I don't exactly advertise my journal anywhere so no surprise I tend to forget about it myself. I suppose my subjects are pretty wild and random anyway- everything from games to tarot to human nature- and of course a side dish of whining about my life in general.

Well not much to update on the game side; I haven't exactly had much moola to buy into new games with and my computer is on the brink of exploding. It can handle a much-reduced option WoW (thank god for that much; I need a stress reliever) but anything particularly layered or graphic intensive locks it up. I should probably just try attaching a lightening rod to the thing and hope nature obliges me in giving the insurance no choice but to replace it.

On the life side...still sucks. Everyone's saying the economy is in recovery, but jobs are still disappearing faster than they're appearing and there are painfully few options for a person with a messed up shoulder and no teeth or dentures, and whose work-claimable skills are nothing a teenager fresh out of high school can't pick up in a few weeks. I still can't even get to a doctor to find out what's wrong with my shoulder - none of my jobs in the past had anything resembling health insurance - and can't prove it was caused by work so I remain up the creek there.
Life's great, iddn't it?

And now of course, we have Christmas on the horizon. Holiday depression- GO! Like I didn't have enough to be depressed about. Now we can add in the guilt of not being able to buy anyone anything and only one of my friends likes my writing enough to be able to gift her with that; so I did my best to make it one hell of a gift. It's more than a little gratifying she liked it so much; she's done a lot for me so it's wonderful I was finally able to give her something after a few years of no gifts at all.

The only downside to that is now I'm looking at the rest of my Christmas gifting list and just wanting to cry. Other friends will be going giftless yet again as they're by no means poetry buffs; we won't even talk about my family. My mother loves to read but poetry isn't on that particular plate. So it's back to begging her for money so I can buy a gift for her and everyone else. And naturally they don't listen when I say don't buy anything for me- my family has this oft-spoken rule that everyone gets at least one gift under the tree. Hello guilt-in-gift-wrapping.

Nothing new to add on the Tarot front either; I haven't gotten a new deck in ages though I may start posting my comments and opinions on the decks I do own just to put something other than soap-boxing and life-whining up on this thing once in awhile. I have enough it should keep a few entries going at least with something other than whining.

Well...that's it for now. Later.

Once in awhile, I wander the unimportant news stories- that is to say, the ones not full of doomsday predictions, politics, war news and so on- and just have to shake my head. Today's find was involving a story about a mother who confessed she did not love her daughter. The instant response from many on-site posters, of course, was 'oh my god, how can she not love her own daughter?!' and so forth.

I'm not here to join that bandwagon, and I certainly wasn't going to post in the flock of "You horrible person!" sorts about that one. I'll simply say what I thought on reading that, as cold as it might sound.

It happens. Mothers are only people and sometimes the bond just doesn't form. It doesn't mean they're bad people, they aren't even bad mothers. Maybe they just weren't ready, maybe something went wrong in their lives connected to the child's birth- maybe they just weren't the maternal sort to start with. Despite what some folks think, giving birth to something doesn't instantly make you fall in love with it.

And don't even try the 'maternal instinct' route, because it happens among animals too. There are plenty of instances there where no maternal bond even forms. The difference in that case to when it happens among humans: at least humans will still keep the young or find a suitable home for it rather than just leaving it to die.

Yes, it's a sad thing to know this happens- but that doesn't make her a demon, cruel or vicious. It just makes her a person that wasn't ready and whose relationship with the child's father went to pot shortly after the child was born. At least she doesn't hate the child; can't they be grateful for that and be equally glad she at least recognizes the fact she lacks that bond with her daughter? Usually when instances like this happen, the parent winds up placing the blame for why they lack that bond on their child- they don't acknowledge that they might be part of the problem themselves. These types seem to inevitably wind up hating their children and taking out that lack of a bond on them.

Give credit where it's due: she recognized it and she's not taking it out on the child. Instead of calling her a horrible person and demonizing her for it- why not be grateful she realized the problem and is consciously making attempts to do something about it? I may not agree with the fact she kept the child when she realized the bond wasn't there and likely never would be, but she could have done much worse by such an unwanted presence in her life.

Yes, it's sad. No, it doesn't make her a mental case, cruel or evil. It happens; it's one of those uglier sides of human nature, the same side that pretty well make most people not so fond of other people's children. We tolerate children that aren't ours in general- it doesn't mean most people want them around 24/7. This is just a case of 'someone else's child' syndrome forming where the maternal bond usually does.

"There are very few of us at ease with moral ambiguities, so we pretend they don't exist!" - 'The Wizard', from Wicked

I have to say that summary has got to be the single most honest way of summing up the mindset of so many people. It just pains me whenever I see this turning up in writing in any format. I've never understood why so many people feel an antagonist has to be an evil, mustache twisting villain and a protagonist has to be a borderline knight in white armor always saving the day 'because it's the right thing to do'.

Where's the depth? The more books I read on the market these days, the more commonly I see this theme appearing. We had a spurt of good writers for a handful of years and we still have a few good ones- Jim Butcher has become a personal favorite of mine with his Codex Alera series. The entire playing field of that is gray- even his 'obvious' evil villain of the Vord have plenty of gray in their development. By their mindset, what they do is not evil or wrong. It doesn't agree with what humans consider good and right, but they aren't out being evil just to be evil for a plot's sake.

The best 'villain' has always been the one who has their reasons. Perhaps they're insane (see the ever popular Joker from Batman; the only model of the 'purely evil' villain I accept since the man's plainly mad) perhaps they simply see things in a very different light from the protagonist.  I'll call a game reference into play there, for all the script suffered horribly on being brought to the US: Suikoden II.

For those unfamiliar with this PSX game, two friends wind up as bitter enemies in this over a very drastic difference in ideals. Riou (the one you control) gets no actual lines, but the dialogue you choose from and the actions he takes indicates a desire to protect individual freedoms- though it comes at the cost of knowing there are those who will abuse those freedoms.  The game has several antagonists, but by the end, Jowy- Riou's long time friend- becomes king of the nation that was waging the war...and rather than ending it, he choses to step it up a notch. His reasoning? He saw the corruption of those they were warring against and took away only the negative views and selfishness of the leaders rather than the more positive outlook Riou had adopted.

Both had looked to the same situation and seen different things: Riou saw a federation that could work together at a cost, Jowy saw a group of selfish leaders that cared little what happened to their people so long as they got what they wanted. Jowy became the game's antagonist as a result, determined to unite those countries under a single ruler who would look after all people's interests equally. Riou chose to defend the right of those countries to exist as their own federation with their own resources and choices intact.

A far more compelling story than "OMG evil invading empire, must fight and save world!", eh? Yet that seems to be what many people rely on for their plot points. The antagonists see little to no development as characters- just as what can provide a story conflict.

All I have to say on that? Your antagonists don't have to be mwahahaing it up while tying some poor damsel to the train tracks. The best villain, in my opinion, is one you can like and understand- you may not support or approve of what they're doing but you can grasp why they're doing it and what they genuinely hope to accomplish in the process.

