NaNoWriMo!

Well, November began yesterday and, with it, came NaNoWriMo - 30 days and nights of literary abandon.

I attempted NaNo last year, but didn't get my novel finished, I kind of lost interest half way through but, this year, I'm going to go the way and finish my novel. Whether I choose to publish at the end or not is another story (but one you'll hear about, I'm sure), but, since I'm only 798 words into my 50,000, I won't get too far ahead of myself.

So, what's my novel about?

Like last year, it's based on Greek Mythology, but, this time, I've chosen to base my story on my favorite mythological city of all time: Troy. 

My novel will begin with the founding of Sminthium by the party of settlers from Crete, follow the various kings through Trojan genealogy, the building of the city of Troy by Tros and Ilios, the first Trojan War (yes, there were two), the rebuilding of Troy by Priam, the birth of his children, Helen and Paris, the second Trojan War, and the eventual destruction of Troy.

Cover image for my novel on NaNoWriMo

I do confess, the title of my novel is rather unoriginal. I've called it 'TROY' (no, it has nothing to do with that terrible movie!), but, that is just the working title, after all. It may change once the novel is completed.

As my novel is based on mythology rather than history, I have almost completely done away with historical fact. Yes, the ruins of a city were excavated in the place where Troy would have been, but historical 'Troy' bears almost no resemblance to mythological Troy. The picture I've used for my cover image, however, is a picture from the ruins of Troy in Turkey.

If you want to find me on NaNo, I'm jewelsbyers, and you can find a synopsis of my novel and a short extract on my NaNo profile.

I will keep you updated on my progress and, if you want to see how I'm doing, I have two NaNo widgets on the right, underneath my page views. One is my word count widget, and the other is a widget tracking my progress for the month. Hopefully, if I know people are looking at them, it will keep my motivated to finish this year.

Well, I'm off to do some more writing. Wish me luck!

~ Australian Kiwi

New Banner

My new banner

Have you seen my new banner? I made it this morning with the help of Photoshop Elements 8 and Google images. Originally I just had an outline of a kiwi and a kangaroo on a beige background, but I thought that kangaroo and kiwi signs on the gradient looked better, more appealing, and still matched my overall colour scheme.

Some of you will remember my old banner, which was made for me by a very talented friend of mine over at Crazy Catastrophes. There was nothing wrong with the old banner, but I decided that it was time for a change. I wanted pictures that matched the title of my blog, Australian Kiwi, and that could fit both my blog title and my tag line.

My old banner

So, that's all I have to say about my new banner, other than I love it and think that it's awesome.

~ Australian Kiwi

"All the world will be in love with night"

In Love With Night

I wrote your name in silver stars,

That gleam aloft in darkened sky.

From Pluto all the way to Mars,

I wrote your name in silver stars.

In years to come they'll stand in bars,

And each of them will wonder why

I wrote your name in silver stars

That gleam aloft in darkened sky.

More poetry by Australian Kiwi, you're probably getting sick of it by now, but I like to share. Admittedly  the picture is not mine, I found that on the net, but the poem was written by my own hand, or, rather, typed by my own fingers.

I was inspired to write this by the line in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In Act III, Scene II, Juliet gives her soliloquy about Romeo (you know, the one where she says the famous line 'Where for art thou Romeo?), and says '...He will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night'. I have always felt an affinity with night, and this poem is a tribute to the beauty of the night sky, but it is also a love poem. I have dedicated it to someone I have deep, romantic feelings for, but, unfortunately these feelings are not returned. 

Yes, I do sound like a love struck idiot, don't I? Sitting around writing poetry about the night sky and my true love. *sigh* Oh well, I enjoy writing poetry, and it helps me relax.

One of my dreams is to go somewhere where I can lie on the ground at night, look up at the sky, and see nothing but stars from horizon to horizon. I have been told that you can do that in outback Australia, but I don't think I want to go alone. I'm not one for camping, and the only way I'd be getting into outback Australia would be in a caravan, and I'm not too fond of those things either. But, it would be worth it to see the stars. I know that, literally, stars are glowing balls of gas millions of miles away, but, to a poet's mind, they are so much more.

When I was a little girl, I used to believe that stars were the people in heaven. When my Nana Mac died, I found it very comforting to look up at the stars and imagine that I could pick her out from all the rest of them. Sometimes the stars are little hearts, beating in sync with my own, and other times they are the tears strewn across the universe by the weeping moon. They can be beautiful and radiant, or they can be cold and melancholy. A star is many different things to one person, depending on their mood when they gaze at the sky. 

