Squirrel Tao » Myth of Merula

The Antagonist, Shapeshifter and Most Important Narrator

Jennifer Elrod — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:31:47 +0000

I dreamed about it one night. It was dark and shaped like a cone. It had tentacle-like legs that were somehow extremely repulsive. But it was a shapeshifter. As soon as it sensed how repulsive it appeared to me, it immediately transformed its appearance into that of a small, cute robot. I quickly got over my initial feelings of repulsion, and I communed with the thing. It had a beautiful mind. It could telepathically give me vicarious experiences that were unmatched by art, film, games or books. I became seduced by these experiences. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized it was slowly digesting my mind. It was as if it was to my mind what a spider is to its prey. A spider slowly digests its prey outside of its own stomach, before finishing it off by sucking it dry of its juices. When I awoke, I realized this thing was just what I needed for The Myth of Merula. It is the perfect narrator, although it is not directly the narrator. As the story unfolds, and the soul-eating shapeshifter enters the act, it will become clear why and how it is indirectly the most important narrator. This is what the thing in my “beautiful nightmare” looked like:

It took a while to create something with some semblance of the ugliness of the thing I dreamed about, but a few fractals and a few dust mite legs helped along the way. I have photographed pond scum, spiders and other things trying to capture some texture or pattern that would convey the ugliness, but whenever I have looked at the photos later, I have found them to have beauty. The pond scum had fractalesque patterns. The spiders were symmetrical and athletic, with handsome patterns and textures. It wasn’t until I saw a magnified photo of a dust mite that I felt I had finally found repulsiveness captured in a photograph. It was the dust mite’s tendrils, more than anything else, that conveyed the feel I wanted.

Browse all the entries under Art, Computer Graphics, Myth of Merula.

Plans for Myth of Merula Story

Jennifer Elrod — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:27:37 +0000

I plan to return to telling the story of The Myth of Merula very soon. In addition to writing Alice Mountolive’s fictional blog, I will be getting to Blackbird’s story. Blackbird’s story will be released chapter by chapter, in Flash. Each chapter will have a game at the end of it. The first chapter will have an interactive fiction game at the end of it. My goal is to release this first chapter and game by the end of this year. I’m toying with the idea of, just for the fun of it, releasing the interactive fiction game on a CD, along with a comic and a “feelie”. This is the way that many IF games were packaged and released in the Infocom days from what I have read. A “feelie” is a toy that comes with the game. I think it would be fun to experiment with a different type of game or simulation at the end of each chapter of Blackbird’s story. The plot will actually lend itself to this way of organizing it, too.

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An Encyclopedia of Alien Philosophies

Jennifer Elrod — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:41:48 +0000

The Myth of Merula Philosophy Wiki has gone through many incarnations since I impulsively created it, but each time, it has never really gelled for me. Now I finally know what I will do with it. Its purpose in life is to be a work of community science fiction. It will be an encyclopedia of alien philosophies that Blackbird has encountered. That is, a bunch of people will have fun making up alien philosophies. Soon I will begin to put some content in place, as well as some guidelines for contributing.

Browse all the entries under Myth of Merula, Philosophy Wiki.

The Philosophy Wiki is Back

Jennifer Elrod — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:03:11 +0000

Today I took the plunge and made the philosophy wiki a fictional extension of The Myth of Merula. I will be writing in it as Alice Mountolive. This blog will be the only non-fictional part of the Dreamfishery.com Web Site. It’s very liberating. It’s not the first time I’ve considered doing this, but for some reason, something always held me back. Maybe it was only narrative conventions holding me back. I’m not sure what it was. I can think of no good reason not to make the whole Web Site fictional. But I can think of a lot of good reasons in favor of it. It’s more fun that way, it allows more freedom and possibility, and it enhances the story of The Myth of Merula. Anyway, being me is so dull and restricting sometimes.

I’m definitely not a confessional writer! Not much to confess these days, anyway, other than to say that I have only done prenatal yoga exercises twice during this whole Christmas break. Oh, and I told my husband to stop carrying our cat Marten to bed at night, because we need to wean him from our bed with a baby due to be here in few weeks. But then this morning, I carried Marten to bed. At times, I have considered somehow working pregnancy into the story, especially when I learned that a fetus goes through phases of development that resemble human evolution and that, when it is born, it essentially transitions from being an aquatic creature to living on land. It would just have been too weird, though. I didn’t want to mix up my feelings about my unborn child with my feelings about the story.

Browse all the entries under Myth of Merula, Philosophy Wiki.

Getting Caught Up on My Online Novel Writing Class

Jennifer Elrod — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 13:53:44 +0000

It’s hard to believe this is the first blog post I’ve written since April. I’ve been knee-deep in living several dreams at the same time, besides being bitten hard by spring fever. Throughout half of April and most of May, I spent most of my free time outside. Every week-end I worked outside made my weight drop by two pounds — an added bonus. Plus, my mornings are now spent exercising, not drinking coffee while feverishly working on my computer until the last possible minute before I have to get ready for work — which was how I created most of my Web Site design. It’s hard to have balanced, healthy habits while working full-time and fleshing out a fictional Web Site part-time.

Now that it’s July, I finally feel like being on my computer again. I’ve got so many assignments to catch up with in my online novel writing class. Thankfully, they’re all grouped into one theme: world-building. That’ll make it easier to focus on all of them at the same time. I’ve got no less than twelve world-building assignments to do. Here are a couple of examples:

Write a paragraph or two about how you are going to organize your research. Afterwards list at least five things you think you need to study. You can use this as a handy reference to help remember some of the material you need.
Place your characters in some location where you imagine they will spend a lot of time in the story. Even without doing extensive work on the worldbuilding and culture, you will likely have some solid feel for certain locations which resonate for your story — and this, in turn, might help you later develop the type of world and culture you want to make this place real.Your characters know this room, or spot in the garden or whatever other location you want. In a few paragraphs give us a feel for it as well.

Once I get caught up on these assigmnents, I plan to write ahead for The Myth of Merula and then to begin releasing content on a weekly schedule. That way, I can stick to a schedule without writing through writer’s block just to keep the content coming.

Browse all the entries under Myth of Merula, Personal, Writing.