Wise Not Withered

FPS Housewife – CANDACE

Hello and welcome to Week 12 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! I'm fighting off a cold right now, so bear with me as my voice is a bit croaky. Today's character is extra special because I think of her as a flagship of sorts of the entire project. I'm thrilled to present Candace, our FPS (first-person shooter) Housewife!

Candace was one of the first characters I thought of conceptually. As with all of the characters, when I introduced them to the team of writers and illustrators, I changed the names I had in mind to be as culturally ambiguous as possible (hence "FPS Housewife"). But Candace was actually the original name I had thought of for her.

The whole project started out as a huge initiative to create middle-aged and elderly female characters in video games, but a lot of them turned out to be suited for other types of media, so not all of them would be game characters. Candace, however, from the very start, was going to be a housewife who abhors her sons' devotion to video games, then gets sucked into one—along with her sons—and they must figure their way out. I knew I wanted her to have moments in the story where she becomes closer to her sons, getting to know them on a deeper level, comes to understand their passion for video games, and rekindles passion for her own life again.

At some point I decided that her older son would be gay, and his coming out to her would be a non-negotiable part of the story. I thought it would be interesting if the older son was also a sports jock (again trying to break stereotypes, as I mentioned last week). He and his younger brother would play video games together and the younger one would look up to him immensely.

The writer I found for this character was DeNae. I found her through Instagram, while searching #nerdmom. I knew I wanted the writer to be a gamer (or former gamer, just someone that was familiar with the gaming world and basic mechanics of a first-person shooter game), and a mother (so that element of the story would be as authentic as possible).

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo9YlJPgi39/?tagged=tvmoms

DeNae, whose online presence is "The Big Bad Mama Wolf", brought Candace to life with her own gaming and motherhood experiences. And I know I keep saying this, but the story she wrote was simply more than I ever could have asked for. We decided together that her husband would be an architect, often staying late at his job but still a supportive and kind father in his own way.

When we were coming up with ideas of what types of terrain and setting we would include in the first-person shooter game, my boyfriend and I had the brilliant idea of each world in the game representing a different room in their house. Ultimately it became each world representing each person in their family. It's never outright said in the story, but the biomes and their character representations would be something like this:

• Ice caverns | Father/Husband/Richard: he may seem cold and distant, but there's a warm, fiery village at the center because he has a warm heart
• Volcano | Older Son/Shaun: he's very passionate and a go-getter type of person; possibly trying to hold in emotions, waiting to erupt
• Jungle | Younger Son/Jasper: wild, free, unpredictable
• Desert + Oasis | Candace: seemingly dry and boring, but brimming with life and vitality upon closer inspection

The illustrator for this character unfortunately dropped out of the project, so the search continues! In terms of racial identity, I want Candace to be half-Asian, half-white (like me!), and I would love to find an illustrator who is either mixed, or any type of Asian. I also want her to have a huskier body type. I suppose she doesn't have to be half-Asian at this point, since there is nothing in the story that indicates anything about her appearance or ethnic heritage. But I just like the idea of having one of the characters be a mixed baby like me! :)

—

Now here is DeNae, introducing herself and talking about the amazing story she wrote for the FPS Housewife, Candace:

"Hello! My name is DeNae, and I am a stay-at-home mom, blogger, TikTok video maker, convention creator, and all around huge nerd. A lot of people know me for the convention I started here in West Texas called Lubbock Con. And other people know me from Instagram as The Big Bad Mama Wolf.

I started writing when I was younger, but I haven't done it consistently throughout my life. This project really stirred up a lot in me because I was able to get back to my roots of writing. I've been doing my blog for a couple of years now. And while I really enjoy blogging and writing about the experience of being a mom, writing a fictional story about a fictional character was so exciting and something brand new and super interesting.

So Candace is this incredible character that Juliana introduced me to. She had an idea of the story already, and whenever she messaged me on Instagram. She found me because of the tag #nerdmom or #gamermom. And she messaged me and asked if I would be interested in the project, and of course, I was like absolutely! Oh my gosh. This is such a cool idea. A story about a mom who gets trapped in a video game with her two sons. And while I do not have teenagers yet—my kids are both under the age of ten—this was such a unique experience, because I got to really get in the mind of someone else who has a different life experience than I do, who's older than I am. But I just felt like it was so important for her story to be told, because at some point all of us reach that moment in our lives, where we have lived probably a lot less fully than we want to. And we need to awoken—that's not a word. We need to be awakened! Our lives need to be shook up. And for Candace, it is this moment where she gets to experience something completely unrealistic and otherworldly, but it has real-life connotations about your relationship with your children, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with yourself.

And while Juliana had created the character, she left this big opening for me to give a backstory. And I really... Probably wrote too much of a backstory for me. Cause this is a short story, so a lot of you won't even know these things about the backstory. But it was so important to me to create a full character who has a whole life of experiences, and things that lead up to this moment.

It was important for me to know old her husband was, and where they were from, and where they went to school, and how they met. And he's only in the story for the very last few paragraphs, but those things led me to get to know Candace, and I really wanted the readers and the audience to love her as much as Juliana and I had started to. When we started having phone conversations, she would say, "This is how I see this moment playing out." And I was like, that's perfect, because in Candace's backstory, her father used to take her to play video games. It was so cool, because the character that she had envisioned and the character that I brought to life ended up being one and the same. It was just a matter of building that backstory and getting to know her as a fully fleshed out human being.

One of the coolest things that Juliana had wanted for the story was the moment where her son comes out. I don't have that experience. It's an experience that I know is life-changing, and so important. I know my sister and her wife—I've heard their coming out stories, I've heard their friends' coming out stories. They're good, they're bad, they're all over the place. And for Candace specifically, and for this moment in the story, I wanted it to be one of those things where you left feeling good about it. It is a part of life, it is a part of the human experience to have ups and downs with your child. But I wanted that ever-lasting, true love to come from Candace, and for you to really see that in the story. And I really hope that comes across whenever you guys read it. Because I loved writing that scene, and I loved talking to other people about their coming out stories, so that I could make mine as believable in this unrealistic world as possible. I remember when I sent it off to Juliana, I had already cried writing. Whenever she read it and she liked it, it made me feel so good because I wanted to do this character justice.

Even though I am a gamer, as a mom I do not get to game as much as I would like to. And I don't really do first-person shooter games. So I started talking to lots of friends about first-person shooters... I spoke with my husband, I spoke with my best friend Erin, and I was trying to get an idea so that I would get the terminology right! What would be a really cool game for a mom and her teenaged sons to get trapped in? And so I actually created an entire video game world. And I swear, Juliana, we need to get this made into a real game, because it is really fun. Number one. I would totally play it. And it's a lot like Halo, or Destiny. It goes through all of these moments that the characters needed. It goes through emotional highs and lows. And in order for Candace to have that moment at the end where she's like you know what, I can be my own person. I'm not just a mom. She needed to prove herself to herself. Not to anyone else. This was for her. And for her sons. For her to have that relationship rekindled, and re-supported. I cannot tell you how in love I am with these characters and this family, and it's probably because I created this really ridiculous backstory that no one will ever know, but it's in my notebook, and I just really feel like maybe we need to do a sequel or something, cause I really love writing about this family.

So I joined this project after Juliana sent me the information, because I felt like it was so important to have positive representations of females in media. Specifically in areas they might not particularly be portrayed, like gaming. There's a whole lot of gate-keeping, and you know, gamer-gate, and all of this anti-geek girl stuff that's really frustrating as a woman who actively participates in geek culture. So to be able to write a story about a woman who loved video games and lost that passion but rekindles it through an experience with her children was really awesome. I just couldn't turn it down. The whole project is so incredible, and it just has brought together some of the most talented women.

I think in order to find something that has a wide variety of perspectives in one place, even though the internet is so vast, is still really difficult. And Juliana has absolutely found a perfect way to do this, by creating these stories and these characters, and we have a writer and an artist for each from a different place in the world, and a different place in their life. We're all different ages, and races, and we live in different parts of the entire world—we're not just from one country or one area of the planet. This project is going to be so awesome because of that. Because it has a wide voice, but it's all pointing towards strong females. And if we ever needed a time that we needed to hear strong female voices, it's now.

