Mythology, Mythology World Tour, Observations, Writing

Mythology World Tour: The Igbo

February 16, 2015 Jeremy Varner

After relaunching the blog, getting a few cute holiday articles out of the way and getting past one hell of a seasonal health problem, I’m back and ready to dig back into the mythologies of the world.

For those just joining, the premise is simple: our fantasy genre, especially epic fantasy, is determined in large part by the mythologies that originated out of countries touched by the crusades. The dragons and ghouls that grace our pages are essentially just one version of thousands we could be drawing from. So, in an effort to inspire some diversity in the stories we tell, I’ve made a point to start learning about new religions and then take some time to shine a light on the alternatives I’m finding along the way.

As we last left this series, we were deep in the mythologies of the major West African cultures with the Efik and their not so friendly creator deity Abassi, may he never notice humanity has invented the internet. The Efik, as a result of their beliefs, have had some rough relationships with other cultures. And one of the cultures most impacted by the Efik in this region were their neighbors…

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About me, Futurism, Observations, Sci-Fi

A Brighter Future

February 13, 2015 Jeremy Varner

As someone who puts what I think online as an occupation, I’ve been insulted a lot. This isn’t new to me, but it has been a bit more common since I started a blog and opened a twitter account. I’ve been called many things, from “fraud” to “Californistan Idiot”, and most of them are just knee-jerk reactions from knee-jerk people. But the one that I’ve often heard throughout my life is a common impression that I “think too much”.

I try to laugh and not get sad about the fact that’s apparently an insult in today’s society.

It’s taken many variations over the years, but the common thread is that if I stop to think and really analyze something rather than get swept up in the emotion of it – I’m an asshole. It’s not just random people on the internet either, I’ve been informed of this by friends a few times. I often joke that I’m just a robot who is trying to understand what humans call “love” – and a couple people have implied that I really am just a machine.

Data_poker_face — I have no idea what they are talking about.

However, one insult of this variety recently came in the form of someone calling me “cynical”. Ironically, this man then proceeded to show he didn’t know what cynicism was as he went on basing his entire argument against me in his own personal cynicism. But it was the same old argument that I’ve had with almost everyone I’ve ever known: “why can’t you just let me be angry/sad/happy about this thing without making me think about it?!”

The simple reason? Because I’m not cynical, I have a lot of hope for where we’re going. I expect better of us, and more importantly, I expect…

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Agent of Argyre, Alterpedia, FICTION

Alterpedia: Arachne

February 6, 2015 Jeremy Varner 2 Comments

In the Alters’ World (and the series of books found here), creatures of legend reveal themselves to the world. Born through genetic abnormalities, defects and mutations, the Alters have lived for centuries as outcasts of human society, hiding their true nature from the world while colorful stories have been written by many to describe what they’ve seen. How are these creatures different from what was described in the stories? What relationship do they have with humanity? Every entry of the Alterpedia will delve into a new creature from around the world. This week we cover:

Arachne

Around the world there are creatures which are universally known by humanity to symbolize conflicting emotions. It is no mistake that in each of these regions you find mythology which, in turn, connects to these creatures. For instance, snakes are a common symbol across many human civilizations – from the Naga of India to the Grootslang of Southern Africa. In similar fashion, spiders are a symbol of both fear and creation the world over.

In Japan they are known by the names Tsuchigumo and Jorōgumo, in Africa there is the famous trickster Anansi, and in Greece there was the story of Arachne. But regardless of the location, the primary trait remains the same: these are creatures which appear to be a hybrid of humans and spiders. The stories change depending on the relationship the locals have with the spiders in their area, but many of the aspects remain the same.

So are these creatures really just giant spiders, lurking in the shadows and tormenting the humans around them? Was Anansi really a profound trickster or just a misunderstood soul? Am I valid in contemplating burning the whole planet to purge these people from the world?

Probably not the last one, but for the rest, let’s take a look…

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Writing

Writing Someone Else’s World – Good Fan-Fiction 101

February 4, 2015 Jeremy Varner 2 Comments

Last week I came to the defense of fan-fiction and the people who write it. As I said then, many of us have written it in the past, including many professionals, but the entire thing has been stigmatized to the point that every former fan-fiction writer I’ve known talks about it with shades of shame and a dose of self-deprecation. I have yet to speak to someone talk about their old fan-fiction and then tell me something they did right.

Think about that. It’s common enough to hate your old work, but everyone remembers their first truly original peace (with just as many flaws) with at least one good memory. The fact that we remember the fan-fiction solely for our mistakes shows that we’ve scorned the entire practice to the point that it’s like admitting that you touch yourself at inappropriate times.

Though, considering a lot of the sub-genres within fan-fiction, they may related for some.

The point is, I’ve seen fan-fiction act as a gateway drug – a chance for people to enter writing in a safe place and with the pieces already laid out for them. But, as is so incredibly clear, the better practices of writing aren’t something that people start to learn until they exit the fan-fiction stage because…who are they going to ask? Everyone who knows enough to teach them is generally laughing at them. And, frankly, that’s part of that barrier of entry they’re trying to edge around.

So let’s drop the scorn for a bit and try to be constructive…

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FICTION, Writing

Fan-Fiction – The Gateway Drug

January 28, 2015 Jeremy Varner 1 Comment

I’m going to break kayfabe here and admit something writers aren’t supposed to admit: we need to be liked. It’s a poorly kept secret, but if you ever ask someone why they write they’ll almost never admit that’s part of their motivation. Everyone, everywhere, has that same answer in their back pocket that can be recited without effort at the drop of a hat, “I do it because I love to write”.

