The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains… Or is it?

Hello good reader!

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains is a recent book by Neil Gaiman (if you don’t know who he is, shame on you) and I have to say, it’s one of the most perplexing books I’ve ever read, not solely for its content, but the ‘book’ (as in its physical-ness) as a whole.

It looks at first to be a picture book, a little children’s picture book. However on further inspection you;ll find that it is by no means a children’s story.

I won’t give anything big away about the story, because it is far too good to ruin with spoilers, but what starts off as an apparently simple story about a short man looking for gold quickly becomes something else. The story has a lot in and of itself, but there are things mentioned and alluded to that are never really explained, and now after finishing it, I still feel as though I missed something. I’m going to read it again, absolutely without a doubt I will read it again, and I recommend anyone read this book.
When I finished it I had a good long think about the art that is implicit story telling which, I think, is one of the hardest but most fulfilling ways to tell a story. When you only tell the reader what they need to know, but allude to so much more that they can figure out on their own, with enough determination and thought, of course.

The book has several lines in it that made me consider the nature of subjective truth, that is, how different things can be ‘true’ to different people, and how that changes, essentially, who they are. This is a big theme in the book, so I won’t divulge anymore in reference to it for fear of spoiling the story.

My two trains of thought about subjective truth and implicit story telling collided quite recently, and gave me one of the best creative boosts I’ve had in a long time.

A few days ago I thought I’d see how well I could implicitly tell a story. So I made an account on Reddit (something I once told myself I’d never do because of the filth that it has) and posted a very vague (but well thought out on my part) ‘creepy’ story  to r/nosleep (in all honesty I just didn’t know where else to put it. I guess you could say it’s dark fantasy, so it seemed to fit). I’d been working on parts of this story for a long time, but there was one part I couldn’t work out. It was like a real bugger of a mathematics problem that I just couldn’t solve, so I decided to just cut it from the story.

So I wrote this cut-down version of the story, posted it, and came back in an hour to find it had been very well received and there were a decent amount of comments on it with people trying to explain different parts of the story and wanting more information on the more vague details, which was just what I wanted. One of the comments I didn’t understand, so I asked the user for some clarification on what he meant by his question, lo and behold the theory he had about the story was the missing piece that I had failed to figure out by myself.

After thanking this guy/gal profusely I had a brain explosion about how the story wouldn’t be as developed as it is now without implicit story telling, and subjective truth. To this user, there was no other explanation to the gap in my story, but it’s not at all what I was thinking when I wrote it, to me it wasn’t ‘true’ and to him, it was.

The reception of my story and the speculation about it made me the happiest I’ve felt in a long time. I’ve always been very uncomfortable about sharing my work with other people (hence why I use an anonymous blog) and this gave me the boost in confidence I needed to start getting more stuff out there, I still feel ecstatic.

So thanks to this legendary individual, something I’ve been working on for two years is about to start rolling through. Thanks to implicit story telling, thanks to subjective truth.

Once I have a bit more of my story written, I’ll be posting it here. But until then.

That is All.

Looking to the New Year.

Hello good reader!

When I started this blog I didn’t expect much (if any) of a positive response, but much to my delight and suprise I have recieved one. So, the infancy is over, and onward we march into the new year, heads held high and plans for it like bees swarming.

Today I’m going to share some of the plans I have for the future.

This year I find myself with nearly no responsabilities, and an astonishing amount of free time, which I plan to put to good use. I’ve got plans for this blog.

I’m going to be posting a lot more, about more things, and with greater care and quality put into what I write. I’ll be finishing the series I started on The Hobbit, and starting a new one on the Silmarillion in the later half of the year. I’ll also be doing more writing on poetry and short stories (some Poe to get things moving I think), films and comics, and basically an form of story-telling that’s worth while. I’ll be writing more stuff about art, and sharing more of my own, which has been a struggle this year because of a gimpy wrist. And if all goes according to plan, I’ll be starting a youtube channel for things that aren’t really suited to being shared on a blog (which includes some art stuff) and doing some collaborations with my good friend @Ianfjay from http://ianfjay.wordpress.com/, which will be great.

This year already looks good, thanks for being part of it.

Bravely onwards into the future. Until next time.

 

Update on the Hobbit series

Hello good reader!

I hope you’ve enjoyed what I have written on the Hobbit so far, because it’s been a pleasure to write. Due to the business of Christmas I can’t afford to put a lot of time into doing the Hobbit series, so until the new year, it’ll be taking a backseat. I’ll still be doing similar posts on literature/poetry each week, They’ll just be on simpler things (or if not simpler, shorter). I really didn’t feel as though I was doing The Hobbit justice with my posts, so taking a break and getting everything in order for a new start will help me to make the content better.

To start this temporary phase on a good note, tomorrow I’ll be taking a quick look at one of Toklien’s most well known poems, which will be a joy.

Until next time.

That is All.

The First Post

Hello good reader.

I apologise to anyone who has previously visited my blog only to be met with an about page and a distinct lack of content. If you had an idea of how long I spent deliberating over what to make my first post about, you would print this, frame it, and hang it within a dedicated shrine, or you might not. Because of certain duties I have at the moment it’s hard fot me to put time into writing frequent content for my blog, this is a temporary situation and come mid-November the blog will become one of my main focuses. But as it stands, I can’t commit much time to it. I am writing this post to work as a teaser for things that are yet to come by briefly going over some of the subjects that I will be exploring in my posts in the future.

 

Out of the things I have planned in the coming months these are the ones that I have been putting the most thought and planning into. First and foremost a post explaining to my good (and patient) readers where my passions stem from in what I will be writing about and why I chose a blog to be my format of communiation. As I read and re-read through some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works I plan on doing a series of posts on the Silmarilllion, to encourage people to read it, and to attempt to provide some clarity for it more confusing sections. I plan on posting pictures of a lot of my art, as when my current pre-occupation is over it will be coming think and fast, and I also hope to share my experiences (and sketches of these experiences) as I travel to the Philippines later this year.

 

Again, I apologise to anyone has come to my blog and seen nothing worth coming back for (as is usually the case when there is no content) and assure you that there will be a reason to come back in the future. I will try and post when I can, but until then.

That is All.