also when it was originally written out prior to making a blog post for it.
This is how I always want to be.
(oops, so... I accidentally re-blogged this to my other blog, when I meant to send it here... so apologies for me being clumsy but I will try to delete it from the other one so I can keep my wip book blog uncluttered)
Warm torso, cold head.
Learning more tumblr and I find it's weird how the phone app and computer/browser versions work differently...
I usually post things from the computer because that's where I copy writing from, but I tend to look at other things on the phone and like or follow from the phone more often than the computer...
So how about instead of copying links like I did on a previous post, I will offer this:
The Crossing WIP novel found here:
@bennuma-crossing
And Legends of Bennuma history and shorts:
@legends-of-bennuma
Fairy Tales
Oldschool Fairy Tales from pre-industrial times: "These are cautionary stories for all ages, and also reminders that sometimes life is terrible for no good reason at all, or just makes zero sense."
Fairy Tales from the 1900s: "These are kids' stories where we try to teach that everything in life has meaning and moral lessons, and that if you work hard, believe in yourself, and are basically a good person, then you WILL be successful in life."
Me now: "The oldschool nonsense tales had it right, and basically all the other stuff is a lie."
(To be fair, I do believe that people should work hard, should believe in themselves, and should be basically good people because those are things that make life tolerable... I'm just convinced now that doing those things is no guarantee of success and that "anyone who says differently is selling something"
...also, I think it's weird when people make edits that seem to suggest that statement is in any way inspirational. It's not 'inspiring', it's just realism. It may be comforting sometimes to know that life is terrible for a lot of people out there and even if a person's suffering is unique to them, they're still not the only one suffering... but to act like that's uplifting in some way is weird to me.)
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