M3 Fairy Tales: Overview

     I'm presenting a bit on fairy tales at the CTRWA's Fictionfest conference in September, so I thought I would talk a little bit about it here. This is the first half of the same handout I will be giving out at the conference (the second half is about adapting them to fiction). I will follow-up with more detailed information, and even an examination of some popular tales, presenting some unorthodox (and disturbing) interpretations.

F3 Barnstorming

            Flynn looked at the odd contraption that Hank and Ann had cobbled together. It looked . . . flimsy, despite the assurances from both that it would fly.

            “Why haven’t you enclosed the cockpit?” he asked.

Prep Work

            I’ve been invited to speak at a conference next month, so I need to go through my prep work. Not so much the speaking. Since my day job entails me standing in front of people every day and presenting material to them, I’ve got a handle on that part.

            No, it’s the packing and preparation to fly across the country that I need to get a handle on. Even though I’ve got my various lists all sorted out and have the method down, it is just an ordeal at times.

            Maybe I should have tried to speak at a local conference. . . .

M3 Lilith

            So, I alluded to her, and now we’re going to take an in-depth look at her. I have scoured the web, and looked at many, many, many people’s interpretations of Lilith, but very few have any kind of original text. I will offer caution to anyone looking for deeper information about Lilith that the false information vastly outnumbers the truth.

F3 Slice of Pie

            I struggled to focus on not letting my mind wander, but business was slow. Check that, business was dead. Jen sat in her office typing away at some old case files, but I had nothing to do. I had surfed the web numerous times, avoided Nikki’s calls, and made an attempt to read up on the mythology of gremlins.

Unconventional Methods

            I’m trying something a little new with my teaching this semester, which should not come as any surprise. Last semester, I was able to make a connection with my students in a way that I hadn’t previously. It came from not talking about the course material.

M3 Bible: Creation: Peoples

            Okay, day six, when God finally gets around to people—

            Time out!

            I know, the story hasn’t really started yet, but I’ve got to address something before we get too deep. See, Genesis has two creations of mankind.

F3 Rodeo

            “Yee haw!” I yelled.

            I stood on the northeaster edge of the storm. In front of me stretched clear, blue, unsuspecting skies. Behind me seethed a black, roiling mass of a storm.

            “Lassoed us a big’un, didn’t we?” Kate drawled.

That Time Again

            Here it is again, the semester about to begin. I’m ready. I’ve been ready since May, but I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve. Hopefully they’ll take.

            I wonder at which point a teacher qualifies as a magician. We all have our acts, we all come up with our signature tricks to try and wow the audience. And we have to keep coming up with new ones all the time as the audience will grow bored with the old ones.

           

M3 Bible: Creation: Refinement

            As I said last week, the creation takes place over several days. The breakdown of the creation into individual steps shows off the great organization involved. No other creation story I’ve come across (and I’ve read a lot of them) is as organized as that as the Genesis story. Each day is broken down with separate creative steps that move everything forward.

F3 Heatwave

            I glided the last four hundred miles to the Pacific coast, not because I enjoyed the free fall—It’s okay, I guess—but because there were no clouds. That’s the kind of condition that almost never occurred in the Pacific Northwest. Hell, they even had a condition, Seasonal Affective Disorder, to describe how depressing it was not to see the sun.

Overtired

            Have you ever noticed that when your brain gets overtired that you begin to struggle remembering _____? I mean, I know I know the words, but they just become _____ and slip away. It’s _____ and leaves me ____! And I’m not talking about not being able to identify (those people that appear in movies in front of the camera [I know there’s a word for this]). I can look up who they are. But when I know I know words that ____ what I’m thinking but I can’t come up with them, I know I need to step away; my brain has reached its limit.

M3 Bible: Creation: Days

            The Creation moves forward as a series of days witch each day devoted to a particular set of agenda items, after which God declares it all good, then moves on. Two important ideas stand out in this.

First, a day is not defined. The text goes about declaring “evening and morning” make up a day, which seems backwards to most people. Morning should come first, but that’s not how it’s stated. And an examination of the Jewish calendar and their holy days reveal that they follow the same pattern. What can we truly make of this? Should we all reverse our thinking and adopt this same procedure in order to understand the timeline? No, not at all.