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.