The Merry-Go-Round of Life

Year of the Like: Circles and Cycles and Circuses

So, I know age is one of those weird things people don't talk about, but I'll own up to the fact I'm now in my late thirties. And for my birthday this year, I want to get a tattoo. 

I know exactly what I want: a compass within the circle of the hero's journey. For those of you who have not drunk the Joseph Campbell/ Christopher Vogler koolaid, the Hero's Journey helps map the character arc of a hero along her journey. You guys have heard me talk about it here in the Year of Living Heroically. It is one of many ways to think of story, but I like it mostly because it is a circle. 

I look life like this. I want the fullness of it all. I want to appreciate the process of the cycle. So when I read others books, I want to see the fullness of it all. 

So I was reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and there are circles everywhere. I meant, its a CIRCUS. The Circus is a interwoven dreamland of circled tents filled with wonder, and some might say a catalytic hero in itself (but that might be another post for another time). This book is beautiful and breaks most of the writing conventions I teach to beginning writers. It really was dazzling and enchanting, and I was sucked so deeply into the words and the world, I might have forgotten to go to bed. 

This book did one of the most satisfying things a circle lover like me could ever ask for. I will try not to spoil it but "The circus arrives without warning." The last three pages of the book completely satisfied everything I wanted from a book. And there are really pretty dresses. And it uses second person POV flawlessly. 

I really didn't realize how powerful circles had become to me until I was talking to friend about healing after divorce, another about grief, and another about the crap that happens when you find yourself in the middle of your life  trapped within a cycle of unfortunate Tuesdays. In the past six months, I have used circles to explain why life sucks. I've used this circle too to talk about art and grief and finding your true center.  

And this one to help talk about where we get energy and how we feed that energy. And then I usually break out into cheesy movie songs. (Pause for a nostalgic ride on Falkor's back). 

The primary reason that I find this image so powerful at this point in my life is that I always know is going to loop back around and get better. Today might feel like a Supreme Ordeal, but if I think about life as a journey, that means tomorrow is a Reward. In my writing, its how I can be so horribly horrible to my characters, because I'm going to loop them back around as strong, faster, better heroines. I am creating a circle that will be forged in iron. 

Circles never break. They may go too fast sometimes and the merry-go-round forces of life may make you queasy and sick to your stomach. But just as in The NeverEnding Story and The Night Circus, the story will go on and it will be beautiful. You just need to strap in, pull up your panties, and get ready for the ride.  

Looper- get it!!

So Thumbs Up to finding the one image that makes you, makes your story, makes your life make sense and go ahead an commit to it. Not everyone is a tattoo person, but crochet it, paint it, modge podge the hell out of the image, the beauty, the thing that helps you remember that you are powerful and this is your story. 

Until next time, lovelies. 

Amanda Arista, @Pantherista

www.amandaarista.com

Martyrs and the Mistletoe season

Year of Living Heroically: The Resurrection

Okay folks. We are here. The big moment. The final ordeal. If is sounds like I'm being epic, I am.
Our Heroine has come so far down this journey and yet, she needs to do one more thing: sacrifice herself.

It is the key moment of our hero proving she is a hero. The last step in her journey is to face something she knows will kill her. She knows this because she has lived in this special world for so long that she already knows the dangers she is going to face AND SHE GOES TO FACE THEM ANYWAY.

Why you might ask?  For the greater good.

See, the hero has been through the flames before, the Supreme Ordeal, but that struggle was only for the betterment of her alone. The resurrection of the story is the hero realizing that she is the only person who can do this, and using the knowledge of the world so far, fights an evil that has been plaguing the whole world (or their special world). The resurrection of the story is the hero changing from warrior to martyr and in that change, healing the world around her.

What comes out of it is an elixir that is going to make the entire world a better place. Now, this elixir might be a peaceful nation, a healing potion, or knowledge that the entire village (and the reader) gains for the hero's sacrifice. And if Black Friday taught me nothing, its that everything has a price. The hero's willingness to sacrifice is the price paid. Don't go thinking that she has paid with their life. No! She is still kicking at the end of the book (most of the time).

