Proposition Module

I think maybe rather than quespasaquapa being just one creature it should be an entire race of them - I don't want to have TOO many different creatures or it will turn into a nightmare to describe. I also had a thought about where they come from... ie how they arrived at oddsok... 

-The Quepasaguapa are sticky chewing-gum like blobs, in fact not just chewing-gum like but chewing-gum based. Sometimes a piece of chewing gum gets trampled and squished into the floor so many times that it just... disappears. Where does it go? Sometimes it gets lifted off the pavement on the sole of your shoe. It comes home with you and your mum shouts at you for ruining the carpet. But sometimes, if the weight of the person stepping on it is just right, and the sun is shining just at the right point in the sky, then it may end up in oddsok. It travels through the pavement, into the ground, past the worms and skulls and burried pets, through to the core of the earth, and finds a special hole in the fabric of time allowing it to slip through into Oddsok. It gets a bit of a surprise when it first arrives. It has conscious thought, which it never had before, it thinks for the first time. It can move and blob around. And see. It tries to speak and a hole opens up in its middle, struggling against the snapping strands of gum, to utter its first word... Quepasaguapa. It isn't doomed to spend the rest of eternity stuck to the pavement... it knows it is special, chosen.    etc etc....

Something along those lines anyway, but better. Just floating ideas at the moment.

I thought it would be a good idea to contact some Fantasy/SF authors and ask their advice and recommendations for reading, as well as my own research. Firstly I had two recommendations from Farah during our tutorial which were: 

- Watership Down, and
- The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett)

---I asked beforehand if it was ok to paste this and she said yes, so here are recommendations from Steph Swainston on 12th August, included as the full email:

Hi Jessie

Wow, you have an imagination - I've read your story synopsis on LiveJournal.
  It will take a while to cover all that, but in the process of writing you
will find you simplify when you focus (either on characters or story). 
That's what I find, anyway.

Here are a few Insect/Animal books that spring to mind.  These are the ones
I recommend - if I think of any more I will tell you later.


Children’s fantasy with animals/insects as characters:

Real Animals and Insects
1.  James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl


Imaginary Animals and Insects
1.  The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards – very
trippy, very imaginative, if soppy and sweet - Apart from the Gazooks.  I
bloody loved the Gazooks.  Julie Edwards is the Julie Andrews of 'Sound Of
Music' fame.  I think.

2.  Bottersnikes and Gumbles by Sydney Alexander Wakefield.  Out of Print. 
As far as I remember, Bottersnikes and Gumbles are opposite in temprament
but rely on each other, although they dislike each other.  This is the start
of a long series but the first one is the best.

3.  The Bogwoppit by Ursula Moray Williams.  Out of Print but Classic.

Adult Animals and Insects accessible by YA:
1.  Empire of the Ants by Bernard Weber.  Real ants as characters, very well
researched and they are great characters too.

Adult Animals and Insects not accessible by many YA:
1. Metamorphosis by Franz Kakfa. Relevant to cockroaches…

All the best and hope to see you at BSFA

Steph

What a lovely email and a lovely woman also for helping me.

---13th August, anonymous post:

The caterpillar in 'Alice in Wonderland' - Lewis Carroll.

And the cockroaches in Red Dwarf novel 'Better Than Life' - Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.

---19th August
Hels says:animals of farthing wood

 

the cat in the custard

the tiger who came to tea

mog


I am thinking to ask Nalo Hopkinson next, I seem to remember her writing or saying something about anansie the spider?? That old story. I would imagine she would know of some childrens fantasy with insects and animals.

Then I must do a bit of research online myself and either buy a few things or check the libraries out.

Jess says: The hungry caterpillar! The old lady who ate a spider or whatever that was called

To be continued...

I have a tutorial tomorrow, that is 10th August 2007. 

From my recent visit to spain and a little too much of some very strange alcohol I have managed to concoct a few ideas, mainly characters but a bit of a jumbled plot idea. I also purchased a box to put everything in which I will probably decorate with relevent pictures. I haven't found a scrap book yet but it's a consideration. 

I would like to write a dark fantasy story for children, with hints of SF of course. I would like to do this because from my experience of childrens books is that many of them are actually very dark and extremely trippy, and right now trippy is good. I can see maps of this place and strange characters. I see cockroaches. 

