Writing Challenge Discussion — MARCH 2011

[Parson]

I am surprised that you didn't have at least one class on World Religions at the seminary.

It seems to me that as a future pastor you should have been encouraged not only to study theology but also to study humanity, the better to minister to your flock. Ancient myths can offer many insights into how the human mind works, and how people down through the ages have viewed their relationship to the divine powers that shape their lives. And many of these beliefs still hang on. The popular conception of God expressing his displeasure with thunder and lightning bolts -- is that really based on the Bible (where God seems to have a heck of a lot of ways of expressing his wrath), or are we seeing echoes of the old pagan gods like Thor and Zeus?

There was no class on World Religions even offered at seminary. I did take a course on Islam, broad survey stuff but with a teacher who had been a missionary in a country whose major religion was Islam for decades before teaching. Asking him questions was like tapping into an artesian well.

I would say that my seminary saw a greater need for a depth of understanding about the Christian religion, than the need for an understanding on a world wide basis. Given the stated purpose of my serminary was to prepare preachers for North American churches, this is not an illogical direction.

And fantasy, the best fantasy anyway, is not merely about make-believe. It's about inner realities: our dreams and impulses, and the things that the heart knows but the rational mind is incapable of expressing directly. It is the same with myths, fairy tales, legends, folk lore. Although there may have been quite a lot of nonsense mixed in over the centuries, there are still some important insights into human nature to be found if one looks at these things with more than a casual glance.

So I hope your time here is not a waste but a chance to expand your mental horizons, to the benefit (ultimately) of those you serve not simply to council them on a spiritual level but also as a counselor when it comes to their everyday troubles and dilemmas.

And on another note, I believe "know thine enemy" is a maxim based on the idea that it you can figure out how your enemies think you can predict how they will act, and therefore be more effective in defending yourself and/or turning their own strategies against them.

I do not believe my time here is a waste. But the amount of time I spend here might easily call that assumption to question. I have no doubt that I am a better writer and communicator because of this time.

As to the "Know thine enemy" idea, I would say you are exactly right. But the Bible clearly teaches that no human is a match for the devil in his/her own power. The path to defeat the devil is to give complete control of your life to Jesus. So overmuch study of Satan is not considered necessary or even really good.

Karn: I would be very shocked to find out that more of Norse mythology was incorporated into the Christianity than Jewish mythology.

Also remember I walk with the Evangelicals, who for the most part would want to talk about an inerrant Bible and for whom the whole idea of myths growing into the Biblical tradition would be just this side of Heresy. (Parson resists the temptation to spend too much time on this, but would take it up in a PM if someone were interested.)

 

[nixie]

Congratulations TJ, a well deserved victory

 

[J-WO]

King Minos does indeed do 'reception' in The Divine Comedy, along with his brother Rhadamanthus and another brother I can't remember the name of (lets call him Timmy).

Congratulations to The Judge, BTW. And thanks to Ursa for voting for me- should have said that before.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It seems quite appropriate that a theme about 'Crime & Punishment' should be won by 'The Judge'!


Congratulations lawgiver!

 

[alchemist]

The top ten continues: Mouse and The Judge 29; mosaix 27; Stormfeather 26; alchemist 23; chrispenycate 20; digs 19. And of the top 10, alchemist has the best average, since he raised his 23 in only 6 outings!

Woohoo! Now I just have to try and turn it into an actual win.

Well, that's a complete year we've been doing this, all but a few days, and I think we all deserve a round of applause for our efforts in making this Challenge a success. BIG THANKS to Teresa for starting it in the first place, and for dealing with all the work involved, and equally BIG THANKS to Cul for setting up and dealing with all the polls.

I agree. For me, this challenge is the highlight of the site, and, I think, the glue that binds Aspiring Writers together.

Thank you, my Hare, but to do it proper justice, it's complicated. For instance, both alchemist and chopper had votes in 5 out of their 6 entries. Hmm... Seeing their rows together like that, I've just realised that chopper's last of 6 posts was in September, and alchemist's first of 6 posts was in October... Spooky co-incidence or something more...?

what? why would you think that? theres nothing about this post that could give you that impression.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

It depends on what you mean by Christian mythology. I am sure that you and Parson will have very different ideas about what that is. There are certainly elements of Christianity that have been added on along the way and have little or nothing to do with the Bible. Those were clearly influenced by the pagan religions they were trying to "compete" with, but it could go both ways, you know. The Vikings, for instance, went just about everywhere, and they could have picked up ideas from other religions. I think the story of Odin sacrificing himself on the tree to gain knowledge of the runes was first written down many centuries after the crucifixion, so there is no knowing how far back the story went in the oral tradition. Maybe not far at all.

And some similarities may be coincidental.

I meant the very roughest bases, really. And some similarities may indeed be coincidental, but I was pointing out that Christian mythology seemed to be more similar to Norse than to other ancient mythologies from what I've seen. Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but from what I know of what the bible says-which is really very sketchy at best-there really is no mention of heroes riding winged flying horses, becoming an equal to a deity, or there being animal-headed beings with human bodies. But there is the belief that although Jesus had been killed, he will again return one day to this world-much like Odin's son Baldur in Norse. And as I pointed out, "Hell" and "Hel". As you said, Teresa, the Vikings, as a seagoing conquering people, did indeed experience many different lands and that may affect their own mythology.


