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~ A random repository of how-to-write and geekery, with an occasional snippet of accidental wisdom.

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Tag Archives: catholicism

Ashes

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

agents of shield, ash wednesday, catholic culture, catholicism, doctor who, lent, spiritual life

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Somehow, those words sound strangely beautiful to me. They always have, but I haven’t quite been able to put words to why until lately.

Maybe part of the reason why can be found in two shows that I’ve watched recently.

In the season finale of the first season of Agents of Shield, Fitz and Simmons are locked in an airtight steel box at the bottom of the ocean with (almost) no way out, and they talk about dying, as one does in a steel box at the bottom of the ocean. “It’s not so bad,” Jemma says, “that the rough matter in us will one day be part of a star.” (Or something to that effect.

In “The Rings of Akhaten,” the Doctor has taken Clara on an adventure far beyond her place in time or space. They go to a distant planet, where they meet a little girl whose one duty is to sing a song. Time has run out since the Sun-Singers started, however, and the little girl is terrified, so the Doctor tells her a story: that she is the only one like her, that every element in her body was forged in the heart of a supernova, and that nowhere else in all of time and space is to be found that singular identity that forms her.

During our new pastor’s Ash Wednesday homily, he quoted a lesser-known corollary of these same words: “Remember, dust, that you are man,” referring to the Resurrection.

It is such a curious and glorious fate that God can create things that are more than the sum of their matter.

Why I Love “Daredevil”

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Uncategorized

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

catholicism, christianity, daredevil, g.k. chesterton, marvel, marvel's daredevil, religion, story dynamics, writing

Lately, I’ve been watching Daredevil on a free trial of Netflix that I was forced to get in order to complete a different class. I might as well milk it for all it’s worth while I’ve got it.

It’s pretty different, watching Netflix shows. They tend to be written much more tightly and be more hard-hitting than TV shows. Since it’s sort of a “view at your own discretion” situation, they can also deal with things that most channels would shy away from discussing.

I love the way Daredevil is written. The dialogue is tight and loaded. Not a single word is wasted. Each character has a distinct voice, or even multiple voices–Matt has his “lawyer” voice, which is reasoned and comes across as almost stilted but very well put-together; his “informal” voice–his natural way of talking; and his “Daredevil” voice, which is much more terse than either of the others. The very choice of words builds into the characters.

At one point, Matt asks Karen if she believes; she replies that she doesn’t. In return, she asks him if he does. He replies “Catholic.” The reply is so textured, so many-faceted, not least because of his word choice.

It implies so much. Matt sees his faith as part of who he is, fundamentally; to him, it’s the thing that motivates him to take a stand and not back down; to get up again when he gets knocked down. It’s both a motivation and an example. For him, his faith is something concrete.

But it’s not just part of Matt’s identity that his word choice hints at.

It implies that Matt also believes that it doesn’t just matter that you believe; your exact beliefs matter too. That’s rather an unpopular opinion to hold in these days of watered-down Christianity, where hounded Christians greet any fellow Christian of any denomination as a friend in a world that seems to hate their guts. But that’s just a symptom–a welcome one, though–of a bigger problem.

A lot of people seem to think that it doesn’t matter what you believe, just that you do. Still more appear to be of the opinion that you can believe whatever you like, so long as you follow the nebulous call of “the right thing”–but no one seems to quite know what the right thing is.

But you see… people with all their beliefs laid out clearly on the table do.

The modern school of thought on “the right thing” grows out of a set of damaging beliefs from religions that people don’t dare to call out individually. And thus, they water down beliefs that common thought understands to be hurtful. Christianity gets watered down right along with them, even though it shouldn’t.

As a result, we get a series of feel-good philosophies that are, once you’ve lived them out for a while, hollow and dingy, and when they don’t feel fulfilled people just move on and try the next one, or they throw their hopes into exercise or yoga or things that have much more potential for harm.

That is not what religion is meant to be.

Let me repeat myself: that is not what religion is meant to be!

Religion is hard-hitting. It doesn’t pull its punches. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Either you believe it all, or you put your faith in nothing. It’s as simple as that.

Personally, I believe that there is God and the devil. I believe in Heaven and Hell; I believe in the Bible, and I believe in the Savior. I can’t compromise. This is, as it is for Matt Murdoch, part of who I am.