Here are some rough notes I made: 

Humans on earth create a new cockroach spray as roaches are becoming a massive problem due to the fact that we never sorted out the rubbish tip/landfill issue and rubbish is everywhere, plus maybe other insects have been mainly wiped out by some other terrible human act. The spray appears to make them disappear. But is actually a teleportation spray to another land due to X tripped out chemical which induces transference only in cockroachs. Humans, being dumb, ignore the fact that the roachs don't actually die as if it disappears they dont have to think about it. The place they end up in is Oddsok.... a magicial land at war with XXXXX (need another name here). XXXXX is lead by the evil Quepasaguapa, a sticky grey blob resembling chewing gum, whose only "words" are quepasaguapa but said with enough variation in tone to make a language. Cargas is the dumb leader of Oddsok, appointed due to breeding not skill. Hhhhhess is a small flying creature who advices Cargas. 

Donna leon is a cockroach who has been transported to the land of Oddsok. The rest of her family/friends escape the spray (?) maybe. Maybe cargas and hess hold the roachs who appear prisoner because they think they are spies. I thought maybe the roachs could help the Oddsoks to win against the XXXXXs in return for either safe passage back to earth or possibly for the transference of all the earths roachs because oddsok is a nicer place and this leaves the humans knee deep in their own shit because the roachs arent eating it.

Something like this. Also though of Olatz Bombz which are made of blackberries and very poisonous to the Quepasaguapa side. And fried salt dispensers. You can see how the alcohol made everything a bit... strange! ha. 

"Artifacts" could be.... a can of the roach spray, ie a normal spray can and i put a label on it. and olatz bomb. poetry of the armies - like wilfred owen war poetry. advert/drawing for the spray. photos on photo shop of trippy things/creatures. a map. 

All very rough and strange but ideas floating about which is a good thing.

I only need to do 6000 words for a creative piece and 2000 words critical reflection which is good news because I have done that kind of word count before when you combine everything I had to do for the year long writing project. 

I say 'only' but I'm sure I am going to find it bloody hard.  I'm sticking with science fiction, because I already did poetry for a year and I want to do something a bit different that is out of my comfort zone.

I was pretty stumped and non responsive concerning my own ideas when Farah asked. This is really because I didn't have any except 'short story'. Which didn't help much. I was rather underprepared. 

So F had to help me along. She gave me quite a few ideas, all quite simple things but I suppose to get me thinking. I had imagined that it would be one continuous piece of prose for 6000 words but she put the idea to me that it could be a portfolio/scrapbook/collection/box of different things. 

And that the word count doesn't have to be stuck to 100% if i am doing things that take up a significant amount of time/effort/creativity - for example if I wanted to create a world and then have 'artifacts' from this world - a map of the world/place, photoshopped pictures or something I had made could count.  As well as then some prose, poetry and whatever else. 

She showed me a scrap book another student had made for a project and I could understand how it's not just about straight forward linear stories, after all it is creative writing. 

All of this has got me thinking, and I think that even if I didn't end up making this sort of collection, then the things that I had done along the way would all give me ideas. So I'm going to have a think about it all, I'm very interested in creating this "world" - as usual I'm thinking about cat related people/creatures. 

On the train I was drawing little maps and it reminded me of doing that as a kid, I would always draw these crazy places but found it really hard now I'm an adult. I need to get in touch with my inner child! An example of an idea I had was if there were frogs/ frog creatures then I could imagine an advert for FlyPods (like an ipod)! As an alternative to the effort of catching your own flies, 600 times more effective than fly paper, stylish, fashionable and this seasons must have... etc etc. Just an idea but you see how it made me think of silly little things.

A good tutorial all in all because it got me thinking and into a place where ideas are starting to form.  

I'll start this by saying that I passed a first year module and a second year module that I had missed out on and had to re-sit, which is good news. Results were on Misis today. I also seem to be registered for the correct number of credits which is good too. 

So far I'm not entirely sure on the word count or exact dynamics of this piece yet, but when I had the original proposition journal I was looking at writing a piece of science fiction, with feminist and postmodern influences. 

I have a meeting with Farah on the 26th at 12.30 so I will discuss it futher then. 

When I have worked out exactly what I am doing for this module and what angle I am taking then I would really appreciate it if people can give me book recommendations, blog recommendations and such like.

I may well simply be blogging lists of what I have read etc to assist me when I come to the final bibliography and critical reflection. I am not always very organised so I think it's much better that I write it all down as I go along.

Here's hoping I can do this...