A Lord of the Rings Marathon

My oldest daughter indulged in a Lord of the Rings (LOTR) marathon (and yes, she also read the books, but everyone in the family likes the aesthetics of the movies, and I have 2 editions of LOTR with  annotations, so shush about movie vs. book; we just enjoy).

The running comments were mostly about filmmaking. And then about whether it would have been possible to include some omitted elements of the books into the movies, and how, and whether the alternative/compromise was acceptable.

No, we didn't come to any final conclusion. What would be the fun in it? We reserve the right to continue the discussion.

But once again I had the thought that LOTR the movie is a variant of LOTR the story. And that in the end, Tolkien would have approved.

Because Tolkien wished to create an Anglo-Saxon mythology, a creation story similar to the Greek myths or the Mesopotamian epics. He would have enjoyed how readers absorbed his tale and started re-telling it in their own words (or images).

Anything that doesn't have ONE fixed AUTHOR and one FIXED, PUBLISHED, and CANONICAL text begets an infinity of variants -- and still somehow manages to remain the SAME STORY. Changes in words. Changes in emphasis on details. Changes in the length of scenes or chapters. Even to the omission of certain scenes or chapters, depending on the preference of the storyteller -- or of the audience. Or, in our case, of the medium. Peter Jackson didn't really make up anything. He merely borrowed from other stories of Tolkien's world to fill out his movie-space. Just like a storyteller of old would have borrowed from a tradition at large to expand a story for an eager audience -- and to earn himself a couple extra drinks.

It's something that students in my folklore courses always have some trouble grasping: the fluidity of folkloric texts. But it's also something that makes it possible for me to enjoy a movie based on a book -- assuming that the director managed to show what I saw in that story.

And it's a tall order.

LOTR the Book and Jackson's movie are the Same Story -- but told by different storytellers. I can handle that -- after all, I spent months and months as a graduate student reading variants of the same songs as told by different singers and collected by different collectors.

Repetitive? Yes and no.

The differences emphasize what both storytellers and listeners (viewers, readers) considered important. The LOTR movie trilogy wouldn't have been so successful if it hadn't hit on the high points of Tolkien's mythology, on what resonated with today's audience.

The similarities between the different tellings reveal the bare skeleton, the pure core of the story. And that is what we want to hear, that is what we don't ever want to change. That is what echoes throughout all cultures and throughout the world.

Because that skeleton is elementally human. And that, in the end, is why we love Tolkien.

A review! A review!

Linda Black wrote a delightful children's book titled The Adventures of Boots: The Giant Snowball and I was asked to the the illustrations as one of the Willow Moon Publishing artists. And now it has received a glowing review.

I must say it was fun work. Which doesn't mean it was shake-a-finger-at-it-easy, that wouldn't have been interesting.

No, it really was fun. Before I started work on Linda's book, I hadn't done much in the way of toony images. I tended to lean toward the serious, realistic, and sometimes grave.

But with Boots, it had to be playful and childlike. And so I discovered and learned a lot of new skills and new ways of looking at things while I worked on Boots.

Thank you, Linda, for the opportunity.

Now I have a whole new world to play in.

Savvy Authors - The Art of Storytelling by Masha Holl

I'm making an appearance at Savvy Authors today, talking abut story as always. And myths and legends and heroes of yore... My usual stuff.

Savvy Authors - The Art of Storytelling by Masha Holl

A Small Gesture

Nice things people do... and a blog post here reminded me of another unusual act by a random big-city person, that time in Paris (yes, indeed, France).

I must have been coming back from classes at University, else why would I have been trudging through the streets at rush hour, with a heavy book bag and dressed in nice clothes?

It was in my own neighborhood, so I tended to navigate by radar, and I stepped off the curb to cross a busy street... Out went an arm and blocked my way.

Just in time to prevent me from being run over by one of the ever-speeding Parisian drivers.