So to fellow new writers, be you original authors, fanfic writers or roleplayers, just keep this in mind: Your antagonists are characters, not plot points. Develop them too; and just like your protagonists, they have a goal of their own. Obviously it's going to conflict with what the protagonist is trying to accomplish but that doesn't mean they instantly require the depth of a cardboard cut out. They can be your villains and still be people with all the trim and flaws of humankind.

We've all been hearing the expert outlooks on the upcoming economy- and we know they span from doomsayers to idealists. Going by them, you honestly couldn't tell if the economy was going to crash and burn, soar up high at some point next year or safely find a middling point before we wind up in a new Great Depression.

Well, I'm no expert but I can offer the laymen's localized view, as someone who got hit hard and early by the falling economy. Some areas began showing signs earlier than 2008; the US' Southeast had been steadily declining starting in early 2007, even while other parts of the country looked to be holding steady. It was gradual, but here and there, jobs started slipping out of the area to find more profitable areas.

The result? More people were slowly becoming unemployed and there were fewer jobs for them to take. This trend continued steadily, well before the rest of the country started to realize their own areas were suddenly starting to sink as the economy began to collapse under its own weight. More people became unemployed, less money entered the economy as they had no way to earn any, and more jobs disappeared.

I'm no expert- but that's a pretty easy to see pattern. And it only gets worse when you consider that relocating just wasn't an option for many folks. That tends to take money, and money is something people are in short supply of these days. The worse the problem got, the worse it was for those who's only place to live was this area.

Now for a personal spin on things, something I'm sure many others can sympathize with. If you were hurt and had to leave your job over it at any point since this ball started rolling, you've likely received nothing but incredibly polite declines if you weren't hurt badly and permanently enough to qualify for disability- and thus get the company you were applying to a discount- or couldn't prove you were due to lacking health insurance and cash enough for the procedures that could prove it.

Not even a call center will take someone who's lost their job under such circumstances. They see you as a workman's comp issue just waiting to happen and want nothing to do with you.

Unlike many in this situation- I'm very fortunate. I have an understanding family that gives me food and shelter while I try to get my life back together; many people aren't this lucky. I never had much to lose; there are plenty who have landed in this situation who have lost everything they spent their lives building up. They weren't bad people, they just made one or two long term mistakes or had a bit of misfortune- and now they have nothing. Finding someone to turn to in this time is also next to impossible- most people are struggling to keep their own heads above water, let alone taking on the burden of a friend or relative in need. When you start hearing quite a few people saying "I'm still here because no one can afford to bury me" or "If I 'bow out', my debtors will go after my relations" - you know you're living in pretty bad times and places. Worse when you know for some, they've gone beyond mere morbid humor and are actually serious.

2009, according to most economists, is going to be yet another wild rollercoaster ride; most if it going down if the number of bankruptcies and closings is anything to go by. The snowball effect continues; and the unemployed, especially those who've been struggling to find work for over a year now as the economy just continued to plummet, remain unemployed as their ranks swell with newcomers- everything from minimum wage blue collar workers to once highly paid white collar types who find their company suddenly has to tighten its belt.

What gets me? There's still 'outsourcing' going on- as in overseas outsourcing. Sure, labor's cheaper there. But that's money permanently gone from the US economy. Being diplomatic and world friendly is great and all- but how about looking after our own economy first and bringing jobs back where they're needed by your primary consumers? The other countries certainly aren't going to go out of their way to support a failing US-based company when their own need just as much saving.

And there's a steadily spreading opinion back on the home shores that companies doing such things don't particularly need saving. I have to agree I'm starting to turn to that opinion. I'd rather support those that are creating jobs on these shores than off in some other country that does the local economy no good. And I've little doubt those other economies would/do feel the same way about any companies they have doing the same thing.

The idea is to generate cashflow- not throw it out of one economy entirely into an unrelated economy.

I can say there's one upside to all of this, much as it's currently part of the downfall. Hurrah for the end of rampant consumerism and people trying to live beyond their means. There is no denying that's been a virtual epidemic over the past few years and raised inflation to horrific levels with people readily buying on whim over need.

Do we really need four different brands of jeans per clothing company at $20 to $50 a pop?  How about fourteen different models of cars that hardly anyone seems to want? Variety is great and all; but there's no denying it's been more than a little ridiculous over the years. Let's hope a heavy shake down and restructuring will build an economy that's a little less 'house of cards' like and a more solid at the core than relying on the spoiled sentiment of wanting a different outfit for every day of the month and a different model of car than everyone else in the local area. All that did was create a sort of false prosperity- and we're paying for that attitude now, aren't we?

I've no doubt experts will probably disagree with me if they ever happened to read this on some points- but all I'm doing is voicing an opinion and observation as someone who's been fighting this from the unemployed side of things as the ball first started rolling. I've gotten to see an area with a metropolis level population turn its department of labor into a standing-room-only zoo of scared and desperate people while more and more stores close their doors and banks go under; I'm not crunching numbers, I'm just looking at what's in front of me and honestly not seeing much hope for now.

Nor are all of those people looking at a department of labor that doesn't have even a hundred jobs listed while four hundred people are holding a steady presence in the building in hopes of finding a chance at stability.

It doesn't paint a very promising or hopeful picture, does it?

Everyone's been hearing horror stories for a few years now about the horrible things MMOs can supposedly do to you. From parents who can't understand their children's interest to those who had children who were hurt emotionally in some cases, enough they did harm to themselves or even committed suicide, the stories have long been rolling around the next gen D&D scare crowd. (Remember that game folks? The one that everyone said would turn kids into devilworshipping axe murderers who thought they were elves?)

May seem a bit in the way of poor taste to have said the above- but the truth is, it's the same thing all over again. The difference in this case is it's wider spread due to an MMO's general attempt to appeal to multiple audiences. For those parents who find themselves at a loss for what to do- some advice from the gamer side of things for you.

1) Talk to your kid. Find out what's in the game that keeps them coming back; you might be surprised at the answer.

2) If your child is awkward around people in reality- they often find it easier to interact through a game medium with others. Where they might be the teased and ridiculed one among their real world peers, they can win respect with people of similar ages through this format. They can also have the chance to be the shining hero that sweeps in and saves the day- something few people who have a hard time even talking to others can do in reality any more.

3) Let's face it- not every kid is a born athlete. The game offers a reality in which they can do all the things they know they may honestly never be able to do. If this is your child's reason for wanting to play so much- step back and consider your own approaches and demands on him or her.

4) Your kid may have interest in things you never even considered. MMOs usually include more than just hacking up monsters- there's often the ability to make things. Some even go as far as having houses you can craft your own furniture for and arrange to your liking. If this is what's pulling your child to the game, changing up the off game routine with some kind of handcrafts may be in order. The game will still have its appeal due to simply being easier- but you might be surprised what a little bit of tangible accomplishment can net.

