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My name is Diana. My username is a Polish word I fell in love with after stumbling across it in an excerpt from a book.
I love stories, and I love writing. I just graduated from college May 2012 and I still haven't started seriously pursuing my writing. I think that now is the ideal time to start, because delaying any longer would just be a loss. I'm a fan of science fiction and fantasy, and I especially love character stories. I look forward to immersing myself in this great online writing community! Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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You have hit upon a great place to learn about writing your own stories and even new stories to read. Friendly too.
However as you wonder hither and yon on the treehouse do be careful. There's this unicorn and she can be mean at times.
Posts: 4258 | Registered: Jun 2010
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I still really want to know what the unicorn is. (I actually have a stuffed unicorn by my computer right now.) Anyway - Welcome, Diana. I graduated college in May '11. I'm in grad school now, and I write when I can. I look forward to reading your stories! P.S. If you ever figure out what LDWriter's unicorn represents, please let me know. It's going to bug me until I find out. :D
Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2012
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tęsknota, minuscule E, meaning nostalgic yearning, an apt username for a writer. Since a fundamental quality of all strong creative writing is developing a story's want or problem wanting satisfaction, a yearning for satisfaction certainly qualifies.
What's your degree? Mine, associate's, bachelor's, and soon master's, are in creative writing.
The first, last, best writing advice I've ever heard, read, seen, is slow down, take time to develop a scene, show the scene's entirety of the characters in the moment, the location, and the situation.
The rack of the river for hats, a hat tree, which conceivably could be construed as a head yearning for a poet's hat, or unicorn's horn to skewer a hat, or a tree house of hats is a place of rambunctious dramatis personae. One happens to be a unicorn. Figuring out on one's own who is the unicorn is a right of passage here. Not I. I am the perennial misfit outrider, riding the periphery range herding dire snables and smeerp.
Beware of sorcerers talking out of their hats—gray matter leakage. Welcome to the Hatrack writing colloquim.
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Perhaps the irascible unicorn is the unofficial mascot of the treehouse. She hasn't had a chance to create a profile yet because she has difficulty typing with hooves, and she's mean because all her friends are wandering around serene forest pools while she is perpetually stuck in a (albeit magnificent) treehouse. There's a backstory to go along with this, but no one has written it yet.
I have a B.S. in Chemistry. Yes, it's totally unrelated. Just for kicks, I'll go back to school in a year or two to get a Masters in Accountancy. Of course, nothing is set in stone aside from the fact that I will never stop writing stories.
Thanks for the warm welcomes! =)
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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But I do love words in other languages that have no direct English translation. Tesknota, for example, is something I understand to be like a deep, nostalgic longing.
One of my more recent favorites is Schadenfreude. At times when I'm terribly stressed and/or going temporarily insane, I horribly mispronounce this word to myself and laugh. Does this make me a bad person?
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Redirecting schadenfreude toward the self is noble, if self-effacing or deprecating, not bad.
Speaking of language, I'm rereading S.H. Butcher's definitive 1895 translation of Aristotle's Poetics. The addendum notes the Greek word peripetia doesn't gracefully translate into English. However, the Greek word has since become a loan word in English, peripety, and its meaning is precise and faithful to Aristotle's: a meaningful reversal of circumstances. Just what any plot needs.
Posts: 2261 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Nah, not the mascot unoffical or otherwise.
There was a snow white dragon with wicked eyes in the treehouse for a while but it seems to have disappeared.
And No it is not based on a person besides Kathleen you're too friendly, wise and nice looking to be a unicorn in human form.
All I will say in way of a hint that each of us have seen it a bunch of times--well except for a couple of the newbies.
Posts: 4258 | Registered: Jun 2010
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LDWriter2, I'm going to venture a guess that you have not had the best luck in meeting nice unicorns. Maybe you could ask Bruce Coville to introduce you to some? =P
Where are the friendly creatures in the treehouse? =(
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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well, I may not have but a couple of my characters have.
In one unfinished novel my male MC is joined by a female unicorn toward the end. In another one the unicorn first tries to kill my MC but after my MC saves his family the become friends toward the end--he will be still fiends if there is ever a sequel.
In the one with the female unicorn there is also another unicorn that joins the journeys of a family and bonds with their young daughter. He tolerates the others.
I think there is another unicorn some place but not sure where at the moment.
But there all kinds of friendly beings here.
Posts: 4258 | Registered: Jun 2010
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I used to love writing about unicorns, but then I moved on to pegasi and alicorns. I guess my image of unicorns was that they don't have wings, and that would just not do.
But I loved "The Last Unicorn". I got it signed by Peter S. Beagle and I have it hidden in a niche in my bookshelf.
And on a somewhat unrelated note - in the battle of Unicorns vs. Zombies, I am 100% Team Unicorn. I have an irrational fear of zombies, and almost an irrational dislike for anyone who enjoys them.
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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There is a topic that has compiled all the stories and explanations about the Hatrack Treehouse, and if you'd like to read it, you can find it by following this link.
Posts: 7563 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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tesknota, I loved Bruce Coville's first book in The Unicorn Chronicles (I was never able to find the others in the series). He had a book of short stories called A Glory of Unicorns that was really good. I've never read The Last Unicorn. I watched a movie version, and it was so sad that Child Me didn't want to read the book. Have you read Robin McKinley's Pegasus? Fantastic book. Are alicorns unicorns with wings? I attempted to write a story about a unicorn one time, but then I submitted it here and there was so much wrong with it, I got a little overwhelmed. I might dig it out again someday. :)
Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2012
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KDW, thanks for the link to the old treehouse posts. I've always wondered how that came about. What fun. I particularly like the stables and the resident unicorns. Perhaps one of the unicorns can help me with my unicorn story.
Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2012
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@Kathleen: I'm loving the Hatrack Treehouse thread.
@Mayflower:
Alicorn is not a popular term, but yes, it specifically refers to a unicorn with wings. So the creature looks like a horse, but has both a horn and wings - a combination of a traditional unicorn and a pegasus.
I remember loving "Into the Land of the Unicorns" and "Song of the Wanderer", books I and II of The Unicorn Chronicles... but book III came out in 2008, which was 9 years after book II. During this span of time, I almost doubled my age and I forgot everything in the first books beside the very memorable villain. I almost sent him a letter of righteous indignation highlighting all the reasons why authors should NOT wait a decade before continuing a series, but that plan never came into fruition.
I have not read McKinley's "Pegasus", but I greatly enjoyed "Spindle's End".
Posts: 53 | Registered: Feb 2013
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quote:Originally posted by mayflower988: tesknota, I loved Bruce Coville's first book in The Unicorn Chronicles (I was never able to find the others in the series). He had a book of short stories called A Glory of Unicorns that was really good. I've never read The Last Unicorn. I watched a movie version, and it was so sad that Child Me didn't want to read the book. Have you read Robin McKinley's Pegasus? Fantastic book. Are alicorns unicorns with wings? I attempted to write a story about a unicorn one time, but then I submitted it here and there was so much wrong with it, I got a little overwhelmed. I might dig it out again someday.
I don't think I have seen those I'm going to have to look for them. I may put a unicorn in one of my short stories as MC or someone close to the MC. But I'm doing a lot of gnomes lately and even a leprechaun or two
Posts: 4258 | Registered: Jun 2010
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McKinley's PEGASUS is very good, but it definitely needs a sequel (and I don't know when it's supposed to show up--drat it all!).
Posts: 7563 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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KDW: "Pegasus II" (I'm pretty sure that's not the final title) is set to come out next year. McKinley has said on her blog that the book wants to be a trilogy. http://robinmckinleysblog.com/Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2012
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