Inspirations of Daedalus

I’ve been writing a story for my Creative Writing class.  We found words written on signs or other places all over the school.  When we put them all together, we ended up with a list of 240 words.  The assignment was to write a story using 100 of those words.  We also have to use correct story format (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution), but beyond that we can write whatever we want, even the length is up  to us as long as we use the 100 words.

My partner and I decided on a story sometime in the future where there are cameras everywhere, you never know when someone’s watching you, and if you get caught there is no sentencing.  It doesn’t matter if you killed someone or stole a box of crackers (which one of the characters did), you get dropped in the middle of this giant maze.  If you can find the way out, then you’ll be free, but no one’s ever done that.

If you stay near the center of the maze—Daedalus—then you’re relatively safe.  There’s food, it’s in good shape, and the monsters don’t usually go there.  But, the further away from the middle you go, the more deadly it becomes.  There are various Challenges, monsters, puzzles, all sorts of things.  The monsters, of course, will kill you if they can, but the other things won’t harm you, but you can only pass if you get them right.

Also, there are different biomes (yeppers, totally just used a minecraft term there) the center is stone.  It’s clean and there’s sunlight, it doesn’t rain much, but there are some pools to drink from.  Other places could be anything.  One is frozen solid.  The floors and walls are made of ice, and it’s constantly in mid-blizzard.  One is all mirrors.  In one of them, gravity changes.

Anyway when the two characters (Cracker and Dillinger) find what they find (I can’t say what ‘cause that’d blow the ending) what they realize is that what they thought they wanted isn’t really worth it.  They’d been searching for what everyone thought was the best, but they figured out that to get it, they’d haveta give up what they already had, and to them, it wasn’t worth the tradeoff.

Writing this has really made me think about what I want.  Is it really me that wants it?  Or is it just the fact that society has told me all my life how good it is?  Have you ever asked yourself that?  If you really think about it, it can blow your mind.  Or at least it did mine.

-The Shadow Knight

Courage

         Courage.  There is so much, and so little courage.  We see it every day.  We choose to act with or without it, to acknowledge or deny the need for it, to see or turn away from those who have it.

         There are so many kinds of courage.  Courage is saying what you think, even though you might be laughed at.  Courage is leaving your home, your family, everything that matters to you so that you can defend it.  Courage is befriending the unpopular kid.  Courage is helping the old lady cross the street, even if it isn’t ‘cool.’  Courage is having respect for someone you don’t like.  Courage is seeing both sides of an argument.  Courage is allowing yourself to see that you were wrong.  Courage is saying sorry.  Courage is speaking up.  Courage is staying silent.  Courage is being willing to listen.  Courage is trusting someone.  Courage is love.  Courage is caring for someone, and allowing them to care for you.

         

         There are so many kinds of courage.  We see them every day…or do we choose not to?

Wasting Time

         Has it ever occurred to you how beautiful the world is?  When was the last time you stopped and just looked at something, a tree, a flower, a cloud, the sunset, the way that smoke curls in wisps, how sunlight reflects off of water?  Do we even notice these things anymore, or are we too wrapped up in our own little worlds?

         

         It seems that we never have enough time.  We have too little time to do what we have to do, and certainly none to spare.  We don’t have a day to take a vacation.  We don’t have an hour to spend with friends or family.  We don’t have five minutes to chat.  We absolutely cannot spend a few moments—less than a minute—to look at something lovely.

         

         I just don’t have time.  How often do we use that excuse?  How many times in a day do we say that, to ourselves and everyone around us?  How much time do we waste explaining why we don’t have any?  And why do we try, day in and day out, to convince ourselves that there simply is no time, no time to live, no time to love, no time to care, no time to try, no time to matter, because time is all that matters, and we simply don’t have it?

         

         If instead of wasting time by bemoaning the lack thereof, how much would we have to spend, or better yet invest in the things that truly matter?

Beautiful Truths

I Died for Beauty, Emily Dickinson,

“I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth - the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a-night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.”

           

We are told not to question the way of things.  ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ and ‘ignorance is bliss,’ are common anecdotes. Yet, as Emily Dickinson  wrote, of truth and often, the truth—once learned—is wished to be forgotten again.  The more unpleasant truths we learn, the more we long for the return of childhood oblivion, where sorrow meant the end of a cookie, and the only struggle was to obtain another; or at least that is how we—in our current state—idealize it.