I don't remember who the fellow pedestrian was. A man, anonymous -- even in my own neighborhood I hardly knew anyone. There were just too many people, and too many people moving in and out, even stores changing owners much too often. A man who was paying attention and who cared enough to stop me from becoming just another casualty.

There were a lot of us waiting at the light to cross the street. A lot of people surrounding me, but only one noticed my absentmindedness. Whoever you were, you haven't been forgotten, and your kindness has been retold now and again as proof that people are essentially nice and caring.

It's not like I was a little girl, or a stunning beauty, or remarkable in any way. No, we just happened to be side-by-side. It was a small gesture on his part. He may not remember that day, but I do. Very much so.

And when I can, I try to pass it on. Because it was such a nice thing to do.

Folktales and Tradition

We don't grow up much on traditional tales anymore.

The old standbys, Goldilocks, Snow-White, Sleeping Beauty, we know them better from cartoons than from the actual, original stories. A lot is lost in the translation from Traditional Storytelling to modern rendition. The folklorist in me, who favors the old tales and ancient epics, laments the loss.

The folklorist in me also looks at the "new versions" and realizes that a new Tradition is being created for a new era, where reading, and especially reading for leisure, is taken for granted; where one doesn't need to travel miles and miles to see a show, but can call it up on one's TV at the press of a button.

It is bad or good? Better or worse? A folklorist doesn't pass judgment. It's for politicians and social activists. A folklorist observes: this is how it is. A folklorist may comment on the changes and the rise of new traditions, but a folklorist doesn't pass judgment.

How about the person who is also a folklorist? That person cannot be fully objective. Writers know that the emotional response will determine the choice of words, of rhythm, of other writing strategies that are mostly unconscious, even in non-fiction and in the spoken word.

Me, I prefer traditional tales. I teach about them, I share them whenever I can. It's my thing. However, I don't see the modernized versions as the product of evil manipulation. Like the old tales, the modern, televised, comic-ized, cartoonized tales based on old stories, are a Tradition in that is it shared by a group of people, and the sharing creates a bond of familiarity. It's not the village square anymore, where the Minstrel stops to sing about Saint George and the dragon.

It's TV, and then Social Media, and the function of the tale remains: to define a group, a community, those who are in the know and those who are not.

Consider this: an immigrant into the United States today will not feel truly at home in the larger American society until he becomes familiar with icons of pop culture. Not a fan, just familiar.

Everybody knows Bugs Bunny. And Disney. And if you're completely unaware of these two (as an example), then you will miss out on a lot of hints, references, and especially humor.

And that is Tradition: things that define a group and unifies it.

It's not all fun and games in computer art

If you keep making corrections on a paper-and-pen drawing, you can end up with an eraser-rubbed hole. Or a mess of a dark smudge. Either way, you crumple up your paper and start over, because obviously, you weren't getting anywhere.

You'd think you'd be immune to this with computer art. Piece by piece, you can create the components of an image, like a collage (whichever way to go about creating these pieces, and that's not the point of today's post). And then you can put together the disparate elements, move here, tweak there, adjust elsewhere... Correct the angle of the light, and the reflection, and...

You'd think it gets easy once you have everything in place and all you have to do is a final render, and then take a look at the finished image in a "normal" format such as JPG or PNG or some other ordinary image format.

And you'd be wrong. You may not know it, but your computer is plotting against you. It's already damaged your "paper" and worn down your "pencil" so when you hit , what you get is a jumbled mess.

Can you control this? Oh yes. It's a skill, just like using a pencil that's sharpened enough, but not too much. Applying pressure, but without marking the paper until the next three sheets in the pad become unusable.

And the conclusion? Not much. My image got scrapped.

So I'm back to the cartoony illustrations of Russian tales. One in the pipeline and almost ready for publication, and a few more to go to make a dozen.

Take a sneak peak at the Tale of the Turnip.

Show&Tell Workshop Starts Friday

I've been having lots of fun doing workshops for Savvy Authors. Friday, I'm starting my next one, on Showing and Telling. As always, I try to make it both lecture-full and hands-on, so that every attendant can get something out of it.

