Week 11 Story: You can't run, You can't hide.

Thump Thump Thump. 

It's a windy day. The shutters keep slamming on the windows.

Thump Thump Thump. 

It really is hard to concentrate with that banging. And now, suddenly rain? Or is that hail? 

THUMP THUMP THUMP. 

Jeez! Knock much? Who could possibly be at the door in the rain. I'll just look through the peephole. Hmm... I can't see much but his face through the peephole. Which is... creepy. When was the last time this guy got a hair cut? I think I'll keep the door shut. 

"Hello?"

"Yes, sorry to bother you but I'm looking for someone. His name is Judas."

"I'm sorry but I don't know anyone by that name."

"He betrayed my friend Chris."

"Well I am sorry for your friend but as I said, I don't know anyone by that name. Please leave now."

THUMP. 

he jumps back.

I better triple lock this door. Chain should be good on top of the deadbolt and handle lock. 

windy day, doing chores around the house. 

he puts the chain on the door, looking through the peephole again. 

Oh thank goodness, hes gone. 

Thump Thump Thump. 

Still, with the shutters? I need to close them, the forecast didn't call for damaging winds but apparently they're wrong. 

he walks to the window, and before he gets there he hears,

Tap Tap Tap 

he freezes where he stands.

What... Whats going on...

he peers around the corner, and then runs to the kitchen. 

"911? Yes there is a man standing outside my window. He's in a trench coat, tall, I didn't see much other than he's bald."

he peeks over the counter.

"He isn't there anymore, but I would really love it if you could send over a cop."

Ding-Dong

"Oh, wow that was fast thank you so much."

he opens the door to a man with short blonde hair. 

"Officer? Are you... are you an officer? Because... wait, why are you wearing a trench coat?"

he tries to shut the door, but the man breaks it off the hinges. 

"What are you!"

It's not one man, but all three he has seen - one man with three faces. 

"Get away from me!"

he turns to run, and falls into an abyss. suddenly he slams onto the floor. 

Where the hell am I?

"Hello, Brutus."

Oh no, its that terrible three faced man from before. 

"Please, just let me go"

"I can't do that. You see, you and your friend Cassius did a very bad thing. Now you get to wait here, while I go fetch him, and you'll both get to meet Judas"

"Okay, and then what?"

"And then your eternal damnation begins"

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Authors Note: 

I took this story from Dante's inferno and just ran with what came to mind. I thought to introduce the devil with wind, as in the story the devil is causing unnatural winds that Dante feels before he meets the devil. The devil is also waist deep in ice when Dante does see him, so I added hail/rain with his official appearance. The devil has three faces, so I decided to use that and trick the character into thinking he was seeing three separate people. The sounds were just ideas that I thought of when I think of past scary movies, and I ended it basically as a prequel to what Dante will eventually witness - the devil torturing all of them with his three different heads. 

Reading Notes: The Land of the Dead, Part B

A young woman died, and when she found herself dead she went to sleep. She awoke to someone shaking her, saying you are not asleep - you are dead so you must get up.

She realized she was in her grave and it was her grandfather shaking her. She went with him back to the village, but the homeland was gone. Now it was a new village, weird and different. The old man told her to go into one of the houses, and when she did the homeowner picked up a stick and asked what she wanted. The young woman ran away crying, and her grandfather said this is a village of dog shades - she has just been in the experience of a stray dog, and now she knows how they feel when people beat them.

In the next village she saw a man laying on the ground, but with grass growing through his joints. He could move but the grass tied him down, not allowing him to get up. This realm was where people were punished for pulling up plants when they didn't need them. The grandfather disappear.

The girl wandered into a new village, but found a river blocking it. This was a river of tears from people on earth who wept for the dead. She could not cross the river, and her own tears fell into the river as she cried. Suddenly, a boat floated down the river and using it as a bridge, she crossed the stream. The other dead could smell her, and openly wondered who she was and where she was - as they could only smell not see her. Her grandfather reappeared, leading her into a house where her grandmother resided.  The grandma asked if she was thirsty and thats when the girl noticed the water vessel was one from her village, one she had been given when she was alive during a festival. The old woman gave the young woman a piece of deer fat, which was something else she had received at the festival. The grandma explained her grandfather was her guide, because he was the last person she thought of as she died and he hurried to meet her crossing over. Peoples living thoughts are heard by the dead in the other realm.

