Making Fire
I wonder if our distant ancestors even had even the shallowest of foresights of where their efforts would lead, if they saw even a glimmer of the futures that they would bring about by rubbing two sticks together until until there was a spark, a dancing, burning light that kept the dark away and the beasts at bay, that brought the world under their sway.
They surely would not have imagined the combustion - or electric - engines that have become commonplace and essential, or rockets to the stars that turned out to be gigantic balls of fire themselves, or the lights by which watchers from the heavens can see how far we, their descendants, have scattered over this planet.
No, they were probably only concerned that it gave them warmth to stave away cold winters and a weapon that would drive away predators who hunted them so fiercely.
But the beginning was there.
-
In our distant ancestors' words to each other, there was a seed that grew into the stories that we tell today. I do not think that it took long for language to go from conveying simple data - "antelope. food. hunt." - to establishing mythology about how their world came to be, or explaining the history of their tribe, or generating fantasy about their future.
At first, perhaps, a speaker simply told people how to gather food and where prey was. He or she described to them what it was like beyond what their own eyes and ears could see and hear. A bit later on, perhaps, it might have been a cold night without fire, and everyone was freezing. They needed something to distract them from the cold, so the storyteller would tell them a story.
It grew from there, of course, and today, we use words to communicate in ways that the first raconteurs could never have dreamed of. We use words to explain, to entertain, to connect, to distract, to share, and so much more.
In skilled hands, writing is a tool that can be bent to many purposes, a tool that takes on many forms.
Do you see where I am going with this?
-
Each of us makes fire every time we write.
-
We each make fires for different reasons, and we each tend to our fires differently. Some write to illuminate, and so their fires are tall and strong, lighting up the landscape for miles around them but producing little heat. Others want their ideas to spread, and so create bonfires to burn as many as possible - not harshly, but enough so that their readers will remember. Yet others still build a small, cozy controlled flame, and invite their friends over to share in their small joys and regrets.
But you knew all this already, I suspect, and saw the metaphor coming from a mile away.
What I wanted to say in all of this is that I find choosing between fires impossible now. We have weeded out those that were not adept with their tools or their shaping of the flames that rise, and sadly, we have lost many whose fires I thought I'd be warming myself by for a long time.
With those that remain, we all write for different reasons and to different audiences. I do not know what to measure entries by - whether it incites a passion in me? Whether I can see more of the darkness revealed? Whether I can look at it and say, 'Oh, I've shared those feelings, a few days ago'?
Whatever your method of judgment, though, I think we've been around long enough that we've amassed a body of work. For new readers, I'd like to take a page from last season's finals and tell you a bit about my two fellow competitors and a bit about myself. For those that have been following all along, I hope to remind you of some very good pieces.
-
impoetry is pretty much who he was as a kid, ruling the world from the top of the Snapple machine. He coaxes his flame to reveal glimpses of himself every so often, and then disappears again to illuminate other topics - or satirize them.
Brian switches easily from scorching to not producing light almost at all, letting the reader find their own way in the darkness. And then, as Billy Wylde, he gives us a study in insanity as the only way to deal with an irrational world.
He's at his best, I think, when he writes from the heart.
-
kittenboo is best described, in my opinion, as someone that is intensely raw. The flame burns with no regard for the spectators, and knocked me down far more than I was comfortable. And that, honestly, is more than okay, because what she writes should be affecting people on every level. I thoroughly enjoyed the entries of her not holding her tongue as a caring mother - and in a reversal, when she's talking about being a daughter.
But then the flame shifts, and Heather welcomes you into a terrible world of fiction, and then burns through your heart with another piece.
And then, if that weren't enough, one more searing blast with a bit of both worlds and only 177 words.
-
My name is Sean, and I am a jack of all trades, master of none. I've tried to present a different style each week, switching between fiction and nonfiction (and often toeing the line), delivering different genres, and adopting different voices. I believe I am better at entertaining and distracting than lecturing, which is why I try to stick to stories and avoid politics like the plague, and can't help but think that my imagination is more interesting than my life, which is why I generally choose fiction.
I think my best performances have been my intersections, whether on love and honesty with crimsonplum, war and loss with thaliontholwen, or forbidden desire with rejeneration.
But I am proud of all my work, especially in attempting a detective story and a humor piece, both of which I consider my weak points. I think my piece on telepathy-by-touch was my best science-fiction endeavour, and that my post-apocalyptic cannibalism piece is my best fiction entry overall.
On a more personal note, the two entries that have changed me the most are, perhaps appropriately, my first and last pieces so far.
