My Story: The Castle in the Magic Forest

Google Drive Folder HERE

(See also Chapter Summaries and Character index: docs, pub)

1. Chopping Down Trees

2. Finn Departs

3. Catherine, Carlyle and Alfred Go Out

4. The Age of Monsters

5. Catherine Asks for Help

6. The Age of the Gods

7. Arthur Returns Alone

8. Arthur's Story

9. The Robbers Attack

10. Assistance is Obtained

11. The Battle on the Mountainside

12. The Meetings

13. The Robbers are Subdued

14. Carlyle Comes Home

15. In the Goblin Caves

* Story Update: Moving my Story Back to the Other Blog

Short Version: I'm going to start posting chapters on this blog from a story I'm working on.  I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me.

Long Version: 

Even though I'm calling this "the long version", I'm going to do my best to keep this relatively brief.  There's a longer version of this same post over here  in which I try to sort through all the mixed feelings I've had about writing over my life.  But the relatively short version is that I've always had a love-hate relationship with writing fiction which goes back to my childhood.

As a child, I always liked making up stories in my head, and I sometimes tried to write these stories down  I enjoyed imaging stories, and I enjoyed the feeling of having a story that I was in complete control of.

At the same time, however, I didn't enjoy the actual act of writing itself--I didn't enjoy the struggle to take the images that I had in my head put them into words that other people could understand.  I liked imagining the story, but I hated writing it.

Then there was also the constant anxiety about wondering whether you're any good at it.  I got some praise in elementary school teachers for my stories which encouraged me.  But I got some criticism from my high school writing teachers which discouraged me.

I have at various points in my life embarked on long writing projects--HERE, HERE and HERE.  But I have also gone long stretches in my life without writing any fiction at all.  

However, beginning in my mid-to-late 30s, I began to have this yearning to immerse myself more in fantasy.  I bounced around my head this fantasy story that I might create about a castle in a forest full of magical creatures and talking animals.  After years of thinking about it, I started writing the story in 2018.  Even though I'm quite busy these days, I told myself I would only write for 15 minutes a day.  (No matter how busy you get, I could always find 15 minutes somewhere in my day, right?)  And then I could have fun just seeing how the story unfolded.

I started a new blog for the story: http://thecastleinthemagicforest.blogspot.com/  The story was intended to be only for my own amusement, but I am aware that nowadays almost nobody reads blogs, and so starting up a blog on the Internet and not promoting it anywhere is essentially the same as just writing for yourself.  

 I wrote myself into a dead-end plotwise, and then got frustrated and gave up on it. But then the desire to try it out again returned, and I started again in July of 2020. 

The intention was never to write a structured novel, but rather to just write an unending story.  I had in mind the comic book series I read in my youth, where there were always different plots being introduced, but never any resolution of the story.

Or, for you non-comic book fans, maybe daytime soap operas is more familiar comparison.

You have 1 main plot going on, and 2 sub-plots simmering in the background.  As the main plot gets resolved, one of the sub-plots starts to increase in prominence.  And then as the sub-plot becomes the main plot, a new sub-plot is introduced, and the story keeps going and going.

I wanted a situation and characters that I could just entertain myself with indefinitely without it ever coming to an end.

Unfortunately, the longer the story became, the more convoluted it got. I began to lose track of some of the characters and plot threads.  There were some gaps in the plot which I had fixes for in my head, but which I didn't get around to putting down on paper.  

Also, unfortunately the 15 minutes I devoted to the story (which I eventually reduced to 10) tended to be the last 10 minute before I went to bed. Resulting in a lot of this story being written when I was sleep deprived.

Eventually I realized that this thing was never going to be comprehensible to anybody except me.

That depressed me.  It's one thing to have a story that nobody will ever read, but at it's another thing to have a story that nobody else could read.  I wanted to write a story that someone else could pick up and read, if they wanted to.

Eventually I began to toy with the idea of a second draft.  It would still be one unending story, with a very long and convoluted plot, but I would go back and try to smooth out all the plot holes and inconsistencies.  I would also try to write readable prose.

I've now decided to go ahead and start writing that second draft.  And because the whole point of this second draft is that it's supposed to be readable by other people, I'm going to start posting those chapters here on this blog.  (The readership of this blog is small, but there's at least a chance of someone seeing it if I post it on my main blog.  Absolutely no one is visiting the other blog --I've got the stats to prove it.)

I would be eager for any and all feedback that you have--on anything from sentence level prose to broader story elements.  Because who knows, there might someday be a 3rd draft or a 4th draft.

This is all still only a hobby, but it's now a hobby that has 2 sides to it.  The first draft is to just create a long story to amuse myself.  The second draft is to challenge myself to write the most readable story I can, while still keeping the structure I've inherited from the first draft. 

