Mythic Writers Blog

Sometimes myths and fairy tales and all things mythic can get a bit heavy—steeped in history, filled with tradition, offering glimpses of mysteries. But today I’m visiting the lighter side.

I can’t help myself. This week, thanks to the wonderful Tara, I am obsessed with faerie houses. And arbors. And doors (oh how I love the doors!). And little, tiny furniture and plants…I want to build a faerie realm in my studio. I already have some lovely fairy dolls, although they are too large in scale for the houses and furniture I’ve been looking at, so I may need more (oh darn?). And I’ve already made plans for a high shelf to hold my various decorative treasures, like my miniature cottages. What could be more perfect than adding some decorative silk vines and hiding faerie houses and furniture in the middle?

Then there are the faerie wings. I am serious contemplating taking another class at Joggles to learn to make faerie wings so I can tuck them in amongst the foliage and maybe hang them off the edge of the shelf, too. (And, oh yes, there will be photos when it’s done.)

So, none of this has anything to do with mythic fiction or myths or fairy tales or even writing. Or at least that’s how things seem at first glance. But actually, this does have a lot to do with my writing. I am creating a space in my studio that is playful and whimsical and fills me with glee and visions of faerie and other mythic creatures. And what better starting place could there be for writing mythic fiction?

On that note, I will leave you with something much closer to my usual mythic fiction topics: J. Corsentino’s Time of the Faeries. Beautiful, edgy, urban faeries just waiting for the next story to happen.

And now I’m off to look at more faerie houses. Enjoy the links!

Once again, I find myself needing to apologize for skipping posts. My schedule—or rather my lack of ability to organize it efficiently—kept me overly busy.

For the time being, I am going to change my posting schedule. I am planning to take some time to make contacts and build a readership, and then I will return to the twice weekly posting schedule. Meanwhile, I will be back to regular posts but on a once-a-week schedule starting next week on Wednesday.

Not much of a post today. More of a thought for the day—my allergies are acting up so I’m headachey and tired and feeling quite unimaginative. Not a good combination for writing clever, interesting things.

Still, I did have an intriguing thought. You know the saying that all myths and legends have a kernel of truth in them? It almost seems to me like writing mythic fiction is sort of like bringing things full circle. First, you have the reality, the thing that happened in the real world. Then a myth builds up around it and makes its way through the ages, changing, morphing, growing away from the original truth. And then we take that myth and write a story where that myth or some part of it happens in the real world…Full circle.

That’s it. Nothing more to it, at least not at the moment. Still, it was an interesting thought and something I might want to toy with in future, so there you have it.

Hmm…I just noticed that I didn’t post my vacation notice for last week. Oops! So…I was on vacation last week. I’m back now. Ahem…

On Saturday, I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. It was a great movie—I enjoyed it immensely and came out filled with visions of epic battles, towering ruins, soaring cliffs. All the good things a movie should leave you with. I also came out with a question or two about myths and mythic fiction.

Prince Caspian fills the bill for mythic fiction. Magic, magical creatures, people crossing between worlds. It should clearly be in the mythic fiction category, right? Probably. I can’t quite give an unequivocal “yes.” What gives me pause about putting this into the mythic fiction category i the time period the protagonists are from. Obviously, they were modern people at the time C.S. Lewis wrote the original book. But for me, right now, their 1940s era British world is nearly as much of a mythical place as is Narnia. Can something that might be considered mythic fiction grow outdated because of one of its elements and no longer fit into the mythic fiction category? Or if something is mythic fiction, is it always going to be mythic fiction? (I know. Here we are, back at that definition thing again. I can’t help myself. I just enjoy poking at it.)

So, on to my opinion. I can go two ways with this. One way tells me that the important part is the crossing from some sort of acknowledged “real” or mundane world into a mythical realm or having that mythical realm or its elements cross into a real world. This seems like a fairly reasonable part of the mythic fiction definition, and if this is the way of things, then obviously Prince Caspian is mythic fiction.

But what if people cross from a futuristic world filled with artificially intelligent robots and flying cars into a faery realm? Would that still be mythic fiction? What if they cross from a realm where magic spells work but there are no magical creatures into a realm where there are dragons and faeries and trolls but no magic?

These are actually really intriguing ideas. I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other, at least not yet, but seeing the movie stirred all of these ideas in my head, so I thought I’d share. I may keep poking at these ideas later, but for now that’s all I have.

More on Wednesday…