ink_n_imp | Entries tagged with my writing

So, once again I am participating in a little original story writing exchange thingamabob called

thingsunwritten. And once again, absolutely, completely, positively and utterly true to form, I've tossed what I began the first week I got my writing request right out the window, and have started a completely new beast of a story.

Seriously, I've gone from rewriting the Grimm fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red as a very thinly veiled allusion to Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I with some magic and romance thrown into the mix, and instead am writing a romantic buddy comedy about a Knight and a Godmother who have to protect a Princess throughout her childhood set in the vaguely middle ages.

(Romance and Magic were requested, btw.)

I feel like I need to draw myself a new icon, a picture of a skeleton covered in cobwebs, hunched over one of those monastic work stations, quill still in hand with only "WIP" as the text. If only I were a better drawer!

Ah well. Back to work. This sucker is due the 23rd, and DANGNABIT I AIM TO PLEASE!!!

EDIT: IfOnce I finish this story, I am entirely pouring libations to the kind soul who uploaded the Pinocchio soundtrack to a music lj I'm part of. That soundtrack it practically writing the thing for me!

I really have to stop getting ideas from people. Seriously. Stop inspiring me with this half baked story ideas and plot devices and characters that further develop in my brain whilst distracting me from whatever other work I'm suppose to be doing.

Back in ninth grade, Wyatt and Dan wrote a story about our high school where it's violently taken over, Long Island/East coast is decimated, all the students are used for military testing/training, world plunged into war, etc, etc, which--one day while we were RPG'ing, I remember, and expressed interest in rereading. So, I asked Wyatt, he found it, pulled it out, and now...

I trying to draw a manga series.

*hits head on desk*

I've character sketches, ideas, bad guys, basic backgrounds--this thing just keeps GROWING, damnit, it just grows and grows and grows! But the mechanics of comic drawing allude me, since I am a writer at most and a hackneyed drawer at best. So, I took out some books. I've been practicing. I can actaully consistently draw a character now (FINALLY!)

And now, I've got something to do while in Florence. There may be updates as the semester goes on, maybe with some pic uploads and stuff. We shall see. It just such a great plot with awesome characters that I have actually been able to create and draw that I don't want to give it up, even if it gets tough.

*anime sweat beads*

Which I'm sure it will get. Oh so sure am I.

Curse my ambition.

and my inability to finish what I start. :/

Current Mood: thoughtful

EDIT: Fix some grammer and some wording at 8 pm...whatcha think?

I got into the NYU study abroad all right, but now I want to get this application for the Acton scholarship done, and I just typed up this essay.

This is were you come in. This is the one time I'm going to beg comments from youse guys. I need you to tell me if it works with the essay requirement. It's all I got. Tell me if it works and if I've got to fix it.

BUT.......I need your opinions by the 14th. As in, tomorrow. Seriously. I just got accepted to the program yesterday and I found out about this scholarship today. I'm working on a REALLY tight deadline, so give a girl a hand.

For your consideration, the essay topic:

As New Yorkers, cultural exchange is a part of our everyday lives. For example, you might hear 5 languages on a 10-minute ride on the subway. Tell the story of a cross-cultural expreience you've had in New York City, and describe how it relates to your interest in study abroad."

And, my Response:

(A/N: YES, I'm adopted. I know that. I'm not really Sicilian. But that's what application essay are all about: fudging facts, writing really fucking well, and having a SHIT LOAD OF DRAMA!! SO...I'm Sicilian. Mi Mangi. Also, this was written between the time of 4am to 536 am. Eh...sudden deadlines are a bitch.)

"Caucasian
Antonella Inserra

Desperate for an informant, and figuring I could kill two birds at once in the process, last semester I interviewed my Aunt Angela for my final paper in "Human Cultures and Society". The topic was Immigration, a topic that was nothing new to me. Like many others in this city, my parents are immigrants, my family an immigrant family. Our roots are in Sicily.

As American-born, I am hungry for stories of life in Sicily. How fortunate then, that I could learn about my own family while working on my final paper.

I visited my Aunt Angela in Brooklyn--her apartment fits both her and her sister, Giovanna comfortably. Their social security check from Italy for their past years in teaching pays the bills. Unlike my grandmother, they stayed too long in Italy to consider getting an American citizenship. They moved here to be near the family, but they will not betray Italy like that.

The interview lasted three hours. Having taken three semesters' worth of Italian, I tried to conduct the interview in "Eng-talian" in order to help things along. Things were going swimmingly, until my parents and my grandmother stopped by the apartment to see if I was finished.

I tried to include my grandmother into the discussion, to get a slightly different perspective, but something was wrong. Even with my "Eng-talian" there was still a language barrier. Unlike Angela, my grandmother didn't go to a university; because of that, she speaks more Sicilian than Italian.

For two areas so close together, you would think the languages would be vaguely similar. But Sicilian has more in common with Greek, Arabic, African and Spanish than just Italian. Even Southern Italian is grammatically different, making comprehension difficult.

It is for this very reason that Sicilian is dying. It is not the language of the industrial, prosperous Northern Italy. It's provincial, so it is abandoned in schools. As an anthropology major, I can recognize this loss of cultural linguistic nuance as common--but as I tried to speak with my grandmother, it saddened me.

We stand at the greatest cultural meld in all of history: we argue that America is more a "salad bowl" of culture, where immigrants try to incorporate their traditions into their new lives instead of melting into American society. But Europe, from an American viewpoint, is quickly becoming the melting pot. In applying to NYU, I was asked on the form if I was black, Hispanic, Native American, Caucasian, or other. This is what a European heritage as been boiled down to: Caucasian. Much like Hispanic is used to describe all of South and Mezzo America, a single word had come to represent not just white America, but all of Europe.

