creativity burst...
Dec. 3rd, 2009 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boogieshoeswell, either aunt flow, or the fact that i can breathe better than i have in almost a year has come with a burst of creativity this week.
the Dunne's Darlin's fanfic list has posted a drabble prompt/challenge of 'christmas traditions, any AU', and i've got an idea for it that takes place in my werewolf AU. it won't be a drabble because i'm *not* a master of the tight form(*), and i need to dig up some stuff about dad's dad, but i think it will be decent humor when i get done.
i finally got around to a first read-through of FaraD's beta commentary on 'Green Day' (thanks again, Fara!), and i found myself both nodding right along with it, and being inspired to finish my series of essays on What Makes a Good Story. i have the essay on Characterization and Oomph Factor left, and some of FaraD's commentary seemed to be perfect jumping off points for those. i've been holding off because it can be difficult to describe what either of those subjects mean to me, much less how to do them well. so i'm officially thanking FaraD for more than just her beta comments. :-)
and third, i had the most *awesome* dream last night.
it was one of those action/ adventure dreams where i woke up covered in sweat, but i was also going, 'hey, that's pretty cool! i've *got* to write that down!' it started out with a procession of kings and queens and their entourages into this fabulous museum. i mean, it was an amazing building - looked like something someone exceedingly rich would have built during the 1930's, when the most talented carvers, gold-leafers, masons, sculpters, and everyone else was looking for work, and therefor relatively cheap labor. expensive tile floors of marble, with inlays of tiles of other expensive stones; embossed leather on the walls; display areas with expensive wood parquetry on the floors; gold-leaf everywhere; rooms big enough to hold massive display items, and ballroom dances at the same time. this place was *awesome*, and if it's real, you could spend about 6 years in it and never see it all.
so anyway, we're going in, and we're spiraling towards the center of the building where there's this round theater-like area. and the people in the procession are dressed up in their absolute best costumes and stuff, because they're celebrating the elevation of a new clan chief. the clans all have a dominant color as their livery. so the king and queen of one clan is dress mostly in purples and golds because it's their clan colors. i never did figure out what the clan names were, but i got the feeling that they're related to the natural world - so like 'bright moon clan' or something.
everyone in the procession is singing in chorus, and this continues until they take their places on the center 'stage' of the theater. now, if any of you have been to Epcot Center, the big white golf ball in DisneyLand in Orlando, you know what this theater generally looks like. the center stage is round, and then there's a separation band and then comes the audience seating. except in the golf ball, the audience area is a little wedge that moves around the stage. in this theater, the audience area almost completely encircles the stage, except for the exit bridge to the museum. each section of the stage was a separate throne area for each of the different clan chiefs, and between the stage and audience was 1) a miniature railroad; 2) a miniature stream/pond area; and 3) the appropriate banks and berms for these things.
we come in, and get seated, and the chief/king we're celebrating is dressed in black. yup, it's Chris Larabee. but it's Chris Larabee being played by one of my friends - Major Shane or KentBob, i think. Kentbob looks kind of like a blond Ezra - the face is different, but that's the right body-type. Shane's tall and lanky and blond, so he'd fit right in. James Cochrane is the clan herald, and steps up in this blue baldric and introduces the 'new king, by right of arms over the old king.' my dream-mind knows this means that the old king is dead - the only way to ascent to the throne in the clans is to kill the old king in a formal contest. of course, this isn't like any SCA contest because in this race, everyone can change into a cougar. there's nothing else particularly magical about them, and they're not bigger than real cougars, but their coats come in all sorts of colors. Chris, of course, is the black cougar (rare coat color, i guess). so a 'formal contest' is a fight to the death in cougar form.
so there's a new king, does anyone object? yes! yes i do! i loudly declame the new king is evil, and we should review the fight to see if he cheated. i'm passionate and sure of myself, but i'm also not really heard over the cheers of the crowd for the new King Chris.
(TBC: I have a meeting to attend!)
