Pull me up a chair and keep your money, there's no guarantees
My life has been very busy lately. I mean I don't mind. Most of it is not work, I get wrapped up in a lot of silly things. There's also some serious things going on, but for now I won't go into the serious things.
I had an interesting night kind of impromptu lately. My friend Mika had me and Gabe over to his house for a fire. We just sat around talking like normal for a bit, I was sharing some information about how one of my characters(Vorruna) is slowly forming a league of evil exes through no doing of her own. (Okay, that's only half true). Then Mika gets some pine branches off the tree near the fire and he sits us down for a story. He tells us a Native American tale of why sparks come off the pine branches. (Not sure what area or tribe, he was vague on this. ) As he told the tale sparks danced into the air. It was very well timed so that when the story ended so did the sparks.
For those of you are curious the myth is as follows: Once there were three brothers. They liked to do nothing more than play Chunky. Chunky was a game where you would throw up a chunky rock and try to hit it with a spear. Every day they would do nothing but play Chunky from dawn til duck. Their mother was very distraught til eventually her and the chief came up with a solution. They came home one day from playing Chunky and they found the most magnificent feast prepared for the tribe. There was roast boar and berries for everyone. But in front of them were put three plates of chunky rocks. Their mother said, "If you wish to do nothing more than play Chunky all day, then you can just eat chunky rocks." Angered the three brothers flew into a rage and went outside to pray to the spirits to avenge them. Suddenly from outside the tribe heard a scream from the boys. They went outside and found the three boys rising up into the sky. One of the boy's mothers was distraught and grabbed her son by the legs. She pulled him down to the ground so hard that he became rooted there and turned into a pine tree. The two other brothers flew up into the sky and became stars. There is a belief that the sparks from the pine tree are the brother's soul escaping from the tree to join his brothers in the sky.
From that point on we just sat around and told myths. I told a few Greek/Roman ones (How Tiresias was created, the ending to Orpheus and Eurydice where Orpheus gets torn apart by Maenads) and some Nordic ones (Loki cutting off Sif's hair and Thor's three times meeting the Levithan). There was some legends from every culture, including local legends from the swamplands, tales of the Jersey Devil, urban legends. It was great because I love all sorts of legends and because it just happened spontaneously. (Also I think Loki was in that fire. It refused to go out even after three buckets of water. It's like it was trying to spite us.)
The next day Mika had the idea that we could make something out of it. The idea is that we will all specialize in one culture's myths. We will hold fires periodically and sit around and tell the tales. We also have to tell one original story per fire. We practice these stories til we get good enough to perform them on a stage. I even get to call myself a bard, a title which amuses me a lot.
So now it looks like I have another project on my plate. It's not a tough one and is very flexible so it shouldn't drain me too much. Plus it lets me work on my stage presence and on emoting for a monologue. It's going to be rough on me, especially since I prefer my stories written to spoken, but I need to get more comfortable talking in front of people with all eyes focused on me. Eventually if we get good enough by next summer we are going to start circulating around to at least Renaissance Faires, though we will be trying many different venues.
I had an interesting night kind of impromptu lately. My friend Mika had me and Gabe over to his house for a fire. We just sat around talking like normal for a bit, I was sharing some information about how one of my characters(Vorruna) is slowly forming a league of evil exes through no doing of her own. (Okay, that's only half true). Then Mika gets some pine branches off the tree near the fire and he sits us down for a story. He tells us a Native American tale of why sparks come off the pine branches. (Not sure what area or tribe, he was vague on this. ) As he told the tale sparks danced into the air. It was very well timed so that when the story ended so did the sparks.
For those of you are curious the myth is as follows: Once there were three brothers. They liked to do nothing more than play Chunky. Chunky was a game where you would throw up a chunky rock and try to hit it with a spear. Every day they would do nothing but play Chunky from dawn til duck. Their mother was very distraught til eventually her and the chief came up with a solution. They came home one day from playing Chunky and they found the most magnificent feast prepared for the tribe. There was roast boar and berries for everyone. But in front of them were put three plates of chunky rocks. Their mother said, "If you wish to do nothing more than play Chunky all day, then you can just eat chunky rocks." Angered the three brothers flew into a rage and went outside to pray to the spirits to avenge them. Suddenly from outside the tribe heard a scream from the boys. They went outside and found the three boys rising up into the sky. One of the boy's mothers was distraught and grabbed her son by the legs. She pulled him down to the ground so hard that he became rooted there and turned into a pine tree. The two other brothers flew up into the sky and became stars. There is a belief that the sparks from the pine tree are the brother's soul escaping from the tree to join his brothers in the sky.
From that point on we just sat around and told myths. I told a few Greek/Roman ones (How Tiresias was created, the ending to Orpheus and Eurydice where Orpheus gets torn apart by Maenads) and some Nordic ones (Loki cutting off Sif's hair and Thor's three times meeting the Levithan). There was some legends from every culture, including local legends from the swamplands, tales of the Jersey Devil, urban legends. It was great because I love all sorts of legends and because it just happened spontaneously. (Also I think Loki was in that fire. It refused to go out even after three buckets of water. It's like it was trying to spite us.)
The next day Mika had the idea that we could make something out of it. The idea is that we will all specialize in one culture's myths. We will hold fires periodically and sit around and tell the tales. We also have to tell one original story per fire. We practice these stories til we get good enough to perform them on a stage. I even get to call myself a bard, a title which amuses me a lot.
So now it looks like I have another project on my plate. It's not a tough one and is very flexible so it shouldn't drain me too much. Plus it lets me work on my stage presence and on emoting for a monologue. It's going to be rough on me, especially since I prefer my stories written to spoken, but I need to get more comfortable talking in front of people with all eyes focused on me. Eventually if we get good enough by next summer we are going to start circulating around to at least Renaissance Faires, though we will be trying many different venues.