On the subject of stars, perhaps the most famous work on them is Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'. I remember studying this painting in primary school, and being swept away by the beauty and sur-reality of it. I'm actually not a great fan of impressionistic art work, but something about 'Starry Night' really speaks to me. In some ways, I feel that I can see what Van Gogh saw the night he put his brush to his easel and painted what is now a classic artwork. He saw his dreams reflected in those tiny, pin-pricks of light strewn across the vast blackness. Unfortunately, Van Gogh's life was cut short by his eventual suicide, but his dreams live on in his artwork. This is how I see the stars now, as a reflection of my dreams, glowing brightly, waiting for me to catch them.

'Starry Night' by Vincent Van Gogh

I found another image on the internet called 'Starry Night Reimagined', which also struck a chord with me. It is a digital artwork, which shows an artist's impression of what Van Gogh might have seen the night he painted his masterpiece.

'Starry Night Reimagined'

I don't know who created this artwork, but all credit to them, this is a stunning digital work. Amazing what some people can do with computers, isn't it?

I could go on all night about stars, and how they remind me of my dreams and, by extension, the person I love, but I won't. That would be boring, but, my darling, if you come to me, I promise, from Pluto all the way to Mars, I'll write your name in silver stars.

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

~ Vincent Van Gogh

~ Australian Kiwi

  

Sunset Purple

Sunset Purple

Now, you're probably wondering what on earth this square of Sunset Purple is doing on my blog. The answer: I created it!

Well, not exactly, let me explain.

I have recently joined an online community called COLOURlovers, which is an online art community. Now, while I'm not exactly an artist, I do enjoy playing around with colour, so I thought 'what the heck, it's free' and joined. I took a 'tour' of the site, and, as part of the tour, I had to colour in and name a pattern. 

Sunset Tartan

The pattern was originally varying shades of grey, but I coloured it in, and I gave it a name. The original grey template will still be there for other members of the community to colour, but this was make take on it. I was inspired by the colours often seen at sunset, hence the name Sunset Tartan. When I had finished colouring in the pattern and had given it a name, a window popped up on the screen announcing that I had used an 'unnamed colour' and I could claim it now by naming it. After a few moments thought, I called the colour Sunset Purple, as a tribute to the sunset that had inspired me to use it. 

So, there you have it, the reason a random square of colour has made its way onto my blog. ;)

~ Australian Kiwi

P.S. Also, the colour palette on the side of the page called Summer Skies was also designed by me on COLOURlovers, under my other screen name jewelsbyers.

P.P.S. If you want to find me on COLOURlovers, my profile is here.

Imagine if the world was different...

Imagine if all you straight, 'normal' people had to stand on the steps of parliament house and rally for your right to marry the one you loved? Imagine if you were jeered at because you were different from the majority. Imagine if you felt you had to hide who you were because your own family might turn against you if they knew. What if you were told by the churches that your love was a sin? What if you had to listen to people say 'That's so straight' and 'Don't be so f***ing straight' like it was a sign of weakness? 

This is what gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer people face everyday. Everyday that are subjected to abuse and criticism because they're not 'normal'. Who gave you the right to hurt your fellow human beings? Who gave you the right to take their rights away? What if it was you? How would you feel? Just think about it.

Gay, Lesbian and Queer Pride

Bi Pride Flag

Trans Pride Flag

Intersex Pride Flag

Are we too literal?

Have we, as readers, become too literal in our interpretation of the written word?

I recently publish a poem in my writing community which was originally titled 'A White Clad Woman All Aflame', and was accompanied by the picture below.

A Suicide for the Strong by Sarah Ann Loreth

A white clad woman all aflame,
Deadly sparks dancing in her hair.
Burning with lies, secrets and shame,
Yet she stands still without a care.

Deadly sparks dancing in her hair,
Greedy red tongues licking her skin.
Yet she stands without a care,
On the brink of total ruin.

Greedy red tongues licking her skin,
But she gives not one single cry.
On the brink of total ruin,

And here she stands prepared to die.

But she gives not one single cry,
Burning with lies, secrets and shame.

And here she stands prepared to die,

A white clad woman all aflame.

I intended the poem to be a metaphor for the innocence we lose as we grow from children to adolescents, and then to adults. The 'white clad woman' is innocence, and she is being burned by the fire representing the challenges we face as we grow up, the 'lies, secrets and shame'. Eventually there will be nothing left of her, hence she stands 'on the brink of total ruin' and 'prepared to die' as we must all shed our innocence and step out into the wider world at some point in our lives. 'She gives not one single cry' because she understands that she has now served her purpose for this person in this world, and will go and bestow her gifts upon another.

So, this was my intention. I published the poem and then went away to read a book for a while, when I came back and checked my reviews, I was shocked when I read review after review saying how disturbing my poem had been, and how my reviewers could not imagine anyone setting themselves alight. What was obvious to me was not obvious to them. I quickly replied to all the reviews, explaining my intention, and changed the title of my work to 'Innocence is Burning' and explained my metaphors in the author's notes section. 