(ETA: I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I hate CMMI, too. Just for the record.)
ok, so anyway, i get kinda muscled out of the throne room, but respectfully, because i'm apparently some sort of wise-woman or shaman. there's a dinner in the feast-hall that evening, and i attend in disguise as a 'wizened crone', as Ezra would say. there's some kind of dust-up during dinner, and they blame me for inciting it or something, and i stand up and say 'yes, as the clan's shaman, i think you'll be bad for the clan!'
and Chris is all 'why do you hate me, what have i done?'
and i say something like 'you know what you have done, black cougar, and your people will pay for it!'
at which point Chris loses his temper and bans me from court. except such a banishment automatically means that there's a death sentence on my head, and that the warriors of the clan deem it their duty to catch and kill me. i change into my cougar form, and with the help of a few people who don't think the banishment is fair, make it out of the hall and....
into the maze under the mountain. and this isn't any kind of dark, dank, maze thing, either. it's a labyrinth of bright, cheerful corridors, with awesome mural paintings and gold-leaf work everywhere. it's decorated with statues and cheerful lairs/ home dens of the various clans, and kitchens and other 'public areas'. the vast network of corridors and rooms stretch into the mountain out to the other side, which is a whole 'nother kingdom, where the warriors won't cross the border to enforce the ban. the walls are bright white quartz/ veined marble or something. a lot of the floors are wood. there's a *wave pool* in the middle of the mountain, no lie, complete with blue tiled mosaics that make the water look blue.
so i'm going through the maze, and Chris and James and the other warriors are hunting me, sometimes as a cougar, sometimes as a woman, and Chris, at least, meets the other 6 of the 7 along the way. and i end up hidden in a kitchen near the middle of the mountain. (freakin' nice kitchen, btw).
and they find me, and i escape again, only i can't go the right way - to the other side of the mountain - so i have to come up back through the lairs and corridors and try to circle around. only i can't find an unblocked path. and as i get to the wave pool, something happens, and i experience DOUBT. great, angsty, big pieces of DOUBT. on the other side of the wave pool is a gallery of furniture, and i've lost them for a bit, so i sing this song of 'what have i done? was i right or was i wrong? is this man really evil for not doing things the old way, or am i just not happy with the changes i see?' and i die somewhere in that gallery. and then... the 'actress' who was playing the human-me stands by 'my' side to signify that we're ghosts now. apparently, it's all been a play. and off to the side, i hear someone say 'jesus, this is an awesome script! so-and-so wants to buy it!'
so evidently, i had written a musical full of action/adventure parts, with a lot of running, jumping, climbing, and swimming. and great singing. the actress who played the human-me was awesome. and sylph-like, and dressed in purples and reds with great gauze wings...
so anyway, Chris and the warriors, including the other members of the magnificent 7 find me, and decide to give me a proper burial with respect. so they're processing back to the main stage-chamber, and me and the actress with me are kinda running a little bit ahead, and i'm totally sweating like a pig at this point and thinking 'damn, i can't wait to change into jeans and a t-shirt!' and i say, 'by the way, why didn't anyone want to know why i objected? how come no one asked me about it? it's because the king is a representative of the people, and tied to the land. and as the king does, so do the people. so if he's corrupt, the land and the people become corrupt. and Chris is Christian, which doesn't recognize our cat-selves. how can we have a king that ignores half of our heritage and culture and be ok?'
and that must have been an aside - commentary on the play or something - because my fellow actress and i start discussing politics and religion, but it's not 'in front of the audience'. so we get to the main stage set, and Chris does this thing where he's baptizing me post-mortem, and i'm all like 'oh, Chris, you can't make me Christian that way!' and then the actress-who-plays-human-me, who is apparently on wires, flies around the audience and the king in a 'last show of magic' and lands on the bridge to the rest of the museum. and i do the same thing, except i sneak a kiss to James Cochrane's cheek on the way out. so she and i are walking out of the museum, and i make a statement to the effect of 'it's really an allegory of Christianity taking over the world, you know...' and at some point, someone wants us to run back for pictures. and the audience loves us. :-D
and then *the entire cast*, still in their most awesome costumes recess out of the museum (into a DisneyLand-type park), singing a Christian hymn. i think it's 'Joy to the World'. i knew all the verses in the dream (and in RL at one point, but not now).
it goes, i think, like this:
Joy to the World, the Lord has come -
Let Earth recieve Her King!
Let every mouth, rock, hill, and stream,
And Heaven and Nature Sing
And Heaven and Nature Sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven and Nature Sing!
yeah, i just mutilated that verse, but it was fun to sing in a chorus, and we were *all* on key, in time, and had *completely awesome voices*.
and it was a totally awesome feeling to be in that huge chorus. :-)
and that was my completely awesome dream that i just *had* to record today. i woke up drenched in sweat, of course, because you can't have a dream that involves running, form-changing, jumping, climbing, and singing without it counting as aerobic excercise.... :-p
-bs, happy
(*): drabbles are the prose version of the haiku. when it works, it's an amazing gut-punch of emotion and clarity and awe, and when it flops, it flops *hard*. like most things, it's *much* harder to make it work than make it flop.