I won’t apologize (as in, say I’m sorry.) But I will apologize (as in, live out my faith for everyone to see, and defend it if it’s attacked.)

Another thing about the zeitgeist; anything is permissible as long as “it’s just who I am!” Well, this is just who I am. Are you offended?

If you are, I recommend that you look really closely at the reasons why.

(I also recommend that you watch Daredevil. There’s some language, and it’s very violent, graphic and even gory in parts, but it’s also a very good show, both writing and morality-wise.)

Thanks for reading, and God Bless!

Image

Happy Easter!

05 Sunday Apr 2015

Tags

catholic culture, catholicism, easter, happy easter!, living life with passion, religious life, religious themes, roman catholic

If you can't see this pic, you're missing out. :-P

Medium: Sketch paper and pencil. And a lot of time and hard work.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Thanks for stopping by. 🙂 Have a wonderful Easter, and may God bless you today and always!)

(Some of you might be wondering about the symbolism in the art. The cross is obvious enough, but that ain’t no Phoenix. Also, why it’s titled “Pelican” but doesn’t look like an actual… well, pelican. That latter part is because I’m a lazy artist who prefers to stylize her birds. Also, symbolism. Anyway, I’m not surprised if you don’t know the Pelican–it’s a lesser-known icon in religious symbolism. The Pelican is said to pierce its breast and give its blood to feed its young in times of famine, preserving the lives of its children, but often dying in the process. As such, it has become a symbol of the Savior. Geeky but awesome stuff–like an albatross represents the sinner returning home. Anyway, you can go on with your lives now. If I’ve brought an interesting new fact into your trivia folder, I say, “Mission complete.”)

Posted by erinkenobi2893 | Filed under Artwork, Living Life with Passion

≈ 10 Comments

TCWT: What’s normal?

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

authors, baroness emma orczy, bbc sherlock, brian jacques, captain america: the first avenger, catholic culture, catholicism, christian fiction, christianity, creative writing, dee henderson, disney, dynamic characters, editing, editor, fantasy, frozen, generations, invented religions, jorge luis borges, living life with passion, loyalties, macguffins, magic realism, marvel, novels, o'malley series, paranormal, redwall, religious themes, roman catholic, sherlock holmes, sir arthur conan doyle, spiritual, star wars, story dynamics, story tools, supernatural, t.h. white, the avengers, the scarlet pimpernel, the sword in the stone, uncommon heroes series, urban fantasy, world building, writing

I thought that I would not be doing TCWT again. I’m almost too old to do it. But I decided to come back at least one last time. So, here you go.

The prompt was “What do you think is commonly done well in literature? Done poorly?” I think it depends on the author and genre as much as anything else. Some things are well-done in one genre and horrific in another, or okay in one and marvelous in another.

Religious themes. A character’s religion, how they practice it, if they really live their faith, if they even practice what they preach at all, is a marvelous tool in character development whether you are religious or not. I have never been able to understand why some people neglect it. A character’s beliefs, including their religious persuasion, tells us quite a bit about that character. (This is why, if someone leaves the religion space on their character sheet blank, I often have headcanons about their beliefs.) Some books where this is done well: Dee Henderson’s “Uncommon Heroes” and “O’Malley” series (among the only romance I actually read). Living what you preach is a sign of sincerity, honesty, and sometimes even of courage. Often, it takes courage to say more than “non-denominational” on your forms, and the thing is, these characters don’t overtly try to convert others. It is the way they live that makes others think, “Wow. I wish I had what they have.” A book where this is done poorly: Many books (sadly) in the Christian fiction genre. (Oftentimes, Christian fiction is like romance; you have to be extremely choosy to find the good stuff.)

Religious themes in general: If a character actually lives what they preach, then religious themes in the plot itself are generally a given. Normally, you won’t run into actual angels or demons “on-set”, but the forces of evil vs. the good guys will probably happen. I very much prefer the sort of stories with a fallible main character, who falls and fails and then gets up again and apologizes for it (or, sometimes, doesn’t apologize and then sees the error of his ways.) Everything else just feels like another Christian fiction forgettable Mary Sue.

I also like to see slightly-different versions of real-world religions in stories (such as the world where Christianity developed slightly different, though all the teachings are still the same, the practices are different; some practices never evolved, while some that don’t exist in the real world did.)