But, here is what gets me.

Poetry lives on the metaphor. Without the metaphor, a poet cannot write, and when a reader takes a poem literally, they destroy the metaphor, and thereby destroy the work of the poet. 

To illustrate my point further, I will use another example. 

Take the poem 'Bright Star' by John Keats. Now, I know my poetry is certainly not in the same league as that of John Keats, but my point still stands. If you read 'Bright Star' literally, then we read John Keats' commentary on a star, which is very nice, but not the point of the poem. It is well known that Keats wrote the poem about Fanny Brawn, who he was deeply in love with, and not about a star. He uses the metaphor to compare her to a star, comparing her with the celestial bodies 'hung aloft the night', but we do not take his poem literally and say that John Keats was in love with a glowing ball of gas millions of miles away!

So, do you see my point? If poetry is taken literally, without the metaphor, it dies, plain and simple, and the day poetry dies will be a sad day for the human race.

~ Australian Kiwi

The Reunion of Hektor and Andromache

Through fields brooks run bubbling,
In soft daylight sweet birds do sing.
The grasses here forever green,
No sorrow have these fields seen.
Under skies of blue, brave men talk,
While arm-in-arm their women walk.


There is no night, no darkness here,
The souls do walk all free of fear.
To this place all heroes are bound,
Their shades step softly on the ground.
They indulge in earthly pleasures,
In Elysion, full of treasures.


But one great man steps lonely here,
His wringing hands once cast a spear.
He mourns and weeps all for his wife,
Whom he did cherish most in life.
Across his heart her name engraved,
Andromache who Greeks enslaved.


Under Troy's walls he met his doom,
She was taken to ply the loom.
She lay within her master's bed,
And none could count the tears she shed.
While Hektor waited here alone,
Her ghastly fate he did bemoan.


The other souls they whisper soft,
Great Hektor, he does look so lost.
He cries for dear Andromache,
And would do anything for she.
He'd free her from the world above,
And shower her with tender love.


Most wretched Karon's boat draws near,
He comes not even once a year.
A woman garbed in deepest blue,
Does sail slowly into view.
Upon her lips a haunting song,
Of one who has known many wrongs.


But, who is she that steps ashow?
Bold Hektor, shed your tears no more!
The woman garbed in deepest blue,
In Andromache come to you.
Walk forward, take her in your arms,
Protect her now from every harm.


Andromache, my lovely wife,
Without you all I've known is strife.
Long age were we torn apart,
And bleeding freely was my heart.
But now to have you safe once more,
I will know joy forevermore.


Oh Hektor, husband, bold and strong,
When you were lost the days were long.
I wept bitterly for my fate,
Forced to serve those I did hate.
But we are reunited now,
To feel grief, I know not how.


Come walk with me, Andromache,
For there is much here you must see.
The grasses here are always green,
Cold moonlight never casts her beam.
Warm sunlight here does always shine,
Now with you, Elysion's fine.

So his dear wife stretched out her hand,
And Hektor led her through the land.
He himself saw all with new eyes,
Saw that Elysion told no lies.
That in this place was bliss and joy,
As he had known in windy Troy.


Dear husband, stop, one moment please,
Andromache fell to her knees.
Brave Hektor knelt before her now,
And very gently kissed her brow.
I fear I may awake from this,
Forced again to serve a mistress.


Up on his feet bold Hektor got,
No, slavery is not your lot.
Andromache, come stand with me,
This is no dream, I'll prove to thee.
He lifted her up on her feet,
And kissed her gently, long and deep.


Now when at last they broke apart,
Joy did fill Andromache's heart.
You could not dream that kiss, my love,
Were you still trapped in the above.
This is the truth, I tell you so,
You left that world long, long ago.


My Hektor dear, I love you true,
I am so glad I came to you.
I have left heartbreak and toil,
And dwell now on blessed soil.
Now promise me we'll never part,
And heal now my broken heart.


Andromache, this I do swear,
My leaving you need never fear.
Together here we will now dwell,
To grief and sorrow, bid farewell.
Come close my dear, and kiss me now,
Seal with your lips my spoken vow.


She kissed him gently on the lips,
He placed his hands onto her hips.
He pulled her close and held her tight,
As he once did in Troy at night.
They lay together once again,
And both loved now as they had then.


For since his wife came to his side,
Not one tear has bold Hektor cried.
They spend their days in bliss and peace,
Their laughter never seems to cease.
Forever now they'll not know pain,
Or tears like bitter, winter rain.


Through fields brooks run bubbling,
In soft daylight sweet birds do sing.
The grasses here forever green,
No sorrow have these fields seen.
For now Andromache abides,
Forever young at Hektor's side.