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For whatever reason, coffin pool floats are a thing. 

Reading Notes: The Buffalo Stone, Part A

Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell (1915).

A small stone, usually a fossil or some unknown thing in a weird shape, is called a buffalo stone. It has magic powers and gives good luck when hunting buffalo. The rock can make a sound similar to a bird, usually alerting the person who finds it that it is in fact a buffalo stone. These are usually found in prairie plains. 

One weird winter all the buffalo disappeared. The snow was too deep for anyone to try to find the, so they walked the river bottoms and ravines, killing other grass grazers as they went. Eventually though, they ran out of small game and began to starve.  

A man had killed a prairie rabbit, and ran home fast to tell his wife to hurry up and cook it - excited at the rare find. She went down to the river to clean it but stopped, hearing a song but seeing no birds. She located the source of song to a tree, with a weird stone jammed into the roots. She noticed some buffalo fur had been caught in the tree. Frightened at the thought of being alone and weaponless with wild buffalo, she went no further. As she turned away, the singing stopped. The stone spoke now, and asked to be taken to her village where she should teach her people the song she heard. The stone told her to pray for this starvation to end and for the buffalo to return. 

The woman did what the rock said to do, telling her husband of the events that just happened. The wife taught the chiefs the song, and they all prayed. Soon after, they heard noise of trampling buffalo and that the stone was magic. This was the first buffalo stone found. 

The buggalo are a fictional creature that are sort of like the buffalo to the native americans as the buggalo are to the native martians on the TV show Futurama. Image source. I had a typo when I first wrote buffalo and wrote buggalo, so why not include a picture of them. 

Reading Notes: Inferno: Satan, Part B

Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by Tony Kline (2002).

the demons of hell are coming toward Dante and his guide. The guide asks him to look forward and try to recognize Satan.

He looks and notices a tall structure with massive winds, he tries to hide behind the guide because there is no shelter here. Absolutely doused in fear, he looks around at what lays in Hell. Many bodies are frozen in stone, some laying, some standing, some on their head and some bent so that their head touches their feet. Finally, they reached Lucifer.

Though he thought he could fear no more, a new wave of terror struck like a tsunami. He became so enveloped in horror that he did not die, but he was no longer alive. He was suffering in limbo while looking upon the once beautiful angel, now a hideous devil.

The devil stood waist high in ice, but know he was by no means small. The average man was closer to a giants height than a giant was to just one of lucifers arms. His body was as massive as he was ugly.

Three faces were on one head, each with a body being chewed in the mouth inflicting unique pain and suffering. The eyes - one fiery red, two joined to it on either side- sat above the center if each shoulder, which were linked at the neck with one white and one black eye on the center of the throat. On the faces where the eyes should have been were large wings like a bird but leathery as a bats. This was the source of the wind creating the frozen wasteland that surrounds them - hell is not on fire, but burns hot from the frost, so cold it splits lips and cracks the skin. Regardless of the cold, Satan wept from all his eyeless sockets, weeping blood that fell down three chins.

The three sinners he chewed were Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, They were stripped of skin. Judas flailed wildly while Brutus quietly squirmed. Cassius was very long limbed and endured the torture still.

Night was coming, and now they had to climb up Satan's body to leave hell.

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Storybook Research

To start the research I reread some passages of the play. I like the idea of having at least one original quote per story in my storybook, and I need one for my second story. I decided upon one and a half for this story:

“Oh, horror, horror, horror! This is beyond words and beyond belief!”

"The graceful and renowned king is dead. The wine of life has been poured out,”

I'm using the first for Banquo, originally said by Macduff and the second said by Macbeth but altered to the situation that is slightly different, specifically to point out the way the king was killed and who is the suspect.

I went back and found a link Laura gave me for my research on scrying as the intro scene will use some of that.