Magic Realism. Now and again, I love a good story with spiritual/supernatural themes in the magical realism style, where it’s all strongly realist and then seamlessly in comes a bit of the supernatural. I love it when the plot twist throws me off, but when I look back into the rest of the book, I can see how it was subtly setting it up the whole time. Sadly, many “paranormal” stories tend to be “paranormal” throughout, without any magic realism. For me, it’s not urban fantasy if they don’t have the urban before they have the fantasy. Otherwise, it’s just fantasy.

A few notes on urban fantasy: I have read a couple of very good dystopian/urban fantasy novels where the story was very well-written. One of the biggest shockers, in my opinion, is when something that’s out of our normal experience happens and the characters treat it like a normal occurrence, because in their world, it is normal.

Items with character and/or significance. Now and again, there will be a MacGuffin that really ties everything together; it doesn’t even matter what the MacGuffin is, it is the significance that goes along with it. For instance, in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, it was Padme’s charm that Anakin gave her when they were both very young. (I swear, Attack of the Clones would have been so much better if at some point, Padme had slipped the japor snippet out of the collar of her dress and said quietly, “I still have the amulet you gave me.” I would be shipping Anidala so much harder than I do now, trust me.) In my novel Loyalties, it is the multi-generational hand-me-down amulet, the symbol of a master’s care for his apprentice, which is worn hidden in the French braid across the back of an apprentice’s head (or, alternatively, depending on the circumstances, hung on its ribbon around their neck,) that ties the generations together, as it is passed down from Rynnar to Winter (who tries, upon his leaving active service as a Ranger, to return it, but Rynnar refuses to accept it), and later from Winter to his apprentice Elían, and is constantly there to remind Winter of Rynnar, even in Rynnar’s absence, during the first book. (I’m certainly praying to the Muse that I end up doing it right.)

Martin the Warrior’s sword, in the Redwall series, is a recurring object that serves to both tie the series together, and to remind everyone of Redwall’s first Champion. Another example would be Sir Percy Blakeney’s “pimpernel” signet ring in the Scarlet Pimpernel books (which, though not recurring, was key to the first book–was that a spoiler? I hope not…)

Items that get left behind. In my opinion, many authors these days tend to forget about this. Things get broken and left behind. Things are not overly important, and things should not be overly important to the characters. For instance, someone can and will lose their arrows or throwing knives (which, believe it or not, is a loss that was, in the past, a very hard one, since both were very valuable, especially arrows, which were hard and time-consuming to make by hand and thereby expensive. There will be times when someone rips their shirt or goes swimming and loses it. For some reason, authors these days seem too often to ignore these instances.

On the other hand, a character losing something with sentimental value can be a very emotional moment. It can be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Or it can illustrate that at this point, the character doesn’t even care any more, or is just grateful that they got out of there alive. Martin the Warrior loses his father’s sword, which Tsarmina snaps in half, pushing him into vowing vengeance on the wildcat, as it was the only thing he had left to remember Luke by. Someone’s horse dies, and it’s a very emotional moment. Beaumont the hound in The Sword in the Stone (book, not the movie.)

Or, someone escapes a burning building to find that they left their old notebook behind. When the other character offers sympathy, the first just says, “It’s all right. It was only a notebook. I’m just glad we both got out alive.” Or even, “I don’t need it any more,” illustrating a dynamic moment in a character’s journey. Moments like these are a tool that is sometimes sadly neglected. People tend to forget that in a prior era, people would attach value to things using a different methodology than we do today. They would keep things because they were valuable or hard to replace, not because of sentiment, quite so much. In realistic historical fantasy, this is sometimes a stumbling block, though not always. (Kristoff losing his sleigh in Frozen could have been done so much better. At least they weren’t afraid to have people lose their gear in the movie.)

Use of small cues. This is a big one. Some people nowadays seem to want everything to be blatantly obvious and to avoid the search for small meanings and symbolism. This is the reason why some people hate character movies and characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi; they don’t see anything past the not-really-action of the movies or the character’s quiet, unassuming exterior. Forsaking dynamic characters for the sake of flash, some people end up creating Mary Sues.