But we need to be liked.

It’s common sense, but writers are trained almost from the start to pretend they don’t. We’re told that you have to write for the love of writing alone and that you shouldn’t crave attention. But none of us dream of being the guy who writes technical manuals, we dream of being Twain, Tolkien, or Rowling. It’s true you should never enter writing for the money, because Ray Bradbury couldn’t afford a car until he was 37 and Neil Gaiman never saw a dime from his first published book despite the fact it was a best seller. But we need to be liked to keep going forward. We don’t need to be liked by everyone, in fact a lot of us thrive off of being disliked by certain groups, but when life gets hard we need that pat on the back to keep going forward.

I jokingly wrote on my bio page that if you’re here and reading this then I love you. It’s only a joke because it’s funny and it’s funny because it’s true. If you’re reading this right now then you’re giving me a little bit of what I’m needing to keep going every day. And I write here to try to entertain you, like a dancing monkey. My goal with this blog, across all of the topics that I write about, is to try to make you fond enough of me to come back and see me dance some more. All of us do this, but we can’t admit it because that wouldn’t be “artistic” if we all admitted the fact we may be dancing monkeys.

Dancing-Monkey — Though, this is not actually a “monkey”, but close enough.

And that’s why we have a love/hate relationship with one of the greatest forms of flattery we could possibly see…

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Futurism, Observations, Sci-Fi

Sci-fi Isn’t The Future, It’s Just A Tribute

January 23, 2015 Jeremy Varner

It’s 2015 and the internet is full of jokes about how this is the year Back to the Future II was set. Everyone was giddy about the fact someone actually built a semi-functional hoverboard late last year with plans to put together a skate park for it in the coming couple years. Because, of course, when people think about the future, they get most excited about a flying plank than something like, say, fusion reactions powered by garbage.

However, recent stories in the news and the internet’s echo chamber have me realizing just how silly we’ve been about the whole future thing as of late. As sci-fi writers, the goal is to try to envision the little problems of today being fixed tomorrow and see if we can manage to get it close enough that people believe it could happen. But one of the oddities of the last few decades has been just how often we try to credit sci-fi with “inspiring” good ideas. Problem being: good ideas tend to inspire themselves, while good sci-fi is making an educated guess.

A great example of this would be the fact cellphones temporarily looked an awful lot like early Star Trek communicators. During the time when flip-phones were the dominant life-form of the electronic landscape, everyone liked to pass around the image of Kirk holding the old flip open communicator and going, “See? It’s all true!”

But it wasn’t, because we’ve already moved past the flip phone and onto a superior and completely different beast in the form of PDA inspired smartphones. Basically, if Kirk’s communicator were the good idea, rather than a good guess at what would eventually come, then we wouldn’t have moved past it to better ideas that were never really shown to exist in that universe.

Lately, though, we’ve been trying to force our pop culture into becoming “real”. Sometimes that can lead to good things, other times it leads to wasting time or skipping past better ideas so we can scratch the itch. Which, leads to the question…

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Writing

Wednesday Workshop: Blogging – Choosing A Platform

January 7, 2015 Jeremy Varner

As I was relaunching the blog recently, I decided that every day of the week needed multiple topics for me to rotate through so I could continue to update at a regular interval without destroying my sanity. In the middle of it, I had a momentary delusion of grandure where I pictured people asking me for advice directly in the comments section. This was a far flung idea and I imagined it wouldn’t happen often, but I still went to the trouble of creating a tag for it and calling it “Workshop”.

Color me surprised when it turned out people actually had questions for me.

In fact, what I discovered was that there were a lot of people who had the same question. So, today, on my first Workshop Wednesday ever, I’m going to answer the question…

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Mythology

Monday Myths: Fun with Silver

January 5, 2015 Jeremy Varner

As part of my new and improved schedule, I thought it’d be fun if I took some little known details about traditional mythology I’ve learned over the years and share them with everyone. These details can be curiosities, explanations for oddities in folklore, and even explanations for why people believe some of these things even into the modern day. A lot of this is stuff that I learned myself over the years researching my books and the things I could include within. So it’s only fair to spread the wealth of knowledge and share some of the more interesting details I’ve uncovered, since I wouldn’t have known either without that research.

I’m not saying that this will be entirely “new”. I’m not even saying that you’re not going to have some passing knowledge of everything here. But what I am willing to wager is that, even if you know the basic details, there are things involved in what I’m going to share that you just… didn’t know before.

Case in point is an oldie but goodie that people don’t really think about too hard and just accept at face value. For centuries we’ve all known that silver is supposed to strike down wicked forces and, if crafted into a bullet, could kill some cursed creatures such as werewolves. But how often do you stop to ask why that particular metal would do that? Why not something more valuable like gold or platinum? Why is it that this one metal above all others seems to be used more often than any other in protection from evil?

Some of you might know everything I’m about to share here. But, for the rest of you, I’d like to introduce you to the myths revolving around…

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Agent of Argyre, Alterpedia, FICTION

Alterpedia: Krampus

January 2, 2015 Jeremy Varner

Krampus

As the Holiday Season comes to a close, one figure has received some harsh treatment by those who know his name. Krampus, the dark companion of Saint Nicholas, is known throughout many countries as a figure of terror for “bad” children. Carrying sticks or whips to beat wicked children and a bag to potentially carry them off to some terrible place, the Krampus is the stick to Saint Nicholas’ carrot.

But is this reputation deserved? Have Krampuses really been tormenting children unprovoked as a jolly man laughs in the corner? Or is this just a case of propaganda being used to keep an underrepresented class in check?

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