5) If your child is fond of PvP (Player versus Player), then he or she may have a very competitive spirit, though the reasons can differ heavily. Some just enjoy the feeling of proving they can hold their own against other potentially skilled players; others like the strategic challenge involved when planning attacks and getting groups to work together as a smooth unit. Don't just roll your eyes and groan if this subject comes up; talk to them and find out what's so appealing. Whichever case it is, there are off game equivelants you can provide that will broaden your child's interests beyond the scope of what they can accomplish.

Above, obviously, are the ideal situations. These are actually the more common ones and why your child can seem to have no interest in anything but their MMO; they have no offline equivelants to the things they enjoy about the game. Some are easy to rectify, some aren't. The most important part is to start talking to them, however. Don't instantly demonize the game or call down their enjoyment of it from the start. If you're doing that, you just declared war and kids all have one thing in common: they hate to lose. If you're having too hard of a time getting the time TO talk to them; sit and watch them play. It'll annoy the hell out of them, but if you start asking about some things and show an actual interest in what they're doing, the results may amaze you. The only time this is NOT a good idea is if your child is actively using a Talk feature (something that allows them to actually speak with others vocally while gaming rather than relying on text) as you would be showing poor manners to interrupt a conversation.

And most importantly of all- if you are not familiar with 'nettiquette' or 'chattiquette"...learn the terms. The online world has its own series of rules for interaction, it isn't the grand free for all plenty of non-users think.

There is of course, the problem gamer: the one who completely throws their life away for the sake of a game. First up; MMOs are not solely responsible for this- it happens with console games as well. MMOs tend to garner the most notice, however, due to being the more publicized instances. The first step to figuring out if you have one of those, though, is to sit down and just talk to them. Don't forget what it felt like when you were a kid and your parents gave something you really enjoyed the brush off; so just give them the chance to explain it to you, in their terms.

Subject says it all. I need to rant and this is the only place I currently have to do it. No like, no read. Got it? Good. Well. On with the rant.

So a couple weeks ago I roared and snarled about the financial situation I'm in; needless to say it hasn't improved in the slightest and now I get the added joy of insomnia as a near constant companion. It doesn't help the self same company that wants to charge me for fraud (though if I never intended to pay them, I really have to wonder what all that money I was sending them while I was employed was for. Huh. I could have sworn it was for paying my bill.) has decided to have their lawyers badger me over the phone daily for the last month.

And now, they call me twice today. Mr. Bigshot Lawyer Michael Dean, Bean or whatever his name is for Bank of America apparently thinks insulting, yelling and mocking someone who's out of work and pretty much just one step from being homeless will somehow make money magically appear. This is of course after daily phone calls that have me ready to put this little litany to opera or some kind of blues tune.

"I have no house, I have no car, I have no job, I have no stocks, bonds or whatever else I could possibly pay with; I am not getting unemployment or SSI. My family is providing me with food and shelter; no they can't give me money- no my friends can't give me money. Family has to think of keeping a roof over our heads first, as well as gas in the car for long commutes to their work; I have a grand total of three friends and they all have their little financial concerns mine need not apply to. I have been unemployed since Feb of 2007, I have been steadily applying to jobs- unfortunately, so is roughly half my area as more jobs leave this area than are coming in. I have a dubious medical history courtesy of a shoulder that got messed up while cashiering- and no way to tell folks it's healed when I have no proof because I can't afford a $5,000 MRI. This makes them very reluctant to take a chance on me when to them it probably looks like I'm a workman's comp timebomb.  Especially as if I do somehow get an MRI and the injury is stated as being a rotator cup as the doctor suspected and has not yet healed on its own: it's going to need surgery. Yes, I have been applying. No, no one has hired me yet."

I've said this about oh...27 times now, since today I got to run that little gauntlet twice.

And wait 'til you hear his 'fantastic' advice for getting a job. "Don't tell them about the shoulder." ....Oooh yes, this is a great idea! Let's apply to a job, not tell them about the problem that put me out of work in the first place so when they call my references, they can spill the beans about my shoulder and earn me a lovely reputation as being a liar. Powers above and below, what planet do they get lawyers from? It can't be Mars- it's too close to the real world. Mercury, maybe? They're certainly cold hearted enough.

And let's not forget his happy little attempt at sarcasm (I hope for BoA's sake he's better at being a lawyer than he is at being a sarcastic brat) at asking if I somehow missed the cashier seminar for safely ringing things up. Mm hmm....the lawyer world must be a super special happy sparkly place to be right now- what with all the money they're raking in as more and more people land in my situation and find themselves with debtors siccing one lawyer after another on them. Great time to be a lawyer, terrible time for us blue collar folk.

But hey~ What do they care? We're what they make their living off of. If they're not helping sue us, they're taking a right tidy amount of any settlements when they supposedly help us so we're left wondering where the money went.

Oh yes...and most of all, let's not forget his little comment about all my "excuses" to not have a job yet, and asking if I intend to spend the rest of my life jobless. Oh  yes, I'm applying to every store I can think of because I don't want a job, no sir! I just like filling out my personal information all over applications and handing them to people because I seriously don't want a job. Nope; I just like killing my hands filling out paperwork both on and offline because it's just that wonderfully fun to not have a job, not have a life and above all have to live like a parasite off my family while lawyers knock on my door and clog up my phone and praying some crisis doesn't come up and cost us a house.

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Good times to be had by all here, you better believe it. I just so don't want a job so I can keep crying myself to sleep when I can get any sleep, get woken up when I finally do by yet another call from them, just so I can start it aaaaaaaaaaall over again.

Yeeeeeup, it's great being unemployed with an iffy medical history and several hundred people applying to the same jobs you are. Everyone should do it- really! Thrills and chills and hoopla every single moment! Why, you can go hang with your unemployed buds at the standing-room-only Department of Labor and try again and again to apply for referrals and jobs through them together! It's marvelous bonding time while you all stand there and try your best not to feel hopeless, worthless and positively useless. It's so much fun being depressed, being angry and above all being utterly helpless to do anything about it as the rejections roll in or you get the sound of silence as your response.

It's even more fun to watch your friends and family watch you slide down that pit and know they can't do anything more than offer moral support because their own problems are almost too much for them to handle; they can't help you with yours too. Yessir! It's joys and fun and happy happy times for all to watch someone's life fall apart and the vultures they call lawyers start circling, just waiting for the carcass to somehow start producing money through its rotting flesh for them to pick at.

I really hope you lawyers are enjoying your lives; I wouldn't be you for all the world when karma finally comes due. When it does; I hope you get to spend your time living the same life so many of us who you prey on have been. I hope you realize how it feels to watch everything you worked for crumble into nothing, all your hopes disappear and not be able to face a single day without tears while people make demands for things you just can't offer all because of one thing going wrong in your life. Just one damned thing and it takes it all away.

You've well earned it.

In my various wanderings through many types of writing- professional and amateur, science-fiction and fantasy or just plain fiction and non-fiction- I have found that there is a style that remains rarely utilized compared to the ever popular third person style and all its many variations. For every near twenty I have read in that style, I have found perhaps one or two written in first person perspective, and very few of those written in any way I would, in my ego, consider 'well'.