And yes, when I say hands-on, I do mean I respond to all posts, and I do go over the assignments, and if you join in and wish to challenge me, I'm always game. I don't grade, I don't judge, and I don't assess. I do, however, suggest what I think could help you given my experience as writer, teacher, and literary scholar.

But mostly, I have FUN. I love workshops. I started them because I missed the in-class time I had with my college students. But at the same time, online and out of the formal university structure, I have the freedom to teach and share whatever I want -- you're the judges of whether it's good or not.

So if you're like me, and you've been puzzled by the advice to "show, don't tell," check out my workshop.

Because why do you think it started out to begin with?

I needed to put the information into order, and what better way than to attempt to explain it to someone else. If you can make sense of it (whatever it is) so that a third person can grasp the essence of the problem, then you know you understand it yourself.

Teaching is the best of learning. And I've taught this workshop more than once. But you know what? Teaching it is like taking a refresher. Knowing and understanding the ins and outs of Showing, Not Telling is not enough. You have to practice it constantly and consistently to truly master it.

... Now I have to remember ALL the OTHER details of writing a story. Like sentence structure. And avoiding pot... I mean, plot holes...

A New Design Collection

I discovered the Power of Cute....

Well, actually, I discovered the right cuties. I already knew that Cute had The Power.

So now I can't stop trying to create more and more images of cute Folktale illustrations in Cute Style.

What is it? Something like this:

This is just a fragment of the whole image. It is from "Teremok: The Animals' Palace", a design that's coming soon to my store at Zazzle. A few others are already up, cards and a mug, and accessories.

With Zazzle, you can use most of my designs on products I don't showcase. There's a lot of leeway in how you can personalize a product to your needs and taste -- and I don't get slighted in the process!

If you want something you don't see, please ask! I'm always looking for ideas.

Long Time No See

I disappeared again... February was another crazy month... I don't remember why. Could be a sign.

And I'm back doing another workshop, this one for Savvy Authors.

There are more upcoming workshops. Check out the announcements at Otter Creations.

In other news, the Graphic Novel has been updated.

What's New?

Tomorrow (Monday, January 31), I start a new workshop at the Black Diamonds RWA Chapter.

It's all about the ancient art of storytelling (and like Sheherazade will teach you, that's the art which indeed is the oldest one, for without storytelling skills, all her other arts and enchantments wouldn't have saved her).

I have more workshops scheduled here and there throughout the year. Check out my schedule at Otter Creations.

In the meantime, I'm still working on my Graphic Novel, which still doesn't have a title. And yes, that's a hint. Help??? You can take a look at it here. And if you have been following it and you want to go straight to the updates, or just to make sure you are up to date, you can check it out here.

And there are pictures of the main characters up in the gallery, too. Just the good guys for now, but I'm trying to get snapshots of everyone else.

There are a few new images in the Art Gallery, too. And samples of the book covers I've started making at Otter Creations.

Am I writing? Yes. But slowly. Life takes up a lot of mental energy, and words don't always want to line up for me. Images seem to work better. So I'm not going to jinx it all by saying anything... But my storypeople are knocking at my door again.

If they can wake me up, they're more than welcome to come in.

Russian Christmas

January 7th, in case you didn't look at today's date.

Christmas Day according to the Julian calendar. In our hybrid household, we celebrated the day as we have since the beginning.

Many Eastern Orthodox countries have switched entirely to the Gregorian calendar and celebrate religious holidays at the same time as Western Christians, but a few, like the Russian Orthodox Church, hold fast to old traditions (or maybe habits) and continue to mark the feasts according to the Julian calendar, 13 days later.

I'm not going to try and explain who is right and who is wrong, and what the mathematical underpinnings of either calendar are -- for one thing, anyone who knows me also knows that I have issues with numbers. It's good enough that I remember there's a +13 conversion from Gregorian to Julian. Besides, it's easy to find out more on the subject.

Now Easter is another story altogether, and another one I'm not going to talk about now.

