Mythic Writers Blog

On Monday, my beloved brought me a lovely present—two books to add to my writing research collection! One of them is a very nice, heavy volume of The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. (Which is not going to stop me from getting The Annotated Brothers Grimm, by the way.) I’m so excited! I’ve been meaning to get one for the longest time.

So, I curled up on the sofa with my prize and spent some time poking through the very long table of contents, reading random stories when a title struck me as particularly interesting.

One of the tales I read was “Simeli Mountain.” In this story, a group of thieves hide their treasure inside a mountain. And to get into the mountain, what do they do? They chant, “Semsi mountain, semsi mountain, open.” (Simeli Mountain is an incorrect pronunciation that causes the main character’s brother all sorts of trouble, but you can read the story to find out just how much trouble. Go ahead. It’s short.) What especially strikes me with this story is “Semsi.” Sesame? As in “open sesame”? I have nothing to back up this idea, at least not at the moment (you see, I do still need that annotated volume!). But isn’t it intriguing? Especially with the thieves hiding treasure in a mountain. I am going to have to get my hands on a good copy of The Arabian Nights (I believe that’s where “open sesame” is found—in “Ali Baba and the Forth Thieves” I think), preferably an annotated version. But in the meantime, I thought I’d throw this fascinating tidbit out there for everyone else to ponder. Enjoy!

You may have noticed there was no post yesterday.  (Did you notice?)  That would be because yesterday was Memorial Day.  A Monday but not a workday.  So all day I thought it was Sunday.  And of course I don’t post on Sundays!  So I didn’t post.  And today I realized that it’s Tuesday…My mental calendar is very mixed up.   I’m going to go try to reset it.  More tomorrow…

“The boundaries are always there—between the graveyard and the world beyond, between life and death, and the crossing of them.” – Neil Gaiman (found on the page for The Graveyard Book)

Here’s another piece of the mythic fiction puzzle. Boundaries. More specifically, crossing boundaries. Taking a quick, mental inventory of my favorite books and stories, it seems that they all involve crossing boundaries. The humans cross into some otherworld. The faeries cross into the human world. The ghosts cross into our world. The humans die for a short time and cross into the afterlife. It’s all about crossing boundaries.

And it all comes back to that idea that there are other worlds, other dimensions, other places besides our ordinary, everyday world to cross to and from. Is that other place (or maybe there’s more than one?) where myths and gods come from? Or is it where they’ve retreated to when we became too difficult to live with? I don’t know, but I always hope and at least half believe that it’s there, it’s just waiting for us.

I think this is going to be another placeholder post, because now I’m rather excited by the idea of making a list of favorite books and stories and movies that involve the theme of crossing over or boundaries. If you think of any, please leave me a note in the comments so I can add it to what I hope will be a continually growing list.

I’m back, earlier than planned since something beautiful caught my eye today. I’m hoping I’m a bit more organized and on target this week. Last week just got away from me, and I couldn’t get the time back under control. This week looks to be better, though.

I have to say upfront that this post is a bit of a placeholder. It’s an idea that came to me as I read a newsletter, and I wanted to write a bit about it to remind myself that I’d like to go a bit more in depth with it at some point. Now, with that caveat, on to the post.

Some turns of phrase just leave me weak in the knees. Like this Sir John Betjeman quote from his poem “Cornish Cliffs” in today’s Today in Literature newsletter: “And in the shadowless, unclouded glare Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where A misty sea-line meets the wash of air….”

Does this make anyone else’s heart twinge with that melancholy flutter of homesickness for someplace you’ve never been? Some turns of phrase can just melt me that way, fill me with joy and sadness and longing all at once and leave me wanting more (and I can’t wait, now, to read more of Betjeman’s poems).

I think this is one of the major attractions of mythic fiction for me. So much of what it touches leaves me weak in the knees and all aflutter. So much of it lets me just briefly, softly brush against things I long for, things I can’t even quite articulate most of the time. They bring me to the edge of Grace and Beauty and possibly Truth.

That’s really what I wanted to say today. In future, I hope to gather a collection of phrases that stir me this way and share them here with you. But for now, I’ll leave you with that quote. And a wish that Grace will touch you and give you that longing that will keep you reaching for more. And a hope that we will all reach out together and touch more of the Beauty out there and maybe bring some of it home with us to share.

Sorry I didn’t manage a post yesterday as planned. See below for more on that.

The following is cross posted to Kim’s blog:

Sorry I’ve been off track with my posting. It’s just a crazy week, and since it’s nearly finished, I’m obviously not going to pull it back together to salvage things before the week is over. I am dog sitting and preparing to go away for the weekend, plus I have had several extra errands to run this week (but hurray for getting a second vehicle so it was easier to do!).

I will get back to regular, real posts next week. I’m planning to give myself some recuperation time, so just look for one post next week instead of two, probably on Wednesday. I’ll return to the regular, twice-a-week posts the following week.

Have a great weekend!

