Life's Funny That Way

Fables, Parables, Myths, and Legends

My classes at the New Horizons Writing Academy just started, and I can honestly say that I love them all.  I think each class will be a great experience for me.  However, the Tell Me A Story class, I think, will be such a great trip for me to take, that I decided to write a blog entry about it.  In our first lesson, we were asked to come up with three different tales that would fall into each of the four categories: fables, parables, myths, and legends.  My biggest resource for the start of anything I undertake is wikipedia.  I could have spent hours (and probably still will) just on that site alone jumping from one article to another and to many pages off-site.  I wasn't one of those people in school who took Greek Mythology or classes like that.  The Lit class I took in college (and, yes, only one) was called Shakespeare and the Human Condition.... it was almost more of a sociology class than a Lit. class.  It bridged Shakepsearean times with the world today and drew parallel lines as far as love, hate, revenge, greed, and so many other human conditions go. 

So, my point is, that this class is giving me a reason to do research on things that I "wish I knew" already.  I know Zeus and Apollo and Aphrodite and such, but I couldn't tell you who is supposedly the child of whom or anything really about any of those stories.  I've always envied my sister for her knowledge of such things, but never taken the time to really think too much about it all.  There always seemed to be something "better" to do, if you will. 

Also, these fables and whatnot are so ingrained in society, that I think it is very important to research them further.  Aside from being a writer (and I think the research serves a great purpose there, too), I want to know more about these things.  I suppose that is the typical writer's brain, though.  I was fortunate enough, at a young age, to have access to so much folklore, though, and I am grateful for that.  My Mom worked at a community college as an administrative assistant for the "Native American Office".  They had an incredible library of Native American stories and works.  From the age of 7 or 8, in the summers, I became the "librarian" for that library.  I am not sure that a book was ever returned that made it to the shelf without me cracking it open.  I would watch all of the filmstrips (okay, I'm dating myself now!) on Native American culture and read as much as I possibly could of the Chippewa culture.  I thought it was fascinating.  I attended Pow Wows and learned to make a birch bark canoe and tan a deer hide.  Sadly, I no longer think I could accomplish either of those tasks, but it was so wonderful through the wide-open eyes of a child.

I think it is these memories, and the people I met during those times, that make the Tell Me A Story class so intriguing to me.  If anyone reading this hasn't checked out the New Horizons Writing academy... maybe they should.  You might find something that rekindles a lost flame in your writing!