At this point in my life, I have no illusions about getting professionally published.  I know my limitations, and I know my writing is not particularly good.  (The evidence is hard to ignore.  I've been writing this blog for almost 20 years now, and have not only failed to attract any following, but I've been steadily losing readers as time goes on.)

[Although I guess it doesn't matter anyway, because given the current state of the publishing industry, even if I was talented, I would still have a difficult time getting published (see HERE and HERE).  And even if I somehow did get published, I could certainly never earn enough money from novels to make writing my vocation (see HERE and HERE).  So I guess it doesn't really matter anyway--whether someone is talented or not, writing fiction is a purely a hobby these days.]

But I would like to create the most readable story that I can--just for my own internal satisfaction.  And because this thing will never get published, there's nothing to stop me from endlessly tinkering with it as I go.  (Published authors often lament that they can't go back and change things once their book has gone to print.)  So give me any advice you have, and I'll try to take it all onboard.

The chapters for my first draft are indexed here--although be warned, after a certain point it probably stops making sense to anyone who is not me, but that's what I'm hoping to clean up with the second draft.

The chapters to the second draft I'll start posting on this blog soon.  And I'll index them on the top of this post.  

Addendums:

For more of my explanations about this project, see my original post on the other blog from 2018: What This Is and Why I'm Doing It.  

I had hopes when I began this project that I would be able to write something relatively readable by just putting in 15 minutes a day, but was quickly frustrated when my prose wasn't turning out as readable at all.  So then I wrote a follow-up post 5 days later: Oh Wow! This is Turning out Worse than I thought  .   And then, in February of this past year, I attempted to write another long explanation of why I'm doing this, but I never finished it.  I eventually just posted it unfinished: What This Is and Why I'm Doing It (Unfinished)

So, obviously I'm spending a lot of time trying to explain myself.  Part of this is my own self-consciousness.  (I'm worried that other people will find it pathetic that I'm spending so much time writing a story that I know other people won't read.)  And part of it, as with a lot of the stuff on my blogs, is my own attempt to self-psychoanalyze and explain myself to myself.

From July, I've attempted to make a list of chapter summaries for my first draft and write down any issues that come up so I can hopefully remember to change them later.  I've also tried to create a character index, because upon re-reading the first draft, I've found that I've often accidentally used the same name for several characters.  So this is my attempt to keep all my character names straight.

Blog post here, and on google docs here (docs, pub)

Update: Saturday, December 18, 2021

As I indicated on Monday, I had a slip in my writing.  I had been doing pretty good up until October--at least 15 minutes a day every day for over a year.  But then I had a week back in October when I was really busy teaching and marking, and I allowed myself to go for a few days without writing, and then it was really hard to get back into it.  (The lesson is never let yourself take breaks, because it is so hard to get back into it again.)

Part of the problem is that since August I had been trying to do 2 drafts simultaneously--I tried to keep plowing ahead with the first draft for 10 minutes every day, but also work on the second draft for another 10 minutes every day.  And that doubled my time commitment.  Which made me get burned out faster.  Which made me stop.

But I want to try again.

I've been inspired by these Steve Donoghue Writing Videos.

An #authortube Question: HOW Should You Write?

After watching this video, I've decided to do a bit of renaming on my drafts.  I'd been calling the draft I've been posting on this blog a second draft, but I've decided that's not really an accurate description.  It's more of a first draft on the backstory.  All the story in it I'm working through for the first time.

Plus, my so-called "first draft" isn't really a serious draft.  It's more just playing around (what Steve Donoghue refers to in his video as being a Pantsers).  So I've decided to re-name the so-called first draft as the "zero draft".  And the so-called second draft is now the "first draft".

I'm going to try to get back into writing from next week.  If I have limited time, I'll try to prioritize working on the first draft instead of the zero draft--this is because of Steve's advice on his video to try to make the writing time a serious exercise in communication, and not just to write an incoherent story that no-one else could ever read.

English Reading and Listening Practice

...So, I've decided to create a separate website to index my reading and listening materials.  (It is, of course, all indexed on this blog, but this blog is a bit messy.) 
I'm hoping that this website will act as an easy to use resource for teachers and students of English as a Second Language.

URL is here: https://sites.google.com/view/reading-and-listening-practice/home 

If you know anyone who is interested, feel free to pass it on to them. 

My Life in Vietnam: Student Writing

(TESOL Ideas--Writing)

This is a writing project very similar to a couple of writing projects I've done before: Introduce Cambodia to the World, and A Day in the Life of a Cambodian Student.

I'm in a different country now--in Vietnam--and I decided to re-use this idea because it supplemented the textbook I was using.