To this day, it continued to puzzle me why this writing style is so unpopular. Third person is wonderful for a large cast story, but it has an inevitable failing, no matter how good the writer: you will never really know what it was like to walk in that character's shoes for more than a moment. Even in limited third person, you are still seeing and experiencing things outside of the character rather than well and truly stepping into their shoes.

On some thinking, I realized why this might be. From the moment we all take our first English class, we have the rules of writing carved into our brains- for all most of us see fit to forget them as soon as we manage a passing grade. But these rules apply almost entirely to third person writing; the kind you use for essays and such. You are taught to write in an outward, often non-centralized view to display facts in a neat and orderly fashion. Phrasing, grammar- all are dictated by these rules. This puts a certain barrier between you and the project you are working on.

First person writing breaks every single rule you are taught by those teachers all those years. Why is this? Don't even try to tell me the majority of you think in perfect, grammatically correct sentences and proper word choices. No one does; some are a bit neater than others...but either way? You short cut, you cut yourself off half way; you run fully counter to every rule of spoken and written grammar, or at least bend it badly enough it's crying uncle.

Since you are living in the character's head the entire time in first person, you are going to not only be seeing the things they think- you are going to be doing it in all their incorrect glory. You will know their thoughts precisely as they have them; see bursts of sensation described as they feel it with little care for one hundred percent correct grammar. Sentences will trail, they will end in ! and so forth even though they are not outright spoken dialogue.

And yes, all you who love to use ! in third person writing for a non-dialogue sentence to try to make "OMG SO EXCITING!"...that is a great big writing 'no no'. Unless you are ending a line of either spoken or internal dialogue, those !s had better not appear unless you're fond of looking like you were really desperate to make a scene seem exciting and didn't know how to do so effectively. That is the behavior your teacher was supposed to teach out of you with those endless writing assignments; it's rather sad to see how many writers persist in this behavior all the way to published works. Nothing like encouraging bad habits, eh?

In first person you can freely use those little bits of punctuation however you see fit. Every line is to some degree internal dialogue. You are not just seeing the events that affect them...properly written, you are seeing everything they see exactly as they see it: from what they are going through physically to their every thought and emotion. This can create a rapport with a character in a way third person never can; you can well and truly step into this character's shoes and become then in your head.

This brings up perhaps the other reason this style tends to be disfavored for most: how many of you can truly write as someone else? It really isn't easy for many folks to think quite that far outside their personal box. Third person is easier for most: they're simply writing about another character they envision going through various events.

First person requires leaving 'you' behind and becoming your character for a time as you write. You have to think like them, train yourself to consider their emotional responses from inside that thought process, not from an eagle eye view- this can be hard for many people. There's a reason actors have to train for years to be able to do this- it's the exact same thing they do to play the roles they do. They have to become other people, inside and out, to create the illusion they need that they are those people. First person is no different than that. The catch is simply that you are putting it on paper and not acting it out, thus you have it a little bit easier.

For those who want to use first person but don't know quite how to get into it, as it's a style you hardly learn anything about in school...here's a few suggestions, the first of which is probably going to make no few of you laugh.

1) Roleplay, as in good ol' D&D and so forth. Granted, not every player is instantly a writer- but try making a character as unlike yourself as possible and then stay true to the persona you've given them in speech and action. It's good brain practice for stepping outside your mental box and teaching yourself how to see things from a very different angle.

2) Talk to yourself while you're writing. Say the character's thoughts and words aloud; it's a good auditory focus and can do wonders for making you realize when you're falling into the 'too correct' trap. If the phrases sound stilted and that's not how you envision the character sounding? Step back and rework it. You hardly need to say every line, but for certain pivotal ones: Speak them aloud precisely as you picture the character saying it- think about the frame of mind you have to put yourself into to achieve that tone.

3) Make sure if you live with other people or have friends and family prone to calling that they're aware writing time is 'no communication time'. Third person writing can suffer from this as well, but it can totally destroy the mindset required for first person work almost entirely. Given the amount of work that goes into assuming this mindset for writing, especially if the character has nothing in common with you, that can set a whole chapter to ruin and force you to start over from the very beginning of it if you try to continue it.

4) If you are interrupted, stop it right there. Save it, put it down and walk away. Don't try to recapture the mood right away; that's fairly well impossible. All you'll do is frustrate yourself and make an even bigger mess. Step away, relax...then empty out your mind and start rereading the chapter, speaking lines as necessary. This can rebuild the mood far more effectively than trying to force yourself back into it.

5) If you listen to music as you write, avoid anything with words (at least in any language you understand). Music can be a great tool for helping sustain a mood (and help shut interruptions out), but first person is especially susceptible lyrical influence. Understandable words can lead you to a certain line of thinking. Unless that precisely mirrors what you're writing at the time, it can throw off your work or take it over and turn it into something you didn't intend. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing early into a story...but it can be a disaster waiting to happen if you're well into it. Changing the tone of your story without warning or apparent reason is never good and stands out especially bad in first person.

Well that about sums it up- my egocentric gem of wisdom for today; love it or leave it as you will. I hope it did someone some good and maybe encouraged a few more new writers to give this style an earnest try.

Every now and again I'll discuss Tarot with some friends or people on various forums- and this particular subject kept coming up. The precise question that was asked on one such was as follows:

If two readers look at the same spread and see different things in it; how do you tell which one is wrong?

My answer, as always, is that the reader who laid the cards is the one who's answer should be given more weight. They know their particular deck better than any other reader; even if they use identical decks. Any reader worth their salt knows that much. The feeling they get while reading the cards is as much what guides them as knowing the printed meanings in the booklets.

However, that does not instantly render the other reader 'wrong'. Even if two readers should happen to get the exact same lay in their cards, they are not going to always take the same thing from it. Their individual questioners' influences must also be taken into consideration, as well as their own outlook toward the cards. Some readers pick up more readily on the negative inclinations, others tend to see them in a more positive light.

The only time I would ever call another reader flat out wrong was if they were ignoring details such as the card's state (reversed or upright), or my own particular hatred: mishmashing all the meanings (both reversed and upright) into the card and then picking and choosing which they want to have apply to suit their liking.

I remain firmly against the new age fluff bunny trend of trying to do away with the reversed meanings and picking and choosing only the meanings they like for a card. If you want to do things like that, why even bother with Tarot? Go grab a Magic 8 ball and let that do your fortune telling; it'll be about as accurate as bastardized Tarot.

So long story short; no genuine reader is wrong if they get different conclusions off of the same lay. Like many things in fortune telling, it all depends on the perspective of the reader. This is why it is important, questioners, to have a comfortable rapport of trust with your reader. If you're second guessing them and going to another reader to get the lay analyzed, of course you're going to get a different result. If you find yourself doing that- it may be time for you to find a new reader; whatever your reason you've plainly lost trust in the one you had.

