Crossing Into Story

     I think I am about a blog ahead of schedule, so I'll take a liberty this week and discuss a video game's importance to story.
     Please enjoy this Lindsey Stirling song, to get you in the gaming mood:

     I must admit I am not as in-the-know about Zelda as I'd like to be, but game I do absolutely LOVE is Animal Crossing.

    Back Story: My Aunt, Sissy, used to babysit me all the time.  She had a Gamecube that my cousins would play (as well as a Nintendo 64-- Mario Cart, anyone?) and one day they got Animal Crossing.  ONE OF THE BEST-EST GAMES EVER!!!  The game has developed and adapted to new systems, such as the Nintendo DS and Wii.  I have Animal Crossing for the Wii, and though I regrettably have not played in years, I enjoy the City section.  For those of you who  don't know about Animal Crossing, it is an amazing game where you create a character, build a house, pay your mortgage so you can keep expanding your house, collect fruit and such to sell to the store owner to get money, buy from the store so it expands, make animal friends and try to keep them in your own, maintain the town, fish, etc.!  It is so amazing-- you can live that simple life you always wanted, and like I heard someone say before, in this world you can have the satisfaction of paying off your loans IN FULL!  (Student loans, am I right??)  Also, there's the occasional money rock, the turnip market, the museum accepting donations, thee coffee shop, money (the currency in this game is "Bells") from shaking the trees, etc.  Your family can create people and move in to our town and you can visit your friend's towns as well.  Also,  the game is in real-time, so daily play is a must if you wish to run a well-groomed and prosperous town!  I love it!
      Where is the tie-in to story here?  Like our required blogs keep us in check with our writing, Animal Crossing keeps us in check with our lives.  It's good training, and helps us dream of a simpler, more debt-free life.  You can even dream up a back story for yourself and embellish the story you create while you're playing the game.  Speaking of stories, I learned from Samm Ragone that there is even an Animal Crossing movie!  I think that one can really be enriched from playing Animal Crossing, just like we are enriched writing these blogs.  For one thing, many stories are either modern-day or medieval, so it would certainly be neat to write an Animal Crossing story because it is a some-what modern setting but so simplistic it makes for an interesting backdrop.  Seeing how the animals interact with each other and with you can help with your character development, and seeing how a small town is "run" (you are not the mayor but you are doing a lot of work) can help you with the structure of your stories.  Is your character the hero?  Is your character the governing figure?  Does your town run smoothly?  Do you feel the small-town dynamic is something you wish to include in your stories?  All good story-building things coming from a FABULOUS video game!
    Well, that was a good stretch (see what I did there?  I stretched the connection.. Oh, you probably got it, you're smart!), I hope you enjoyed this Animal Crossing-themed post and all of its exclamation points!!  :)

The Magic of Stories

     Oh, how I wish tomorrow was a delayed opening.
     During the KYW Newstudies program, "The Magic of Radio" was discussed.  What is "The Magic of Radio"?  Well, it's how you can hear a news report over the radio about a political debate and can picture the sweat rolling down the face of a politician.  It's how you can hear over the radio about a car-crash and can picture in your mind the carnage.  (Not to be morbid.)
     This got me thinking: isn't this the same effect songs like "Shoo Shoo Baby" by The Andrews Sisters or "Pompeii" by Bastille work?  "Shoo Shoo Baby" begins: "You've seen him up and down the avenue/ and now he's wearin' the Navy blue/ she had a tear, in the corner of her eye/ as he said his last goodbye."
     Tell me how your sailor looks.  You can because you were able to picture this heartfelt good-bye by merely hearing its description.
     "The Storytelling Animal" touched on this concept, I think.  Stories, like radio reports and songs (because that's essentially what they are), enable us to picture the scene, even if we merely heard about said scene.  Gottschall said something about stories were sketches that allowed us to fill in the details ourselves.  I really like that analogy; here's why:
     My Mommom and I like "The Faerie Path" series (it was a trilogy until the the author decided to write three more books).  We read the same books, but upon discussion of the books we disagreed on the pronunciation of two of the names.  I appreciate how we were able to come to our own conclusions about the story, even down to the name-pronunciation, because it allowed us to connect to the story on a deeper and more personal level.  We made the characters look like what WE, individually, thought they would look like.  I saw scenes play out in my head and they were probably different from the way Mommom saw them.
     And that's okay.  We're allowed to have differences in how we see stories, that's "The Magic of Stories".   We manipulate stories to fit our needs.  And it's fabulous.  I can guarantee you my vision of the various princes in books like "Ella Enchanted" and
"Beauty Sleep" look different than yours.  Why?  Because I like mine tall, fair, and British, but you may go for the more Prince Caspian-type.  And "The Magic of Stories" allows you to manipulate stories to fit your type of anything.  Aren't you glad you read this, Mr.Carty?
     Perhaps that's why the movies are usually so disappointing, because the director filled in the gaps differently than you did.