Another reason I really wanted to be a part of this project was because my own grandmother, we call her Grammy, played Diablo when I was in middle school. And when I would tell people that, they would just be flabbergasted, like "My grandma doesn't even know how to use a computer." And I was like oh, well mine plays video games online, in an online gaming community. And so even though it's 2020 now, and that was in the late 90's, it's so important to have that representation, for people to see that there are women who do other things beside just motherhood. And while being a mom is such a huge part of my life, and it's absolutely probably my favorite thing about my life, it's not the only aspect of me. And a lot of women lose that.

And that's why this story was so attractive to me. It was about a woman who loves her children, she loves her husband, she's dedicated her life to her family... But in that moment has lost herself. And a lot of us experience that. A lot of us are experiencing that now, or will experience it in the future. So it's refreshing to see that there's life on the other side, and that you can be a great mom, and still be a great human being, and be your own person, and still love the things you loved before.

I'm so grateful to be a part of this project. I hope that you guys love Candace's story. I hope that you love all of the stories from Wise Not Withered. And more than anything, I hope that you feel inspired to be the best version of yourself and the best female that you can be."

—

I will now read an excerpt from the incredible story DeNae wrote, titled "Reclamation":

There is a blinding flash of light, an ear piercing squeal and suddenly my arm feels heavy. My whole body feels heavy. This is it. I'm one year from fifty and this is what gets me. A heart attack. But it is not my arm that feels heavy but what's in it. I look down. In my grasp, the most obscenely large gun I have ever seen. And my chest is not heavy but what is ON it. I am covered head to toe in bulky, gaudy, heavy armor. I panic. Where are my sons? I hear gunshots in the distance. I take off running towards the sound. I trip and stumble and drag this beast of a gun. I step through the fog and Shaun is standing there, a look of disbelief on his face, just staring. Jasper, tiny little Jas, is holding a smoking gun and a pile of alien carcasses lay in front of him.

“Dude.” Shaun manages to pop out before we hear more gunfire.
I turn around. An alien hoard approaches and all I can hear is Jasper screeching,

“SHOOT! MOM, SHOOT!”

“Candy! You have to shoot, Candy!”

It's my father. It's 1983. I'm thirteen again and in a mall arcade. He's not yelling but loudly encouraging. My father was a fun loving and highly spirited man. Even when we lost him he never stopped smiling. Even through the pain. Mother always scolded, “Stop feeding that girl fairytale dreams. She should be at the library studying, not playing that techno battle garbage with you.” I loved sneaking away with my father to the arcade for mind numbing fun, greasy pizza and cherry cokes. What was it that he would always say? “Aim with your eyes and. . .” and what? I hear explosions and yelling. The weight of a nearby blast knocks me back into the reality that I'm lost in virtual reality, as I shout, “SHOOT FROM THE HEART!”

“Aim with your eyes and shoot from the heart.”

I don't know what takes over me but I am shooting. This gun weighs two tons but I'm shooting. And yelling and screaming and running, my sons running beside me, tossing grenades and shouting expletives they know they are not allowed to say. Fear is a funny thing. I have never even touched a handgun in my life and now I am mowing down aliens and kicking ass trying to protect my baby boys. Why these sweet boys do this for fun, I do not know, but my adrenaline is driving me. Between the three of us we blow through sixty or more slimy green guys and I see a Humvee in a clearing ahead. The boys instinctively follow me to the vehicle. I am completely out of breath. I have not run in over thirty years. Shaun tries to climb in the driver's seat but I tap him over. He may be grown enough to blow up alien life forms, but he has not passed driver's ed yet. Shaun helps to remove some of my armor so I can drive and Jasper slouches over, exhausted, in the back seat. That kid can sleep anywhere. We manage to get this beast into gear and head towards a dense jungle in hopes of getting a break from explosions and ET trying to kill us.

—

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! More episodes coming every Sunday—sometimes Monday—until mid-2020!

Diner-Owning Superheroes – TANVI + GABBY

Hello everyone, and welcome to Week 11 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! This week is one of only three PAIRS of women, and this time, they are a MARRIED COUPLE AND BUSINESS-PARTNER SUPER-HEROOOOOOOOEEESSS!!!!

I am absolutely delirious to present Tanvi and Gabby, our Diner-Owning Superheroes! They are both forty-two: they met and fell in love while in college, and have been together ever since. The initial idea I had for this character was that it would just be one: Tanvi, the Diner-Owning Superhero, would also live with her wife and their niece. But at some point, sort of like the Potion Witches, we decided that they would both share the spotlight.

The focus is still more so on Tanvi, as the story is also told in first-person from her perspective. I originally thought that Gabby would just be a supportive character to Tanvi, but when the idea was brought up that they would be a unit—both of them owning the diner and both of them superheroes—it just made sense.

If I had one regret about the project so far, it would be that I didn't add in enough LGBTQ+ characters. The focus is definitely on expanding representation of middle-aged and elderly women, but the opportunity to include more diversity in sexuality and gender identity may have been missed. I did include a few other gay characters in the project, and with others they may identify as LGBT but those topics were never discussed in their stories because it is simply one aspect of a person.

That is one of the underlying motives for this project as well... I mentioned it briefly last week but it has been rolling around in my head for months now: None of the characters in the project has age as a defining characteristic. Akuol, one of the Potion Witches, does struggle with aging specifically in her story, but there is so much other stuff going on that it still represents only one aspect of that story and that character.

I feel that that sometimes becomes a story's downfall: if the character is based almost entirely around one trait, it can be easy to start taking out the labels and judgements. The token old person who is always hacking and coughing and waving their cane. The token woman who is always meek, weak, and in need of assistance. The token gay character who wears pink and acts in a flamboyant way. When a character is flattened to a very specific way of thinking and acting, not only is it boring and trite, it's downright damaging to the demographic that it's supposedly representing.

I find it very powerful when a character's sexuality is simply a part of who they are, while the story focuses on other aspects of their awesome life. I do think it's important to show the struggles of minority groups, but also just as important to show their successes as well. Again, that is part of the goal in this project. The characters are all older women, who are still thriving. None of the stories are about their differentiating trait bringing them down.

With each of these characters, it was important to me that not only did we represent uncommonly seen ages, but also from a huge variety of perspectives. That is, from many different parts of the world, with different cultures and beliefs, styles and aesthetics. Being an interracial baby myself, with Filipino and Western European heritage, I also wanted to include a few characters in the project who were in an interracial relationship, or the result of one!

The writer I found for this character was Meghna. We first connected over Behance, then once we got to email, the conversation just rolled.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B50t5hhHRg0/

We exchanged so many long emails when we first met, getting to know one another and bouncing around ideas for the character. Since Meghna had chosen the character first (before I even found Kristen), we decided that the main diner-owning superhero would be of Indian descent, and her wife's ethnicity would be that of our writer.

Meghna and I talked about our experiences growing up while not feeling like we totally belong, culturally or ethnicity-wise. We also talked about the setting of the story, and how it would make sense to take place in a more progressive country like the US (or Canada, as it turned out), for a gay couple to own a diner together. This is one of the nuggets that Meghna said in our email exchange, from Meghna herself:

"I'm actually convinced that it takes an ambiguous cultural identity to really open our minds to things like the freedom to love who you want. From my point of view, I wouldn't mind anyone in my family marrying outside of community, because my ties to the community are weak, at best. I haven't grown up here, so I don't feel that sense of belonging like the older generations would. It's a little funny because we discussed in one of our classes that culture is dynamic and constantly changing, so there's no point getting hung up on the specifics because what seems concrete today would just be outdated and obscure tomorrow. So many traditions die out, it really makes no sense to me to worry about the specifics of caste and creed mattering."

—

I wanted the cultural representation to be as authentic as it could be. I didn't want someone writing about a culture that they knew nothing about. At some point, it was decided that the superhero's wife would be Asian. So, I accepted the challenge!