And now on to the next subject: Tarot misreads. Yes, they do happen. Readers are just as human as anyone else and just as prone to mistakes. They're especially common when a reader is still getting to know their deck (be they new to Tarot reading or have just obtained a new deck). Does this mean your reader is unreliable? Hardly; fortune telling has a great deal in common with weather forecasting. Both can see what's coming, but there's always a chance it may not happen as they predicted.

When dealing with a new deck, a reader can easily miss subtle hints in the cards themselves (Yes, what is on the cards is as important as the meanings) and thus make errors that can throw the reading off. At other points, they may just simply forget to factor in position in the lay.

So before you go off ranting because your reader had a bad day, please remember this. They're just as human as you are; one or two misreads in the wake of several accurate ones is hardly enough to go decrying them as frauds and charlatans. No one is perfect, so remember to take your readings with an open mind and not as set in stone. The tiniest of things can throw them off; or you may wind up taking an action that will completely change events and render the reading invalid. Most fortune telling works on the probability of events from the precise moment of the reading. If you do things to change the balance before the time frame of the prediction comes to pass, it may never do so.

There is also the factor of the questioner themselves. If a reading comes out particularly messed up with a reader you've long trusted? Think back to your own state of mind at the time.  If you had to shuffle for a good long time, chances are high you weren't particularly focused on the issue at hand. When that happens, you're lucky if the reading even remotely makes sense. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Tarot is not a twenty questions game. One question per lay of the cards; and please above all else! Do not come in expecting a step by step report of the rest of your life. The vaguer and longer reaching your question, the vaguer the response.

Another questioner error- and highly common in first timers- is nervousness. This can make the concentration required of the questioner impossible, resulting in the same mess as mentioned above. It can also lead to a deck not being shuffled long enough even if the concentration is there.

So be kind to your reader; they have bad days too. The Tarot is not easy to learn how to use properly; you can study it for years and still find out things you didn't know. Committing all those meanings to mind and when they should be used is no mean feat either. Don't go busting on them just because they made a mistake.

And readers? Be kind to your questioner in turn, especially if they're plainly new to the whole idea of fortune telling. Talk to them, soothe the feathers a bit and then go to work. A little two way consideration can go a long way to establishing the rapport that leads to trustworthy readings.

In regards to my 'avatar' name...hm...Well, like a good many on-line writers these days, I got my actual start in a (now) embarrassing fashion: Chat room roleplay. And no, I don't mean the adult types. Back in the days of the original WBS, when I first met my first set of online friends, we started as much any fan of something does: by miming it with our own works. We worked it into our plays and then started doing our own takes off of things.

And from that, Cyhirae was born. She was my first even passingly original and well developed character in any environment, for all she's now quite shallow compared to the characters I work with these days. I became quite fond of her (and still am); though she hardly began with the name I took for myself. It was probably the point at which I started liking her as a character when she received the name "Cyhirae", a variant off of "Cyhiraeth" from Celtic lore, from the first person she ever learned to trust as a sign of trying to begin her life anew. It should be noted, however, as I had no idea how to pronounce  Celtic names back then, "Cyhirae" is pronounced nothing like its parent name.

WBS died and the character of Cyhirae died with it as we grew up in our writing and became more fascinated with fully original characters; but I kept her name on as a reminder of the first character I was ever truly proud of and thusly was sad to see go. She was never a particularly kind character; very much neutral and only cared about those important to her. Hardly a heroic kind and rather ruthless at the best of times, but I adored her anyway for being willing to stick to her guns and friends, no matter how bad the situation looked. Preserving the name as my online identity just seemed a fitting homage to the first passingly original character I truly liked.

-My real name (which is not going to be posted. =P)  is less interesting. I was named for my mother; which made life real interesting whenever people called asking for one of us. The only difference is I have a middle name and she doesn't. Pity I never cared to use it; it'd make life so much easier on all those telemarketers calling to bother one and getting the other. They usually get frustrated and hang up.

"The hardest part of any story is the first line"- age old wisdom, but sadly...not entirely true. Yes, that can be fairly hard, and don't even get me started on the matter of choosing titles for the stories themselves. I've never heard of a writer who ever went with their first title choice unless they entertained at least three others and found none of them fit the bill.

The hardest part of any writing- be it for novels, graphic novels, screen plays or what have you...is pacing. How fast is too fast? How slow is too slow? Are you wasting too much time exploring side details when you should be getting on with the plot? Is the plot moving so fast that readers are going to see the name of an important character and hardly get to grasp why they're important before they've been swept on by?

Naturally not everyone is going to agree on what pace a book should have. Everyone has their own idea of what exactly qualifies to either end...but there are still some general and massively glaring times when it's plain as day the plot moved too quickly or just refused to move at all, even after a hundred pages worth of reading.

Not to name any names, but I have a few such stories in my collection of books and graphic novels; the first one I'll cite featured a nymph/demon sort of princess who met with the prince of the gods/light spirits of their world. They wind up getting lost in the mists of their realm and apparently somewhere in the midst of all that, she fell in love with him.

Stock enough plot; writer I may be but that also means I tend to be pretty forgiving about stock plots. Asking for total originality these days is like asking the world to spin backwards- with so many people writing, it's inevitable that you can find someone who's used the same core idea in some fashion. To quote a friend of mine, it's all in how you tell it. I'll go more into that another time, however.

So, we have the core plot for a dramatic romance: boy meets girl, they're from opposite sides of the tracks. Add one fantasy world and we're good to go, right? Not really; the author of this particular story didn't seem very interested in giving you any idea why the girl even fell in love with the boy. A page or two after they meet, evidently weeks passed while they wandered lost, and somewhere in that unwritten abyss of story detail, she fell in love with him.

Why is this a problem? We go one page from haughty dark princess looking down her nose at the goody two-shoes light prince to her going "Oh well..he's rather nice- OH NO I LOVE HIM YOU CAN'T KILL HIM OH NO PLEASE!" when a page later it's time for a plot point and the author kills the boy off to send him to the underworld.

This is what I affectionately refer to as the 'breakneck' pace for writing...hardly any time devoted to explaining or developing the characters; the writer had a plot alone in mind and that's all that was being pursued. The hows and whys of things were ignored as characters came in for a scene or two and then died or ran off for some obscure reason when the princess didn't need them anymore at that exact moment.

Writing like that puts me very much in mind of the Brothers Grimm....and reminds us that while they were renowned as scholars, they never were hailed as being particularly skilled at writing. They archived the core plots of the myriad tales they heard but were hardly out to write a novel about each and every one. While that's fine for an archive...it tends to leave a good bit wanting when you're supposedly reading an actual story such as the above example.

Conversely, we have the plots that take forever to do anything. As I named no names above, I'll not name any here. Yet again among my collection there is an epic series of books. These books are by no means badly written; but if you're looking for a quickly advancing plot, they're not for you.