But, I really see no connection to, say, ancient Greek mythology and Christian, except of course the "world"-wide story of the flood-which I think had been proven true as Mesopotamia had been under such a thing in the ancient past as to justify a story about it. I don't ever recall, however, there being a flood story in Native American mythology, but my experience with that aspect is sketchy at best.


And ancient Greek mythology also raises another point-does it ever say amongst the ancient biblical stories of mortals getting turned into animals? I know the pillar of salt thing, but that's a pillar of salt, an inanimate, nonsentient object. There are at least two stories I know of where mortals had gotten turned into animals by wrathful deities in Greek mythology.


Oh dear. I've pushed this way off topic.

 

[Ursa major]

Or is it a subtle nudge to affect the choice of the April challenge's topic...?

 

[StormFeather]

Now Stormfeather, I feel compelled to offer you all sorts of favors that if I even mentioned, I would be banned from the Forums, the country and several dubious night clubs. Thanks again.

Honestly, that's quite alright! There was a beautiful simplicity to your story that struck a chord, so, in my opinion, it deserved my vote!

The top ten continues: Mouse and The Judge 29; mosaix 27; Stormfeather 26; alchemist 23; chrispenycate 20; digs 19. And of the top 10, alchemist has the best average, since he raised his 23 in only 6 outings!

Hurrah - I'm in the top ten!!!! *dances a little jig*

Seriously, thank you Judge for the hard work that you put in at the end of every month to come up with the great, and eagerly anticipated summaries. And, if I haven't done it already, a big congratulations on the very deserved win. Can't wait for the theme for next month. Might wait a little longer to post an actual story this time though . . .

Changing topic slightly, can I please ask - we had 54 voters for the writing challenge, but we've only had 12 for the photography one.

Please, please, please - if you haven't checked out the challenge, have a look and add your vote. As with the writing challenge, you don't need to have taken part to vote:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/530791-march-photography-challenge-please-read-first-post.html

Thank you!!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And, as I have suggested that everyone watch this thread, here is a link to the reason why:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/531154-coming-in-april-the-300-word-writing-challenge.html

 

[The Procrastinator]

Congratulations Judge on a well-deserved win!

(And thanks for that link Stormfeather, a timely reminder as I had forgotten to vote - meant to last night!)

New challenge looks very inkeresting...talk about spreading one's wings. What will we do with so much room??

Sadly I fumbled the ball this challenge. A spelling error led to my downfall, so let this be a lesson to us all, "eachother" is not a standard spelling and when corrected to its proper form, "each other", it may drive a story over the word limit and lead to it being removed - tsk, tsk, why did I put that extra adjective in! Here it is, mistakes and all:

Grounded

Rising on a tongue of flame, humanity's first colony ship emerged from the Earth's powerful grasp. The bright flame guttered out; the colourless warp drive initialised. Every eye on the planet was watching, entranced, as the malfunction occurred – could not be rectified – and the catastrophic explosion ensued.

The other observers turned and glanced at eachother, one twitching an appendage away from a panel.

“They have made their bed,” it intoned. “They must lie in it.”

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, I must say it's an appropriate story for such an unrectifiable malfunction to occur, causing it to flame out of the competition. Tough luck there, PC -- and I know why you did it, because I always use all 75 words as well!

 

[Chel]

Grats to the Judge for a well deserved win this month.

Also big grats to Harebrain, Hoopy and Teresa for the whole year, and to all of us who have taken part in this wonderful challenge.

 

[cornelius]

Congratulations, Judge. Well deserved indeed

 

[Boneman]

I just managed to vote before going away for 5 days in France with no email at all, so many congratulations to The Judge! Great win, against great opposition.

And many thanks for all the mentions of my hasty story to all who did...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't know if anyone noticed, but thanks to Dave's efforts we now have a new sub-forum entirely devoted to the Writing Challenges!

 

[The Judge]

And mighty impressive it looks, too!

Thanks to everyone for the congratulations. I'm still feeling very bucked up -- and as Vladd has reminded me on the swearing thread, that's several letters away from normal...

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yikes! You scared me there for a minute! Good thing I have a nose for writing challenge threads -- I sniffed it out. This is really cool! Thanks, guys!

This forum would certainly have helped me out this past month when I started making my spreadsheet of all the challenge miscellaneous. Now I don't have to hunt down each thread among the pages, yay!

 

[crys]

Nice one, although I thought I'd finally ''lost it'' when it didn't appear in the Workshop!

 

[chrispenycate]

Oh, yes, grovelling admiration for your victory, Yer 'Onour.

Actually, grovelling is about all I can manage after two days of being scanned, and injected with various things, some of them radioactive, and probed and poked…

I harbour a certain antagonism towards the medical profession at this moment.

 

[The Judge]

Um... radioactive... does this mean you're going to be glowing in the dark next?


Still another day to go before I post the next Challenge, but it occurs to me that (a) it's April Fool's Day, so will anyone believe me when I post the theme of "Spaghetti Trees"? And (b) it just so happens to be the 13th Challenge, being posted on a Friday, so is that going to bring us bad luck?