I did wake up on time this morning, but then I got out of the shower and it was already 8:40 (read: later than I left yesterday when I woke up at 8:20), and I don't know how that happened, short of there being a time warp or a fold in the fabric of spacetime or something in my shower!
I meant to write something yesterday in my dress post about my philosophy of the importance of wearing colors when you live in New York, but it's okay that I didn't because I am actually wearing black today. And pearls. It's a very Holly Golightly day, I guess.
I had a nice lunch. I went to Central Park and found a nice rock in the shade and ate my sandwich, but about three quarters of the way through my sandwich, I got bored with it, so I discarded the last few bites and dragged my behind off to Grom for gelato instead.
I think it's time to get the ice cream maker out tonight after I get back from the rum tasting at Astor.
Do you think it is wrong if I eat gelato for all my lunches for the foreseeable future?
I agree.
In other news, for this week of LJ Idol, I need to revise a previous entry. The entry I need to revise is this one.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. What do you like? What don't you like?
It was chosen from three entries as my weakest of the week. The other two are this, which I personally thought was my weakest, and this, which I think everyone thought was my strongest. So feedback in particular relating to how these entries compare would be most welcome, too.
I love everyone! <3 Have a good day!
I mentioned how I liked how cute and friendly the scorpion looked. Maybe there's some way to convey in the sting moment that the scorpion surprises herself when she stings the turtle - like she really didn't think she was going to do that, but she did.
That might make the "its my nature" more of a moment of revelation for the scorpion and less of a moment of fait accompli. The scorpion, after all, is sort of the main character here and if you approach this in a way that makes her somebody that has that moment of revelation, albeit too late, it is a subtly different take on the story that doesn't undermine the essential meaning of the parable.
It also gives you a chance to draw cute surprised scorpion.
I have been thinking about this as an exercise in taking the story that was voted lowest and transforming it based on the feedback of what was voted highest, I think.
Two thoughts.
1) You can still make it a story where the scorpion discovers this is part of her/his nature, if that works for you.
2) You can also make the frog/scorpion story a central image in a larger story about other creatures (be they human or what not) experiencing a similar situation. Like a vampire trying very hard not to bite a human or something. :D
I always try to wear colors instead of plain old black all the time. I'm always the lady in a bright colored suit or dress in the courtroom.
My dress does have a white bow on it!
I know that you describe the cartoon for VI readers. But the problem I found in the past is that the more indepth the descriptions became, the more it was like having to read the same entry twice and I had the same feeling here. I read the story, then I have to read it all over again before I get to the ending. So personally, I would like to see either a cartoon that covers the entire tale, so that I can skip the description and not read it twice or the cartoon aspect ditched and just have the story. Having to read the first half twice interrupts the flow for me.
Thank you!
Edited at 2011-05-26 08:06 pm (UTC)
What I'm planning to do right now is completely strip the story back down and build it back up using the same concept but a very different voice.
OK--I laughed until I cried over the story. I'm sitting here right now getting all sorts of silly over the images in my head of sweet little scorpion stinging old rabbit at the start of the race. Perhaps I'm trying to avoid typing what I'm about to, because it feels so wrong.
I think the comic hurt you. It felt slight because it wasn't the whole of the tale and wasn't interspersed with the tale. The tale itself was great--and the voice that develops as you tell it was delightfully wry--but I had to do a bit of mental rearranging to be open to hear that voice after engaging with the visual story. Since the comic isn't offering much to the narrative (but the animals are adorably drawn!), I'd dump it and go for prose.
Having said that...not sure on the connection to the topic-as-metaphor, although I'm willing to overlook that on the strength and the humor of the story.
My feeling as far as connection was that rather than using the metaphor implied by the topic, I wanted to use another piece of folk wisdom that involved turtles. Especially since the turtle drowns, I thought it was a funny double entendre.