In the first book of the set, we encounter a young man who gets pegged for a great destiny by a wandering mystic of sorts and then gets dragged into a conflict well beyond the narrow scope of the quiet village life he's enjoyed so far. Accompanied by only one other from his home, he makes his way out to meet with several others gathered by this mystic who will then accompany him on his journey to defeat the evil threatening to consume the land.

The issue in this lies that too often the story is put on pause to overdevelop the characters and world; you can go some ten pages and it will be nothing but the main character considering events already passed or thinking about the world around him so the reader can also 'see' it. This, again, is not bad writing...when kept in perspective. A paragraph here, a page there when they've suddenly changed location (IE: passed out and woken somewhere they don't recognize) ...that's just fine and hardly bogs the story down.

When we've had ten to twenty pages of the character just standing by the roadside apparently staring at the world or at his companions, one has to wonder if his allies are used to him zoning out at random points. Some writers tend to forget it does take time for the thinking process to happen; meshing it with the plot is one of the best tricks a writer can learn if they don't want to alienate the reader with too much detail and too little plot.

The last issue with pacing I've noticed is meshing it with the point of view the story is being written from, as well as the media it's presented in. Third person perspectives, particularly when in the form of graphic novels and screenplays, require a slightly slower pace- why? Because you have to consider all the angles being presented.  You are not seeing just what one character is; you're sitting outside of all of them watching events unfold and without some slowing of the pace, plot points are just going to get buried in the details.

When you encounter a book with a first person perspective, however, a faster pace is needed to keep the story going. You are seeing only that character's viewpoint; it's entirely too easy to let the plot grind to a halt while you try to show it through their eyes and thus get caught in their personal details. A skillful writer can use this to make a whirlwind plot truly epic even as it flies by- important points will be noted as the character encounters them, reacts and moves on accordingly.  There is only that one character's view to take into consideration and his/her view of how others are also reacting. This allows for a quickly moving plot as the details are limited only to what the character thinks, notices and encounters.

So to my fellow novice writers, I give thee the Post-it note of wisdom to tack to your machines: Pacing! Pacing! Pacing! Your plots may be wonderful and your characters and worlds marvelously detailed, but that does no good if you're either drowning in the details or dragging your reader through them so quickly they can't appreciate your creation.

I'll warn anyone reading this now- this is a self pitying rant. If you don't want to read it, go somewhere else. I need to blow off steam and this is, at present, the only sort of 'journal' I keep.

For those who don't know me, I'm a 31 year old woman with terrible luck that seems intent on getting worse. For years, I played financial safety net for my family- they didn't always call on me but whenever things got too bad, it was myself and my cards they turned to, trying to bail us out of one situation after another. First it was the car, then the house....

Things I didn't mind helping on since I needed them, too...but trying to pay things like that back on a cashier's paycheck is not walk in the park. I figured it was fine, I can manage the payments as long as I have a job and it'll all be fine. It won't be FUN, but it'll be fine. I can do it; just keep working and keep paying.

This is after several dentist bills to take care of an issue that I later learned was a hairsbreadth from killing me, and potentially left me with some permanent damage throughout the body. I have a screwed up left shoulder (the nature of which I can't determine since I can't pay for a damned MRI and have no health insurance to speak of- common theory is several years of cashiering has torn up the rotator cup), two screwed up hands to a mild degree that isn't so mild once they've been put to use for a period of time, I had to have all my teeth removed along with half my jawbone to get an infection that was literally killing me removed....

And now here we are in 2008; what do I have to show for it all? No job since I had to quit mine in 2007 due to my shoulder tearing up and my other starting to do so in turn...money I'd saved dried up from trying to pay my bills while job hunting, my family having had to declare bankruptcy on their own finances so they can hardly help me on mine, lawyers knocking on my door and now the real fun kicker.

I'm being charged with defrauding a financial institution; for running up charges with no intent to pay.

Oh yes. We have hit pay dirt, people. I SO drained every penny I had scraped up trying to pay my bills because I didn't want to pay them. Yes sirree, I'm just that wicked and scheming I cleverly kept using my cards once I knew I had no way to pay for long if I didn't get a job soon.

Sweet powers above and below, I just love this world. Live as best you can, look out for your family and get the big ol' legal knife right in the gut when they can't help you. I just love it! It's so great I wanna spike my hair up like some metal freak and scream out their praises while I cut myself on stage. Maybe they'll take blood since I don't got money, eh?

The real kicker: I own a few little ornamental blades (worthless to a collector; I just got them out of a Renfest's "$5 minisword!" bargain bin) and not a single one of them looks tempting to use right now. Why?

I don't even have life insurance. Most won't pay if they know you committed suicide, either, so it wouldn't matter if I even had any really. I'm not that creative I can reasonably fake a death to make it look like an accident. That usually requires owning and driving a car or something; I don't have one.

 Now there would be gratitude to my family for doing what they could for me, eh? Make them foot the bill for my funeral costs. So looks like I'm stuck here, putting up with this great wonderful world that thinks it can squeeze blood from a rock. Well this rock's well on its way to becoming sand; think if I dye myself red and let them crush me up and run on out of their fingers, they'll fall for it and think they got what they wanted?

Son of a bitch.

These days, getting your fortune told seems nearly as convenient as going to the corner store to buy milk: anywhere you look, there's at least one fortune teller lurking somewhere. Sometimes they're easy to see, at others they're a little harder to find if the fortune teller only wants those who want serious fortunes to find them.

It's amazing how much the hope for a quick buck can make some people decide old rules need to be rewritten, however. And by that, I mean the rules of fortune telling. The concept of modern convenience has invaded even this aspect of life- not only in how easy it is to find, but in how people try to short cut to make the readings themselves seem oh so much easier.

Perhaps I'm just an old fashioned sort of gal when it comes to Tarot reading; Yes, I use reversals. Yes, I want my questioner to be right there where I can see them, not on the 'net or on a phone. Yes, they have to shuffle my cards before I'll do any kind of a lay out. And yes, even if they're my friends I still ask for some kind of payment.

However, no: I almost never ask for money.

Many people these days, however, claim to get Tarot readings done over the phone or net without ever having to touch the cards or even speaking a question to their reader. Are the readers just that good? Well by everything I was taught: No, they aren't. They're frauds, pure and simple, and people keep getting suckered by them. Yet naturally, everything is ever so convenient these days, so fortune telling is too, eh?

Before you go get your next tarot reading, a touch of advice for such seekers. Know the rules behind Tarot- and yes, there are rules. Anyone saying otherwise is a new age fluffbunny and you're better off just walking away.

1) Cards have definitive upright and reversed positions. This is an important thing to realize. The card's meaning will change depending on which way it appears. This is the first rule most fluffybunnies ignore because they hate trying to memorize which meanings apply to which state the card appears in. They will generally pick and choose what meanings they like to apply to the card- regardless of state- and go off of that. The result: a jumbled mess of meanings with no clear filter and many aspects ignored. Nor does a reversed card necessarily mean totally polar opposite of the upright meanings. Never turn a card to face upright, and never accept a reading from someone who does so. The lay is false when they're changing the states and meanings to suit them.
     Note: The only accepted tarot deck in which reversals do not matter for the entirety of the deck is the Thoth. In that deck, only some cards have reversed- or influenced- meanings. Such decks are incredibly distinctive, however. The Thoth uses very abstract symbolism and heavy reliance on color plays. Decks descendant of the Thoth are easy to detect once you have seen the base deck as there's little room for variance without losing vital meanings in the art itself. Most readers generally rely on Marseilles or the Rider-Waite deck, however, due to their more traditional roots.

