With the Living

Tags

exhibit, graphic narrative, Klaus Bereznyak, Pearl Grey, Second Life, With the Living, Writing

The graphic narrative exhibit, With the Living, will continue on past the original closing date.

Written by Klaus Bereznyak and illustrated by myself, (SL photos edited in software), the story is based loosely on a soldier returning from the Crimea.

There was an opening event and we were very pleased that the work viewed with interest and discussed with intelligent questions asked.

Most of the photos were taken at Binemust, which has a wonderful variety of scenes that worked for this narrative.

It was an enjoyable collaboration and learning experience. Klaus made a book out of it and I filmed a slideshow. There are gifts available at the exhibit.

With the Living might best be viewed on night setting.

Writing, Photography, Process and Such

Tags

creativity, L N L Square, shopping, virtual destinations, Writing

This is a photo taken at L and L Square, the creation of Lizzie Gudkov and London Junkers. It was taken early this year. I’ve wandered the different floors of the castle, which is also a store, many times.

Almost all the items for sale are outfits, Victorian, kimonos, Goth clothes and the like but there are also areas to hang out in. At first glance it might seem as though the areas are totally unrelated in the random way that things in Second Life often are. There was, and may still be, a pool table on one floor and then this zen garden is on another. There’s a church on one of the upper floors with light filtering in the windows.

What happened was that I would get inspired to write every time I visited. I had a story about reincarnation that is a little different than most might be. I would edit the story and then my photography skills would improve a little and I wouldn’t be happy with my previous pictures. I’d like my photos better and then I wouldn’t be satisfied with my story. (It will never be shared, I’m almost sure.) Yet, I’ve enjoyed the creative process and cannot understand why this place seems to stimulate my imagination.

I returned recently to make sure the Slurl is still valid. London Junkers was there, likely working on something or the other. It was snowing and a snow man was grinning near the landing.

Perhaps it’s because Lizzie Gudkov is a writer and accompanies her short pieces with images from virtual worlds that makes the scenes in this place seem mystical and substantial to me.

Or maybe it’s just an accident?

Auspicious Re-entry

Tags

fiction, Pandemonium, RolePlay, Story Telling, Storytelling, Victorian, Wren Alcyone, Writing

London

May 27, 1850

The wind had finally settled down about mid-morning after keeping Wren awake most of the night with howling and the flinging of small pieces of debris against the windows of the tiny flat above the tavern.

Today she would venture outside after having kept to her quarters for most of two weeks except for forays downstairs to check on the staff, receive supplies and for meals and a bit of company.

She’d felt a bone-weary, soul-numbing fatigue and had waited it out–just a cycle such as occurs in the natural world. There were some moments when she’d wondered if she’d been poisoned, but she wasn’t important enough for that. She’d also considered whether she’d acquired the affliction that had been spreading around London for several years now, but the familiarity of her extreme languor and irritability called for dismissal of that possibility.

It was more than simple melancholy; she’d paced the floors, slept a lot, gazed out the windows and avoided her scrying ball and cards.

Today would be the day to coax and push herself back out into the bustling city even though she didn’t feel quite ready–in fact, she had a sinking feeling of dismay in her solar plexus.

Without a mental list of things to do or any plan at all really, she cautiously opened the tavern door and stepped out into the street. The air was damp and sooty; she was drawn immediately to the gentle and patient eyes of a horse attached to a nearby carriage. The driver was in the tavern having a quick pint; Wren whispered in the horse’s ear and scratched around his head–a perfect beginning to re-entry into the world.

Playing for the Queen

Tags

Legacies 1891, Legacies Nexus, Pearl Grey, RolePlay, roleplay, Story Telling, Victorian, Writing, writing

March 7, 1893

Pearl played for the Queen in her new red gown. The Queen wasn’t actually in the room; Victoria was elsewhere in the world, England to be precise, if she were still alive. Pearl didn’t know for sure because there hadn’t been any news on the island for quite some time.  It was 1893 and Victoria would live for eight more years.

Glancing up at the photograph above the piano, Pearl played her best, which was only average but inspired and that may be more important after all.

Having been born and spending her childhood in France, Pearl hadn’t had Victoria for a Queen for most of her young life. That changed when she found herself in a weird, alternative version of London for what seemed to be an eternity but was actually less than a year. Having learned she had to create a sense of home for herself wherever she was, she’d looked to the larger-than-life Monarch for a sense of normalcy in the nightmarish world she’d found herself in.

London seemed long ago and so far away now. There was no one around to wear the gown for; she’d finally put it on to play to the empty room in the tavern and to the portrait of the Queen.  She’d found the dress packed away in one of her trunks months before, and was looking forward to an opportunity to wear it–an opportunity which had yet to arise.