I scoured the internet for a writer who was Asian AND identified as LGBT. I typed in all kinds of hashtags, spending a couple hours pouring over pages of twitter, Instagram, and random blogs on the internet, and it was finally #queerasian that brought me to Kristen!

https://twitter.com/thesapphicnerd/status/1036445012257587200

Kristen's online pages are under "The Sapphic Nerd", which has such a beautiful ring to it! I was so intrigued by the posts on her blog, not only cartoon and book reviews advocating for representation of LGBTQ+ and women, but also about her own experiences as a queer woman of color.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuIG5EOh5dw/

Something Kristen said really hit a chord with me: "There's also the added element of a superhero having more abilities than a regular person, but being frustratingly the same as everyone else is in how they deal with their relationships (romantic and non-romantic)."

When Kristen joined the conversation, the three of us just bounced around ideas like dumping a gum ball machine into a bouncy house. It wasn't quite as mad as that image seems though; we quickly, mutually decided on loads of details and got to work! The story that Kristen wrote, titled "Change", is everything I wanted it to be and more. The characters of Tanvi and Gabby are so relatable, and the way they interact is just perfect.

It was really important that I include a lesbian couple in the project, showing a stable gay relationship into middle age. Tanvi is significantly more emotional and outspoken, while Gabby is more reserved and calm. They joke around often, and balance each other out very well, working together as a loving couple, as well as business-owner partners, and a super hero team. Tanvi's powers revolve around gravity, while Gabby has the power to multiply things, including herself.

Illustration by Meghna[/caption]

When I first thought of the character concept, simply a Diner-Owning Superhero and her wife, I wanted to add in that their niece gets kidnapped. Tanvi's niece Navami wanted to go to college near where Tanvi and Gabby live, so she moved to Toronto and is living with them. What ended up happening is that Tanvi's older sister (niece Navami's mother) tries to take Navami back home to India.

Instead of a crazy villain kidnapping her niece, it's her own sister who is struggling with seeing her daughter changing and becoming more comfortable in Canada's more progressive society. I thought this addition worked perfectly, as it still creates quite a bit of conflict and drama, not to mention it shows how Tanvi and Gabby are still dealing with disapproval from their family about their relationship (though the relationship itself is still very strong and solid).

Meghna took some time to introduce herself and talk about the characters Tanvi and Gabby, including their creation/inspiration, and their illustrations.

"Hey! I'm Meghna, I'm in my mid twenties and an architect and graphic-designer, specializing in illustration. I'm from Kerala in the south of India, but I was born and brought up in the Middle East so there's always been a sense of not completely belonging to either culture. I've been drawing seriously maybe from the ninth grade when I got SUPER into Beyblade and Naruto. I spent my summers in India and these two shows would play on Cartoon Network in the evenings and I was OBSESSED, and that isn't even an exaggeration. When I returned home, I experienced withdrawal symptoms and hadn't figured out that I could possibly watch the shows online, so I started drawing anime-inspired art of my own to make up for the void (to be a tad dramatic). Over the years, my art style did evolve based on what I was reading and watching. I don't think I've found 'My style' just yet, and I'm not sure if I will, because I like the evolution process too much to really let myself get too comfortable with one method of work.

(One of the first sketches Meghna made for Tanvi and Gabby)

(Another one of the first illustrations Meghna made)

I've become so attached to both Tanvi and Gabby over the process of their creation, and reading Kristen's portrayal of them only cemented my attachment to them. As a queer Indian woman myself, I've sort of ended up latching onto whatever little queer representation I see in media, whether good or bad. A lot of this representation doesn't necessarily have me identifying with it so having a chance to create this representation that would have meant so much to me as a young confused girl really feels more fulfilling than a lot of things I've worked on in the past, and I couldn't be more grateful to Juliana for the opportunity. I'm also so thankful that over the months we emailed each other, I really found a good friend in both her and Kristen. Before they were fleshed out characters, the brief was basically just Diner-owning superhero wives, and everything about that just screamed at me to choose it and build it into something. I've been into Marvel and DC growing up, less of the comics, since I didn't have access to that, but more of the animated series and movies, and the portrayal of women superheroes have been changing for the better has me delighted ♥ This felt like a little tribute to that too. And who doesn't love a diner, right? It's a foreign concept to me, since I haven't really been to many, but it's so romanticised in all those American movies I watched growing up.

Regarding the look of the characters, their costumes were entirely thought up by Kristen and she did such a marvelous job that I really had so much material to work with. I did experiment with a few different styles, ranging from super stylized to more realistic and sort of settled on a middle ground. I did try to make sure that you could tell that they were middle-aged women of colour, with body types that stray from the ideal. Being a plus-size person myself, and I nearly always have been, it helped to draw someone I'd have loved to see on screen as a child, as an insecure teenager, as a less-insecure, but still sometimes insecure adult. Body diversity is still something that we don't see enough of, even with big franchises like Marvel and DC and I'm hoping that changes in the future, but for now, being able to do this definitely counts towards some healing and satisfaction.

My main motivation for working on the Wise Not Withered project was that it made sense at the time. I had just been getting into gaming and had been watching animated shorts from Overwatch and League of Legends and remember being so fascinated with Ana, since she'd been the first person I'd ever seen in a game who was an elderly woman with an active role. Over time, it really just became about being involved in this project with women from all over the world who were working toward something, and I'm honoured to be a part of it, and to be associated with all these creators, and I'm so glad I took it up."

—

And now, an excerpt from Kristen's story "Change":

Changing doesn’t feel the way it looks on TV. It’s not some musical, sensual, colourful, intricate set of dance moves that take an entire minute to go through before you’re ready to fight. If I took that long, I’d barely save anyone! No. Changing for me is a bolt of lightning. It’s a shot of white heat and electricity that ricochets through my body in an instant and leaves me crackling with energy. With power. I’m transformed into someone else in an instant. All thanks to a little stone.

If I were up against anyone else - if this were some evil villain dragging my niece out of the diner instead of my own sister - I’d be able to change. But this is family business. Navami needs me, not some random superhero. I can’t smash my way through personal drama. I mean, I could but that might not be the most productive…

Instead, I chase after them, reaching the diner’s entrance doors before they fully close. I’m not worried about what the customers will think. Most of them are regulars – even friends – and they’ve seen me throw out my fair share of unwanted guests or break up fights.

“Revathi, what are you doing?!” I demand of my sister, feeling the stone pulse from my necklace. I push away the power it offers.

“What are you doing?” My sister hurls back at me. “You and your lifestyle have been influencing my daughter! I see her posting photos with these weird people, going everywhere with them. She’s becoming like you!”

It takes me a split-second to understand and I give her a flat look. “She’s not turning gay, if that’s what you mean.” I know this because Navami and I regularly have in-depth conversations about things that would make her mother go pale. Not in a creepy way! My wife and I are just open to talking about anything, and so far, it’s resulted in quite a harmonious relationship with our resident teenager.

Revathi, who looks positively scandalized that I said that word, jerks Navami’s elbow. “See? Look at your values! Talking like that now.” I clench my fists. “I’m taking my daughter back to India.”

“What?! Ma, It’s the middle of the semester! I can’t go back!” Navami digs her heels in and there’s a stubbornness to her expression I’m not used to seeing from her… but have seen many times on her mother. I almost smirk.

“You can study somewhere else. I’ll pay for you to go anywhere, but I don’t like what’s happening to you here.”

“I like it here!” She argues. “I have a life here! You can’t make me leave!”

“You’re my daughter! You have to listen to me.”

“Ladies,” My wife’s voice cuts in, calm as ever as she leans on one of the diner doors to keep it open. “Are we putting on a show?” She angles her head over her shoulder.

All of us turn around to see a theatre of the diner’s patrons watching and Revathi shrinks. She hates disturbing the peace.

“I’ll be back in two days with plane tickets.” She says and storms toward her waiting taxi.

I exhale slowly and usher Navami back inside with my arm around her shoulders.

“I’m not leaving.” My niece states. Her expression is determined.