Anyway, we put up our Christmas tree around Thanksgiving, like most people, but we keep it at least through January 7th, usually through the 10th, because according to Russian tradition, all major (religious) holidays are celebrated 3 days.

С Рождеством Христовым!

More Story: Graphic Novel Updates

Most current pages here.

Or start from the beginning.

Check it Out

Remember the book I reviewed before the holidays?

This one.

Well, it's out. You can get it at Amazon.



If you have any doubts, check out my review. Or head out to Delilah Devlin's home page and see what she's heard other readers say about it.

Happy New Year

So it's 2011. Of course, my fingers are reluctant to type the new number. But for some reason, it looks better than last year's numerals.

Don't mind me. I have a very strange relationship with numbers.

The year, however, has started with a nice number: 4.

Not much you say? But it's a good number to brag about, because it's the number of my pictures that were accepted in the art galleries at DAZ.

Here's one.


There are more images, and more still to come, in the gallery on my site, including some of this month's winners.

I think that's a very nice way to start the year.

I'm back!

My sites, that is.

I'm not sure whether I resolved the issue, or finally waited long enough, or it resolved itself (whatever it was), or if something was actually done at the server level while I wasn't looking...

The fact is, I'm back!

Some of the features of my old site are slow to return, but it's because I meant to edit them anyway. I'm not going to put back into my gallery my first attempts at 3D art. But I'm adding some new ones!

The Art Gallery is now an integral part of the site at MashaHoll.com and I'm moving the rest of my graphic novel there too. Which, by the way, has been updated.

Mind you, I'm still working my way through the intricacies of a brand new mode of storytelling. I'm not going to ask for any slack, but I will welcome helpful comments and critiques. If you just don't like it, fine. Don't read it. But if you think you know how I could improve it, I'd appreciate a hint or two.

And I still don't have a title for it. Graphic Novel just won't do forever.

Book Review: Hot Read!

Ravished by a Viking

a novel by Delilah Devlin

Coming soon from Berkeley Books

Clash of cultures, clash of myths, clash of powerful personalities: it should be easy to review Ravished by a Viking, a novel of erotic science fiction by Delilah Devlin. After all, how many authors can bring out on paper the excitement and more-than-willing suspension of disbelief that old fashioned adventure stories once brought us?

A kidnapped brother. A battle of wills between a ship's captain and a planetary warlord. On one side, human colonists toughened by the harsh environment they've mastered, and who still praise and reward sheer physical strength. On the other, a galactic empire used to relying on the power of energy weapons and science.

And in the middle, our heroes. Men, women, wills and desires. Dagr, Clan-leader of the Wolfskins, who only looks like an unpolished barbarian. And Honora Turgay, who loses her ship to the Viking leader, but never surrenders her determination.

Ravished by a Viking is a myth come to life, but it's also the story of two people: adventure, passion, discovery, transformation. All of Delilah's scenes burn with energy, whether she writes believable, exciting, and heart-pounding action scenes, or scorching, breath-stealing, and enviable sexual encounters.

Yes, it should be easy to review one of Delilah Devlin's stories, because each one of the delivers the promise of a great read, abundant humor, and larger-than-life characters. Delilah is a born storyteller, and knows how to build the tension on all levels, entwining sensual conquest with a growing friendship between the main characters, slowly turning what could become redundant sniping into clever flirting. And most importantly, she always surprises the reader – and sometimes the characters themselves.

But a reviewer should also announce to the reader what to expect beyond the open cover. Is it a romance? Of course, and I'll say no more. But that would leave out the cleverly built and logical world of space-travel and alien societies her characters inhabit.

Is is science fiction? Of course. We have space-travel and ancient civilizations and the kind of questions science-fiction authors like to ask. But that would leave out the intense relationships between the characters.

Is it erotica? Oh yes, with scenes as hot and intense as Delilah can write, as charged emotionally as they are physically, it has to be. But that would leave out the character development and the world building and the tight plotting.