Now for pictures, this one was easier to find images for than my last story but difficult because my internet was being slow. Here are the images you'll find throughout my story - but out of order.

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Week 9 Story: A Hotel in the Woods

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The man has been traveling for some time and has run out of food. He's walking through a dense forest, when suddenly "Thank goodness, something to eat!" he proclaims as he starts ripping mushrooms out of the ground.

The sun sets, it becomes very dark and cold. "Those mushrooms weren't enough, I need more food." He walks around with his eyes toward the ground, looking something else to consume. So concentrated on the ground, he bumps into a sign hanging above that reads "Welcome to the Cortez Hotel".

"That's weird. It seems too far from the main roads for an inn, but maybe they have food inside". He walks through the main door into a lobby where the lights are flickering. The lobby is empty, so he rings the bell for service.

"What?" speaks a woman suddenly behind him. The man says, "I need somewhere to stay, and I am terribly hungry". The woman looks at him with an unfazed expression, gazing at him with the coldest blue eye's he's ever seen. She smells likes smoke. "I have no food to spare as I am preparing for soldiers who booked the night here, but we do have one room left." She hands him the key, and he stares down at it. It is very cold in his hand. He looks up to find the woman is gone. The key has a tag with the number 64.

The silence from the hotel is deafening. He can hear himself breathing very loudly and he is sweating despite it being freezing. He lays down on the small cot in the tiny room numbered 64. Slowly, he falls asleep.

***

The man is woken by laughter. Peeping through his door, he sees the soldiers the woman was speaking of. In the lobby they have assembled a buffet with lots of hot food and beer. His stomach growls and his mouth waters. Right before he decides if he will wander out and try to steal some food, the doors to the lobby slam open. "Hey, there he is!" The cries of joy from the soldiers and the metals on this other man's chest indicate he's their leader. "Celebrate tonight, for we have won this battle. I am going to bed early. I suggest you all get a good nights rest, for this war is not over yet." The man closes the door to his little room quickly, as he realizes the soldier's leader is in the room next to his.

Curious still, he then looks through a crack in the wall. The general calls in his assistant to the room "I would like to be put to rest now" says the general and removes his head.

The man jumps back from the wall "what in the world is going on, what horrible people inhabit this hotel?" He opens his door again to find all the soldiers gone. The tables are turned over, and there is red liquid on the floor. "I didn't see them drinking wine" he thinks. Back through the crack, he watches terrified as the assistant begins removing the generals limbs one by one until he is in pieces. "I have to get out of here" the man thinks.

He cracks open his door, and sees all of the soldiers again - but slaughtered and scattered across the lobby, dismembered and disemboweled. Not wanting to walk through the room of corpses, he locks the door and breaks the window. As he teeters on the window's ledge, he hesitates because he can't see the ground. "Where is the ground? I was on the first floor!" Behind him, he hears the door creak open.

Twisting, he finds blue eyes staring down at him. The woman who gave him the key to his room standing inches from his face. She reeks of the smoke smell that only lingered before. "I wont tell anyone! Please! Let me go!" she shouts. Suddenly, she shoves him out the window.

The man is falling, flailing rapidly trying to grasp on to anything for support. He can't see anything as he's falling except the light of the window getting smaller and smaller as he falls. The man hits the ground with a thud, knocking him unconscious.

***

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Birds are chirping and sunlight streams through his eyelids. He opens them slowly to realize he is laying on his back, staring up at trees in a dense forest, surrounded by mushrooms. He sits up, and notices a sign that reads "We honor the men who died on this ground, where the massacre of the 64th division was committed".  He stands and runs to the main road, going to another hotel - this one he is familiar with.

"What happened in those woods? What's the 64th division?" he asks the clerk. The clerk replies "There used to be a hotel in those woods that catered to soldiers during WWI, it was off the main road to give some privacy. The 64th division was a band of soldiers who went there to rest after winning a particularly gruesome battle, but they ate the mushrooms growing around the property and went mad. They thought the enemy was attacking again, and slaughtered each other after killing their general."
"They killed their own general?" said the man. "Yes," replied the clerk, "they cut off his head, and his arms and legs before turning on each-other. Rather than admit their soldiers went crazy and killed everyone, the government sent people to burn down the hotel and claimed it was a massacre committed by the enemy. Legend says they set fire to it when there was still a civilian inside, some poor woman working the front desk who survived the soldier's attack. I guess they didn't want any witnesses."