2) Yes, you have to touch the cards. This is a vital part of the process for Tarot as it allows the cards to get to know the questioner and to take something of them into them. I don't mean just astral presence or whatever other fluffbunny mumbo jumbo you want to throw in- there's a very vital, perfectly normal and every day thing the cards need from you: the oils present in your skin. That is as much a bodily fluid as any amount of blood; it's just as much a part of you. Anyone even slightly familiar with traditional magic knows what a potent medium that is. This will allow the cards to truly attune to you as you shuffle and permit your question to be properly sought after.

3) Be responsible. This applies to both the questioner and the reader. For the questioner - pick a question you truly want the answer to. And it's just one question. Tarot is not a twenty questions game; if you can't concentrate on your own question while you shuffle the deck, your lay isn't going to make any sense. Don't talk, don't let your mind wander- focus on that vital point and shuffle until you no longer feel the desire to do so. And above all: Stay calm during the reading, no matter what cards may turn up. Panicking just because the Devil, Death or the Tower chose to grace your lay with their presence won't make them go away and they may not be the prediction of doom and despair you think they are.
For the reader: there's a very bad trend among readers as of late. They ignore or 'sweeten up' a bad reading. That is the worst thing you can do as a reader. Lying always comes with a hefty karmic debt, as well as the realization that you're denying your questioner a warning that could very well help them. Bad readings happen for a reason; you have no right to deny the questioner the knowledge they asked for from the moment you accepted their payment. Pass them on faithfully- and be sure to point out the fact the reading should be taken as a warning. Nothing is set in stone; what you have read is only one possibility and currently the strongest from that point in time. It can change, if they're willing to take the steps to do so. They cannot do this, however, if you do not tell them the truth.

4) It's tempting to want to tell fortunes to friends and such for free; this, however, is a very bad practice.  Both parties need to take something away from the reading- what the questioner pays with should be equal to the reading they hope to receive. Does this mean everyone has to give cold, hard cash? No. Even a child can throw down money and say "read for me!". Whatever they pay you with should have equal value in their mind to what they want to receive in return. For some folks- that is money. Yet as I stated to a friend once- the poor man who gives you a dollar for a reading will get one very bit as potent as the rich man who gives you a hundred dollars. Fortune telling doesn't care about financial values; it cares how much the questioner values the item they're giving you. Handmade jewelry, baked goods, home crafts- things that took personal effort on the questioner's part to create have every bit as much value- if not more- as money.  It is also important for payment to be given or agreed upon before the cards are shuffled.

5) Knowing how to handle your cards is also important. If you're a reader who lays your cards face down in the traditional style- be sure to always flip the cards face up by flipping them to the right. Never flip top-to-bottom and never to your left. Top to bottom renders the card false; to the left is an open invitation to ill luck. A questioner who understands these implications is very likely to be insulted if you behave so carelessly. If you're dealing with a cross-laid card, rotate it clockwise to determine its state. Going counter clockwise, or widdershins, is to render the card false and ruin the reading.

6) Self reading is a tricky region- some practices say it isn't advisable since there is no way to offer payment; others say it is allowable if you are willing to be bound to performing a service in return for the reading to whichever powers you believe in. Personally, I prefer to use them as a mirror...I dislike owing debts whose cost I don't know until it's time to pay. I never try to read into the future; I use self-readings pretty much as a 'mirror, mirror on the wall' - to see myself as I am at that exact moment. That is, as said, a personal choice rather than a rule, however.  For readers like myself, if we decide we want a future reading, we will generally go to another reader whom we trust.

So there you have it...some of the most 'basic' rules for Tarot that the New Age Fluffbunnies (also known as the bitter enemies of all things tied into traditional magic due to it actually requiring effort) do their utmost to pretend don't exist. Knowing these is the first step to learning to genuinely read the cards or knowing when you've encountered a fraud when you go out to get your own reading done. If you meet a fluffbunny; walk away. Maybe if it happens often enough, they'll start realizing just what a sad joke they are, though I have my doubts.

It's been a bad few years to live on good ol' Mother Earth, you have to admit. Ever since the tidal wave that hit Sri Lanka, the environment's grown increasingly more hostile as the weather figures out what it wants to do and fault lines and volcanoes react to the battering the continental plates took...and subsequently set off more.

Scientific theories aside, presently no one can control the weather or make the earth shake when they want it to. Deadly storms and natural disasters are facts of life and have been since this planet had an atmosphere. Yet some people think that just because there's massive cities in various places all across the globe, this means we had somehow managed to actually tame the planet itself and make it our little oyster.

Reality checks aren't much fun, now are they? Humankind can try to pretend they're above or have mastered the natural cycles all they want- events like the ones we've been getting the last few years always serve to remind us we're hardly the rulers of all we survey.

Do I think divine judgment is behind it? How about weather-warfare? Alien invasion maybe?

No, no and er...very much no. I don't discount the existence of aliens due to refusing to be conceited enough to think there's only one sentient race in the whole wide universe...but I'm also sort of refusing to be conceited enough to think that every alien and their great grand-whatever wants to invade our li'l floating dirtball planet, considering the mess it is. Observe, maybe...sort of like staring at a train wreck, you know? Don't want to look but just can't tear your eyes away.

I just see it this way: It's nature correcting and adjusting itself. It's done this for millenia. It's usually how we mark the ends and beginnings of various eras in our planet's development when things like this come up. Some areas are thawing, others are starting to get colder; it's just how it works for renewing worn out land and returning fresh land.

If we're smart little evolved monkeys, we'll start looking for a way to ensure we can ride out the environmental shifts like our ancestors did and take better care of the pretty new lands starting to be revealed instead of tearing them apart like we did the ones we currently have. It's not often you get a chance to try again- or offer the chance for your descendants to. Let's get it right, eh?

Now then..how does the final bit of my subject line, the one regarding finances, come in?

That comes more to the political aftershock that always follows a major disaster. People start donating to charities to help other nations with their problems- that's fine. It's a personal choice with money you had personally. But when I see people needing help here, and our government is off offering aid to another country that just had a disaster...I have to wonder something.

...Where was that when people this government is supposed to be looking after needed it? I'm not saying "Don't help other countries!"- I'm just wanting to know why it seems like they never, ever have the money to help their own people- but then have thousands if not millions to send to other countries that have their own governments to look after them.

Sorry if that makes me seem callous or shallow to all the sympathetic people of the world- but I live in the southern region of the United States. I've watched what our own little -and not so little- disasters do to people, I've watched them have to pull themselves up, lose everything twice over- maybe even three times before they get their feet back under them....

