Writing Project

      

     It is November. Can you smell the fresh sent of slightly cooler, but not really weather? Can you hear the sound of dead brown leaves starting to blanket the earth? Can you see the sun through the cold wet rain clouds? Can you taste the Thanksgiving food and birthday cake? Can you feel the ominous and ever present weight of deadlines crushing down upon your soul? Yes, it's that wonderful time of year once more! Speaking of deadlines that prey upon your subconscious slowly eating away your sanity it's also NaNoWriMo! Unfortunately I am not able (due to time constraints) to participate in the full thing, but I am using school as an excuse to spiritually participate in the NaNo fun. For one of my classes we have the option of, instead of writing a boring term paper, to write a small portion of an epic poem! So of course I'm doing that! I'll be sharing bits of what I'm working on as the month progresses. Who knows, I may even turn it into an even larger project some day!

     I'm pretty excited about this project. I got the idea while I was siting in my Narnia class, when we were discussing Prince Caspian. At one point in the book Doctor Cornelius mentions that when he was much younger he went on a quest to discover the Horn of Queen Susan that Caspian would then use to call back the Pevensies. Clearly this needed to be completely divorced from its original context and made into a religious allegory. Anyways, I think it will be fun. The hardest part is that the story has to be rhymed and metered which is never fun. It also has to sound archaic. Still, the premise of the whole thing is that it follows Cornelius as he begins his journey to find the magic horn of Susan, having been commanded in a dream to do so. Along the way he seeks refuge from a storm in a castle with a bad host and finds a beautiful woman trapped there. He must save her (or does she save him?) and together they will resume the quest for the horn. There's much more to the story than that, but that's all I think I'll have room for within the confines of the paper. I'm using Cornelius as an allegorical representation for faith and his journey as the search for the good true object of faith (the horn). Along the way he's guided by human reason (named Idhrennial) who is his proper companion right until the end when he must make the rest of the journey alone in order to discover the horn kept by Divine Wisdom (Theonoe). Once he finds it he must take it and keep it until it can be passed down to one who will be able to use it (Caspian).

     It's been pretty fun to write my own fairy story. It was definitely inspired by the Faerie Queene (in addition to Lewis). Allegory is always fun to write, though. Poetry has never been my specialty, but I'll post snippets on here occasionally throughout the month. I believe that the fact that it was inspired by the Faerie Queene fits the theme for this month ;) but anyways, I'm pretty stoked. Happy November everyone!