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Saturn: A Project in Sentimental Prose



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Tue Dec 22, 2015 5:58 pm
Lavvie says...



In the past year, I have become increasingly interested in the sentiments of nostalgia, melancholy, and wistfulness. Having realized that this is somewhat of my personal plague which is at times very overwhelming yet tragically beautiful, I have realized that I can transfer this into my writing.

This project, called Saturn, references the medieval creation of the word "saturnine", derived from alchemists' beliefs that the planet was symbolic of slowness, gloominess, and mystery. This will be an anthology of emotion, of sorts. I will be posting short stories centred around these ideas, helping me to explore my emotions and the psychology of melancholia. I will also be posting quotes, songs, and images that further spur on my creativity and generally are used as influences and/or muses to the things I write.

Comments, reviews, tips, and whatever else are very welcome, if not encouraged, as I venture onwards into a project that will be hopefully be enlightening and revealing not only to others, but myself.
Last edited by Lavvie on Tue Dec 22, 2015 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Tue Dec 22, 2015 6:00 pm
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Lavvie says...



1. Revisiting Abracadabra

Image


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Wed Dec 23, 2015 10:00 am
Lavvie says...



2. What It Is to Be Özlem

Muse here.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:03 pm
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Lavvie says...



3. Bus Ride


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Wed Feb 03, 2016 4:10 am
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Lavvie says...



After discussing Saturn with a good YWS friend and completing my January writing reflection found here, I feel the need to reflect on this project in particular and drop some additional insight.

Although I have only posted three short stories since the 22nd of December when I first initiated this emotional journey, my mind is thinking of Saturn day in and day out. I am constantly collecting, remembering, making sense of, and reflecting on tidbits of my life that ultimately end up inspiring some part of something related to my endeavour in sentimental prose. Really, my entire life is the muse for Saturn and so my entire life is the muse of the individual short stories that I create. Of course, there is often something more specific – like a photo or a song – that I will associate with a composition so that I can narrow down some of the emotions and focus better. These smaller inspirations are also nice so that whoever reads my short stories can have a better chance at entering the state of mind I was in when I wrote the story.

Currently, my stories are rather rough and have many of the characteristics of what people like to call "purple prose". I am very much aware of this and I obviously intend to revise, but I refuse to revise until I have produced more saturnine prose. Exploring the complex sentiments of wistfulness, yearning, etc., is an extraordinary challenge, but I feel that after awhile, I might have a better idea of what I'm searching for. Only then will I be able to look at my pieces and revise them so that they are more reader-friendly. What is currently available to read on YWS is basically raw emotion transcribed. It is wild, it is unfriendly, it is crazed, and it is really weird. But that is part of my sentimental journey.

The rawness is, as it stands, part of the essence of Saturn.

By no means am I excusing the horrid state of the stories. I am rather explaining why they are like this. For those who review, I am very grateful that you are putting up with them and giving them a chance. By all means, go and be honest and kind in your review because that only brings me closer to achieving my goal of being able to fulfill my goal of sharing my perspectives on nostalgia 100% successfully. Nothing would give me more joy as a writer.

Spoiler! :
If you want to be tagged every time I post a new something, let me know or click Subscribe at the top of this thread. Shout out to @Pretzelstick for the amazing encouragement they give me and also for their admirable dedication to my project. It means a great deal!


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Tue Feb 16, 2016 11:30 pm
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Lavvie says...



Quick Update to Assure Everyone of my Existence

I'll hopefully be posting something relatively soon, because I would like February to feel somewhat productive in terms of my own creative writing. The upcoming short story is tentatively titled The Artists of Barbizon after finding inspiration in one my art history classes. We'll see, though, because the magnitude of emotion attached to the idea is greatly lacking compared to how strongly I felt while writing the other three instalments of Saturn.

Another option is to write a less abstract short story – where I'm hoping to have more success coherency-wise – in your typical fantasy, medieval, parallel universe setting. I have some ideas in mind, although I'm not giving everything way ;)


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:19 pm
Lavvie says...



Scrap the above thoughts. I found inspiration from this.

4. A Literary Dalliance [Part 1]

The first part of a short story. I had to split it up because it's a fairly long short story.

Note: some mature references hence the rating.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Sun Mar 27, 2016 10:04 pm
Lavvie says...



5. A Literary Dalliance [Part 2]

The second part. @Pretzelstick


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Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:10 pm
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An Essay

Spoiler! :
I am seven. Mum stands in the doorway of the room. Behind her, the words “Camelot Motel” erratically flash fluorescent green. My father is lying comatose next to me and the scene is one of littered beer cans and the lingering stench of marijuana weighing heavy in the air. Maybe I am too engrossed in what is flashing at a rapid speed across the television screen or really just too young, but I don’t hear Mum address my father, her voice wavering in rage, and I don’t hear my father when he looks back at her, eyes screaming.

Flash forward. The first day of second grade. My father is next to me and mum let him be the one to drop me off because he says he’s moving. I am wearing the kind of couture that comically marks childhood: hot pink, wire-framed Barbie glasses, blindingly red tights, and an enveloping lemon-patterned dress that comes fully equipped with puffed sleeves and a swooping, laced collar. With a handy notebook to write my fantasy worlds of talking trees and friendly monsters named Earl, I am undeniably a peculiar child. The year will be a vicious one, poisoned by the backstabbing and hateful comments that will become the norm of the girls in my grade.

However, when the school bell rings, I am unaware of this. I am unaware that my naïve confidence will dissipate just as quickly as dreams after waking. I am unaware that as my father walks away from the school, it will be the last time I set eyes on him because he will go to England and never return. There will be no birthday cards, no Christmas gifts, and no spontaneous phone calls anymore. There will be nothing and the nothing will continue for thirteen years and counting.

Flash forward again. I’m sixteen, but I still wear dresses and write strange fiction. It’s November and mum is struggling to contain my two-year-old brother in his seat at the table. I’m careful around my stepfather. Although I love him dearly, being around him is like walking on eggshells and I never know when he’s going to crack. This time, at dinner, he says that he’s leaving, and leave he does because within hours the hangers in his closet are bare and the periwinkle blue Toyota Matrix has driven off into the smoggy horizon.

I don’t talk to him for months and I hide myself among friends. There are so many questions and not many answers. Sometimes they’re shouting or whispering, and sometimes their voices break but there is always one that ingrains itself into the lines of my mind: Where’s your father? It is a question that has ensnared me for some time. I am of the thought that I am not worth anything to my fathers, that it is somehow my very being that has contributed to their circumstances. Over the course of the year, though, through joy and through despair, I begin to realize that I am not responsible for another’s misdeeds and I should not hold myself accountable for something over which I have no control.

As a result of this revelation, I now like to turn to the words of the late Maya Angelou: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” The actions of my fathers have indeed shaped my life through experiences and, in that way, have supplemented me as a person, but I am by no means the sum of their mistakes. My identity is independent of their faults. My mother often tells me that a person’s choices in life cannot define who you are. I don’t think that I could ever abide by wiser words.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Thu May 19, 2016 12:30 am
Lavvie says...



6. The Canola Violence

Note the 18+ rating due to a few instances of strong, offensive language.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Wed Jul 20, 2016 5:52 pm
Lavvie says...



7. An Explosion


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  








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