She continued to lose herself in the music and this let her forget for a while one of the real issues at hand; the ships had stopped coming to the harbor. Not only had there been no news of politics, the theater and of ladies fashion, which she was sure was all changing, but there had been no supplies delivered of late.

There was plenty of liquor in the tavern and she had a fair amount of wealth but the ships had simply ceased arriving. She’d taken careful stock of her food supply, the chutneys she’d made during the winter and the dry goods in the pantry. She’d found a shovel near the open crypt, the one with the coffin and strange altar, nervously borrowing it to turn over some soil to plant a small garden.  There were still tea and scones to be gotten at the Café Serenity and Hester never seemed concerned about anyone starving, although she hadn’t been forthcoming with any details, being as efficient and brisk as ever.

It was likely that all was well; still Pearl could not help but wonder. There were signs that others had been about the island although she rarely saw them.

She sighed and got up from the piano to pour herself another brandy and then raised her snifter in a toast to the portrait of the Queen.

Writing in a Virtual World

Tags

life, Story Telling, Writing, writing

sitting on the porch, listening to the crickets and chickens

A spiral notebook and a gel pen are my favorites for writing. Another favorite is going to an empty sim with streaming music that I like, writing in chat and copy/pasting to a document that I can clean up later. It’s even better when there are ambient sounds, as in this location that has crickets, a rooster and ducks among other things.

Lost Paradise; World Number 3 For Me

Tags

life, Lost Paradise, Writing, writing

Found Myself in Hampton Woods

I first read about Lost Paradise world on Daniel Voyager’s blog and I see it was rated #1 in something or other of the opensim worlds. Last week I set up an account and my avatar’s name is Wren Grey, just as the one in Island Oasis.

Somehow I have the Imprudence viewer for this world and now when I click on SLurls here on the blogs to go into Second Life, Imprudence shows up. I use the LL viewer for Second Life and also have the Island Oasis viewer. It’s difficult for me to figure things out and often I just click wildly on things and hope something good happens.

Lost Paradise looks very neat and tidy and is a good build. I joined the day of their first birthday and they were recovering from griefers so things weren’t quite settled   at the time. I’ve gone back to explore a few times and everything is OK except for that my AO doesn’t work. I’ve tried several copies of it and really am not up for figuring it out but it does bother me to have that noob waddle.

In SL I’m used to buying hair, right-clicking on wear and it goes right on my skull. In this world I had to select where it goes instead of having it in my hand. I’m just saying this is the sort of thing I’ve been messing around with. I actually lost my beginning hair, which I liked. Now I have hair which is better than what is shown in the photo above.

I’ve only talked to one other resident and that was the owner who is kind and helpful as I stood there bald at the time. I didn’t ask for help because I often don’t quite understand quickly.

I can only speculate as to what this world is about and I’m guessing that most people join because they know others who have. Or maybe they just want a very private place to live; there’s a huge prim allowance that comes with land rental. There will likely be some photos here in the future when I do some exploring.

This thing is finally done:

Of course it is dreadful and no one will ever see it. What I’ve learned is that it would be better for me to write short stories for awhile instead of a novel. Also that I need a refresher course in sentence structure and other writing basics. Knowing I have a unique perspective feels good but I have trouble expressing it clearly. Then there’s the thing with my short-term memory and also my short-term memory. I’m kind of kidding about that.

Not Shopping Today Either

Tags

awareness, Consciousness, learning, Story Telling, values, Writing, writing

Not Standing Next To The Bullshit.

“Katia continues with her writing and the dishes remain soaking, the sheets remain unchanged and the time moves on. She actually has to remind herself that this is not a failure; she really cannot be in more than one place at one time. The horrors of taking on the energy of others, the horrors of people who felt overwhelmed by duties making her feel a failure because they focused on what she hadn’t done instead of what she had accomplished for them. It’s in her cells and nervous system now. Whatever choice she has made, a part of her could say that it was the wrong one; she has been programmed.

There are people and organizations she can finally see clearly as her oppressors, those she wanted to please and could be easily manipulated by with the withholding of appreciation and approval. They’d wrung everything out of her that they could because it was the way the world worked in places. They thought that they deserved it to make up for what had been done to them, for their losses and for their conditioning of overwhelm, for Katia’s stupidity for actually caring and mostly because they didn’t have the blessing and curse of feeling what it’s like to be someone or something else.

They give her nothing now; they do nothing for her but make noise in her life. She no longer cares what they think of her; she thinks of them rarely at all. What of value can they withhold from her now, when she turns and walks away?”