Where was all of that gracious money they're sending overseas when these people who look to their own homeland's government for help needed it? Sure, sending money to other countries in need is a great play on humanitarian politics...but neglecting your own people just to have the funds to do it with is downright cruel. These lands have governments of their own; they look after their own as a result. Why does it seem so hard for America to do the same thing? Is it really that important to look so important to the rest of the world while your own people are struggling just to keep it together?

Terrible disasters have hit Asia and myriad other places- and I wish their people well. I hope they survive, I hope their governments do what governments are supposed to do and they get back on their feet. Easier said than done, yes- but not impossible. I wish them well in it, and my prayers,such as they are, extend to them as well as to my own country. Money doesn't stretch quite that easily, however.

Help when you can; send well wishes when you have your own concerns. And I think anyone can look out the window as of late if you live here and note that America very much has its own concerns, even if it doesn't seem so obvious from the outside. A little bandaid slap of money and a slapdash trailer to call home while the government sends money elsewhere in the name of politics is not going to help straighten any of those issues out.

...And don't even get me started on the sheer amount of money our presidential hopefuls are wasting on their campaigns. Show me one who can put that money to GOOD use rather than slathering their faces all over billboards, TV and so forth...and I'll show you one who finally has my vote.

Until then? They can ALL go to hell; the mentality of all of them is the same when you get to the end. "Put me in charge because I know how to spend money!"

Allow me to say one thing before I dive into this. Alright, two: yes, this is a rant. And to the Tolkien fanbase members that are reasonable people who don't go diving around trying to burn other writers at the stake for daring to touch fantasy and using similar elements- this isn't about you at all. It's about your darker cohorts who pretty do just that every time they pick up a book, game or movie that they declare as having 'Tolkien' elements. I hate to say it; but there seems to be more of them than you.

----
You can't talk about single fantasy book without hearing Tolkien's name at some point or another.  It's the standard by which many fantasy books are judged these days- though I find myself sometimes getting flat out disgusted with the continual comparisons and- above all- the rampant "If it's not Tolkien, it was stolen from Tolkien!".

My dear rabid Tolkien fans, I have some sad news for you. Tolkien did not create fantasy; he did not even create the core of the lore which he used in his stories. His greatest contribution to fantasy was not the story he wrote, but the way in which he wrote it- so that all could gain access to it and read it. He set the standard for the modern fantasy novel in format and style; he proved you could print an epic that was not about reality in any way and have it sell.

Tolkien did not create orcs, goblins, trolls or elves. Even the hobbits are not fully his; they're adapted from legends about the Good Folk of Celtic lore. The man knew how to craft an amazingly told story- but anyone familiar with Celtic and Nordic mythology can easily find the elements he adapted to create his Middle-Earth and where he found his inspirations for particular details.

This is not a bad thing; this is how writing works, how art works- there is always going to be something that inspires you. And Tolkien was an incredibly inspired man. I don't deny I enjoyed his works- what I don't enjoy is how his supposed fanbase seems hellbent on ruining those works by insisting he created all of it. That from the depths of his mind, he created everything he used- elves, wizards, orcs, magical rings and all of this - to these people anyway - seem not to have existed in lore before Tolkien. Thus, everything that's using them obviously steals from him.

To those of you who say that- I say this: Take a college mythology course. Read the Nordic tales about Volsung, find the original Celtic fairy tales rather than the pretty sugared up things we get these days. Read something other and older than Tolkien and realize the man was a talented writer; not a god made flesh.

Stop with the accusations every time someone uses orcs or Nordic names for elves. The alfar (elves) are nordic, and even come in three different flavors:
Ljosalfar (or Liosalfar if you prefer)- the alien, sometimes beautiful beings that resemble humans to a point that live among the hills.
Dokkalfar - the outcasts of the Ljos; they bear a similar look but are considerably more vicious and frequent dark forests and empty mountain trails.
Svartalfar - small, dark skinned alfar that have been twisted from the other two and hide themselves away beneath the hills to evade the sun's light.

If anything sounds familiar there, it damned well should. Tolkien took some of his inspiration from them. They are not well known in today's fantasy world; you have to look for old stories and realize that sometimes the same race was referred to through several different names depending on the translator.

And above all: Stop saying that just because a magical ring turns up that's actually important to the story's plot, they're instantly trying to steal from him. I know of only one writer who could feasibly make the claim that someone took one of his original ideas: Michael Moorcock, creator of the Elric series and the vampiric sword Stormbringer. Just an interesting little note for you all: before his books, swords that displayed vampiric tendencies were practically unheard of. Those were traits that were kept firmly to living/once living things throughout fantasy both recent at the time and ancient.

Still not fully original: Magical swords and vampires have existed for millenia in various stories. He took two elements and combined them- viola. Stormbringer. Yet I don't see his fans screaming at every roleplaying game in existence that has vampiric weapons for stealing from him.

But put an important magic ring in the core plot or have orcs and my gods, you're a bloody thief! Disgracer of Tolkien! Unoriginal, uninspired thief!!

If that's the view the rabid fans want to take, then they'd better get a noose ready for their personal god: he was one of the biggest 'thieves' of all time in that regard. He just pulled from works that weren't widely published in a day and age where books were more a luxury item than something easily attained and enjoyed by the every day person.

Well, that ends my little rant. Probably won't change any rabid fans' views, but it got the steam out so I can at least avoid wringing the neck of the next one I have to deal with.

Until fairly recent times- I was the safety net. Whenever anything went wrong- financial or personal- I was the one everyone turned to in hopes of being held up, helped or comforted, all else failing. I was also the peace keeper and general ambassador when various members decided they weren't talking directly to each other but still needed to pass messages on.

And I'm the youngest member of the family to boot. Who says age brings maturity?

These days, I'm still the peace keeper and ambassador; but I've been forcibly retired from the safety net role due to my own need for one. Interesting pondering to toss out for others: who catches the person that catches everyone else when it's their turn to fall?

After much deliberation; I finally decided to try grabbing my own live journal...seeing as how my Victim of Fate blog was rather bland. So to anyone who doesn't know me who's reading this....How on earth did you get here anyway? To those who do know me or followed from one of my few 'post to' sites such as Deviant Art or FF.net; yes, I'm easier to find now and with a nicer looking thing to post my pointless thoughts, ponderings and other little random bits of musing on.

For those who've never had the dubious joy of dealing with me before in other formats: expect to read about world events, tarot cards, games of all sorts, painting and damned near anything else that happens to cross my mind. For those of you who have...well, you know what to expect.

Well this was 90% test run with this journal to see how it would look and so now I close it out. I may also experiment with throwing up entries to original works I'm doing (fanfiction will always go straight to ff.net), poems and so forth. Never hurts to spread it around.

So thanks for reading, even if I'm not quite sure how you found it, and I hope you enjoy my future and highly opinionated entries.

Oh, and if you wandered on by...stop by my city?. It's really rather tiny and quaint right now.