However, I believe there are authors out there who do this really well (Brian Sanderson, Liam? I think I got that impression,) using small character cues, such as a slight movement, a nervous habit (such as fiddling with one’s sleeves) that recurs throughout the book, and tiny facial expressions that are left open for the readers to interpret to subtly build well-rounded, fleshed-out, dynamic characters. After a while, the reader becomes familiar with a repeated movement (“oh, Halt’s up to something; there’s the eyebrow!” “He’s reaching for his cuffs, even though he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Poor kid.”) and learns to associate it with certain moods or actions. After a while, if you’ve seen The First Avenger, you get to recognize Steve Rogers’ nervous half-smile and distinguish it from his awkward smile, his stage smile, and the genuine article in Avengers. (Did anyone else notice how eerily similar Coulson’s non-offensive “I’m not a threat or even important to the plot at all; take no notice of me” half-smile is to Steve’s awkward smile? Since we know Steve better than we know Coulson, this tiny little fact, whether intentional brilliance on the part of Joss Whedon and whatsisname who plays Coulson or happy serendipity, tells us loads about Coulson as a character.)

Excessive stage drama queens. Basically, some characters just draw attention to themselves when they shouldn’t, detracting from the plot and being blatantly obvious (“don’t be obvious!”–>Moriarty’s best advice ever!), so much so that it’s sickening. This is just annoying. If it fits into the plot and the character, all well and good; it works! (This is why we actually can like Tony Stark.) But if not, then… then what’s the point? Seriously. All you have is an over-made-up actor who can’t even recite his lines properly. BORING. *shoots the wall* Sickening.

For me, most of what annoys me is blatantly obvious or lacking when it should be there. Of course, my pet peeves will be different from other people’s, but I think that all authors should try to improve their work based around these issues.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this listing of things I think are well-done but could be improved in fiction, thanks for reading and God bless you, as always, and don’t forget to drop by the other blogs on the chain through the rest of January! 😉


5th – http://whileishouldbedoingprecal.weebly.com/

6th – http://jasperlindell.blogspot.com/

7th – https://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/ (you are here) and http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/ (this would be Rosalie; I still need to read her post so now I’m done with mine I’m heading over to do that.)

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

9th – https://ramblingsofaravis.wordpress.com/

10th – http://semilegacy.blogspot.com/

11th – http://kirabudge.weebly.com/

12th – http://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

13th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/

14th – http://dynamicramblings.wordpress.com/

15th – http://theedfiles.blogspot.com/

16th – https://horsfeathersblog.wordpress.com/  

17th – http://www.juliathewritergirl.com/

18th – http://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

19th – https://gallopingfree.wordpress.com/

20th – http://www.alwaysopinionatedgirl.wordpress.com/

21st – https://deborahrocheleau.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://irisbloomsblog.wordpress.com/

23rd – https://clockworkdesires.wordpress.com/

24th – https://introspectioncreative.wordpress.com/

25th – http://wanderinginablur.blogspot.com/

26th – https://anotefromthenerd.wordpress.com/

27th – http://randommorbidinsanity.blogspot.com

28th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

29th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll announce the topic for next month’s chain.)

(Hey, look! Rosalie and I share a day! Awesome. ^_^)

Superhero Sunday: In the end, you will always kneel.

07 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Uncategorized

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

awesomeness beyond awesome, catholic culture, catholicism, christianity, david foster wallace, humor, religion, roman catholic, superhero sunday, the avengers, theology

Yes, I did borrow Proverbs31teen‘s theme. Heehee. I promise I’ll put it back when I’m done with it. ;-P

Well, if I may, I shall direct you to a certain evening in Stuttgart…

The point I am hoping to make with this, other than Why in Midgard is Loki speaking English in Germany?! Why not just German with English subtitles!?, is the quote “In the end, you will always kneel.” and the old man’s response, “Not to men such as you.” It’s a brilliant piece of dialogue, if you think about it.

As David Foster Wallace noted in his “Kenyon Commencement Speech,” everyone has to worship something, be it power or kindness or wealth or in the context of religion. All we have to choose is what to worship, since we have no choice but to define what is important in our lives. In the end, we will always kneel. The question is, to what? Wallace goes on to state that choosing religion is a fair choice, since “pretty much everything else will eat you alive.” I say that that’s because being worshiped is for God only, and when things don’t follow the natural order, they tend to become twisted and perverted.

(This is why I love Captain America: )

And look what happens later in the movie! Loki tries to take over as a self-proclaimed god.

And… gets himself whopped.

I don’t know about you, but God uses men as his tools, so I think that’s pretty much a divine intervention. 😛

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