I am Sicilian-American--I feel I can claim this without question. My parents were born in Sicily after all. And yet countries and regions like Sicily, Albania, Greece, and Russia: countries traditionally viewed as "other", as "inferior", are now "Caucasian". But as I look around New York City, I see people unwilling to just melt into Caucasian--or whatever other term used to categorize them--whether they be Russians, Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Koreans or Greeks. In this city, I see the world's largest Caribbean Diaspora. In this city, I pass by "Chinatown" every day while riding the NYU bus to class. And yet "The Caribbean" is a region, "Asia" is a continent, and these lands do not hold a single culture--something a tourist might gloss over, but a New Yorker is reminded of as they walk these streets. In this city I see people who know that their culture is worth more than a single word on a college application.

As a daughter of Italian immigrants, I want to see Italy. I want to get that much closer to the country that has been at the center of my family for so long. As an anthropology major, however, I want to find in Europe what I find here, in this city. I want to explore Europe and find its' cultural niches before Europe becomes the amorphous "Caucasian". I don't want the communities of New York to be my only example of Europe as it was. I want to see Europe as it is now, before it is gone forever.

Current Mood: anxious

Allow me to introduce myself. I...am The Minstrel of Gondor. No, not the one of The Warbling Voice. I am The Minstrel of...The Not Warbling Voice. There is absolutely no warble in my voice.

The Mistress of this Live Journal has not 'posted' in over a month, and--eager to change this sad state of affairs--she has allowed me to post mine own works, so that all may read and enjoy.

I have traveled far and wide, for many years and over many roads. In my many travels, I have learned many tales, and have created many songs, all pertaining to Middle Earth. I have always shared my trade and art with all who would care.

But there was one lay which has for these many years been kept in silence. Only two others know of the Tale of Gélatín, and the Wet Morsel that was the Savior of the World. But we can remain silent for no longer. Both

singealiene and

unkai agree with me though...the tale shall be told...it should be told...And I shall tell you it...now.

The Lay of Mr. Juicy Sweet

Gather around, all ye who hear
The tale I will unfold
The story of a mighty race
Spawned in the days of old.

This line was of the very blessed,
These Caretakers of the deep.
Bred from the Mighty Maia,
Gélatín--the deep sea was his keep.

‘Gélatín!’ cried the Valar,
The hour he joined the sea
‘Leave not your Maia brothers
Leave not this land of green!

Leave not Telperion and Laurelin!
Leave not your cloak and dirk.
To fall to such low solitude
below the watery mirk.’

He turned his cold dark eyes of glass
From the Pelori--
Lest his heart should weep and tears created
a second Sundering Sea.

‘No, my Lords, mine own heart’s joy!’
Gélatín he did cry,
‘Abuse me not and tempt not now--
I’ve deeds to do, oh fie!

‘Mine glassy eye has seen a foe
That threatens all the land.
His first coming shall be bad,
But he will be thwarted as if sand.

'I fear not for his first approach,
But how my heart does tremble!
For when this foe strikes again,
It will be quite a tussle!

'To save the lives of mortal men
I shall prepare a savior--
He shall be strong and firm and wise
And of a tasty flavor.’

And with those words
Transformed he did,
Into a monstrous creature!
Of scales and tails
Of Bone and flesh
Of sharp fins
And long whiskers.

From his mighty fishy loins
(though fish with loins seems rather queer)
Sprang forth a royal school of fish.
Towards all their foes they showed no fear.

The line did grow,
In size and strength
In wisdom and in pride.
And yet it weakened them, oh yes,
And ate them from inside.

So great were they as warriors,
Their enemies, they grew few,
Until at last in heated throes,
They fought amongst their own.

BUT LO! Some did escaped!
The smallest did survive.
True copies of their sire’s self
In everything but size.

To mortal men they seemed mere fish
Who roamed the rivers and the streams.
And many fought a losing battle
And many dreamed a dying dream.

But all this strife had been foreseen
By Gélatín, the Sire of all things,
And he proclaimed the coming of
A mighty lord and Fish King!

A mighty king,
A King of kings!
Of Maia, Fish, and Man!
The only one to save the land
From Morgoth’s evil plan.

For all that lives of fish and man,
All creatures (land and sea)
He would be a savior
That would die most willingly!

There would come a day (oh day of days!)
Where he would met and defeat
This foe of foes, would be no more--
Because of Juicy Sweet!

Juicy Sweet would be his name,
Messiah of the Fish!
Born to die, to sacrifice
Himself to a shameful hiss.

To save all fish of his descent
From equal, cruel fate!
The gnashing, grinding
Pulling, ripping teeth of wretched hate!

He’ll swim the torrid fiery currents
Of the hellish burning deeps,
To be reborn in crystal waters
Made pure in bounds and leaps!

Then no evil will stand before
His wrath and righteous fin
And all the world be washed anew
And all shall be his kin.

All shall not come to naught,
When Melkor shall raise his head,
For swallowed up shall he be
Like a kipper in the sea.

Oh! Come my lord of raging river!
Come my King of Sundering Sea!
In you I place my love and trust--
My Mighty Juicy Sweet!

Current Music: The Lay of Mr. Juicy Sweet

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She Likes Coffee and I Like Tea

and that is why we don't agree.

Entries tagged with my writing

My story for thingsunwritten, in a non-twist of Fate, remains unwritten.

My ambition has gotten the better of me...AGAIN!

Ok guys, I really need your help with this

Greetings...

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December 2010

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