Unicorns and Crowns

For years, I've talked about writing and expressed great hopes that I would finish (and publish) something one of these days. Now such a dream is on the brink of coming true. Tonight, I completed my first story that I plan to put in the public's eye.  It's about my Beowulf, and it's called The Wolf at the Door. It started out as a short story. Then I found I had a lot more to say, so now it's a novella, just a little shy of 20,000 words.  It's about a young girl named Mavie, about 11 years old, who runs away from home after a bad fight with her family. Naturally, she regrets this almost right away, and now she's all alone, hopelessly lost, and scared to death. Beowulf finds her (or she finds him ) and helps her get home in one piece.  Not a terribly complex story, but I believe this will be a great way to introduce Beowulf as well as put my writing chops to the real test.  Of course, there's still a lot of proofreading and editing to do, and th...

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall present to you a hero that's a bit more unconventional than the others. When you hear "hero," you tend to think of somebody good, kind, brave, and a bit physically attractive, yes?  Well, this particular hero of mine falls more under the "Byronic" category. For those of you who don't know, a Byronic hero is more of an antihero; they have more unsavory traits, they don't always do the right thing (or they use shadier methods), and in some cases, you can't even tell if they're supposed to be "the good guy" or "the bad guy." That said, they still have a few morals, they still technically save the day, and when you get to know them better, they can be quite sympathetic and even downright tragic.  Beowulf fits all of those categories to a tee.  No, not the Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem... ...though I most definitely garnered a great deal of inspiration from that.  No, this is a different...