“Of course not.” I reply, nodding thanks to Gabby who’s holding the door for us.

—

Stay tuned for more Character Showcases, releasing every Sunday (sometimes Monday!) until mid-2020!

Wild MEG's Saloon and Cabaret Lounge

Welcome to Week 10 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! I'm honored to present our Wild West Tavern Owner, Meg. She owns and runs a business called "Wild Meg's Saloon and Cabaret Lounge".

Illustration by Pepi

For a couple years I did Lyft driving on and off. One of my passengers was an elderly gentleman who started telling me about how much he loves Wild West films. I hadn't (and still haven't) watched many (if any?) Western films. I did not grow up with them, and I told the man that I preferred movies and shows with characters that I could relate to. We got into a conversation about how most of the protagonists of those films are white men, and he said something along the lines of "Well that's just how it was." I found myself getting a little irritated at that blatant comment, but I also couldn't say that he was wrong.

When I dropped him off at his destination, he said something along the lines of "Times are changing, though. Women are doing more, and I can't wait to see what you'll be able to do next!" It was a very positive note to end on. And I felt inspired. I started to ask with curiosity rather than resentment, "What would it have been like if a strong woman owned a tavern in the Wild West?"

My initial ideas for this character were solid, but lacking in depth. I knew I wanted a tall, brooding woman, perhaps in-game an item shop owner. I pictured her saying, "Not in my tavern!" and shooting guns out of people's hands. She'd walk over, punch 'em in the face and throw 'em out! I wanted her to be gruff, with a no-nonsense attitude and a spark of humor. Expert-level ability in a wide range of card games. Extremely intelligent, confident, and sometimes abrasive—not afraid to verbally assault someone back into their place.

The illustrator I found for this character is Mariel Astorga, or Pepi, from Argentina! Pepi was one of the first artists that I connected with, and I absolutely adored her enthusiasm and can-do attitude. She has experience in game design, and in programs that encourage and educate young women. I loved the life in the comic illustrations that I found on her Behance page, and I was so excited to be in touch with her.

Pepi is from Mendoza, Argentina. She is an entrepreneurial designer who is passionate about video game development and user experience. She started to work in the gaming industry as a 2D artist in 2014, illustrating some characters and designing interface elements. In Mendoza, she works as an Arts and Design instructor at Probot's Video Game Course, which is a 12-week workshop for students from 10 to 17 years old. Probot School, part of the Tomás Alva Edison Foundation, was featured in 2018 by Microsoft's Flagship School Program. Now, Pepi is working with Game User Experience. Once in a while, she sketches for fun.

In regard to the illustrations Pepi did for Meg: she feels very connected to Michelle's definition of Meg's personality. Pepi tried to make a mix of a Punk style and Australian outback.

Over the past three years, Pepi has been promoting the video game industry and female participation in Mendoza. She had the opportunity to organize multiple workshops and events like "EVA-Mendoza" (Exhibition of Video Games made in Argentina) which is one of the most important Game Development conferences in Latin America, and Global Game Jam.

In 2017, Pepi volunteered as an artist to remotely help on the "Girls Make Games" program. This eventually helped her win a scholarship to attend GDC, or Game Developer's Conference 2018.

In Pepi's words: "Working with two talented and amazing women like Juliana and Michelle, makes me comprehend the importance of what we are doing, not only we were promoting and emphasizing the representation of middle-aged and elderly women in video games, also we were working from our different countries and realities to make changes in real life, in our daily lives. I'm very grateful. Wise Not Withered is a possibility to celebrate the alliance between women, defend our conquered rights, motivate younger generations and start to promote women's new roles all over the world. There are so many stories to tell."

Looking back at our first emails to each other almost feels nostalgic right now! So much has happened with the project over the last year, and seeing how warm and friendly and enthusiastic Pepi was right at the beginning makes me really happy and inspired again. I had been sending dozens of cold emails, hearing back from a handful of people—a tinier handful of that already smaller group accepted the offer and collaborated with at least me, and sometimes as a trio, to create beautiful art of middle-aged and elderly women in stories and illustrations.

I started to develop a tougher skin, in terms of being more readily able to accept rejections and keep moving forward... Where we circle back to Meg! It takes a strong woman who has seen hardship to be able to be so tough and rough—Meg brandishes a gun in the first chapter of the story. She means business! When I first created the character, I didn't realize that it would make sense—and in fact be essential—that she'd also need a more gentle and kind side, to balance out the rough exterior.

When I found the writer for this character, I honestly had been simply searching for a writer specifically from Australia. Not for that character, I just wanted someone from Australia. At this point in my search, I was making games for myself. I have a world map taped on my wall above my computer where I've colored in the countries where artists on the team live. I wanted to have as much diversity as I possibly could, and it was quite frankly very easy to find people from all over the world. With this kind of technology available to us, there's really no excuse not to find new talent and diversify our content!

I started searching Instagram using #australianwriter. I had an interesting interaction with a writer that I may possibly share in a post later with a collection of uncomfortable interactions! The writer who ended up responding and joining the team was Michelle Greening, an author, poet, and lovely soul who lives in West Australia. She will share her thoughts about the story and character later on in the episode.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7XjxxkFcKx/

Michelle was so nice to talk to over Instagram, and at one point I ended up sending her the list of characters, in the format of "Description (Age)". I added that some of them are very comedic and some are very serious. Some of them would probably make a more interesting game than others, but the focus is to just showcase that women can and do still have adventures and stories worth telling into middle-age and beyond.

Immediately Michelle's interest was piqued when she read "Wild West Tavern Owner". She said she is a previous restaurant owner and had a dream to have another restaurant, called "Wild Meg's Saloon and Cabaret Lounge". Since that first interaction we had, Michelle has written a compelling collection of diary entries to set the stage of Meg's character and shed some light on why she is the way she is. She wrote a couple chapters of Meg's daily escapades, one of which I will include at the end of this post!

Honestly for this character as well as last week's... and a lot of them... I just don't have the voice or maturity to read these amazing stories. This is why the next phase includes voice actresses that can really bring the stories to life! I can't do the whole project by myself, and I don't need to!

I couldn't be happier with how Michelle's story about Meg is unfolding, and I absolutely adore Pepi's illustrations, with their sketchy, comic book, papery look. I really think that Meg's entire story could be told through comic illustrations like these!

Illustration by Pepi

Michelle added in so much warmth and depth to Meg's character. She still has the exact kind of no-nonsense attitude and spark of humor that I envisioned, which is now rooted in Michelle's actual experience in owning a restaurant and loving Western movies (she even said to me near the beginning "I should have been born in Texas.").

But not only does Meg have a rough exterior, she is also very caring and protective of the other women in her restaurant. That was an important quality that I wanted a few of the Wise Not Withered characters to have: none of my characters' defining quality would be their maternal nature, but rather that would be simply a part of some of them. Another important aspect of the project is also to show that nobody has just one "defining" quality. Meg is close with and trusts a few women in her saloon, and the interactions that Michelle wrote about them are so real and lovely.

Illustration by Pepi

—

Now, here is Michelle, introducing herself and talking about Wild Meg's Saloon and Cabaret Lounge!

"Hi, I'm Michelle.
I live in Perth, Western Australia.
The written word has been a love of mine since I was a little girl.

Most of my writings are random quotes, ramblings and poems about love in all of its guts and glory. I am a huge romantic at heart and believe love never hurts, only people do. Our social conditioning and expectations can hurt us. But love heals.
All in all, my inspiration behind my writing is love and life.

Wild Meg's Saloon and Cabaret Lounge is actually a name I created many moons ago for a restaurant which is still yet to eventuate. I am a little, some might say, overly keen on The Wild West Theme and all things Country and Western. If I found out I was Annie Oakley in a past life I'd be pretty happy.
The name Meg comes from my initials. Michelle Elizabeth Greening. When I saw the list of characters, I jumped at the chance to create a Tavern Owner who takes no nonsense from anyone. Bringing Meg to life is a wonderful way of putting me in to the character. The me who cannot tolerate people who mistreat others. People who believe they have the right to intimidate.
Meg is there to make sure those who do the wrong thing are held accountable. Meg and I are firm believers that if you don't like how someone has spoken to you or treated you, then you have every right to put them in their place. My motto is, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
Meg's Story has taken on a life of its own and watching it unravel is exciting. As I develop the Diary Entries for her not-so-nice back story, you'll fall in love with her strength and tenacity as she defends the innocent against those bullies.

