Mythic Writers Blog

Part of a poem came to me last week, the way they do, almost there but not completed.  And I wrote down the beginning, the part that was born whole.  And now I’m struggling to get the ending, to get it right, to finish the thing.  But it’s not coming.  So here’s what I have so far:

Detour

I remember when I was a poet.
Words flowed like water from a Grecian urn.
Father Sky sent dreams and rhymes and visions,
And I captured them, with Calliope and Clio guiding my hand.

But I have strayed from the words like a pilgrim strays from his path.
I hear the Coyote call of other idylls,
And I chase after the mirage like Atalanta after golden apples
While my dreams languish and my words run dry

Then yesterday a crow called out with a message from beyond.
I turned to look behind me then and saw a story there.
Coyote’s voice no longer pulled, and I returned to my scribbled lines,
And now memory merges with today, and I am back at the page.

Copyright Kim Switzer 2008

Every once in a while, crop circles catch my attention. I guess I’m in a crop circle phase again right now, because I keep finding myself looking at pictures of them, reading articles…Maybe I need to write a crop circle story.

I was thinking that crop circles are rather a modern phenomenon and not particularly mythic. But they have so much speculation swirling around them (my favorite, mentioned on the Crop Circle Secrets website: “sex-mad hedgehogs”). I think that, even though we know at least some circles are manmade, they still fall into the “myth” category. Yes, there have been confessions from hoaxsters admitting to making some circles (this Wiki article has good info and links). But some of the circles I’ve looked at are mind blowing, and it’s hard to imagine how any people could create them in just one night.

Of course, lots of people have put forth explanations and many have even tried to replicate crop circles. Some students from M.I.T. did a really interesting experiment a few years ago complete with trying to duplicate some of the supposed mysterious phenomena associated with “real” crop circles. The video is worth watching; it was shown on the Discovery Channel so shouldn’t be too hard to find. It’s also interesting how different people, including the students themselves after the fact, seem to see different results from the experiment. The students seemed to feel in the video that they had found some interesting results, but in the article I just linked to, they seem to think of the whole thing as a joke, nothing more than a “hack.” On the other end of things this writer seems to feel that, based on the same video, that hoaxers couldn’t be making all the crop circles being discovered around the globe.

Anyhow…are crop circles mysterious and supernatural? Maybe. Are they manmade? Some are. Why are they fascinating? For the same reason any myth captures our attention—there’s no absolute way to tell truth from fantasy, speculation, and embellished reality.

One of the most intriguing things I’ve discovered as I’ve been researching crop circles for this post is that they aren’t actually just a modern phenomenon like I thought they were. If you start digging, you’ll find that there have been references as far back as 815 AD from Lyon (you can find a quote here, near the bottom of the page, from the original source). And there’s a famous woodcut from around 1647 in England that shows the “mowing devil.” I have to conclude that the late 20^th century self-confessed pranksters did not create these early circles. So what did?

I don’t know. And none of the arguments I’ve heard, either for or against crop circles being hoaxes, has been completely convincing. Any show I’ve watched or article I’ve read has been heavy with the biases of the authors or participants. I’m not sure there is one answer on this subject, but isn’t that the best part about myths? The impossibility of either proving them or completely discounting them? That’s what makes crop circles worth returning to, mulling over, perhaps even mythologizing. And definitely worth writing about.

Over the weekend, I went to the Willamette Writers’ Conference. It was wonderful! I had a glorious time and can hardly wait for next year! But I won’t go on about that here—I already wrote about it in my writing blog.

What I will go on about is one of the workshops I was in. It was “Fantasy, Myth and the Reluctant Hero” taught by Maureen Doyle McQuerry, and as you can probably tell by the title, it was about my favorite genre.

This workshop was in my top three favorites, I think, and not just because it’s my favorite subject. Ms. McQuerry is joyfully enthusiastic about mythic fiction; how could I not enjoy 90 minutes with someone so obviously enamored of her subject? She covered the patterns and elements found in mythic fiction, the hero’s journey, the quest, talked about the role of shapeshifters as storytellers, and quoted mythic authors. And she mentioned some books I haven’t read that I now absolutely must read. (Tuck Everlasting for one, which I don’t think I realized was a book.  I knew it was a movie, but I haven’t watched it yet; maybe I would have seen a reference to the book if I had!.  And Maureen McQuerry’s books as well which I’ve referenced below.) If you get the chance to take this workshop, do it. It was so enjoyable and left me feeling so immersed in and in touch with myth and legend and my own writing.

One of the quotes shared with us in the workshop was from the author herself. She has done a much better job than I have yet managed of describing what I usually refer to as homesickness for someplace I’ve never been: “What the best stories awaken in us is yearning and recognition, yearning for something longer ago, further away or yet about to be. Recognition of something we have never met but have always known.” Isn’t it perfect? I feel as if this quote is helping me see the direction I want my writing to go in, and I can’t wait to get on the path! I just hope I can manage to stir that same yearning and recognition in myself and my readers.

So, aside from being newly excited and motivated in my writing, I am also in the beginning stages of making a list of 100 mythic fiction books to read or reread while I’m revamping and rewriting my story (I got the idea from Chapter After Chapter by Heather Sellers, and yes, I will post the list when it’s finished). I am definitely putting McQuerry’s books on this list. I got a chance to look through her newest, Traveler’s Market, before the workshop. It has gorgeous illustrations, and the few paragraphs I read as I flipped through were engaging and well done. I’m really looking forward to reading this, right after I read the first book in the series, Wolfproof.  (These stories include green men and the Wild Hunt and all sorts of wonderful mythic elements–I think they’re going to be fabulous!)

That’s what’s new in my mythic world this week. I’ve also been toying with a crop circle story, so look for a post on crop circles next week. Unless something else sweeps me away before then…