Now, everyone's dragon/witch/beastie is going to look a bit different. For example: one of the best resurrection scenes I've seen in a comedy is the end of ACCEPTED, with Justin Long and Jonah Hill. Bartleby has to stand up to a school board wanted to shut down his college to defend his right to a passion-filled education and he wins, allowing his school to stay open and for all students to be able to fulfill their own dreams. Its a pretty awesome elixir for a very funny movie.

 Not everyone has to face down Sauron, but there are so many ways to be a hero in today's world, even if your sacrifice only changes a few people's lives, you've done something truly heroic.

I've been watching a lot of John and Hank Green videos and I think this holiday season is the perfect time to throw down a little gauntlet. I challenge you to be heroic and decrease world suck! You can start small, with small sacrifices, even our heroine had to build-up to dragon fighting.

But who knows, maybe this time next year, you'll be writing a blog of your year of living heroically.

Until next year my friends,

Amanda Arista
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Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther
www.amandaarista.com

The Difference between survival and living

Year of Living Heroically: the Road Back.

So you are all rested up after your Supreme Ordeal, you've got a nice shiny object to covet lovingly, you're a hero now, right? You survived your deepest fear and got something amazing as a reward. This is the end of the road, right?

This post got a bit heavy on me-- here's a cute squirrel!

WRONG! Did you think it was going to be that easy? That's not heroic, just giving up in the middle of the journey.

The Road Back is the moment in the journey when the hero hikes up her pants and gets back on with the Journey. She makes a choice to head back to her ordinary world as this new changed person (surviving the SO changes all heroes, for better or worse). Well, it might look like less of a choice and more of a chase from the antagonistic forces that she pissed off in the Supreme Ordeal-- think dragon wanting its gold back. But she makes the choice to go home, to be with her people again.

She has survived; now she wants to live.

For me, this really hits home that our hero is really a hero. Instead of just enjoying the relaxation that comes with the Reward, she gets back on her feet and keeps going. After the Ordeal, she sees the bigger picture of what is really going on in the world and she wants to make it right. She's got this special accessory, or talent, or insight, and she wants to give back.  That for me is a hero. Heroes keep fighting even though they know its not going to get easier.

Helen Lowe in her last post mentioned fashion as an important part of a characters experience, and it is totally true and especially hits home in the road back. The reward was the accessory that you get to take with you that proves you did something amazing.

In the wake of October's Breast Cancer Awareness month, I don't think I need to explain the scars that people carry with them after a major life ordeal. In the light of our veteran's coming home, I don't think I need to mention that all scars aren't on the outside. In the road back, a hero will take those scars and carry them forward as a survivor.

Heroes will make the choice to live and share that life with others.

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Amanda Arista
Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther series
www.amandaarista.com

The M&M at the end of this sentence

Thanks for my TWO WINNERS! Ash Wolf and Cheesecake- Email me to get your prizes!
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Year of Living Heroically #8: The Reward.

I love it when great minds think alike. A few days ago, Helen Lowe was talking about rewards and how writing a book is hard work and the  completion of a novel is its own reward. Some days, writing is not about  focusing on commercial success but for the pure art of the novel itself. And on some not as inspired days, writing is just about getting to the end of the sentence so you can treat yourself with an M&M or similarly candy-coated goodness.

This month, our step in the hero's journey is exactly that: The Reward. Our heroine has just confronted a dragon or some other hideous thing and survived. And she's better for the experience. She has gone through the fire of her ordeal and come out a stronger, better version of herself.

Don't you think she deserves something all sparkly and wonderful and preferably made of chocolate or gold? I know I do.

Dwayne Johnson in costume playing with a visitor on set. 

Many of us are tested on a daily basis, and every now and then we experience something that really changes who we are or how we look at life. The reward is not only the betterment of yourself, what you learned from the experience, but also a moment to appreciate that you survived. You are still here to fight another day.

It reminds us that even Hercules got a few moments to stop and play patty cake for a while (The sheer size of Dwayne Johnson's thighs in the most recent version of Hercules is probably a whole other blog post).