Empowering young women and girls is a subject very dear to me, so I jumped at the opportunity to join the Wise Not Withered project when I was invited.
Having created a positive self esteem Programme for teenage girls many years ago, I was keen to be part of such a wonderful and unique project such as this. I am very grateful to you, Juliana, for this opportunity."

—

And now, an excerpt from the story: Chapter 1.

“Quiet!”

Both hands on the bar, Meg takes a calculated breath. The waves of her recently unravelled hair cascade across her shoulders. Slowly and with an edge to her calm exterior, Meg turns to face the now hushed madness before her.
The dancers, who appear to be frozen in time, discretely, one-by-one, step off stage. This is a scene all too familiar to many and they know it’s best to vacate at a time like this.
Staff and patrons are silenced while bracing themselves for the inevitable.
A red glow filters its way through the front windows, adding drama to the already sombre scene, another Western Ranges sunset bringing the day to an end.
“I suggest that you holster your revolvers and step outside.” Meg glares at the men before her.
“Lady, the owner of this establishment might have a different opinion. I suggest you step outside before you get hurt,” the stench from this man turns Meg’s stomach. It is disgustingly all too familiar.
“I know the owner agrees with me Mister. Now holster your pistols gentlemen and remove your stinking selves from these premises.”
A tiny giggle erupts from the silent yet crowded saloon as Meg raises, in one hand, the rifle that nobody noticed by her side.
“Wait. You’re Meg?” the smaller man finds his voice, drops his revolver and makes a hasty exit.
Meg’s gaze is still fixed on the outspoken man. “You need an escort or are you leaving willingly?”
“Meg hey? Is that who you think you are? She’s but a legend, not real I heard.”
Meg aims the rifle between the man’s legs. “Left or right?”
“Left or right what?”

“Left or right knee?” Meg remains calm, “My aim might be a bit off but I am happy for you to find out.”

The people closest to this man quickly disperse. Five women, who had been standing separately throughout the saloon, are now on either side of her. Charlotte, Francis, Suzette, Lila and Claudine are the only people Meg trusts.

“Lady, my knee is already busted.”

She allows herself a hint of a smile. “As I said, holster your pistol, NOW.”

“Alright, I heard you.” With his pistol now back in its holster, he grins, “Can I at least get a drink?”

“Don’t push your luck. While you remain intact and before you say or do anything you will regret, leave my Saloon.”  Meg steps alongside and sees him to the door. “On the outskirts of town you’ll find a place full of your kind. When you get there, tell Joey the girls sent you. He will make certain you are looked after.” Meg watches as he mounts his horse and rides away.

Illustration by Pepi

—

Stay tuned for more Wise Not Withered Character Showcases, every Sunday until mid-2020!

NANCY SPACE ROCKET

Welcome to Week 9 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! While each of these characters has a special place in my heart, I have to admit that this week's character is—by a small margin—my favorite of the twenty-five. I am ecstatic to present... NANCY SPACE ROCKET!

I had lots of ideas about Nancy Space Rocket before I found someone to write her story. I knew that I wanted her to be sassy, sarcastic, and foul-mouthed, and that her story would be told mostly through emails. I changed her name to "Lady Space Rocket" temporarily, to keep the list of characters as ethnically ambiguous as I possibly could.

When I was sending the character list to the writers and illustrators last year, nobody picked this character. This is what I had as her description:

Lady Space Rocket - Age 89

She rockets through space, in her SPACE ROCKET WHEELCHAIR. She stops to eat. She stops to shit. She stops at computers to send emails to her husband, children, grandchildren, and girlfriends. She can be… Seductive in the way she talks to her husband (when she stops to shit, she can also take nude pics in the bathroom stall to send to him), supportive to her children (grown-ass adults), tender and kind to her grandkids (emotionally volatile teenagers), sarcastic and complaining to her girlfriends (some live on Earth, some in other galaxies!). She zooms around Earth, blasting evil aliens away!!

Most of the writers I had found at that point were Instagram poets, or otherwise writers that had experience with more serious topics. I feared that maybe no one would want to write her story. A couple people who were close to me even said that it might be "too much" for her to be so vulgar. Isn't that something we as women hear a lot? We're "too much" of something, we're "not enough" of everything else.

An elderly woman who is firmly in touch with her sexuality, unafraid of profanity, zooming around in a SPACESHIP... Even though not everyone was on board with the idea, I knew deep down that this character was special and I knew I would eventually find the right person to write her story.

What ended up happening is that I actually started narrowing my search specifically to comedians. I wanted the story to be funny, so why not reach out to women whose profession was rooted in humor?

Not long after I narrowed my search, I found Lee Bartlett. Her standup sketch on YouTube had me in stitches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MWGzgO_Vhw

"I have a special privilege of being allowed to go in the teacher's lounge. 'Cause, you know... I'm a teacher. I walk in, and this woman immediately is like, 'Students can't be in here!' I work at an elementary school. I have worked at said elementary school for like, four months. Normally, I would just storm out, offended. But the microwave lives there, and that ham and cheese hot pocket was not going to heat up itself. Not that I'm above gnawing on it frozen... But no one needs to see that shit."

When I reached out to this hilarious woman, I was overjoyed to get a positive response from her! Lee and I chatted on the phone shortly after, and boy oh boy! This insanely creative woman took my idea and ran around the galaxy with it. I gave Lee the bare-bones aforementioned description, and she crafted an entire universe (literally!) and extensive cast of characters.

Here's the backstory that Lee came up with for Nancy:

• Born on Earth
• Moved to Moon Colonies at 12 years old, shortly after her mother passes away in a car accident.
• There was a great war over who was going to control the Moon Colonies that lasted for 3 years 
  • Her father fought for the winning side
  • Was given a Lordship
  • Changes family name from Rousset to Rockett
• Nancella Rockett is raised in a castle in the Alphabetum city of Ellium
• Nancella is a very good student, despite her smart mouth. By the time she graduates from college, she has a Master’s Degree in Political Science and speaks nineteen of the most common languages of the galaxy
• Nancella meets Rowan Rochford at her college graduation system, they almost instantly fall in love. 
• At 29, they marry and Rowan adopts Nancella family name. (Which is a moon custom. Whoever is higher up in the social system gets the honor of their family name being kept. This custom has evolved and now the lower social system spouse hyphenates)
• At 33, Nancella has her first child. A boy. Two more children will follow within the next five years. A girl and another boy. 
• Also within this time, Nancella’s father dies of a heart attack. 
• Her father’s passing makes her and Rowan the Lord and Lady of the estate. 
• Nancella took her father’s seat in the Alphabetum governing system. She is a natural diplomat and has an extremely successful (Moon Based Only) career as she raises her three children. 
• At age 85, the council decides that it is time to seek new planets to expand to. When they begin to select two-people teams to conduct these search missions, Nancella insists she and Rowan be one of them. 
• After 3 years of training and preparation, Nan and Rowan get into a car accident. Rowan is paralyzed from the neck down and Nan loses feeling in her legs. 
• The upper council tries to cancel the Rockett mission, but Nan refuses to let them. She grew up with an entire universe all around. She has met people from every corner but has never got to experience it herself. This was her chance and she wasn’t going to lose it. She trained for this. She is ready. 
• “Project Retirement” is what the mission is jokingly referred to, but Nancella calls it “Project Encore” because this is her second act to her new life.

I couldn't be happier with what Lee came up with. It's so important that each character and story—especially an elderly person who has many years of life experience—is deeply rooted in a solid background. I love that Lee kept the concept of "Lady" Space Rocket, and even fancified Nancy's full name to "Nancella Rockett".

