The Crossing WIP Novel

the Crossing story update

Have posted next section of my current WIP novel, section 2.3

If interested, that blog is @bennuma-crossing

Have a lovely week.

A Couple of Notes

In The Crossing (current WIP novel) I hesitate to refer to the camp of travelers as refugees or exiles, since although they left their home in order to escape war and being threatened (also raided, plundered, etc) by local armed forces and mercenary types... they weren't specifically evicted or told to leave, nor forced out because of their culture, race, beliefs, or any other such sort of thing. Not... directly.

It was more like, they wanted to remain peacefully neutral and not join the fighting, and being in small unfortified villages and hamlets in the countryside, they simply were easy targets for people who wanted to pick up supplies in quick raids... because of where they lived, and not because of who they were (except for their choice to be neutral). The survivors of the raids found these conditions intolerable, and decided to pack up and leave instead of moving to join any of the (sort of) neighboring fortified burgs that were at war with each other. This doesn't quite fit with a lot of what I read about current common definitions of 'refugees' and I don't wish to confuse people nor in any way minimize the plight of people in the real world on planet Earth who have become refugees or exiles because of their religion/beliefs, culture, ethnicity, or other sorts of differences. I also hesitate to refer to them as 'nomads' because although they have taken up a nomadic sort of existence, it is more of a temporary thing (they hope) like pilgrims or pioneers traveling out of necessity while they seek out a new home to settle in, and not an inherited, cultural way of life like I think the word 'nomad' usually denotes. Likewise, I don't want to refer to them as 'travelers' because it seems in some parts of Europe, that word (in English) specifically is used (perhaps as slang) to refer to the Romani people and their cultural way of life, which is also not what is going on in The Crossing. Sometimes in hash tags I am putting 'traveling people' because I am not sure what else to refer to their current nomadic sort of way of life as, since although they might accurately be referred to as a type of pioneers (in Bennuma) that term could also be confused with a specific time period and the geographic area of North America... and similar issues with the term 'pilgrims' exist, in addition to that term typically also designating having religious reasons for traveling, or 'making a pilgrimage'.

Perhaps eventually I might figure out what would be a term to use that I'd consider ideal, or at least acceptable. For now, it's something of a muddle to me.

Also note: regretfully, I cannot currently be sure to post updates to the Crossing WIP novel @bennuma-crossing according to a regular schedule (as also, the informational, sometimes-containing-short-stories, worldbuilding sort of background blog @legends-of-bennuma) but I am trying to do so without huge gaps in time between posts. After section 1.7 of The Crossing, I plan to get into what I currently consider to be chapter 2... the novel being more or less a first draft, someday after the thing is completed perhaps the novel will be divided differently chapter-wise, I don't know yet... admittedly I sometimes get in a muddle over where to make chapter divisions.

Because @haleywhaley2797 's response was amusing, and so are cosmic rainbow cats. :D

In response to @haleywhaley2797 's comment on the "Read the Fine Print (if you can) writing prompt posted in @voice-of-bennuma wherein it was suggested that when an artist drank an unknown potion and was about to be possessed.... it was a cat that was summoned who desired tuna, tuna art.

"The looming cosmic psychedelic hyperdimensional galactic space kitty has caught you spying. What will you do?"

...maybe someday I might draw a better looming space kitty... this quick doodle doesn't do justice to how it looks in my head, ha.

(mixed media; was pencil sketched and then drawn over with size S pitt artist pen and colored with metallic color permanent marker pens, colored sharpies, and colored pencils (crayola). Slight digital adjustments in color and contrast and cropped photo)

found footage

Some people seem to think that the world does not yet have enough faux-found-footage fake-umentary style fiction films.

I disagree.

art

note:

art for my blogs is credit to Ada St. of @creatures-by-ada-street ...which was for a time called Ada St. WIPs because of being mainly a blog of in-progress art?

