Current mood:	tired
Current music:	leona naess

Of Cows and Mermaids + Other Things
Much better to post my response as a separate entry than to use the comment feature. Warning: I've used up the ability to be articulate tonight in the effort to make Machiavellian arguments work as arguments on why a relationship is bound to fail. Haha. So my responses are pretty half-baked.

changed the background. think it kinda works.. like the fact that boots and platform shoes peek out from the corners :)what do you reckon?

Loving it. I like the coloured cow-print feel of the whole thing. Takes away from the drabness of the rest of the blog :-)

both ideas seem to work. though you're right, idea #2 seems more of a graphic novel kind of thing. but has a strong christian tradition lah. i'm afraid i might turn bulimic if i work on something with this theme for any extended period of time :|

All former Bible-thumping and church-going cows must write something that has a strong Christian tradition. It's as hard-wired into our systems as that godwaful guilt complex. :-P

Seriously though, I just realised that idea #2 may not be the best option for a children's story. The plot seems a bit too heavy for a children's story. Will need to think about this more.

but i like the idea of a community protecting themself through shutting down of a physical space, and the disjunct that comes from that. exploring the roads and the encounters when she comes out will be very interesting. can introduce lots of trippy and grotesque characters with their own histories and brand of wisdom or irony or cynicism or joy or lust or...

We can just write about something like this. I mean, take this idea and run with it. Would probably make for a good coming-of-age story... a girl who comes from a literally sheltered life, exploring a new world and meeting strange / interesting / grotesque creatures who have their own stories.

Might work. We can draft chracters and write their stories and then write the overall story like a patchwork quilt. We can create a universe, too, while we're at it.

the first idea might work better as a short story. i'm not sure about the mermaid's desire to be earth creatures though the bit i liked about harry potter was actually the de-mystification of the merpeople. that it's not just women in shell bras and sing nice songs and look lovely, that they're slimey and have nasty pets and are powerful in a strange way.

But I like pretty mermaids! Haha. Joking. You make a good point. I'm also hesitant about the whole mermaid thing as I don't particularly care for them as a species (which probably makes me a Mermaidist).

We can turn it around though. We can make it that it's a journey about Earth people becoming mermaids by preparing for a ceremony wherein they dress up in pretty mermaid garb only to become mermaids that are ugly and grey and nasty.
i think we could work with the single minded obsession of the mermaids though, that all their life is about preparing for this thing. it sounds a bit like the earth, fire, wind trilogy kind of feel? describing or creating a community, a population, a rite, and a journey, the leads in death, of course ;D

And I just remembered. There is a Balinese tradition of being afraid of the water because they believe that the water is where the gods resided. We can include that detail in the story as something that makes the journey to the water an important, scary and dramatic event.

this is good! i dont usually have plots, i'm better at surfacing the details and the layers in their characters at particular moments. i think at least, or i'm trying hard to be good at *something*

All I have are plots (no talent, no words, no energy to write haha). I'm brimming with half-baked plots. I just can't find my plot notebook. It's in one of my bags, I think. I'll look for it tomorrow.

so if we work with the setting, the place which is the underwater world, then we have to create their myths. like how did the world begin, creation story, legends, heroinnes (sp?), music, language, clothes, threats, etc etc etc. ?

We'll if you agree to turn the story around to make the journey towards the water, then we need to create two worlds: the imagined and idealised underwater universe and the real Earth world.

What do you think?