My initial idea was to have the entire story told through emails. Lee elaborated on that: in addition to emails, Nancy would also keep a "Captain's Log", using a speech-to-text application. She also included "Clinical Notes" from Nancy's husband Rowan's doctor visit, to give a bit more context about the car accident and his recovery. Lastly, Lee also included some instant messaging chats between Nancy and her friends.

I'm including the first four pages of the story: Captain's Log #1 and #2, and Email Correspondence #1.

I absolutely love what Lee wrote for Nancy Space Rocket, and it is so clearly just the beginning.

The illustrator I found for this character was Sandy Rodríguez, whom I found on Behance. She made some really great illustrations for Nancy: one close-up of Nancy in her space suit, the inside of the space rocket showing Nancy's messy desk, and an action shot of her rocketing through space!

Sandy and Lee both took the time to talk about themselves and the character, so without further ado, here is Sandy!

"Hi! My name is Sandy Rodríguez. I'm from Guatemala City, and I started making art since I was like... I don't know, pretty young! I started graphic design, and I'm a self-taught illustrator, and I'm getting a Master's in textile design.

Some of my influences are different illustrators from my country, and from other countries too. Like Lauren Alvarez, she's Colombian. I admire her so much—her style, and her colors have really influenced me. I take Latin America as my main influence and inspiration.

The illustrations I made for Nancy Space Rocket, I really [loved] to do them! It was a pretty good experience. I love the story, it's fun, it's full of life. I wanted to portray that in my illustrations, and with the colors also. I hope you like the story and the illustrations—[I hope they] match what the story wants to get to the audience.

I decided to join the Wise Not Withered project because I think it's a really cool project! With a lot of women involved. That's what we want now, right? In our society... Really making conscious about the importance of women in all the fields. I think this project is really all about that, like I said, fun, playfulness, and everything. I hope I can work with this project in some future, and I send all of you lots of hugs and hope to get news from all of you soon. Bye!"

And here is Lee!

"Hello, yes, I am Lee Bartlett! I am a standup comedian from Phoenix, Arizona, and the author of Lady Space Rocket. From the moment I started writing this character, I absolutely fell in love with her. Nancy breaks the mold of the quiet, docile old woman. The story is set in the future: it is 2120. So I tried really hard to think of the type of person someone would be if they were the child of the children raised by my generation. And suddenly this sarcastic, strong-willed, independent woman came into form.

Creating this story was so much fun! Not only is it set in the future, but it's set in SPACE. It was so cool to sit back and imagine where we would be in a hundred years. I ended up doing some research on space travel, and developing technology, and medical things coming into rise, and learned a lot about the amazing things being created around us right now. It was even more fun to get to incorporate these elements like moon colonies, nanobyte healing into the story. It was a really out-of-this-world experience, to say the least.

I put a lot of myself into Nancy. Not just my sassy mouth, but my resilience and tenacity too. Nancy has one of the worst things in her entire life happen to her, three months before she's supposed to leave on this mission. But she pushes through. She doesn't give up, nothing stops her. Not her age, not her disability, not her problems with her family... She just keeps going. And I feel like I have a little bit in me too.

Whenever I hear Nancy's voice in my head, I picture something a little deeper in tone, and a bit raspy. She may be a Lady, but she definitely does not have a Disney princess voice by any means. As I was writing this story, I listened to a lot of lo-fi hip-hop. It's a special genre of music that's similar in beat to the classic hip-hop music, but a little softer in tone and a little more electronic. It adds a little bit of a sci-fi element to it, with some of the sound bites they use. And that really spoke to me as I was creating the story.

I joined this project because wise women deserve to see themselves as the main character of the story for once. They don't always have to be the side character. They don't have to be the main character's mom, or grandma. They deserve to be in the spotlight too. I had an amazing time doing this project. I would absolutely do it again. The narrative of the emails and the captain's log give this story a unique flow and experience for the reader.

I am Lee Bartlett, the author of Lady Space Rocket, and you should absolutely check it out! Not just because I poured my heart into it. It is an amazing read with a very strong female lead. And I highly recommend it! Thank you so much."

—

Thanks for tuning in this week of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! More showcases coming on Sundays until mid-2020!

 

Potion-Brewing Witches - ATHIEI & AKUOL

Happy New Year and welcome to Week 8 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! I'm thrilled to present a very special pair of characters: Athiei and Akuol, an aunt and niece potion-brewing witch duo. The illustrator for these characters was Joy Ajuong, whose family originates from South Sudan; our witches have strong influences from the Dinka people who are indigenous there.

Our American writer, Annamarie Mickey, did some fabulously thorough research and ran everything by Joy to ensure the most accurate and respectful representation of the Dinka people. Annamarie will introduce herself and talk more about her creative process later on in this episode.

The witches' names came directly from Joy's Dinka heritage: Athiei is a unisex name meaning "blessing", and Akuol is the feminine form of the name Kuol, which is a type of bitter fruit that can be used for medicine. Joy told us that Kuol is a fairly common name in her own family.

The idea I had for the witches was, like most of the other characters, extremely bare-boned. It was important to me that lots of different relationships were represented in the project, and I knew that I wanted the witches to be an aunt and niece pair. Originally I wanted the story to focus on the older witch, who is seventy-two, and conflict would arise when her forty-five-year-old niece messes up a potion recipe and accidentally releases and dark, mysterious power. Once Annamarie started writing the story, it became clear that both witches were equally important.

I thought it was an interesting concept simply with their ages and exploring the relationship between two grown women who are some kind of combination of mother/daughter/sister/friend. The older witch, seventy-two-year-old Athiei has twenty-seven more years of life and work experience, but at this point her forty-five-year-old niece Akuol is pretty established and skilled as well.

During the conversation over WhatsApp with Joy and Annamarie, I had an idea that I believed to be silly at the time. I had said that it could be funny if they're experimenting with potions, and Athiei temporarily changes their appearances to that of younger women. They both look in the mirror and say "Nah!"

Annamarie chimed in, saying that she thought about the usual cranky but affectionate older woman and the younger person who has to deal with them. But then she thought it would be more interesting if the niece was more uptight while the older aunt is more experienced and is in the stage of life where she is somewhat embracing a second childhood. So Athiei might be known for trying things that Akuol balks at.

I adored Annamarie's idea of the "second childhood", and it reminded me of hearing about post-menopausal women who in some ways revert to a more childlike state, in terms of positive energy and outlook on the world, similar to how they were before their first period. I didn't want to outright say that in the story, but the underlying idea would be there: the niece Akuol is pre-menopausal and coming to terms with "The Change" whereas the aunt Athiei has already accepted it since it happened at least a couple decades prior for her.

Joy added her own thoughts, saying how it's nice to show that as we get older it can be difficult to accept changes in our bodies and lives, and having the older witch be more calm and cheerful in itself shows that this isn't the end of the world. You can always find joy if you wish to and her goofiness imparts that lesson on the younger witch. Joy continued: "As for this dark force, I think it would be important to tie it in with their personal hang ups. We could have it connected to menopause with the younger witch. Perhaps literally or perhaps metaphorically."

Then Annamarie riffed on that: "Perhaps something related to fear, almost like when a teenager goes through puberty, prompted by uncontrollable and significant change. She feels that change deep down and doesn't want to admit it scares her. That could be partly why she clings so much to more strict magics and seems to have lost some of her creativity and imagination."

Joy added on that again, talking about how Akuol feels a sense of control in her magic abilities that she doesn't feel in other parts of her life. She desperately wants to be young again, not aware of the darkness brewing within herself in holding on in vain to that belief: "basically a metaphor for how attempting to reclaim your youth rather than accept the grace of aging can have negative consequences both for your own wellbeing and others."

The Potion-Brewing Witches' story is the only one in the Wise Not Withered project that has age as a key factor and conflict in the plot. It was important to me that although each character had to be at least forty years old, age would not be a defining characteristic for these stories, in hopes of normalizing the idea of middle-aged and elderly women as protagonists. However since the older witch has accepted her age, it felt right to include one character in the project who at the beginning of the story has not accepted it yet.

