Having Withdrawals…
Maybe I’m just crazy, but I’m having withdrawals right now from reading. Finals have basically started here at UC Santa Cruz, which means I have a total of four essays to write. I mentioned earlier that I wasn’t going to be reading during this period because I just had so much work to do. Well, now that I’m officially not reading for my own enjoyment I’ve found myself craving it. Literally. I’m writing one of my shorter essays because it is due tomorrow and right in the middle I stopped and wanted to reach for my book. Then it occurred to me that I intentionally didn’t bring any reading with me because I needed to stay somewhat focused–this post being a diversion of course. The sooner these blasted finals are over the better. I think the good news, at least, is that three of my essays are going to be exceedingly simple. My Modern German Fiction class requires a final 6-8 page essay on a topic of my choice, approved by the professor of course. I think my topic will be easy to do in that space and I won’t have to worry too much about revision since I know what I’m going to talk about.One of my other essays is a rewrite of a previous essay, which is required even though I really don’t see a point. That shouldn’t be too hard. I have an A- and a B on my two essays thus far in that class, and doing a revision of the B essay shouldn’t be too hard. To be honest I’m not too concerned with my grade so long as it is a B or above. I know a lot of people work really hard to get As, but I see little point in putting that sort of pressure on myself. I like not having to work too hard to get my Bs and As, which for the most part is the case anyway as I’m fairly sufficient at writing essays and being productive.The third essay is for the same class as above. We’re reading The Manifestoes of Surrealism by Andre Breton and the essay has to be an argument paper that addresses one of the points that Breton makes during his manifestoes. It’s somewhat difficult, but I think I can manage.The last essay will be the hardest. It’s for my opera class and it has to be 5-7 pages addressing some aspect of the opera Moses und Aron by Shoenberg. The problem? I cannot stand this opera. I like what is being said, but the music is so utterly horrible to me that I actually had a headache at the end. It’s not even opera. So it’s going to be difficult to address this opera I think, but I imagine I will have plenty to say on some points. We’ll see how that goes. But in the end, I’m having withdrawals. Does anyone else have this problem sometimes?
Fantasy Creature Inspiration!
It’s hard to come up with valid articles that deals with fantasy. The reason being that there isn’t much in the realm of fantasy to really talk about that hasn’t already been discussed to death. I will certainly discuss things if they come up in a comment, but generally I think you can find the myriad of debates already out there with a simple Google search. But I’ve found something interesting that I think will be of use to you fantasy writers out there. It could also be good for an SF or even horror writer, but since I took some influence from a similar thing I would like to point you all to this Top 15 list of unusual deep sea creatures. I know I said no links, but this is an actual post, not just a collection of links for you to check out. The interesting thing about that list is that everything looks so alien, yet they’re really from this planet. You can imagine the bizarre, even freaky possibilities of a fantasy world if you take into account that things don’t have to be ordered, mammalian, or reptilian. Things can defy conventional logic. The Chimaera, for example, looks like something from a Men In Black movie, sort of like a baby alien with those big black eyes. The Fangtooth fish looks like some creepy Halloween mask. My favorite, though, is the Viperfish , although I imagine there are a variety of similar critters out there that have similar features, but for whatever reason aren’t mentioned. Some of you might actually remember this fish. Can you guess from where?…Well if you guessed from The World in the Satin Bag, then you were right. There is actually a scene where a similar fish showed up and attempted to eat the characters. This was right after James, Pea, and James had escaped from Arlin City just before Luthien destroyed the entire city with his army. They took an underground path that passed under the river and when they reached the lowest point they found themselves in a bottomless pit filled with water, which happened to be home to a giant fish-creature that looked remarkably like the Viperfish. I did this intentionally. I wanted something so creepy, but real at the same time that it would be terrifying. I don’t know if anyone was scared while reading that section, but I’m sure some were thinking “oh, that can’t exist” (then again, maybe not because WISB is a fantasy novel). But, it is a real creature. You can tell from the link. I just made it a thousand times its normal size. The great thing about nature is that it is a treasure tome of great ideas. You don’t have to invent every single thing in your fantasy world. Sometimes you can create something that is similar to something that exists on Earth, and it will work just fine. Even if you don’t want to do that, you can still look at nature and find all sorts of ideas. It’s all right here at your fingertips!