I think its something that this fast paced culture doesn't appreciate enough. Stop. Enjoy. Relax for two seconds. Appreciate where you've been and where you might be going. You are not history yet, your story is still being written.

So to help you take a moment to relax, to reflect on the awesomeness that is you, I'd like to give you a small reward. Post in the comments below something that helps you relax, so we all can learn your secrets, and I'll give one lucky comment a gift box of things that help me relax (and maybe a few of your ideas tossed in there too for good measure).

So until next month, don't forget that you are AWESOME!

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Amanda Arista
Author, Diaries of an Urban Panther Series
www.amandaarista.com

Holy Smoke: The Supreme Ordeal

Year of Living Heroically #7- The Ordeal

So my lovelies, you might have noticed that I didn't post last month. I'm not going to say that I was going through my own Ordeal, but let's say that I am really glad that August is over. I don't know if I spent the month living heroically, but looking back on it, I should have just stayed in bed instead of choosing to go once more into the breach.

This month, we are talking about the Ordeal, aka The Supreme Ordeal, aka the Dark Moment, aka, Oh-MyGod-Luke-is-Dead-in-a-Trash-Compactor part in the story where our hero dies. But totally comes back. Its okay. You looked a little worried there for a moment.

After our trek with our allies, meeting the foe, and choosing, not quite brilliantly, to go toward the cave with the dragon, our hero has bottlenecked herself into the certain death. One of the reason's it is certain is the hero doesn't see it coming. The certain death is hiding in a blind spot with the hero's flaws. Ex: Luke's need to be a hero like his father and save the princess is his flaw that ends him up in a nasty situation.

The key to defining the supreme ordeal for me has always been that this event fundamental changes who the hero has been up to this point. Even though she has embraced all the things she has learned during her tests and use them to varying degrees of success, this event will break her because it is directly connected to an internal flaw fighting against her, preventing her from being the hero she needs to be. The supreme ordeal will shatter who she thinks she is. It will literally break them across a rack. It is perfectly tailored to destroy that person who crossed the threshold all those chapters ago. And if she survives, she will be purified to continue on her trek, OR she will fail and is doomed to repeat it again.

Think of our hero as a wad of clay who wants to grow up and be a real coffee mug (no personal preference here, a tea cup is perfectly acceptable). The journey so far as molded our hero into a cup, maybe gotten a nice coat of glaze and a handle. The supreme ordeal is the kiln that will change our hero from a mushy, moldable lump into something that is very much like a coffee cup. After this event, the hero can not go back to being an ordinary guy anymore than the newly fired cup can to back into a ball of clay.

So this takes a newly formed hero, this purer form of our main character, one that has been fundamentally changed, back on course to the reason they were on the journey in the first place. Providing that she didn't fail miserably (possibly another post for another time).

Now, what I'm not going to do is mention a movie with an actual dragon, because that would be too easy. I thought I'd mention two not-so magical supreme ordeals that might feel a little closer to home.

Devil wears Prada- Andy's trip to Paris- she really is not the sweet little Andy she was when she gets back from Paris. Though I wish my supreme ordeals had Simon Baker in them.

Dead Poet's Society- When Todd is forced to improv a poem in front of the entire class. Once done, he is a new student full of confidence who will stand up for his friends and teacher at the end of the movie.

Because I write paranormal, there are some teeth and claws in my supreme ordeals. In Diaries, Violet's

flaw was always her low self-esteem. When she is attacked on her first date in years, she is faced with her boyfriend's death or her accepting that she is powerful enough to save him. Violet comes out the other side a stronger shifter, but no longer just that quirky girl with her head in the sand.

In life, I think we all know what our supreme ordeals look like. They are the moments that we look back on and see that's were I changed. That hurt like hell and I'm stronger for it. Ordeals are very internal and person specific. My ordeal could be your Tuesday and vise versa.

So my parting thought to you for this month of living heroically is to realize that you can't know what part of another's journey they are on. For all you know, they just faced a dragon.

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Amanda Arista
Author of Diaries of an Urban Panther
www.amandaarista.com