I used this project to supplement the lesson from Life Intermediate Textbook lesson 3E What a Weekend! .  The production activity for that weekend was for the students to imagine that they had a blog, and to write an imaginary blog post.  I decided it would be more authentic for the students to actually write a real blog post for a real blog.

I created the blog: My Life in Vietnam--LINK HERE--and instructed the students to tell people from around the world what life would be like in Vietnam.



The assignment the students were give is on Google docs: docs, pub
I corrected the grammar and vocabulary on the students' writing, and the students were then instructed to compare their version with my corrected version as feedback.  (A technique suggested by Scott Thornbury in Beyond the Sentence)

Your mission is to describe what everyday life is like in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.  You will be writing to people who have never been to Vietnam, and who don’t know what Vietnam is like.

Describe for them everything you can.  What does the city look like?  How does it sound?  How does it feel?  What kind of things do you see every day when you’re driving to work or school?

What is life like as a Vietnamese student?  What are the schools like?  How are the schools different from an American school?  What do the students have to do?

What is it like working in Vietnam?  How is a Vietnamese company different from an American company?

What do people do for fun in Vietnam?  Where do you go to meet your friends in Ho Chi Minh City?  What do you do?

These are just examples.  Write down anything that you think would be of interest to someone from outside of Vietnam.

Writing an Adventure Story

(TESOL Worksheets--Writing)
Google drive Folder HERE

I originally used this to supplement Life Pre-Intermediate Textbook Lesson 4E: A Story of Survival.  But I believe it can also stand on its own as an independent writing activity.

As a lead-in, I re-used the worksheet I had made last year, A Trip to the Jungle.  Except I didn't have students finish the story.  I only used it to draw their attention to the many types of past verb forms that are used in telling stories.

Then, with a partner, I had them plan out their stories, using this PowerPoint Here (Google; Drive, Slides, Pub), and  this worksheet (Google: Drive, Docs, Pub) and write their stories in pairs.  They were instructed not to conclude the story, but only to set-up the danger.  (Here again, I used my own "A Trip to the Jungle" story as an example of how to set-up the danger, but not to bring resolution).  The story was then passed on to the next pair, who would continue it from there.

As a form of feedback, I typed up all the stories on a new blog--here, and corrected the errors as I typed them.  The students were instructed to compare their original versions with my corrected versions, and then vote on their favorite story.

I have, again, posted online the research essays written by my EAP students.  (English for Academic Purposes)



The morning class is here , the evening class is here , and the Tuesday-Thursday class is here.

The motivation and ideology for this is exactly the same as the last time I posted EAP essays on line, so I'll just link back to my previous justification rather than repeat myself here.

This is a different level from last time, so the topic is different.
The original topic in the course syllabus was: What role has human activity played in causing climate change?
In order to be able to do this writing topic as a class paper, I changed the topic slightly to: Climate Change: Causes, Effects, and Solutions.
Students were put into groups of 3 or 4 and assigned either the cause, effect, or solutions.

The focus of the class reading had been mostly on the causes of climate change, so in each class we had multiple groups assigned to causes.  Initially I tried to stay in the background and let the students themselves divide the various causes among the different groups, but halfway through the term it became clear that this wasn't working, so I made up a suggested outline for the causes groups to help them divide the writing task up among themselves.  The sample outline I produced is duplicated below:

Suggested Outline for Causes

I. Explain what the Greenhouse effect is

                *This section would explain the science behind the greenhouse effect, i.e. how some of the

                                sun's heat is trapped in the earth's atmosphere by Greenhouse Gases

II. Natural Causes of Climate Change

                A. External Factors

                                *  e.g. variation in the sun's energy output

                B. Internal Factors

                                *e.g. interaction between atmosphere and oceans

                                * Naturally occurring Greenhouse gases and their causes

III. Human Causes of Climate Change.

                A. Greenhouse Gases

                                1. Carbon Dioxide

                                                a. Burning  Fossil Fuels

                                                                1). Oil

                                                                                *e.g.  cars, airplanes, etc.

                                                                2).  Natural Gas

                                                                                * e.g. cooking, heating, etc.

                                                                3). Coal

                                                                                * e.g. heating, electricity generation, etc.

                                                b. Deforestation

                                                c. Other Causes of Carbon Dioxide

                                                                * e.g. from burning other substances, etc.

                                2. Methane

                                                *e.g. rice cultivation, cattle & sheep ranching, landfills, coal mining, oil

                                                                drilling, leaky gas pipelines, et cetera

                                3. Nitrous Oxide

                                                *e.g. agriculture, industry

                                4. Chlorofluorocarbons and other Flourocarbons

                                                *e.g.  refrigeration, air-conditioning

                                5.  Ozone

                                                * motor vehicles, power plants, et cetera

                B. Other Human Causes of Climate Change

                                ????????? (We haven't studied this in class, but possibly you could find something)

A Typical Day in the Life of a Cambodian Student: Student Writing

            Last term, I had my students write short essays introducing Cambodia to the wider world.