My original idea was that the niece would somehow be at fault for the main conflict, and it also made sense that Akuol's mishap wouldn't be caused by mere carelessness. At that point she would be forty-five and more experienced and capable than to mess up like a novice. So having the darkness and conflict arise from her insecurity about aging—with a role model showing another way of aging—made perfect sense.

The idea I had of a potion making them look younger also came with differences in how each witch would respond to seeing her younger self. It would make sense that Akuol, the more uptight one, would be shocked and yearn to look that way again. Athiei on the other hand would gaze upon their younger selves and relish in the memories of when Akuol first came to live with her and learn magic, feeling nostalgia and appreciation rather than disappointment and longing. Showing that difference in perception was indispensable.

Potion-Witches Game Ideas

The original idea for Wise Not Withered was going to be entirely through a lens of gaming, but as ideas came in from the writers and illustrators, I decided to not put the whole focus on just games, but rather media of all types. The witches though, with all their different potions, would be great characters for an open-world RPG, with ingredient-collecting and crafting mechanics.

Another one of Joy's idea: "Recipes could either be stumbled upon by player experimentation or by reading books scattered across the town or perhaps speaking to certain NPCs. If we wished to fight against the grave evil we could introduce combat early on say to hunt certain creatures for ingredients. This could teach the player that they can use the potions to augment their stats mid-battle. I think if you start with this relaxed Animal Crossing like tone for say the first third of the game, it would get people invested and accustomed to the characters' way of life so it would become shocking when the dark force appears due to their own hand. Sort of a tone shift, though the mechanics can hint at this future event."

Potions... Potions...

Annamarie did an amazing job coming up with potion ideas. Instead of simply describing them, I'm including excerpts from the story to show off her writing as well:

• "Feather-light potions enabled their feet to hover inches above the ground as they stepped out from their cottage, just high enough to walk across the flooded grasslands with ease - a welcome convenience in the rainy season."
• "The rain was still coming down steadily, and a deep fog had set in as the late afternoon wore on. Athiei opened a clear-eyes bottle, and the women drew lines on either side of their eyes so they would not lose their way. ... Akuol pressed a finger to her temple where she had drawn a clear-eyes line. By focusing her energy, she could not only see through the fog, but enhance her vision further."
• "Akuol dug into her pack. She carried a vial of mica and ore. She retrieved one of the villager’s gifts next - a cured hide of an ancient lechwe, finally at rest after years of wandering when the merciful earth called its life away. She plucked several hairs from the hide and mixed it with the mica. Then she held it aloft to the rain - to the cycle of water, from the ground seeping into the river and condensing into the air and returning to its mother, ever-changing even in its constantness."

And now here's Annamarie, going a lot deeper into her creative background, creative process, influences, main takeaways from the story, and her experience being part of the Wise Not Withered project:

"My name is Annamarie Mickey, and I am the writer for 'Always Constant, Ever-Changing', or the Potion Witches prompt, as it was first pitched to me back when Juliana first reached out to me. I am from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area—lived here my whole life, went to school not super far from here.

As for how long I've been writing, I've been creating stories ever since I could hold Barbie dolls, basically. As far as more polished writing, I would say as early as middle school. Probably a lot of people around my age, my generation can relate to growing up on websites like Neopets. Neopets to me was highly formative, and it sounds so silly, but I created vast characters and stories, and I wrote so much in middle school. I got to explore so many different kinds of characters and explore ideas from books I was reading, and just whatever would pop into my head. So that was a highly formative time for me.

In terms of the kind of writing I like doing—and I think there were hints of this when I was younger, and it's definitely only gotten more polished and come more into the forefront as I've gotten older... I really like works that have an existential bend to them. Things that aren't always 100% straightforward, or sometimes maybe have bizarre sentence structure here and there, or really play with words, sometimes even creating new words or putting words together in weird ways that you don't see a lot, to really make you think about what you're reading, or pull you into the scenario of what you're reading.

I think you see a lot of things like that more in short stories, because in short stories you have such a smaller amount of time to make an impact on your reader. When I was in college, studying literature and writing, I really fell in love with short stories. Flannery O'Connor was one of my favorite authors that I read in college. She's one that really just comes out there and smacks you with the bizarre, and the weird, and the uncomfortable.

Also a lot of African short stories, Asian short stories... I took a few non-Western classes. They really delve into that kind of magic-realism bend. Sometimes you're not 100% sure what's going on, or things are a little bit weird... Every word counts. So when an author does something it needs to be very specific, and they're doing that for a reason. You can't just mess around with no purpose behind it.

That's what I really love about short stories. And now in my older writing I really embrace that way of writing, and I hope that comes through in Always Constant, Ever-Changing. Cause this was a witchy, magical story. I really got to play with some strange language here and there, weird things of describing scenes. For me, that is so much fun to explore, and I hope that comes across to the reader and pulls them into the scenario we set up with Athiei and Akuol.

With Athiei and Akuol, I think I couldn't focus on just one, because they live in such close proximity to each other, and Akuol has basically grown up with Athiei. Their lives and their duties and their job, everything is just so totally intertwined. They're both older women, but they're still both women in different parts of their life. I wanted to explore Athiei's wisdom, being the older one who had already gone through what Akuol is going through. That sense of when you're in your middle age, sort of reaching older age.

Obviously I'm young, so I can't empathize with this, but I have plenty of older women in my life. My mom and my aunts. I can sympathize with seeing them go through these changes, and juxtaposing that with the older older women I see in my life, who have come to an understanding, a freedom of where they are in their lives.

I think it's important for younger people to read a story like this, see characters like this, think about people like this. I'm younger, but obviously I'm not always going to be young. And younger people think about aging too. How's life going to be in ten, twenty years? They look to the older women in their lives and see how they handle aging. And that imprints on the younger generations on what to expect as they age. So I wanted to write a story that was focusing on that there is beauty in aging. You don't have to be scared of it.

I wanted it to be encouraging for anyone at any stage of life. Whether you're younger and you think about, how will I be when I'm older? And possibly if you're older too, I hope that I was able to reach out and touch some of those fears. I think it's especially poignant in women. Our society places so much value on youth, and so much is sold to us on staying young, being youthful, and being beautiful. But there is so much to be gained as you get older, and really I think that's what Athiei tries to reach out to Akuol. Even if she doesn't come out and say it; it's the way she lives, the way she presents herself, the way she celebrates life and what she does.

She goes into each day unafraid, excited. It's almost a youthful kind of energy, despite her age. The more I thought about that, the more that I really carved that into Athiei, the more excited I was to write it. I found the voice of the story, found those two opposing forces between Athiei and Akuol, and how they work together. And for me that's the heart of the story, it's them together. It's not just the one, it's both of them. Both of them navigating life with each other, what they give to each other, what they learn from each other. And for me I would say that's really the heart of the story.

As for the more like nitty-gritty of the story, forming its setting being in more South Sudan. That really came from the artist, from Joy, absolutely. Right at the beginning, when all three of us had met—me, Joy, and Juliana—we talked about ourselves a lot, where we came from, what our influences were, what we were interested in. We really wanted to bring a lot of ourselves to the story.

My bent is obviously always going to be a little more Western, because that's how I was raised, and that's the culture I'm surrounded in. I've always been drawn to... Like when I hear "magic", my first thought is going to be the more English, Western magic: Lord of the Rings, the medieval, the Renaissance, that kind of thing. A lot of literature I've read is that, and I do love that.

But Joy, her family is actually from South Sudan, so when she started sharing that with us, I was like, we have such a great opportunity here, where I can bring my love of magic and just the idea of witches, which is always fun for me to play with. Magical realism, all the powers and works in the world that work around us—it always fascinates me. So any story that has magic or anything like that is super up my alley. So to combine my experience with writing that sort of setting, and reading those sorts of stories, and placing that deeply in Joy's culture. The opportunity to have someone so close to that. Obviously I did quite a bit of research. I also asked Joy questions. Pretty much anything I wrote I ran by her to make sure that it was accurate or at least...