Anyway, all drawings, photographs, and logo designs I am currently using on my blogs are by Ada St.

Intro / Synopsis

This blog is for a story from the fantasy world of Bennuma, posted online bit by bit as I write it, which is likely to be a rather long tale instead of the short thing originally imagined. Much has been outlined, not much has yet been fully written out.

Also, I admit that what was originally planned as only an adventure story… grew a love story in it as well. So I am hoping (if I write it well enough) for this to have a bit of everything I like in it: action and adventure, some humor with the drama, some mystery and some seriousness, and yes… some romance, but not like… …let’s put it this way: I don’t intend to ever write anything that I would consider to be NSFW. Just thought I’d give fair warning though, because I know not everyone likes a love story with their adventures.

An attempt at a synopsis:

A broken man from a beleaguered camp of misfortunate refugees finds a mysterious stranger who happens to offer them exactly what they need most… and who has her own reasons for traveling far from her homeland.

In a part of the world where magic is almost unheard of (and believed in even less) they must learn what it really means to hope, trust, and stand together in the face of every kind of danger…

as the camp seeks a new home away from the war-torn lands of shifting borders and alliances, trying to find a way out before all the world that they know becomes a patchwork of battlefields and cemeteries.

WIP novel progress

(see @bennuma-crossing for most recent and all previous sections of the story, skip pinned intro post if desired)

Starting chapter 3 of my WIP-titled story "The Crossing" ...about a camp of people who fled a bronze-age equivalent war zone in a magic-deprived portion of a fantasy world, who come across a traveler from a different (magic-rich) part of the world, who shows up and helps the people from the camp when they need it most, only asking to travel with them in return.

Who is this stranger, where did she come from, and what is her real objective? How will they find a new home where they can live in peace and safety, and what part will be played by the (arguably) most broken man in the camp?

(note: though originally intended to be an adventure story, future chapters may contain a love story, but rest assured I will be keeping it SFW)

also, if anyone happens to prefer blogspot format for reading long posts, you can find the same story on my blog here:

Fairy Tales

Oldschool Fairy Tales from pre-industrial times: "These are cautionary stories for all ages, and also reminders that sometimes life is terrible for no good reason at all, or just makes zero sense."

Fairy Tales from the 1900s: "These are kids' stories where we try to teach that everything in life has meaning and moral lessons, and that if you work hard, believe in yourself, and are basically a good person, then you WILL be successful in life."

Me now: "The oldschool nonsense tales had it right, and basically all the other stuff is a lie."

(To be fair, I do believe that people should work hard, should believe in themselves, and should be basically good people because those are things that make life tolerable... I'm just convinced now that doing those things is no guarantee of success and that "anyone who says differently is selling something"

...also, I think it's weird when people make edits that seem to suggest that statement is in any way inspirational. It's not 'inspiring', it's just realism. It may be comforting sometimes to know that life is terrible for a lot of people out there and even if a person's suffering is unique to them, they're still not the only one suffering... but to act like that's uplifting in some way is weird to me.)

BTW

...I have noticed the results of the poll I did before, asking about what Legends-of-Bennuma -related things people might like to see... I have put it next on my list for the Legends ( @legends-of-bennuma ), to write a bit (more?) about the geography of the world. Also, when I locate where I may have hidden my digital copies of Bennuma art somewhere down in my backup files, I will share some... and when I get more art, which I will eventually.

In the meantime, if anyone is interested, there's a short... episode(?) of my (original) fairy tales blog @onceuponasoup featuring further adventures of Duck.

Will do more writing when I can focus on it, have been having an extended difficult time with it, but absolutely not giving up.

Huzzah!

So, btw... I have another blog for writing stuffs, it's fairy tale soup for when I can't focus on my more serious writing and play with short stories old-school styles.

Duck.

"Never shall I Ever be a Soup!"

Illustration for the opening story @onceuponasoup

Digital painting using GIMP :)