>>> Item number 28840 from WRITERS LOG9404D --- (65 records) ----- <<<
Date:         Sun, 24 Apr 1994 18:35:01 JST
Reply-To:     WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Sender:       WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
From:         Mike Barker <barker@AEGIS.OR.JP>
Subject:      EXERCISE:  The Journey

According to "Myths to Live By" (Joseph Campbell), one of the key
mythical plots is that of the heroic journey.  This consists, in
outline, of:

1.  Separation - the venture from the world of the commonplace and
everyday into a region of supernatural wonder
2.  Initiation - fabulous forces are encountered and a decisive victory
is won
3.  Return - the hero comes back with the power to bestow boons on
others

In psychological terms, he also lays this out as:

1.  Separation - the identification of oneself as a clown, ghost, witch,
or other outsider
2.  Regression - the descent into infancy, animalistic, or vegetative
consciousness
3.  Union - the expansion of the individual into a consciousness of all,
an identity with all
4.  Foreshadowing - realization of a coming dangerous task, opposition,
and illusive help
5.  Crisis - the crux, where the individual chooses, and the revelation
that goes with that discovery

He suggests that the crises and revelations typically consist of four
kinds:

1.  union with mothering - which puts us in touch with our own
tenderness and love
2.  claiming fathering - with realization of our own strengths
3.  finding a world center - with realization of our own importance
4.  opening to light - with realization of ourself as god (sort of - I'm
fudging on this one, because I'm not sure I understand his fourth
category of crisis and revelation very well)

Anyway - today's exercise is:

1.  Pick a character
2.  Design/select/invent a "region of supernatural wonder"
3.  Pick a method of getting from ordinary life to the region...

4.  Now write up that moment when your character wins the raffle, steps
through a doorway in time, is picked up by a UFO, gets trapped into
going to an art museum, or whatever... show us the intersection, the
bewilderment, the fear of the unknown and the excitement of breaking out
of the now into the forever!

5.  (bonus) For those who feel excited, go ahead and finish the story -
what happens to your character in that forgotten land outside
civilization, on the 13th floor, behind the bigtop, in Mrs. Robinson's
house, or wherever?  And what happens when the poor sucker, changed now
and forever, comes back to ordinary life and times?

Let the journeys begin - the odysseys of writers, unending, unafraid of
cyclopean terrors, lotus-eating drugs, circean spells, and all the rest
of the piggish fears of the hogpen...

oink!
tink