It seems that whatever state we are in—rich, poor, young, old, employed, jobless, etc.—is the worst possible state, and that our lives would be perfect if just that one thing—whatever it may be—were different.  Once we get that thing—the one that will bring life to perfection—we find it absolutely thrilling…for all of five minutes.  Then the cycle begins again.

It seems that we will always choose to believe that if our luck would only change, all would be right with the world; rather than take responsibility for our lives in full.  We would rather delude ourselves into thinking that our happiness would be complete if only (fill in the blank) than see the truth that everything has both pros and cons in equal measure, and the only question is which ones.  It’s quite understandable, if we were to acknowledge that, then we would be forced to stop denying the attainability of perfection, and that would be a hard thing indeed.  As Carl Schurz said, “Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.”

It is a hard thing to know that we will never reach the stars, and yet truth is beauty, and aren’t ideals beautiful?

Roses

Roses are some of the most symbolic things on this planet.  As we all know, they're thought of as a sign of love, but there's so much more to it than that.  Before roses bloom, they are one of the ugliest plants imaginable, dark, thorny, and utterly depressing.  Then they blossom, and suddenly they're beautiful.  Red, pink, yellow, or even black, they are perhaps even more beautiful because one had to wait.  Like so many things born from pain, they are all the more desirable for it.

Roses grow on bushes or vines.  They are never alone.  Like people, they take their strength from one another, from closeness.  If you cut a rose from the others, it will die.  Even if you put it in water and sunlight, even if you give it lots of plant food, it begins to die the very moment it is pulled from its home.

They are all different colors.  Some are pink, and they always seem innocent.  Some are white and pure.  Some are yellow, and aren't they the happiest thing you ever did see?  Some, like the one below, are brightest red, all flashy and eye-catching.  Some are black, tragically beautiful.  And some, perhaps the most famous, are dark red, like blood.  They seem to have a depth to them, a meaning beyond what can be seen.  They are beautiful and yet flawed, but the flaws themselves add to the beauty.

It is these, these fragile, painful, dangerous, tough, wild, flawed, beautiful, delicate things that we use to symbolize love.  It seems to me that they are really a symbol for humanity, and maybe even for life itself.

                                                                           
 The link above will take you to the site where I found this picture.  imgres

An Author's Frustrations

So, here’s the thing: I love fiction.  I like books, and movies, TV shows, and even musicals.  I like fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, mystery, and most anything you can think of.  I even like poetry.  I like funny, dramatic, cheesy (to an extent), tragic, meaningful, and most anything else.  Well, I’m not big on horror, but that’s about the only one I don’t care for.  I like deep type war movies, and shallow-yet-awesome shoot-‘em-up movies (the key with those—as with superhero movies—is that they’ve gotta have good fight scenes).  I like Shakespearian comedies (I haven’t watched many tragedies yet, I’m waiting for the ‘opportune moment’) and I like kids’ movies (if they’re well done, I mean Tangled, great movie).  And, I watch everything from The Vampire Diaries to Doctor Who.  As far as poetry goes, I prefer things that make me think, but that’s most anything.  Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken is amazing, so are The Charge of the Light Brigade, by Lord Tennyson and I Died for Beauty, by Emily Dickinson.  I also especially love I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou and War is Kind by Stephen Crane.

Here’s where it gets interesting, I also like to write.  I get some good ideas, scenes or plots, maybe even a character or a place.  But, I can never seem to get it all together.  Maybe I’ve got the plot all worked out, down to the smallest detail, but I can’t make the writing sound good.  Or maybe, I can write just fine, but my story’s going nowhere.  Or say I’ve got both, the writing’s going great, I know the plot, but my characters just seem wrong, or fake, or shallow.  Even when there’s nothing wrong and I’ve got it all together, I just lose my drive; I can’t seem to focus, or anything I write sounds like drivel, or no matter what I do, my mind goes blank.

Sure, I can write short stories, or poems, but I can’t seem to make much headway on anything longer.  That is, I have one book finished, that a friend and I are writing together, but writing by myself, it never works out.

Characters.  It’s really hard with characters.  I’m sure I’m not the only one, but the only characters I can write are, in some way, based off myself.  That’s all well and good, except for I always seem to have the same protagonist, I mean, there’s some differences, but the basic nature doesn’t change.  The real problem with this is that, while specifics change, I always end up with the same basic scenarios.  That’s part of the reason I get so easily bored or distracted with my work.  ‘Cause, when you get down to it, it’s really the same thing every time.  It’s kind of like when you play with picture effects on Photoshop; you change the filter, or the color scheme, or whatever, but—when you get down to it—it’s still the same picture underneath.