the Dunne's Darlin's fanfic list has posted a drabble prompt/challenge of 'christmas traditions, any AU', and i've got an idea for it that takes place in my werewolf AU. it won't be a drabble because i'm *not* a master of the tight form(*), and i need to dig up some stuff about dad's dad, but i think it will be decent humor when i get done.
i finally got around to a first read-through of FaraD's beta commentary on 'Green Day' (thanks again, Fara!), and i found myself both nodding right along with it, and being inspired to finish my series of essays on What Makes a Good Story. i have the essay on Characterization and Oomph Factor left, and some of FaraD's commentary seemed to be perfect jumping off points for those. i've been holding off because it can be difficult to describe what either of those subjects mean to me, much less how to do them well. so i'm officially thanking FaraD for more than just her beta comments. :-)
and third, i had the most *awesome* dream last night.
it was one of those action/ adventure dreams where i woke up covered in sweat, but i was also going, 'hey, that's pretty cool! i've *got* to write that down!' it started out with a procession of kings and queens and their entourages into this fabulous museum. i mean, it was an amazing building - looked like something someone exceedingly rich would have built during the 1930's, when the most talented carvers, gold-leafers, masons, sculpters, and everyone else was looking for work, and therefor relatively cheap labor. expensive tile floors of marble, with inlays of tiles of other expensive stones; embossed leather on the walls; display areas with expensive wood parquetry on the floors; gold-leaf everywhere; rooms big enough to hold massive display items, and ballroom dances at the same time. this place was *awesome*, and if it's real, you could spend about 6 years in it and never see it all.
so anyway, we're going in, and we're spiraling towards the center of the building where there's this round theater-like area. and the people in the procession are dressed up in their absolute best costumes and stuff, because they're celebrating the elevation of a new clan chief. the clans all have a dominant color as their livery. so the king and queen of one clan is dress mostly in purples and golds because it's their clan colors. i never did figure out what the clan names were, but i got the feeling that they're related to the natural world - so like 'bright moon clan' or something.
everyone in the procession is singing in chorus, and this continues until they take their places on the center 'stage' of the theater. now, if any of you have been to Epcot Center, the big white golf ball in DisneyLand in Orlando, you know what this theater generally looks like. the center stage is round, and then there's a separation band and then comes the audience seating. except in the golf ball, the audience area is a little wedge that moves around the stage. in this theater, the audience area almost completely encircles the stage, except for the exit bridge to the museum. each section of the stage was a separate throne area for each of the different clan chiefs, and between the stage and audience was 1) a miniature railroad; 2) a miniature stream/pond area; and 3) the appropriate banks and berms for these things.
we come in, and get seated, and the chief/king we're celebrating is dressed in black. yup, it's Chris Larabee. but it's Chris Larabee being played by one of my friends - Major Shane or KentBob, i think. Kentbob looks kind of like a blond Ezra - the face is different, but that's the right body-type. Shane's tall and lanky and blond, so he'd fit right in. James Cochrane is the clan herald, and steps up in this blue baldric and introduces the 'new king, by right of arms over the old king.' my dream-mind knows this means that the old king is dead - the only way to ascent to the throne in the clans is to kill the old king in a formal contest. of course, this isn't like any SCA contest because in this race, everyone can change into a cougar. there's nothing else particularly magical about them, and they're not bigger than real cougars, but their coats come in all sorts of colors. Chris, of course, is the black cougar (rare coat color, i guess). so a 'formal contest' is a fight to the death in cougar form.
so there's a new king, does anyone object? yes! yes i do! i loudly declame the new king is evil, and we should review the fight to see if he cheated. i'm passionate and sure of myself, but i'm also not really heard over the cheers of the crowd for the new King Chris.
(TBC: I have a meeting to attend!)