"God, that's horrible. But, those mushrooms out there, they make you go crazy?"

"Yeah, but that's not the worst part. You sober up for a while after, only to have your heart stop and die."

Authors Note:

Here is the original story. I really liked the idea of ghosts on an old graveyard, and my story starts the same as the original but he is so hungry he eats mushrooms on the ground - he sees the ghosts, but it's because he ate the same mushrooms the soldiers did that killed them. Instead of seeing a light, he runs into the hotel sign. The general's assistant is still seen taking him apart, and I reason that he came apart not really by an assistant but by his own soldiers who went mad from the mushrooms. This time, the man leaves the hotel instead of staying the night. I added the lobby character and made the hotel name the same name as the hotel in the TV show American Horror Story - where half the residents are ghosts who died there. The room 64 is where a bunch of crazy stuff happens. The falling scene was one that I took from the movie, Get Out, where the main character is in hypnoses and falls through a tv screen only to be falling farther and farther seeing the screen shrink in "the Sunken Place". The man goes to a near by hotel (just like in the original story, I wonder why he didn't just go there in the first place), but I gave the place he was in a slightly new background with a government cover up and a twist ending for the main character - indicating he is about to die.

Reading Notes: The Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting, Part B

Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).

The rabbit is being a jerk again, this time boasting on himself and the abilities he has. He lies and deceives all about things he sees others doing. This time, he lies and says that he can eat fish just like the otters. The otters say, well I can eat ducks too and to this the rabbit says he can also eat ducks. The otter challenges the rabbit to prove it, and accepting the challenge they go to a river where some ducks are. The otter effortlessly gets a duck, and while he is hunting the rabbit makes a noose to catch a duck (basically cheating). The rabbit goes to catch a duck, and the duck flies away carrying the rabbit until he cant hold on any longer and falls. He falls into a hole with no way out. Several days go, and he hears children playing outside. He sings a song to attract them to him, and they bring their father to cut a hole in the tree. Eventually the hole is big enough that the rabbit can run through and escape the people - free again to terrorize the animal community. 

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Speaking of bunnies, there was a children's book I read in school about a family that got a bunny and the cat didn't trust it - finding that it was sucking the juice from all the vegetables. He conspired with the dog, and I don't remember all that happens, but at the end they find the bunny is harmless and just a new friend with a weird diet. 

Afterthoughts. 

It seems for the Cherokee that the rabbit is their trickster animal, a spot normally reserved for a fox or coyote. I like the idea of changing he challenge and animals, where a platypus challenges a a crocodile to an arm wrestling contest and wins by hiding a needle in his hand - which becomes his poisonous spike that males have and he gets thrown across the river or something. I could also join the two stories I read this week, where the possum walks by the rabbit trapped and doesn't help him so the rabbit has to rely on tricking the humans to help. 

Reading Notes: Why The Possum's Tail Is Bare, Part A

Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).

A possum had a beautiful tail that, either to his bragging or because it was so beautiful (or both), the rabbit conspired to have it altered. It didn't help the rabbit no longer had his tail. as a bear took it. He invited the possum to a dance, where he would showcase his pretty tail. The possum agreed and was told the barber would come beforehand to spruce up his tail. What the possum didn't know, was that the barber was going to cut all the hair off of it and wrap it in a ribbon. The possum went to the dance, unwrapped his tail without looking, and started dancing. Eventually, he looked to see why all the others were laughing and saw with horror his beautiful tail was ugly as a lizards tail. So freaked, he fell on his back with a grin, helpless, as possums do when surprised. 

I think I've posted this before, but here is a photo I took of a possum that got stuck behind the grill in our back yard (he did not move when I moved the grill, so I poked him with a broomstick and after a hiss he left - totally fine). 

Afterthoughts.