The Discerning of Appropriate Information

Tags

awareness, choices, Consciousness, learning, Story Telling, values, Writing

Time Out

“Right now it is shining more than the enormous amount of frightening, yet also dull information and the distractions and the conflicting opinions bouncing around her world. She can look at it and put it in a simple, beautiful container in her mind and practice—next step, next step, next step– and then move to play with the simplicity of another beautiful container that holds what is her own chosen priority.

Almost everything she’s been taught about living has been wrong. She has to write her own manual now and it is a great responsibility and a great adventure. It is clunky and awkward work. Many mistakes are made. It is like having to transform into another species with no appropriate elder to explain the process and the signs and gently point out the wheat from the chaff. She moves between feeling the trembling of her hands working with the material of the moment and pausing to listen to the soft voice amongst the cacophony and babble of the world. Sometimes, for a brief moment she can attend to both.  It takes a lot of energy yet it appears to look like nothing is being accomplished to those mostly focused in the third dimension. There’s no more time to try to explain.

She has been saved by her ego many times; she can see that now. That ego that has been pointed out with head shaking and frowning scorn by the well-meaning when she didn’t stay in the line, get with the program, keep up with the pace, do it the way it worked for them in their shoes and on their path with their resources.  Only one reality, they seemed to think, and the one belonging to the most intimidating, the most rich, the most confident, arrogant, complacent and smooth is the one that wins. Sometimes that looked like the only game in town.”

A Day Of Rest; Freedom Isn’t Free

Tags

awareness, behavior, Consciousness, creativity, Entertainment, fiction, films, Story Telling, values, Writing, writing

Pearl Grey visits an exhibit by DACO Monday in Second Life.

Time for a day to regroup and allow the synapses to repair.  I’m keeping up with my NaNoWriMo novel, mostly pleased with how the election turned out and I want to be outdoors. Still I’m liking showing up here to blog everyday, mostly about Second Life.

My involvement in Second Life began for several thoughtful and introspective reasons, another tool for evolution and transformation. That’s still true, although I haven’t been writing about that part mostly because the actual living and doing of it is work and so the extra steps of attempting to explain it in writing here is one I’ve been unwilling to make. But yeah, behind the scenes all that is going on.

I’m still very interested in story telling and have concerns about the role modeling and images put out there for us in films, books and other entertainment. There’s a queasy feeling I get when I notice the quality of television writing which seems to me to be more and more by young people who grew up on television, video games and rarely read books or went outside and sat around under a tree for a few hours. I’m dismayed at what’s being presented as ways for young women to be.

I wonder if these writers and film makers and clothing designers and such realize that when we’re all older the world will be run by children who were exposed to all this crap.

Actually, I’m optimistic about the future, and at least I’m focusing on proactive things and where I can make a difference instead of lingering too long looking at the train wrecks.

Yeah, this post is too long but I just want to put a little of my opinion out there about technology, attention spans, entertainment, and role models in a bigger picture sort of way on my very own blog.

In appreciation to Veterans; thank you.

Behind the Scenes

Tags

blogging, life, RolePlay, Second Life, Writing, writing

Things Shifting in Real Life as Well as Second Life

This week I learned how to make clickable links in my blog. That’s both the shortlinks when available and also links to other sites. There’s still a lot I don’t understand about wordpress but I’m liking blogging so that’s enough for me now.

And I was thrilled that a blogger whom I respect nominated me for two blogger awards! The Reader Appreciation and the Beautiful Blogger Award. She’s a young writer named Candace Knoebel who’s talented, upbeat and generous with insights and tips about how the process is for her.

I live right in the heart of downtown in my city and there are four major, public construction projects going on with a fifth to be added soon that will really change things. Noise and detours all the time now, but worth it later. The smoke hanging in the air now is a challenge.

Three of the four sims I play on are having a remodel as well.  Winterfell actually picked up and changed locations to a size that is more fitting for the number of people that play. I like that it’s summer now and I don’t have to wear a cloak all the time. Recently I took a stroll around the empty castle when no one was around.

TornOak seemed to become structurally unstable after nearby Legacies 1891 went down. Tunnels have been put in but much is in a flux. My cottage is fine and requires no housework, unlike real life.

As for Serenity Falls, the apartments are being rebuilt. I have until Saturday night to get Pearl’s belongings out, new buildings will be put up and then I’ll move back in. That’s something I like to do anyway, but I hope it all goes as scheduled somewhat.

Everything all over the world is shifting and changing and I just have to go with the flow as best I can. Cookies crumbling. New worlds being built.