(ETA: I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I hate CMMI, too. Just for the record.)
ok, so anyway, i get kinda muscled out of the throne room, but respectfully, because i'm apparently some sort of wise-woman or shaman. there's a dinner in the feast-hall that evening, and i attend in disguise as a 'wizened crone', as Ezra would say. there's some kind of dust-up during dinner, and they blame me for inciting it or something, and i stand up and say 'yes, as the clan's shaman, i think you'll be bad for the clan!'
and Chris is all 'why do you hate me, what have i done?'
and i say something like 'you know what you have done, black cougar, and your people will pay for it!'
at which point Chris loses his temper and bans me from court. except such a banishment automatically means that there's a death sentence on my head, and that the warriors of the clan deem it their duty to catch and kill me. i change into my cougar form, and with the help of a few people who don't think the banishment is fair, make it out of the hall and....
into the maze under the mountain. and this isn't any kind of dark, dank, maze thing, either. it's a labyrinth of bright, cheerful corridors, with awesome mural paintings and gold-leaf work everywhere. it's decorated with statues and cheerful lairs/ home dens of the various clans, and kitchens and other 'public areas'. the vast network of corridors and rooms stretch into the mountain out to the other side, which is a whole 'nother kingdom, where the warriors won't cross the border to enforce the ban. the walls are bright white quartz/ veined marble or something. a lot of the floors are wood. there's a *wave pool* in the middle of the mountain, no lie, complete with blue tiled mosaics that make the water look blue.
so i'm going through the maze, and Chris and James and the other warriors are hunting me, sometimes as a cougar, sometimes as a woman, and Chris, at least, meets the other 6 of the 7 along the way. and i end up hidden in a kitchen near the middle of the mountain. (freakin' nice kitchen, btw).
and they find me, and i escape again, only i can't go the right way - to the other side of the mountain - so i have to come up back through the lairs and corridors and try to circle around. only i can't find an unblocked path. and as i get to the wave pool, something happens, and i experience DOUBT. great, angsty, big pieces of DOUBT. on the other side of the wave pool is a gallery of furniture, and i've lost them for a bit, so i sing this song of 'what have i done? was i right or was i wrong? is this man really evil for not doing things the old way, or am i just not happy with the changes i see?' and i die somewhere in that gallery. and then... the 'actress' who was playing the human-me stands by 'my' side to signify that we're ghosts now. apparently, it's all been a play. and off to the side, i hear someone say 'jesus, this is an awesome script! so-and-so wants to buy it!'
so evidently, i had written a musical full of action/adventure parts, with a lot of running, jumping, climbing, and swimming. and great singing. the actress who played the human-me was awesome. and sylph-like, and dressed in purples and reds with great gauze wings...
so anyway, Chris and the warriors, including the other members of the magnificent 7 find me, and decide to give me a proper burial with respect. so they're processing back to the main stage-chamber, and me and the actress with me are kinda running a little bit ahead, and i'm totally sweating like a pig at this point and thinking 'damn, i can't wait to change into jeans and a t-shirt!' and i say, 'by the way, why didn't anyone want to know why i objected? how come no one asked me about it? it's because the king is a representative of the people, and tied to the land. and as the king does, so do the people. so if he's corrupt, the land and the people become corrupt. and Chris is Christian, which doesn't recognize our cat-selves. how can we have a king that ignores half of our heritage and culture and be ok?'
and that must have been an aside - commentary on the play or something - because my fellow actress and i start discussing politics and religion, but it's not 'in front of the audience'. so we get to the main stage set, and Chris does this thing where he's baptizing me post-mortem, and i'm all like 'oh, Chris, you can't make me Christian that way!' and then the actress-who-plays-human-me, who is apparently on wires, flies around the audience and the king in a 'last show of magic' and lands on the bridge to the rest of the museum. and i do the same thing, except i sneak a kiss to James Cochrane's cheek on the way out. so she and i are walking out of the museum, and i make a statement to the effect of 'it's really an allegory of Christianity taking over the world, you know...' and at some point, someone wants us to run back for pictures. and the audience loves us. :-D
and then *the entire cast*, still in their most awesome costumes recess out of the museum (into a DisneyLand-type park), singing a Christian hymn. i think it's 'Joy to the World'. i knew all the verses in the dream (and in RL at one point, but not now).
it goes, i think, like this:
Joy to the World, the Lord has come -
Let Earth recieve Her King!
Let every mouth, rock, hill, and stream,
And Heaven and Nature Sing
And Heaven and Nature Sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven and Nature Sing!
yeah, i just mutilated that verse, but it was fun to sing in a chorus, and we were *all* on key, in time, and had *completely awesome voices*.
and it was a totally awesome feeling to be in that huge chorus. :-)
and that was my completely awesome dream that i just *had* to record today. i woke up drenched in sweat, of course, because you can't have a dream that involves running, form-changing, jumping, climbing, and singing without it counting as aerobic excercise.... :-p
-bs, happy
(*): drabbles are the prose version of the haiku. when it works, it's an amazing gut-punch of emotion and clarity and awe, and when it flops, it flops *hard*. like most things, it's *much* harder to make it work than make it flop.