Yes, it was hard to write a review of Ravished by a Viking when the story speaks for itself you're ready to re-read rather than write about it. But if I didn't, you wouldn't hear about it, and you'd miss a wonderful, action-packed, emotional roller-coaster of a read.

Another Borshch marathon

I made Borshch again and I made my family happy.

Over the years, I've translated our family Borshch recipe. I've posted it. I've used it to illustrate lectures in my folklore course. I've ranted about it. And of course, I've cooked it innumerable times.

My own recipe has at least 4 variations.

It's the quintessential recipe of the Russian cook. However faithfully you follow your teacher's instructions (whoever your teacher may be -- grandmother, mother, aunt, cousin, friend, even cookbook) it will never taste the same as the original. It's one of those country recipes that take on the spirit of the cook and reflect the cook's qualities in the flavor and the body.

Don't ask me what it means. Taste someone's Borshch and learn from them, and then try to duplicate it. Right away, it will be Borshch (not borsht), but it will be yours, not the original.

Why? I don't know.

Maybe because chopping the onions into 3mm chunks instead of 4mm chunks makes a difference. Or not. Because I've substituted potatoes for beans and back again, depending on my mood and what was in the pantry -- and it was still MY Borshch (not borsht), unmistakably, and I choose the meat according to what looks best in the meat department, not by name or price. It's usually a roast, though.

This is the magic of traditional recipes.

They're fluid, none any more right than others, but some are still "righter" than others.

No, I'm not posting the recipe here. Maybe, once I finally (SIGH) solve my site issues the recipe will appear there once again (shortly, so be on the lookout), but I won't leave it on my blog.

It's MINE. MINE, I'm telling you.

I'd rather feed you than tell you. I'd rather teach you and show you, than tell you and leave it to languish in the archives of a blog.

A traditional recipe is a living thing.

Picture the Season

I don't know about the Christmas spirit, but I definitely get into the Christmas colors. So I decided to add to it.

The thing is, unless it's seriously traditional (and you should ask a folklorist raised on old tales, legends, and centuries-old recipes what traditional means), a lot about modern Christmas is just silly. And when Santa's Elves get into mischief... well...

Check out this card. It's available at Zazzle (link below), singly or in packs. I have more gifts available at Zazzle and at CafePress. Heh. Just have a look. I'll never know whether you do or not. Anonymous shopping is the word!

Christmas Mischief by surochek
Make note cards on Zazzle

Site Troubles

NOTE: Graphic Novel pages added! Check out the sidebar!

You may have noticed that my sites are down. I'm working on it.

In the meantime, I'm still here and there, like Facebook and this blog, and I'm still at the computer behind the scenes.

Since I have no idea when the Graphic Novel section of my site will be running again, I'll start posting episodes here as soon as I produce them. Of course, that too was slightly delayed by the website hiccup.

Puppy Bliss

I always fantasized of writing with a dog at my feet.

Why?

I have no idea. It's just one of those images you have that represent something close to perfection.

A sleeping dog more or less at my feet, and me working steadily at my computer.

Well, tonight, for a moment at least, my dream is realized. Exhausted by his play, Percy the Puppy crashed two feet away from my chair and is sleeping the sleep of the innocent while I work at my countless little writing projects. What's more, I'm having a glass of wine, my second child is happily watching TV at an acceptable volume, my elderly mother has retired, my husband is home and reading -- the vibes in the house are peaceful and relaxed. Everybody is self-contained and satisfied.

(The oldest is out doing her Friday night thing after giving us an update on her plans to keep us relaxed and happy. She's a good kid.)

Nights like this are rare. Nights like this with a relaxed, sleeping puppy, blissful at the feet of his human Alpha are even rarer. Nights like this are what happiness is made of.

It's not the big achievements -- that's exhilaration. It feels good, but it's not happiness. It's the little moments. The puppy sleeping and twitching in his dreams, collapsed in exhaustion right on top of the soda carton he's shredded into microscopic bits.