Well, I am caught between thinking the rabbit is a jerk and that this is a story to warn children of being hubristic. How could I alter this story for my own? Maybe the bear could come back to eat the rabbit for being mean. Or I could change this to birds and how the peacock got his beautiful colors, that he stole them from the ostrich and made the ostrich ugly. This story seems like the reverse of the ugly duckling who grew up to become a beautiful swan. 

Reading Notes: The Elves, Part A

The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

A poor shoemaker only had enough leather for one pair of shoes left, so he made the stencil and went to sleep, intending on finishing them in the morning. He awoke to find the shoes made perfectly, and done so well that the first customer to walk in paid more than the normal price for them.

He now had enough money for two pairs of shoes. He went to bed again with the stencil cut out for four shoes, and woke to the shoes made as perfectly as the last. A customer once again paid more than the original price and he had enough money to buy leather for four pairs. This pattern continued and he became very wealthy.

One night, before Christmas, his wife and himself decided to stay up and see who was making the shoes. At midnight, two streakers appeared and started making the shoes.

The wife said they should show gratitude to the naked men, and sewed them some clothes while the husband made them shoes. They set the presents out and waited to see what would happen. They were so happy that they left and never returned, but the shoemaker still prospered and had a good life.

Elf on the Shelf: Halloween Edition

Afterthoughts 

I decided on the elf on the shelf for my picture, but since Halloween is around the corner I chose this version of him. 

Why did the little men come, and why did they leave once they had clothes? At first my mind went into horror story mode and they would find that the shoes were made of human skin instead of cow. Then I had an idea, maybe the little men were cursed to perform good acts until they were given a gift of gratitude - after that they could stop. It also reminded me of the whole elves-steal-your-left-sock thing and that's why your socks always go missing. This story doesn't provoke too many ideas for a rewrite, so I hope next week's A and B stories do.

Reading Notes: The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge, Part B

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

A sorcerer was very powerful and developed many students as many wished to learn his powers. One day, he left with a bowl covering another bowl and told the students not too look what was inside but to watch it. As soon as he was out the door, the students uncovered it to only find clear water with a mini boat on it. They touched it, and it fell over. They quickly fixed it and recovered the bowl. They turned around to see the sorcerer asking why they disobeyed him, to which they tried to lie and say they didn't. He told them because of this, his ship capsized at sea.

The sorcerer left again, this time with a candle and told them to watch it to make sure the wind does not blow it out. After two days, the students became sleepy and when they awoke they saw the candle was out. They relit the candle, only to see the sorcerer asking why they disobeyed him again. He told them because of this, he was forced to walk 15 miles in the dark.

A student insulted the sorcerer, and he told the student to go feed the pigs. As soon as he walked into the pig room, the sorcerer turned him into a pig and sold him to a butcher. The son's father came looking for him, but the sorcerer said he left along time ago. Another student told the father what happened. Fearing the sorcerer, the father did not have him arrested but had him surrounded and seized by a thousand soliders who took the sorcerer, wife, and child to the capitol.

On their way, they encountered a giant angry monster. The sorcerer said only his wife could stop him, so they unchained her, only for her to be eaten by the giant. This happened to the son, and then the sorcerer. Suddenly, the monster was calm and walked away - leaving the soldiers to realize they had been tricked.

Tim the Enchanter

After thoughts

A lot could be done with this story. The kid turned into a pig could have been the one influencing all the other students to disobey the sorcerer, and that is why he was turned into a pig. The sorcerer could have been testing if he could trust the students with a simple task, and if not then they could not handle magic. The sorcerer didn't seem to be taking his job to seriously, and it made me think of the ridiculous Tim the Enchanter from the Holy Grail.

Reading Notes: The Cave of the Beasts, Part A

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

A father of 7 daughters goes to the woods and finds 7 wild duck eggs. Selfishly, he shares them only with his wife. The next morning, a daughter asks the mom what shes cooking and the mom says eggs, and that she will give her one if she does not tell her sisters. This happens with all 7 sisters, and the father is furious there are none left. He asks if they want to go to grandmas house, but he really plans to leave them in the woods to be eaten by wolves. The older daughters saw through his ploy, but the younger did not and agreed to go. He abandoned them, and they were left to seek shelter.

