Have you created any fictional places?

Yes!
I'm a writer....

I live in a fictional place

Sure. I'm writing my first adventure/fantasy after having that initial Tolkien love affair...
I've created the Azure or the Centre World, the place unknown to ordinary people living in the Grey or the Outer World. It's very large and I don't wish to go into detail about it. There is a place called Edensbale where the tale takes place. At the most, I'll save the fudging thing and my kids will laugh their asses off at it. Or else it'll get published and have a tenth of the success HP/LoTR has. In which case I'll be wildly happy about it. You knew me when...

Not yet.

& a dang good one too!

Thank you.......
I like to write. It's fun.

There is a place I go in my dreams. It is a lot like any other suburban neighbourhood, but in many ways it is startlingly different. Everyone has poems decorating their homes, for example. Sometimes the poems are painted neatly on the house in block letters. Others use the kind of signs you see on car lots, so that they can change them from time to time. The colours are much more vibrant too. Strange things appear where you wouldn't expect them. At the school, they have a coffee shop under the stairs which lead down from the playing field. Picnic tables line the street like parked cars. Major appliances are as likely to be found outdoors as in.

I have a town I dream about. I dream about different areas and I know where I am relative to areas from previous dreams. I drew a big map of it.

I also have places I create for stories, and sometimes I dream about them. If I'm working on a story late at night, sometimes I dream that I am in it.

yep, yep, yep. Writing, dreams, role-playing.

I have a bit of stuff like that too. Early islamic architecture was consturcted of scriptures. Nanotech visionaries imagine buildings and furnishings will be made of amorphous screen/sensor material.

Look around on my website. Lotsa Hell.

Writher?

Centre World? lol Just a bit of a Tolkien influence there......

You got from Middle Earth to Centre World If I was you I'd go a little further with taht name - although the Azure thing is good, it reminds me of something else I read but I can't think what. Good luck with it

When I was in Kuala Lumpur, I was impressed with the architecture of of some of the downtown office towers. Some had concrete solar screens "carved" with intricate arabesques. The solar screen was a feature of the post-modern/international style that is often found on buildings far from the tropics (like Vancouver for example) although it is usually a simple mesh/grid pattern.

http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/kualalumpur.htm

Yeah,I created a planet.

Can I show something? I wonder if anyone will like this analogy.

There were two Worlds.
One was seen from afar as a deep, rich blue, as if an immense jar of undiluted paint was emptied over it. The other was but a dim ashen color, such that it seemed that the edges of the magnificent blue had been watered down--that World was built surrounding the first. The two tints contrasted well, thus marking the various endings and beginnings of both.

Yak, I just chipped my nailpolish.

at times...that too...

Oh plenty. For stories, roleplaying, dreams that I wrote down. I created a planet called Sanctuary, a multi-dimensional city called Epocalypse. Although most of the places I've created in my dreams have been warped versions of actual places I know.

I have a very active imagination but I've never written it down.

Apparantly Orlando Bloom is in this new film called 'Black Hawk Down'.

Yeah, I know. But it sucks because he dies really early in the film.
Love him

Based on a dream and dreams ... and also daydreams, like what the inside of the house(s) I want to own will look like -- as in beamed ceilings, old-fashioned tub, a tiled "bar" near the kitchen/dining area with stools, a big sunny backyard facing south or west for my dream garden, hardwood floors (no more ratty old carpet).

Yes, for my "Inner Light Chronicle". What's it called? It has no name.

Ah yes, those patterns that say at once molecular entanglement, snow flakes, and star fields, like electric fences.
Wow, what gorgeous architecture.

Sunday 10:08pm
I can tell! Your so cute & descriptive in your responses.I'm jealous! I wish I could write like you.Geeze,Mandy why waste your talents doing anything other than writing? Your so good!Why you did not seek employment in this field (doing something that you enjoy & are sooooo fantastic at) is beyond me.Your so dang brilliant,you might as well get paid for it too!

That's sweet of you to say. I don't feel I'm wasting my talent. I'm very happy and content working with Sue and raising Mallory. To be honest, I enjoy writing but it is such a solitary pursuit and I'd rather be with my family than locked away (To really write well I need time and quiet) in a room somewhere, selfishly indulging in a past time that doesn't bring me half as much joy as laughing and loving my girls. I'll have plenty of free hours to write when Mallory is raised and gone. Funny though, I don't see myself doing it then either.

10:42pm
Yeah,I know what you mean.I keep saying,I'm gonna have time,to do everything I want to do,when Bianca graduates & moves out.But,I just don't fore see it happening then,myself either.

But,to reiterate,your brilliant! Keep writing I enjoy reading your responses.

BTW I'm still up cause I have no job to go to,tomorrow. Why are you still awake?