            This term, I’ve changed the prompt somewhat in order to see what else I can elicit from them.  (My idea is to try out a different prompt every time I teach a different level.  Whenever I re-teach the same level again, I think I will re-use my old prompts.)

            The prompt for this level is: 

A Typical Day in the Life of a Cambodian Student

 

Imagine you are writing to someone who knows nothing about Cambodia.  They know nothing about what life is like for Cambodian people.  Help them to understand what life is like for the people here by describing your typical day.  For example, what time do you usually wake up?  What do you usually eat for breakfast?  Where do you go every day?  What time do you usually go to school?  What is your school like?  What do you do at school?  What do you do with your friends?  What do you do in the evenings?  Do you have any chores around the house?

These questions are just examples.  You may write down anything you want to about your daily life.

            (Google: drive, docs, pub, and a generic version for any country: drive, docs, pub).

            The student responses to this prompt are all written up over here.

            The process, and the ideological justifications for all of this, are the same as last time.

            The students handwrote their responses, and I then typed them up and posted them on the Internet.  I tried to change as little as possible, but I did fix any obvious grammar or vocabulary errors.  The students are then given the blog address, and the number that corresponds to their essay, and encouraged to compare their original essay with my corrections on the Internet.

           

            The ideology behind this project is that it hopefully gives the students an opportunity to use their English to introduce their country and culture to the wider world.  Although their English skills are obviously still developing, the idea is that they can get a sense of using their English for real communication now, rather than having the goal of meaningful communication be some distant object off in the future.

            The idea of writing up corrected versions of their essay, rather than red marking every thing, is that this is hopefully a more subtle way of drawing students’ attention to their errors.

            And since I’ve read Scott Thornbury’s Beyond the Sentence, I’ve also been taking his suggestions as more justification for this project:

            “Just as real texts and coursebook texts provide data for language study, so too can learners’ texts be exploited for the same ends.  In fact, there’s a good case for learners’ texts being the best resources for a focus on language.  After all, learner-produced texts are more likely to be closer to the developmental stage that other learners are going through. (p.155)

            And “The learner text is ‘tidied up’ before being made available to other learners. For example, errors are corrected and awkward wordings are reformulated. Yet the content—and ideally the flavour—of the original remains the same…What can be particularly revealing for learners is to see the two versions, the original and the edited, side-by-side and to make comparisons and notice differences. In other words, the awareness-raising process is self-initiated, rather than teacher directed” (p. 156)

            Since the essays for the whole class are all posted at the same place, hopefully the students will read not only their own tidied up essay, but also the essays of their classmates.

*******************************************************

            I’ll write a few brief words here to help set these student essays in context.

            Cambodia has been developing very rapidly the past 20 years, and the lives of many of my students now are not all that dissimilar from their American counterparts.  This would not have been true 20 years ago, but it’s true now.

            Also, as with many 3rd world countries, there’s a big disparity of wealth over here, and the lives of the rich are very different from the middle, which is very different from the poor. 

            The school I teach at has the distinction of being one of the more expensive private English schools in Cambodia, so my students are not the poorest of the poor.  But they’re not the super-rich either.  (The children of the super rich are sent either to study abroad, or are sent to study at International schools in Phnom Penh, and already speak flawlessly fluent English.)

            Most of my students are somewhere around upper-middle class to middle-middle class (by Cambodian standards).

            The capital city of Phnom Penh, where my students live, is also much more developed than the provinces. And while my students lead modern lives here in the capital, many of the rural villages in the provinces look like life has not changed there for the past 100 years.  (If you picture the clichéd rice farming villages from all those Vietnam War movies, you actually wouldn’t be too far wrong.)

            As for the school situation:

            I teach at a private English school, which my students attend in addition to their regular education at a state school. 

            For reasons I’m not entirely clear on, many of the Cambodian schools alternate between morning and afternoon classes.  For one month the students will attend Cambodian school in the morning, and then the next month attend in the afternoon.  My own private school has a system set up to accommodate this, in which there is a morning and afternoon class that are run in synch with each other, and the students can attend either class depending on what their schedule is for their Cambodian school that month.  At my school, this is referred to as a “flip-flop” class—a term I don’t think is used widely outside of my school, but which has made its way into some of the students’ writing.  (My students often refer to Cambodian schools as “Khmer” schools since “Khmer” is synonymous with Cambodian.)

           

            …But all of the above being said, as always take everything I have to say with a grain of salt, because I have to admit to only having a very superficial understanding of everything that goes on over here.