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Fall Ceramic Dm™ - Winner!
- Thread starter mythago
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RangerWickett
Legend
Sialia, I am struck at how you and I seemed to have written the same story. The dancing woman is a symbol of rebirth -- the end of one year and the beginning of another, or the cycle of phoenix from old age to death to youth. The handprints are a reflection of something lost -- in your story they are a story to try to make sense of things dying and bring some joy to replace the sadness, in mine they are of memories forgotten and ultimately groundlessness.
The rat becomes a symbol of hope and uncertainty -- the possibility that he might live on or at least be loved while he is here, or an a possibility for someone to escape being trapped. Even the towers are in both stories symbols of a prison, though in mine they are merely a barrier to freedom that can still be seen beyond them.
We both wrote stories that are about being weighed down, being trapped, about beauty being taken away, seen only in glimpses. And in those glimpses, we both show a reason to break free of the prison. There is death and loss, and neither of us can negate the possibility for hope in the end, but both stories end in a sort of frightened uncertainty.
It surprised me, though, that your most compelling image was one that wasn't even an illustration -- the pale girl and her son. In a way, it's a perfect cap on the story, that the most compelling image is unseen, leaving only an outline.
I loved your story. I have always admired economy of language. Your story was poetry.
Happy belated birthday.
The rat becomes a symbol of hope and uncertainty -- the possibility that he might live on or at least be loved while he is here, or an a possibility for someone to escape being trapped. Even the towers are in both stories symbols of a prison, though in mine they are merely a barrier to freedom that can still be seen beyond them.
We both wrote stories that are about being weighed down, being trapped, about beauty being taken away, seen only in glimpses. And in those glimpses, we both show a reason to break free of the prison. There is death and loss, and neither of us can negate the possibility for hope in the end, but both stories end in a sort of frightened uncertainty.
It surprised me, though, that your most compelling image was one that wasn't even an illustration -- the pale girl and her son. In a way, it's a perfect cap on the story, that the most compelling image is unseen, leaving only an outline.
I loved your story. I have always admired economy of language. Your story was poetry.
Happy belated birthday.
Aris Dragonborn
First Post
Indeed, Happy belated Birthday, Sialia!
Sialia
First Post
Many thanks to all of you.
RangerWickett the parallels are eerie--as I was reading your story I kept thinking "now why didn't I write that?" and "now that's a reallly good way of saying that" and "I guess fiction isn't dead after all."
I'm guessing the similarity in the themes of our stories are because in this case in addition to the shared pictures we have similar backstory. I don't know about yours, of course, but mine is all soaked in Katrina. (How can anyone not have longed for stories of loss, prisons, government by the rich for the rich, rape, sorrow, isolation, and the need to find ways to escape, survive, be reborn, find family, freedom and joy this month?)
I've had too many weeks of reading about Katrina to write fiction. I wanted to write something real. I've never been to New Orleans (although that itself is also a story). And I don't know anyone on the Gulf Coast (unless some of you are), so none of those stories were remotely mine to tell.
Boston's First Night celebration is a bit like what I've imagined Mardi Gras might be like, apart from the general sobriety and G rating. It's as close as I could get anyway.
And the tragedy under the tragedy of New Orleans is that the poor have lived for decades on the brink of disaster in every city in this country, and they are failed by city, county, state, feds and their neighbors day after day after day. It's business as usual.
Anyway, for a long while I've wanted to show where my stories come from--how they get built--I've often thought that what goes on behind the scenes of a story is at least as interesting as what winds up on the surface. (Why is why although I enjoyed seeing Serenity a lot this weekend, what really compells me is watching the box office tally and wondering in suspense whether Joss Whedon's personal battle to resurrect the dead will succeed. ) So this seemed like a good time to explore that. Fantasy sometimes blinds us to what we don't want to see, or just helps us escape from what we can't deal with,
but also sometimes it focuses our desires upon worthwhile outcomes, or makes us think about problems sideways, in ways that change our view of the world and open possibilities.
So fiction lives. Good fiction isn't a parasite on reality, but a symbiant.
RangerWickett the parallels are eerie--as I was reading your story I kept thinking "now why didn't I write that?" and "now that's a reallly good way of saying that" and "I guess fiction isn't dead after all."
I'm guessing the similarity in the themes of our stories are because in this case in addition to the shared pictures we have similar backstory. I don't know about yours, of course, but mine is all soaked in Katrina. (How can anyone not have longed for stories of loss, prisons, government by the rich for the rich, rape, sorrow, isolation, and the need to find ways to escape, survive, be reborn, find family, freedom and joy this month?)
I've had too many weeks of reading about Katrina to write fiction. I wanted to write something real. I've never been to New Orleans (although that itself is also a story). And I don't know anyone on the Gulf Coast (unless some of you are), so none of those stories were remotely mine to tell.
Boston's First Night celebration is a bit like what I've imagined Mardi Gras might be like, apart from the general sobriety and G rating. It's as close as I could get anyway.
And the tragedy under the tragedy of New Orleans is that the poor have lived for decades on the brink of disaster in every city in this country, and they are failed by city, county, state, feds and their neighbors day after day after day. It's business as usual.
Anyway, for a long while I've wanted to show where my stories come from--how they get built--I've often thought that what goes on behind the scenes of a story is at least as interesting as what winds up on the surface. (Why is why although I enjoyed seeing Serenity a lot this weekend, what really compells me is watching the box office tally and wondering in suspense whether Joss Whedon's personal battle to resurrect the dead will succeed. ) So this seemed like a good time to explore that. Fantasy sometimes blinds us to what we don't want to see, or just helps us escape from what we can't deal with,
but also sometimes it focuses our desires upon worthwhile outcomes, or makes us think about problems sideways, in ways that change our view of the world and open possibilities.
So fiction lives. Good fiction isn't a parasite on reality, but a symbiant.
KidCthulhu
First Post
Man, he could have asked us. We would have sent some! Do you want us to send a regular tithe of maple sugar candy and fluff?
maxfieldjadenfox
First Post
Bored now... 
New something? Anything?
PS Happy birthday Sialia, and thanks to you and RangerWickett for the conversation... Really neat.
New something? Anything? PS Happy birthday Sialia, and thanks to you and RangerWickett for the conversation... Really neat.
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