They found a cave behind a boulder, lit inside with many jewels owned unknown to them by a fox and a wolf. The two sisters settled to sleep on the two golden beds. When the fox and wolf returned home, the wolf swore he smelled human flesh but the fox said this was nonsense since they locked up the cave too well. They settled down to sleep near the fire. When the girls woke, they were terrified of the animals. They stoked the fire and put the boulder back, locking them inside to burn to death.

The daughters lived in the cave for a few days, and when the father started to miss them he went looking for them. He found them and the jewels, brought them home, and they became a happy family.

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After thoughts

I chose this one because the title reminded me of the first Lovecraft story I read, The Beast in the Cave. It was honestly a let down, and I guess the girls get their murderous nature from their father. The wolf/grandma element made me think of red riding hood. Then you have a little bit of goldilocks thrown in, sleeping in someone else's bed. I don't like the ending, where the only message I can find is the opposite of the Beatles song, becoming "money can buy me love". Why didn't the older sisters warn the little sisters? Why were the little sisters so quick to forgive their father? How was the mom too stupid to see what was happening in her house? What a horrible family.

Reading Notes: The Night on the Battlefield, Part B

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

A merchant travels and becomes weary, a storm comes and the sun sets, and suddenly he sees the lights of an Inn flicker on of a building he did not notice before. He goes to the inn and asks for board and food and wine. The inn says they have a spare room for him, but all their food and drink must be saved as a battalion is coming in later.

Later that night, he could not sleep. He heard weird noises and looks through the crack in the door to see the all the men drinking and eating on the floor. Then, in walks the general. He commends them for their hard work and says he is going to rest. With his assistant in tow, he goes to his room which is adjacent to the merchant. Through another crack in the wall, he looks into the Generals room and sees the general take off his head. His assistant helps him by taking off his arms, then legs, and turns off the light.

The merchant tried to sleep, but he could not from the hunger, thirst, and crazy thing he just witnessed. He awoke to the sound of a crow, and realized he was outside. The inn was no where to be seen.  He runs to the nearest Inn he finds and recounts what happened, asking what that Inn owner thinks. The inn owner says that the entire forrest he was in was a battleground, and strange things happen after dark.

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After thoughts

Well I really enjoyed this story because of the supernatural element and twist. This will make an awesome rewrite. The general dismemberment scene reminds me of something that occurs on the show Supernatural, where sometimes ghosts become stuck in loops and keep reenacting their death (called a death echo). Maybe this general was dismembered during an ambush, maybe this inn was one that once stood before treason. I like the idea of the time loop happening every night on that ground, or maybe the man had ingested something like a mushroom that made him hallucinate or able to see the dead.

Week 8 Progress

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I am at the end of week 8 assignments and at 250 points (before submitting this) takes me to around week 9 point wise for an A or a C at week 12 - but I plan on getting an A in this class. I have had a good routine that got me ahead, but I am taking it down a notch and changing it a little.

I still am sticking with M-readings A/B, W-comments/stories-or-lab, and F-project/project feedback. The thing that is different now is that starting week 7 I stopped doing the comments and feedback ahead of time and started waiting to do them till the week they are due. While I am writing my stories a week ahead, I am not posting them till the week they're due. I decided to work during the class schedule for feedback because it was sort of weird commenting ahead on others posts - and also, most people didn't have projects up and running a week early. So while I am at the end of week 8 for most assignments, I wont be doing week 8 feedback until next Friday when I am at the end of week 9.

With these changes, and before them, I have a good routine. I owe a lot of my ability to complete these assignments to my agenda (taking time Sunday to plan the following weeks assignments). This class forces me away from the brutality of physics and organic chemistry and while I love microbiology it's nice to take a step back from that too.

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Week 8 Comments and Feedback

Feedback in is usually pretty great and thought provoking. If there isn't already an option for this, I think a good extra credit assignment would be to revise a story on the blog based on some of the comments. While I want to revise my stories on my own, my course load is so full this semester it's hard to want to spend time on anything that doesn't count towards the grade. I find comments where they give me alternate ideas are the most helpful, as well as comments where they ask questions on why a character did something.