Just in case anyone missed me yesterday…the day completely got away from me.  Sorry!  I will be back with a regular post tomorrow.  Meanwhile, check out Sur la Lune for some great stuff to read.   Annotated fairy tales, with histories and notes on similar tales from different cultures…very good stuff.

Just a quick post. A list, really—just a few things you might enjoy. I’m in the midst of a writing binge, and I just can’t quite stop to write a real post. I’d apologize, but I must admit I’m not really sorry. I’m just excited to be approaching the end of my first draft!

But I didn’t want to leave you with nothing at all, so go check these things out:

From Charles de Lint’s newsletter, I found Kim Antieau’s blog with, among other things, author interviews including one with CdL himself! And from there, I found her Old Mermaids Journal. Good stuff—fun, whimsy, poetry, mermaids with fantastic names. Go have a look.

While you’re poking around, go have a look at Terri Windling’s recent post at Endicott Redux. It’s about an Arthurian series that looks scrumptious! I think those will be gracing my shelves sometime soon—must feed my Arthurian addiction.

Next, from Neil Gaiman’s journal, you’ll find a link to Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother published under a creative commons license if you want to download it. But if you like it, please do consider buying a copy or two.

Finally, what I’m listening to right now—a new album at Magnatune. Dreadnought by Mountain Mirrors. You should go check it out, especially track #10, “A Spell to Block the Sun.” And track #2, “Field of Grass.” Check out the whole site. Magnatune is delicious and ethical—fifty percent of any money you pay goes to the artists. And you can listen to everything before you buy. And you can find music to fit any mood over there.

Have fun! I’ll be back Monday and might even have something to say. Have a great weekend!

I got Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces from the library a while ago, and I finally read the first few pages over the weekend.

If the rest of the book goes the way the first page went, it’s going to be slow going. Just on the first page, I found two amazing statements that resonated with me so deeply I had to stop reading just to think, and then I read had to read them again and stop for a while again before I could move on.

First, this statement: “It will be always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find, together with a challengingly persistent suggestion of more remaining to be experienced than will ever be known or told.”

That, right there, pinpoints one of the main attractions of mythic fiction. It beautifully explains the fascination with myths and folklore and fairy tales and the stories built around them. The allure lies in that ever present hint that there’s something more. Even in the midst of a story, even living inside a myth, there is that intimation that there is something further, maybe just ahead, just around the next corner, hidden behind the next tree. And that is one of the great magics of mythic fiction. The magic the story shows us is only a small part of the magic it lets us know is all around us.

Then, just after the thrill of this little revelation, the next paragraph held this: “The myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind…myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.”

And there, right on the same page, we have a further explanation of why myth and mythic fiction enthrall us. If these myths are indeed the seeds of all of human dreams and accomplishments, then of course we are mesmerized. When we encounter myth, we are encountering the genesis of all creative things. It’s like encountering God. Amazing and overwhelming, and you can’t help but go back for just a little more whenever you get the chance.

I am really looking forward to reading more and gaining more insights from Campbell’s work. My reading will have to be sporadic since I’m in the middle of finishing a novel so I can pitch it at an upcoming writers’ conference, but whenever I get to read a bit, I’ll make sure to share my insights here, and I hope if anyone else has thoughts on what I write, you’ll leave a comment so we can all share in it.

I’m returning to one of my favorite topics today: What is mythic fiction? I try to move on to other things, but this just seems to creep back into my thoughts when I least expect it.

Last week, I was completely convinced that ghost stories—at least some of them—are mythic fiction. Today, as I toyed with the idea of the Frankenstein monster and wondered if he’s been around long enough that monsters of his ilk can be considered mythic, I started thinking about vampires. Are they mythic? Suddenly I’m not sure about them or about the ghosts.

I tend to think of mythic fiction as involving some sort of “otherworld” or otherworldly beings becoming entwined with a real world setting or real world characters. (So for ghosts, I guess the fact that they aren’t entirely here might be what qualifies them?.)  And vampires, if they exist, would be of this world, right? But they’re still creatures of myth and legend…

I think there might be part of the definition I’m just not pinpointing yet. Some stories that would traditionally be categorized as horror— mostly vampires, werewolves, ghosts—fit into the mythic fiction category, too. I’m just not sure of my reasons for calling some of these stories mythic fiction. But I’m working on it. The definition will come, just not all in one piece I guess.

I’m tempted to fall back on the old “I can’t define it but I’ll know it when I see it” bit. But that would be a complete cop out. And not nearly as entertaining as turning the idea over and over in my head while I work to hone my thoughts.

So I guess what I’m coming out of this brainstorming session with is a question: to be mythic fiction, does a story have to involve some sort of other world or beings from another world (not to be confused with from another planet!), or can the story be about something from mythic or legendary from our own world that has just remained hidden thus far? I’m leaning toward the second option, but my reasons will have to wait for another post, after I’ve figured out exactly what they are.