-
As Gary says, with only how many we have left, every entry will be someone's favorite, every contestant one of our friends. I think we all write with heart and we all have amazing things to say. I will be voting for all of us. Beyond that, what is there to do?
They surely would not have imagined the combustion - or electric - engines that have become commonplace and essential, or rockets to the stars that turned out to be gigantic balls of fire themselves, or the lights by which watchers from the heavens can see how far we, their descendants, have scattered over this planet.
No, they were probably only concerned that it gave them warmth to stave away cold winters and a weapon that would drive away predators who hunted them so fiercely.
But the beginning was there.
-
In our distant ancestors' words to each other, there was a seed that grew into the stories that we tell today. I do not think that it took long for language to go from conveying simple data - "antelope. food. hunt." - to establishing mythology about how their world came to be, or explaining the history of their tribe, or generating fantasy about their future.
At first, perhaps, a speaker simply told people how to gather food and where prey was. He or she described to them what it was like beyond what their own eyes and ears could see and hear. A bit later on, perhaps, it might have been a cold night without fire, and everyone was freezing. They needed something to distract them from the cold, so the storyteller would tell them a story.
It grew from there, of course, and today, we use words to communicate in ways that the first raconteurs could never have dreamed of. We use words to explain, to entertain, to connect, to distract, to share, and so much more.
In skilled hands, writing is a tool that can be bent to many purposes, a tool that takes on many forms.
Do you see where I am going with this?
-
Each of us makes fire every time we write.
-
We each make fires for different reasons, and we each tend to our fires differently. Some write to illuminate, and so their fires are tall and strong, lighting up the landscape for miles around them but producing little heat. Others want their ideas to spread, and so create bonfires to burn as many as possible - not harshly, but enough so that their readers will remember. Yet others still build a small, cozy controlled flame, and invite their friends over to share in their small joys and regrets.
But you knew all this already, I suspect, and saw the metaphor coming from a mile away.
What I wanted to say in all of this is that I find choosing between fires impossible now. We have weeded out those that were not adept with their tools or their shaping of the flames that rise, and sadly, we have lost many whose fires I thought I'd be warming myself by for a long time.
With those that remain, we all write for different reasons and to different audiences. I do not know what to measure entries by - whether it incites a passion in me? Whether I can see more of the darkness revealed? Whether I can look at it and say, 'Oh, I've shared those feelings, a few days ago'?
Whatever your method of judgment, though, I think we've been around long enough that we've amassed a body of work. For new readers, I'd like to take a page from last season's finals and tell you a bit about my two fellow competitors and a bit about myself. For those that have been following all along, I hope to remind you of some very good pieces.
-
impoetry is pretty much who he was as a kid, ruling the world from the top of the Snapple machine. He coaxes his flame to reveal glimpses of himself every so often, and then disappears again to illuminate other topics - or satirize them.
Brian switches easily from scorching to not producing light almost at all, letting the reader find their own way in the darkness. And then, as Billy Wylde, he gives us a study in insanity as the only way to deal with an irrational world.
He's at his best, I think, when he writes from the heart.
-
kittenboo is best described, in my opinion, as someone that is intensely raw. The flame burns with no regard for the spectators, and knocked me down far more than I was comfortable. And that, honestly, is more than okay, because what she writes should be affecting people on every level. I thoroughly enjoyed the entries of her not holding her tongue as a caring mother - and in a reversal, when she's talking about being a daughter.
But then the flame shifts, and Heather welcomes you into a terrible world of fiction, and then burns through your heart with another piece.
And then, if that weren't enough, one more searing blast with a bit of both worlds and only 177 words.
-
My name is Sean, and I am a jack of all trades, master of none. I've tried to present a different style each week, switching between fiction and nonfiction (and often toeing the line), delivering different genres, and adopting different voices. I believe I am better at entertaining and distracting than lecturing, which is why I try to stick to stories and avoid politics like the plague, and can't help but think that my imagination is more interesting than my life, which is why I generally choose fiction.
I think my best performances have been my intersections, whether on love and honesty with crimsonplum, war and loss with thaliontholwen, or forbidden desire with rejeneration.
But I am proud of all my work, especially in attempting a detective story and a humor piece, both of which I consider my weak points. I think my piece on telepathy-by-touch was my best science-fiction endeavour, and that my post-apocalyptic cannibalism piece is my best fiction entry overall.
On a more personal note, the two entries that have changed me the most are, perhaps appropriately, my first and last pieces so far.
-
As Gary says, with only how many we have left, every entry will be someone's favorite, every contestant one of our friends. I think we all write with heart and we all have amazing things to say. I will be voting for all of us. Beyond that, what is there to do?