Are You Reddy?
Dec. 14th, 2011 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatThere's nothing like the holiday season for making a fellow feel guilty for having no clue what to get anybody. Isn't exchanging gifts supposed to be fun? When it comes to be an obligation rather than something pleasant, aren't we abandoning the spirit of the season? I guess it's different when you have kids, but even then it appears to be overly common for people to worry more about how much they're spending than whether the kids will actually like the presents. Still, it's pretty much common courtesy to get something for someone when you know they're doing the same for you. I don't know. I just wish I could go back to feeling the way I did around the holidays when I was a kid, but what adult DOESN'T want that? Well, maybe the ones who had terrible experiences at the holidays, but that goes without saying.
Anyway, in case anyone cares, I'd like to direct your attention to another Oz story I wrote recently. When I was writing about brownies for my WordPress blog, I remembered the story about the Reddies in Ruth Plumly Thompson's Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, and how I always thought the rough account Glinda gives could use some expansion. I actually came up with a beginning for it years ago, but I've since lost it. No big deal, though, as I hadn't gotten very far. Blinkie and her associates were from L. Frank Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz, but it was Phyllis Ann Karr's Gardener's Boy that gave the three unnamed witches the names Bilkie, Bikkie, and Bittie. I went with this, although I didn't actually use all the names in the story. The fifth witch, Bleakie, was my own addition. Jakgar was actually a character I invented for a collaborative story on the old Oz Club message board. I'd also already named the last King of the Quadlings Jandor IV; I'm not sure whether the Jandor in this new story should be the same one or an earlier monarch of the same name, but probably the latter, as Jair is specifically identified as Mogodore's great-grandfather in Jack Pumpkinhead. As such, I assumed people still died at this point in Oz history. This is getting to be a lot of background information, and I'm thinking back to how my Creative Writing teacher in college said that this stuff should be included in the story itself if it's important, but I think a lot of it would interrupt the flow. I forced myself to write the story in a few days, so I'm sure there's a lot that can be edited. Any comments are more than welcome.
In other news, I'm working on my typical end-of-the-year mix. I've pretty much given up on burning these mixes to CDs (although I probably should, if only to preserve them in case of data loss), so I'm not sure whether I should limit myself to the length of a CD or not. Any ideas? Even if I do make it longer, it won't be MUCH longer, as I've already put on songs from all the new albums I can recall hearing this year. I realized that I hadn't included anything from Paley & Francis, though. Regardless, would anyone be interested in hearing the mix when I'm done with it?
Anyway, in case anyone cares, I'd like to direct your attention to another Oz story I wrote recently. When I was writing about brownies for my WordPress blog, I remembered the story about the Reddies in Ruth Plumly Thompson's Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, and how I always thought the rough account Glinda gives could use some expansion. I actually came up with a beginning for it years ago, but I've since lost it. No big deal, though, as I hadn't gotten very far. Blinkie and her associates were from L. Frank Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz, but it was Phyllis Ann Karr's Gardener's Boy that gave the three unnamed witches the names Bilkie, Bikkie, and Bittie. I went with this, although I didn't actually use all the names in the story. The fifth witch, Bleakie, was my own addition. Jakgar was actually a character I invented for a collaborative story on the old Oz Club message board. I'd also already named the last King of the Quadlings Jandor IV; I'm not sure whether the Jandor in this new story should be the same one or an earlier monarch of the same name, but probably the latter, as Jair is specifically identified as Mogodore's great-grandfather in Jack Pumpkinhead. As such, I assumed people still died at this point in Oz history. This is getting to be a lot of background information, and I'm thinking back to how my Creative Writing teacher in college said that this stuff should be included in the story itself if it's important, but I think a lot of it would interrupt the flow. I forced myself to write the story in a few days, so I'm sure there's a lot that can be edited. Any comments are more than welcome.
In other news, I'm working on my typical end-of-the-year mix. I've pretty much given up on burning these mixes to CDs (although I probably should, if only to preserve them in case of data loss), so I'm not sure whether I should limit myself to the length of a CD or not. Any ideas? Even if I do make it longer, it won't be MUCH longer, as I've already put on songs from all the new albums I can recall hearing this year. I realized that I hadn't included anything from Paley & Francis, though. Regardless, would anyone be interested in hearing the mix when I'm done with it?