This is a poem I wrote this afternoon. It's the longest poem I've ever written, seven hundred and twenty nine words! It deals with my two favorite characters in the Trojan War cycle, Hektor, and his wife Andromache. I will honestly say that it bothers me that the Trojans, who did everything right, were the ones who lost the war. They were noble, upstanding, gracious, and fought honestly. 

How many of us imagine Hektor and Andromache. Eric Banna 

as Hektor and Saffron Burrows as Andromache in the 2004 film

'Troy'

It annoyed me the first time I read the Iliad that it was Hektor who was slain when he fought Achilles, Achilles who had sulked in his tent and packed a sad because Agamemnon had stolen his slave girl. Achilles blamed Hektor for the death of Patroklos, but if Achilles hadn't been so besotted with his own importance, then Patroklos would never have gone out impersonating him, never would have faced Hektor, and never would have died. So, the real fault for Patroklos's death lies with Achilles. 

So, after defeating Hektor, Achilles has a chance to prove he is as noble as the Trojans, rather than a sulking child, but, instead, he pushes this aside and desecrates Hektor's corpse. When I talk to people who call Achilles a hero, I ask them whether heroes desecrate corpses. Most people stop talking to me at that stage and say I take the Iliad too seriously but, hey, I'll be the first to admit they're right. I do take the Iliad seriously. Furthermore, Achilles has left his 'dear comrade' Patroklos unburied for days! Without proper rites, Patroklos's shade cannot pass into the Underworld and achieve peace. It is only when Patroklos's ghost appears to Achilles and demands to be buried that Achilles grants his friend rest. Achilles does eventually return Hektor's corpse to the Trojans so they can hold a proper funeral for him, but the damage has been done.

'Achilles Triumphant' by Howard David Johnson

The Iliad ends with Hektor's funeral, where his mother, his wife, and Helen of Troy lament over him. But, later on in the Trojan War cycle, Paris kills Achilles with his bow. Achilles corpse is rescued by his countrymen, and they bury him with full honours. But, to make matters even worse, Achilles achieves Elysion! The isle of the blessed, where the virtuous and glorious go after they die, to live in peace and bliss forever. There is no mention in any of the epic cycles that Hektor, a much greater hero than Achilles, achieves Elysion. After his funeral, Hektor is very much brushed aside by the epic poets. Andromache merits a few mentions in later epics, when she is taken as a slave-concubine by Achilles's son, Neoptolemos. For Hektor and Andromache, the one couple in the Iliad who love rather than lust (Paris and Helen, and Achilles and Briseis personify lust), there is no happy ending. This has always bothered me.

T'he popular image of Achilles. Brad Pitt as Achilles in

the 2004 movie 'Troy

Even to the ancients, Achilles's treatment of Hektor's corpse was unspeakably vile. The Greeks prided themselves on being civilized, and to desecrate a corpse was an act of absolute barbarianism. While in early literature, Achilles achieves Elysion, in later poems he is depicted as just another soul wandering the Asphodel Meadows, where the ordinary folk go after death. This is clearly a much more acceptable place for a man who desecrates corpses and leaves his friends unburied. In truth, for these crimes, Achilles should have been sent to Tartaros, the hell of the ancient Greek world, but a hero like Achilles could not be thrown into Tartaros. The Asphodel Meadows are the happy medium between honoring a man who behaves like a barbarian, and punishing a hero.

So, what does all this have to do with my poem? Well, as I mentioned above, the fact that Hektor and Andromache never got a happy ending always upset me. They were a wonderful couple, and devoted parents to their son, Astyanax. But, because they were Trojans and, therefore, 'the enemy' they did not deserve the happy ending afforded to the Greek heroes. So, that is why I wrote the poem, to give them a happy ending. Andromache has been living a life of drudgery since she was taken from Troy, serving the man who killed her son, and the son of the man who killed her husband. By reuniting her with Hektor, who I have placed in Elysion, there is an end to her life of slavery, and a happy ending. She and the husband she loves can now spend eternity together in peace. 

'Elysium' by Unknown Artist. Elysium is the Latinization of

the Greek Elysion.

So, that was the point of my poem, to give the story of Hektor and Andromache a happy ending. I have written short stories where Andromache escapes Neoptolemos, but have never concluded them with her death and reunion with Hektor. I feel that, if anyone deserves a happy ending, it is Hektor and Andromache.

~ Australian Kiwi   

P.S. I've used two images from the 2004 film Troy, but I don't actually like that movie. It was a combination of bad directing, bad scripting, bad acting, and faithlessness to the source. I've seen the first hour or so, but it was so terrible that I had to turn it off. I have no intention of watching the rest of the movie, I have better things to do with my time than watch  bad movies.