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Patriotism, flags, nationalism, religion, politics, national symbols hijacked by racists! These are some of the unique aspects of our cultural identity and national differences we chat about on this quackcast. I was inspired by HippieVan's newspost on Friday (about Cultural identity and how it defines our writing), to ...

Just the name inspires awe, a level of attention and gravity. Because it was a name before it became a noun: she was the ancient Greek goddess of revenge and retribution against those who committed any kind of hubris.

In stories though, a character that takes the position of nemesis ...

My city had a massive snowfall on Boxing Day this year – the day after Christmas, for you non-Canadians. Nothing too unusual for a Canadian winter, but even so the city always seems to grind to a halt when it happens. After having a neighbour help him get his car unstuck ...

I was hanging out with my family over the holidays, explaining that I wasn't sad or sick, but had been rubbing my eye because there was some dust or a hair or something stuck behind the eyeball. It was quite uncomfortable.

As I remembered how tears can flush out ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...

I promised a follow up to how I do digital drawing specifically, not in general!
(Original article on digital drawing - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2016/dec/08/digital-drawing/)
Well, here's an example, it's not a great one, but I did it yesterday so it's nice and ...

It was early morning on a Thursday, and I had just prepped the classroom for the day before I headed outside to wait for the children to line up after the bell. I was knitting a scarf when a little girl named Angeline walked up to me and started up ...

I found myself at a crossroads two weeks ago where I felt that my mind and my heart were in two separate places. I would carry on the same routine for months, following the motions of getting to work, performing a mundane task, and then driving home with heavy eyelids ...

One of the great things about the original Star Wars movies was the strong sense of a grand, adventurous, and terrible history before the movie started. So much is hinted at through Obi Wan Kenobi about the Jedi Knights, Anakin Skywalker, great friendships, laser swords, and terrible war and loss ...

METAPHORROR

Hey, they're always tellin' me to recycle!

Last Halloween I did a breakdown of four categories of horror. So I've repurposed it here, images and all, to talk about the metaphorical nature of horror.

Horror is perfect for metaphor and allegory. In fact, a horror story is ...