     Oh, how convenient, here are some prime examples of hot British men.

Life Is Like Going To The Bookstore

     I recently had a Starbucks date with my cousin, Thomasina.  Thomasina and I have a lot in common, even though she's the first "cousin" and I'm the baby (of our generation of cousins, anyway).  She's introduced me to so many wonderful things and has such a positive impact on my life: she took me to the Celtic Fling to see and meet Enter the Haggis, a band I heard because of Thomasina; she gave me my boxset of Narnia books; she introduced me to Xena the Warrior Princess and sushi and how to use technology and out-of-the-box thinking.
     When I would get gift cards to Barnes & Noble's, we would go together.  First, we'd canvas the store and put any book we even THOUGHT about getting or that looked interesting in a basket.  Then, we'd go to the cafè, get a snack, and sort through our books until we had a pile that met our budget (we tried to, anyway, haha).  We had SO MANY choices in the store, from different genres and styles of writing to music to activity-type things that really weren't much of a book to cool things like an iPod-playing tape deck for the car etc., etc.  Once we narrowed down those choices and began the nitty-gritty sorting, we still had SO MANY choices when it came to what we wanted, what we thought we'd actually read/use and enjoy, and what fit in our budget.  What was overpriced and probably available online and what was a splurge and what story we HAD to have.  And we'd have serious discussions of budgets and giggles over silly things whilst we sipped our Starbcks and made memories.
     During this most recent Starbucks date, we yet again got on the subject of college and the future.  Ugh; it seems that as soon as you hit junior year, no matter WHO is talking to you or WHERE you are or WHAT you are doing, you'll end up talking about college.  I was voicing my dread of student loans; how I need a car but want to make a good investment, not just hastily buy a car; and how I want to be able to afford a nice wedding after college but I'll have all these bills and whatnot..  Where was I going with this?... Oh yeah--  So, I was saying how I don't really even know what I want to do yet.  I have been exposed to so many things over the past four years, so many different areas where I've had to do well if I wanted to earn a good class rank and all, that it's hard to choose what I want to do.  Then, Thomasina said "It's like going to the bookstore!"
     It clicked.  There are so many options available to us, so many careers and schools and dreams within our reach that we can almost taste them all.  However, we don't have to make our major decision right there in front of the vast bookshelf between that hipster to your right and the smelly guy to your left.  We're allowed to grab a hot chocolate and brownie, sit down, talk it out, weigh our options, and breathe while we make decisions.  Heck, we might even go home with two totally different books, neither of which were what we came into Barnes & Noble for, but those two stories may impact us more than we ever thought they could.
     In case I'm getting a little too blurry between my point and the metaphor I'm using to describe it, I'll spell it out.  Life is like going to the bookstore: you get to sample everything at your leisure, you don't have to make any hasty decisions, and it's that half hour of calm decision-making that allows us to make the right decision and follow the right path.  Also, doing your budget over hot chocolate and a brownie is so much better than just wallowing in self-pity.  College is so overwhelming, and so is adulthood, but if we just remember to breathe we can get through it.
     Also, to comply with the requirements of this blog assignment, stories are so important that the stores that house them are comparable with life.   I said comparable with LIFE.


     It's amazing how fun outings with your cousin can be so profound haha!  Also, I love this quote: "Today is the first blank page in a 365 page book, write a good one!"
    Thanks for the insight, Thomasina; I love you!