Go to bed now.** sings you a lullaby & covers you up with your blankie**

Is that your writing?

For stories, and in dreams.

I was still up because I don't have to work today either. I took the day off to be with Mallory since there is no school today. We finally have more help at work, so I'm making up for all the extra hours I put in over the last few months. She's sitting right here watching old episodes of The X-Files we have archived.
We're laughing at severed heads and maggots. She's such a funny kid! I'm going to cook for us now! *waves*

Yeah?

I've come to the conclusion that the best thing anyone can do with their talents is to try to make their own lives and the lives of those around them better... I think your talents are well and wisely used

As are yours, sweetie darling.....as are yours!
Thank you so much.

Lots for stories.

Mon 7:44pm
I was home with my little munchkin also.I was so bored that I baked a chocolate cake.Bianca doesn't eat chocolate cake unless it's frosted.Oh well,more for me!

**scolds self** BAD Cleo! BAD girl!

** sneaks another piece of cake**

We watched TV and played on the computer and cuddled and ate....It was fun. Mallory didn't even get out of her PJ's. She rarely gets to kick back like this with all her school and after school activities. She usually just comes to work with me on the Monday holidays that she's out of school, but she came to work a lot with me during the holiday season and I'm trying to make up for that.

We're gearing up for a busy week starting January 28th. She's determined to get the lead in the school play when The Missoula Children's Theatre comes through again that week and auditions and then rehearses the kids to death! She loves it...It's an exhausting week though! They audition that Monday after school and then rehearse every night that week after school 'til 7pm and then perform on the Saturday. The kids all still have to keep up their homework too.
*tired already*

Why the unhappy face?

Well, you didn't say it was good, honey.

Tues. 7:53pm
I bet!!! I got tired just reading her busy schedule.Whew!!! Does she have enough to keep her busy or what? Geeze! It's nice to be young. Wishing her lots of luck on the audition.Let me know how it goes.Okay?** keeping my crossing fingers**

I've created fictional places in MUSHes...

Hmmm, no I didn't......Would you like a little constructive criticism? There were certainly things I liked about it (the imagery for one) but I could make a suggestion if you'd like to hear it?

And it wasn't bad!! In no way, shape or form - don't think that's what I mean

Okay.

I know you're absorbed by all things Tolkien-esque right now , but you need to avoid taking such a stylistic approach to your writing. It's just the placement of one or two words makes what would be a great piece of imagery feel a bit contrived.

"The other was but a dim ashen color, such that it seemed that...."

The "but" is a good example of what I'm talking about, as is the "such that it seemed" - they're quite wordy ways of expressing something that could be a lot clearer. In some cases it can sound great, but with you I don't think it's your natural writing style so it sounds a bit fussy. I know you probably have these words flowing through your mind as you write but that's the influence of what you've been reading. I always find it helps to read books that have the same style I'm expected to write in an exam just before because then I find it very easy to write like that. I think the same is happening with you. Just keep trying to find the Phoebe in everything you write and chuck out the rest because it's hard to stay consistent for a novel if you're writing in someone else's style. The other word that seems a bit unnatural here is "thus" but it doesn't jar like the others do.

That said, I do love the imagery - it's clever the way the metaphor of the paint links the first two sentences together (mention of paint in the first, then dilution in the second). I really like that.

This is what you wrote: "There were two Worlds.
One was seen from afar as a deep, rich blue, as if an immense jar of undiluted paint was emptied over it. The other was but a dim ashen color, such that it seemed that the edges of the magnificent blue had been watered down--that World was built surrounding the first. The two tints contrasted well, thus marking the various endings and beginnings of both."

This is how it would sound with just two changes: "There were two Worlds.
One was seen from afar as a deep, rich blue, as if an immense jar of undiluted paint was emptied over it. The other was a dim ashen color, so that it seemed that the edges of the magnificent blue had been watered down--that World was built surrounding the first. The two tints contrasted well, thus marking the various endings and beginnings of both."

IMHO, the second seems a lot more natural

Keep up the good work

Thanks! That was nice criticism, and my first for "Azure".

no

Well, they say "those who can't do, criticise!"

Yes. My roommates in college made ourselves a country. I-- *reads explination text*- I hope I'm answering right, we, oh, you know, "Let's succeede from the Union. We'll call ourselves Pot Land or whatever." We appointed ourelves political offices, passed the legalization of drugs, and passed out.

To go along with what Biggles suggested, one of my professors in college assigned us to choose an established author we would like to emanate or whatever, and type, word for word, three consecutive chapters (or one article or short story). It really gives you a good feel for the flow when you copy it.

San Francisco

You emanate authors? Wow, that is so cool.
I'm reading an Anne Rice 'the Mummy, or Ramses the Damned' and as I do so, i'm tearing apart her language, craft utility of charcter motives, etc. With every movie or passage I read lately, i'm looking at what the writer achieved, and how.

