Week 9 Story: The Fate of the Lucky

Depiction of the princess

Our story begins in Ancient China, where a noble prince and his wife lived in peace except for the troubles that plagued their poor daughter. Despite all of the prince's fortune and accomplishments, his daughter was victim to having something known as "ill luck." This plagued his daughter all her life up until it came time for her to marry when noble men from all over China came to offer her their hand in marriage. In this large crowd of princes and lords was a beggar who happened to wander into this event. The princess decided that she would choose her husband through a sort of ceremony where she was to throw a ball of red silk into the crowd and whoever catches it will win her hand in marriage. The princess noticed the beggar in the crowd and could see a small dragon moving through his nose and ears, and she knew that this man had luck on his side. She immediately threw him the ball of silk much to her father's anger as he spoke out against it and tried to forbid her. This led to the princess running away with the beggar as she believed that his good luck could fix her luck if they were together, so she moved into his measly hut and left her life of fortune back at the palace. After a few months living happily with her new husband, the princess was approached by her husband as he wanted to go out and get a fortune for her to be comfortable again. She agreed reluctantly, but believed in this man due to his luck and waited for almost 18 years when suddenly a powerful lord rode into town claiming this territory to be his. Confused the wife came out and instantly recognized her husband and pleaded that he spare her father and mother in the castle, so the two made their way to her childhood palace. The once beggar looked at his wife's father wondering if he could recognize him from the ceremony. The now old prince couldn't seem to piece it all together in his old age and was prepared to surrender to the mighty lord who stood before him until he threw him something in a flash, a red ball of silk. The prince was amazed and knelt before his son-in-law as he knew now the error of his ways. The family lived in the palace and finally were as one, thanks to what can only be described as luck.




Bibliography:
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/p/weeks-7-8-9.html from the UN-Textbook)

Author's Notes:
Changed the back half of the story as in the original the wife somehow does not recognize her husband as well as he becomes this powerful figure and just comes back to test his wife to see if he remembers her. The original also ended with the two going off and the wife dying shortly after due to bad luck, so I incorporated the father back into the story and added a happier ending.

Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part A

Chinese Fairy Tales (From the UN-Textbook)
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/china-favorite-of-fortune-and-child-of.html)

Depiction of the Prince's daughter

The tale begins in Ancient China, where a high class prince has a daughter that has what is known as "ill luck." Fast forward to when this daughter was to be married and a large gathering of many noble men such as princes and counts all came to offer her their hand in marriage. Among these many noble men there was a lowly beggar who somehow found himself at this event and also joined in offering his hand in marriage to the prince's daughter. The daughter decided she would select her husband by casting out a red ball of silk and whoever catches it among the gathered men will get to marry her. Before throwing out the ball of silk, the daughter noticed that the lowly beggar had a dragon crawling through his ears and popping out his nostril and instantly knew that this man was someone who had luck on their side. She threw the ball of silk right to the beggar who caught it much to the dismay of her father who exclaimed that he would not allow such a thing to happen. His daughter insisted that this man had luck on his side and she hoped it would cure her ill luck, but her father cast her out only for her to move into the beggar's hut and marry him. After some time, the beggar came to his new wife and told her he was going to leave to get a fortune for them and she agreed as she believed in this lucky man. Eighteen years past and the beggar was still gone, the daughter barely hung in patiently waiting for her husband to return some day with a fortune and only stayed alive during these hard years by having her mother secretly give her money behind her father's back. The beggar had become a powerful emperor with many riches in this time and came back to retrieve his wife to take her to their palace. She did not recognize this now powerful emperor and was confused when he asked her if she took another husband or wanted to, and after his wife denied it he revealed himself. The two went happily to live in their new palace, but sadly his wife, who had always been a victim of ill luck, fell sick and died only eighteen days after moving back in with her husband.

Week 8 Progress

I am happy with the progress of both my blog and my storybook so far. So far I have a weekly routine that has worked for me outside of a couple fires needing to be put out with my capstone by doing most of my writing during the weekend. The class assignments that I enjoy the most I would say are the retelling of stories as they allow for different creative styles to be tried weekly. My website has gone good in terms of its creation, but I would like to include some different and new images. The only change I want to make is to avoid the pitfall of not budgeting enough time in my weekend to complete the necessary amount of posts. I do want to try and add more dialogue in my writing moving forward, but I will do so slowly to make sure I do it correctly. The one thing I want to change about my website is to change the header photo for each of the different pages.

My hometown of Alton, IL where I will be relaxing before starting my job this summer is my current motivation

Week 8 Comments and Feedback

I would rate the comments that I have received quite well as they have helped me improve aspects of my writing. The comments the suggest alternatives for my content make me brainstorm more and more before writing as they show me different ways that I could have retold my stories. I think that I am leaving constructive and positive feedback on stories I read while inquiring about aspects of each retelling. I found that posing questions is an excellent strategy to get the author thinking about their content and their future content. Also reading others work has inspired many of my different writings and helped me become more dynamic with my writing styles. I do feel that you can connect with others through commenting on their blogs throughout the semester. I feel like my intro and other stories were a great place for people to get to know about me. I need to offer more alternatives for material that I am reading while commenting. Overall I don't want to make any changes currently to either my comment wall or introduction.

I chose this picture as it applies for my storybook as I need to take feedback that I am getting to help adjust my future writing on my story.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

I feel as though my writing has become more dynamic and creative as the semester has gone on because I am starting to write with a more creative focus unlike the technical reports I have been doing as a mechanical engineering student these last four years. I am happy with both my blog and my storybook as I feel I have creative stories on both platforms. I feel like my biggest accomplishment so far in writing was creating my storybook as it is a much larger story and project than any of my other writings. I feel like the author's notes are essential as they help fill in any blanks the reader may have as well as provide your personal touch even further on the stories. Lastly, I wouldn't say that I have discovered any new topic, but I have refined the process of story writing by writing out a rough map of the story arc on paper beforehand.

Author's Notes (Week 7, Entering the Inferno)

Changed the guide for Dante as he goes through the circles of hell from Virgil to Johnny, who is also the Grim Reaper as to give him so kind of modern significance as to how he would know his way around Hell and acts as a transition for Michael who also dies from (currently) mysterious circumstances. Changed the First circle to focus more on the aspect of great thinkers only being there as there is not much time to dwell on each individual circle, but just enough to highlight a famous person or specific aspect of the circle. Changed the main character of the First circle to be Albert Einstein as he would be considered a great thinker of the time and would be dead at the time of the book taking place. Changed the second circle to seem more like a Las Vegas style area where apparently a large amount of Kennedy's go out and fraternize, but there is not an in-depth description of whats going on due to Michael being a "boy," as well as length and appropriate content. The last circle talked about in this page is the Third circle, which is Gluttony and not much is changed as their is still a disgusting rain, but there is not yet a mention of how cold it is nor who the inhabitants are outside of Pluto who is introduced by Johnny at the end of the page.