I think the feedback I give is decent, sometimes more helpful than others based on the story I read. A story less than 500 words is hard to provide feedback on that isn't just asking for them to make a longer story and elaborate on parts. Longer stories are easier to comment on. I tend to focus my feedback on any part of the story that I have questions about or if a character was flat I ask the writer to broaden their backstory.

I don't feel like the blog comments are as connecting as they could be, I would rather reply directly to a comment than to start a new one on their blog - but the downside is they won't get my response as a notification.  I think that would really help the communication in this class if there were a way to get notified on comment responses to your comment instead of comments on a post.

I actually just changed my comment wall to create more of an interest in my story. As far as my introduction goes, I think it still sums me up well.  So far, I have only received one comment on my story and just based on that and Laura's email there are a lot of ways I can make my story better. If that's just based on two revision comments (well, one comment and an email) then I can't imagine how helpful it will be once I get more comments on my story.

I chose this image from the Feedback Cats because I often feel bad and get a little stressed whenever I see comments that are not negative, but aren't good - like when something I wrote was confusing, or all of the grammar mistakes I make. However, I know to remind myself this is more or less a stress free class that's just about creativity, and also - everyone makes grammar mistakes.

Week 8: Reading and Writing

PART ONE: Blog and Website Check-Up.

I liked my original layout, but one classmate pointed out the bright blue colored text was very contrasted against the black screen so I switched to black text and a soft blue/teal background. This isn't the aesthetic I was going for in my blog, since I try to write sad or scary stories but teal is my favorite color. Maybe when I get bored Ill try something darker that still isn't an eye strain.

I love my project website, the only thing is I can't figure out how to make a black background for the text - but I don't want to cause a case of eye strain again so I'm happy with just creating banners and adding images to adjust the mood of the story. I am less in-love with my project title, but I can't really think of anything other than Making a Murderer; although, it might be confusing to some. I have never watched that show, but I am borrowing the title because it basically sums up what happens - the witches (subjectively) make Lady Macbeth a murderer.

PART TWO. Reading and Stories.

My reading notes have definitely gotten less descriptive as the class has gone on - that something I'll need to work on if I want to write better stories. The reason I chose to write my most recent story on a Russian reading notes instead of that weeks Asian/Indian notes was because I didn't like the stories I read; however, it could have also been because I didn't take detailed notes or ask myself questions. The headless princess story prompted a lot of questions that inspired me to write the story I did. So if I don't like the story or it isn't long enough to write detailed notes, I need to make sure I ask questions that I could write answers to.

PART THREE: Blog Post.

I'm happier with my website than my blog, but I think that's because it is one project verses many stories mixed with posts about the class or assignments. My biggest accomplishment is a tie between Shuffle in the Night and the storybook project.

Shuffle in the Night was a hard story to write that I got very frustrated with because it didn't end how I wanted it too. It was also my first story, so I was a little embarrassed and didn't want to post it. But the story came out better than my original idea, teaching me it's okay to go off course. And just like with my paintings, although I do them for myself, it's nice to show the world something I created.

My storybook is something I'm proud of because I was really scared to commit to something and didn't think I was a good enough writer to work on a large story all semester long. But here I am, two stories in and they were both written in single sittings. I am also excited to write the last two stories, which I already have a million ideas for. Although I am writing it like a Shakespeare play, I am considering switching it up to a normal book-type narrative (if I ever have the free time to do that, that is).

The photo above is from my second set of reading notes over Macbeth. I chose this because while it represents a part of the story where a gate keeper is babbling about being the gate keeper of hell instead of the kingdom, it found it's way into my storybook project; the witches receive a message in the introduction from Satan telling them soon the veil will be thin enough to open his inferno doors. 

As I said, I am really looking forward to writing the last two stories and I hope they aren't so long that they deter anyone from reading. For my reading notes, I need to ask more questions and engage myself in the stories - something that is very important when it comes to stories I am not very interested in.