I think I have "emanate" wrong. I thought it meant, in a nutshell, "To wish to be like." Like girls who dress like Britney Spears are "emanating" Britney Spears?
Was I wrong?

A good paragraph takes me an hour or more, by the time I do rewrites and polishes. I'd be discouraged, but my papers usually get A+++'s in college with comments such as 'I could swear you had been there' or 'get this published', and I recall that Hemingway would arrange his sentences with index cards of synonyms, so i can't be that atrociously in the wrong ballpark.

You mean 'emulate'. Reactors emanate radiation, witches emanate blue sparks. If you are thinking 'I am one with the world; I am James Joyce' and everyone you meet speaks in colorfully poetic run-on metaphors, then perhaps you have indeed emanated James Joyce.

Yeah! Emulate!
*puts the beer down*

Hey, am I good or what? Who else could run with 'emanate an author'.
I just saw the ending of 'clockwatchers' last night. It made me think of you.

LOL LOL

so what's really going on there? new job doing it for you?

One time, I was listening to a tape on my walkman. It wasn't up so loud that anyone else could hear it. I wasn't looking like the singer or copying her style or anything, but I was kind of feeling her attitude. Someone approached me and asked me if I was her. That took me by surprise a bit.

Eh. It's okay. It's VERY nice to be a productive member of society, and I REALLY like the people I work with. They're nice, they're helpful, they're fun. My department is under a lot of pressure, but everyone's pretty laid back. It's a very nice environment.

What have you been up to? Are you going to teach?

That happens to me all the time to the extent that I use it as a constant tool to shape my upcoming experiences out in the world. If I've been wishing i was pregnant, someone out on my errand will ask if i'm pregnant. I take an interest in some form ofengineering, and will spend a couple hours that afternoon talking to someone at a copy shop who is an expert on the topic. ¥"This is how you make decisions, to call in people with specialised opinions". I can be dressed entirely as a man, and people will still address me as miss/ma'am. There is a level of reality in which everything is interacting with your mind, not appearances. It takes a lot of meditation to get to that state. Immersing yourself in music is a form of meditation. If you are one with the world, you steer experience by becoming one thing or another yourself. Even old phoenician mariners would get to an island by envisioning it in their minds eye in front of them.

Most people have a taste of this reality a couple times in their life. Few people walk through the door though. They dismiss an entire universe of being that supercedes their existing understanding. Some people are being clobbered by evidence, and still refuse to look through the door. The door opens with love and faith.

I'm headed in that direction. I'm taking child psych, engl. 1, more conceptual art, photo, and broadcasting this semester. Chances are I'll drop some of it. I'm not that time proficient in the physical procedural realm. I do love office settings like you mention periodically. Teaching isn't like prior careers. As an engineer they were willing to overlook my official status because of my creative intelligence and self-gained knowledge. But to work in an institution, they want you to be an example of that institution. At the extreme, there are those positions where all your education can only get you a position in education. That paradigm seems to be changing as business and education merge. Our college has a sub-college in digital media, but it is sponsered by disney, dreamworks, and such, so they can snag talent before the salaries escalate. In spite of years and years of community college, and a couple AA's, at the moment I don't have what it takes to transfer towards my bachelors. It's a bit frustrating. I'm used to jumping right to whatever I want to do when I want to do it. I also have reservations about my ability to do the same schedule everyday. Now, it takes more than I have just to get myself on a day schedule.
I intend to concentrate on making childrens books in the meantime. That will probably work for me even if I don't make it as a full time teacher.

If I thought long enough, I could probably come up with more instances of that happening, just not as surprising as the singer incident. OH, except one time in class, I was thinking about an example of a person with a problem (It was a counselling class) and the teacher came up with the exact same scenario as the one I was just thinking of.

I've done it on purpose a couple of times too. I mean, imagining myself as someone else or as a fictional character, among other things. I've had similar results, but not to the same degree. It's kind of neat how people can sense it without realizing it. I'm still a bit skeptical about a metaphysical explanation. I think of it in terms of psychology and subconscious.

As ones immersion in supernatural/metaphysical experiences increases, they will find that it takes greater mental gymnastics to apply the hard sciences as an explanation. On rare occasion, i've been in a state where i am one with the mind writing all events that occur in the finest detail. Once you've seen that, there's no going back to actually believing the scientific explanations; you just abide by it, for the time being, like some sort of play or joke.

Good luck!

Thanks.
Just spring cleaning my tiny apartment seems to be an ordeal. I hope I miraculously spring to meet demands. I have sometimes in the past, but not always.

I have created a fictional place where someday I hope to live. It's small town somewhere where I'll be happy and grow old with my future family.