I mean it is a magic story. It is fiction. So it's not 100% accurate to real life. But making sure any liberties we took, or things that we did a little bit differently, sat well with the whole picture we were trying to put together. So it was so great to have that opportunity to explore a culture and a part of the world that you just don't see very often. So that was just absolutely fantastic. I love doing research and immersing myself in a different culture, in a different people. And the opportunity to bring that to the forefront, and having Joy consulting very closely on it, making sure the ideas I brought to it were respectful and proper while still hitting an emotional impact for all of us, was just absolutely amazing.

I joined the project because a friend of mine who is the artist on one of the other stories, had been recruited by Juliana before I had. And we had been working on a project together. So she reached out to me and said hey I joined this project, it sounds really interesting. It's about older women in a variety of stories, it's about expanding the world of fiction to include the older women. That's up both of our alleys to do something like that.

So I said yeah that sounds awesome. So I reached out to Juliana, and she immediately pulled me on board. When she sent me the list of prompts, Potion Witches was immediately up there for me, because I love magic and I love magic settings. I love what you can explore and what you can do.

Magic brings such an easy and immediate way to explore the metaphysical. Expressing people's psyches and their thoughts and their pain. Their journeys and what they're going through, through the strange around them, the magic, and bizarre around them. How does that manifest in the world around them? And when you introduce magic into a setting, you can really bring that to a forefront, you can play with it in ways that for me is so much fun! So Potion Witches was probably my first pick, if not my second pick. So when we got our prompts, and I saw that I was assigned the Potion Witches, I was so excited!

Working on the project was so much fun. I mean Juliana was just so gung-ho the entire time, especially at the beginning when we were firing ideas back and forth, trying to really hammer down what idea we wanted to do. There was a lot to get to the final product! (laughs) We threw around a lot of ideas before we finally settled on the final, what it eventually became in the end. And she was always just texting and messaging, which I don't mind! Because it means that the person in charge...

One thing I've learned is that when you have a project, especially something like this, where there's a lot of moving pieces, and a lot of people working together, you need a strong leader. You need someone who is 200% passionate. Because if you have someone who is even like 90% passionate about it, especially when we're mostly volunteering for this, just to do it because it's interesting and sounds fun, you really need someone who is going to hold the reigns, and just be totally on-board with discussing any idea, and going down any avenue, and really encouraging all of us, and keeping on us to work on it. Like I said I don't mind, because when there's someone that passionate behind a project, that keeps you passionate.

So even occasionally schedules get busy and everything, but I was still able to finish the story. Juliana was there the entire time, making sure that if I had any questions, I could ask, making sure I was still good, reading any revisions that I did, leaving me really great feedback that pulled the story together, really tightened the story as well. She was such a good second pair of eyes to have on the story. So yeah, working for the project was just fantastic and I'm so proud of the final product, and I'm really excited for people to read it.

I hope that when people read it, they will ultimately come with a feeling of... Going into 2020, starting a new year, starting a new decade, don't be afraid. That theme came out organically as I was writing. Usually when I go into writing, I don't always have a strict idea of what the theme is going to be. What is the big message of the story?

And for this one, the one that really came out was go forward, unafraid. I mean... Go forward despite your fear. We're all gonna be afraid! Instead of being antagonistic toward that fear, cause that's what Akuol does. She lets that fear fester in her, and that fear goes outward, it affects the world around her, the people around her. That's what happens when you let fear drive you. It affects not only you—it affects everyone around you.

Akuol really learns that she needs to accept the change around her, the change in her life, the change within herself, both physically and mentally. When you accept that, then you can move forward with bravery in spite of it, and the people around you can help support you as you move forward. You're not alone in this journey of life.

So writing this story for me, was just filled with hope, so much joy. There's so much joy in all the details of the story. And I really hope that that comes across, and I hope that when people read it, they feel that hope, and try to take that back into their lives. I mean, that might be a lot to ask for just a short story. (laughs) But for me, whenever I read it, that's what comes across to me. The hope at the end. The hope that I can take that into my life outside of the story. We're not perfect, but we try.

I'm just so honored and blessed to have written a story that reading it now, it means that much to me. And I hope that readers also see that and hopefully take some of that with them after they're done reading. So everyone who reads Always Constant, Ever-Changing, I hope that you enjoy it first of all! And I hope that you find some of those deeper meanings, or maybe other things in the story that speak to you on some level. That when you come out of it, you feel that hope and joy. And if you do that, then I've done my job. I loved writing it, and I hope you love reading it! Thank you so much."

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Thanks for listening to the Wise Not Withered Podcast! More character showcases coming out Sundays until mid-2020!

Real-Life Mother Nature - TSALO-SESHA SERENA

Welcome to Week 7 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! I took a break last week, and I will take another break in another six or seven weeks, so thank you for your patience! I am so excited to showcase Tsalo-Sesha Serena, the Mother of Nature. This character is particularly special because from conception all the way through to the completion of her story, she is truly the product of collaboration, between me and the talented writer RatoMil from South Africa.

When I sent the list of 25 characters to RatoMil, she proposed a new character, the 110-year-old Amazonian "Real-Life Mother Nature". The backstory that RatoMil created for her was this: She used to be a city girl but lost everything she had worked for to an abusive marriage and found herself lost in the wild. For some reason she connected with nature and decided to settle there away from the toxicity of the city. She discovered she has a connection with the plants and animals thus she can hear and understand them and vice versa. She discovered her super powers and used them to survive in the wild and also protect wild life and nature.

I looked through my list of characters to see if there were any that could be combined with RatoMil's idea, because I found it very intriguing and different from anything I had come up with on my own. Scrolling through my list, I stopped at the 48-year-old Legless Rock Climber and realized how perfectly the two characters could be combined. So, I proposed a new character who would be 79 years old, right in between 48 and 110.

Updating RatoMil's original description, this is what the character's final synopsis became: She used to be a city girl, but lost everything she had worked for to an abusive marriage. Following a near-fatal plane crash in her 30s, she found herself without legs, lost in the wild. Ethereal plants and creatures helped her heal, and she connected with nature and decided to settle there, away from the toxicity of the city. She discovered she has a connection with the plants and animals thus she can hear and understand them and vice versa. Using her superpowers she has been able to survive in the harsh jungle environment for decades, and can also protect wild life and nature. Even without legs, she has powerful upper-body strength that allows her to swim against strong currents, and climb her way up and around trees. Working together with vines and leaves, she can also traverse effortlessly across the jungle floors.

RatoMil and I chatted on the phone about the character and the story, and we decided that she would have two names: the first would be her given name (which would then become hyphenated with her husband's), and the second would be the one she chooses after awakening in the jungle. Her new name would show that she is fierce yet calm, gentle yet strong; the change of names would indicate her transition of letting go of her past and stepping into her new role and embracing her new reality.

One of the most important aspects for the Wise Not Withered project was that for each character, the story's focus must be on her NOW, at her CURRENT AGE. Understandably many writers wanted to include backstory and/or flashbacks, and while backstory is essential for the writer in creating a well-rounded, believable character, I was very firm about needing the focus to be on present-day events.

However, because the Real-Life Mother Nature character essentially has two lives—her city girl life, and her post-accident awakening—I thought it would be appropriate to give a bit of backstory as to who she was in her first life, and to show the stark contrast. Instead of writing it out like a story however, RatoMil and I collaborated yet again on an opening poem, which you will hear from RatoMil herself at the end of the episode.

While I was drafting the poem, I thought about how beautifully ironic it would be to compare the restriction our protagonist felt in her marriage to the tight grips of vines and drowning in water, while later she connects with and finds solace in vines and water, this time in a drastically different and intensely liberating way.

The illustrator for this character was Eazala Maria, from Argentina. When I first saw the close-up illustration that Eazala made for Tsalo-Sesha, I was in tears. She so perfectly captured everything I wanted the character to be, with wrinkles and sunspots, looking very peaceful and kind. I love the colors she used, and the details are simply incredible. The main illustration for this character happens to be my profile photo on Instagram!

Now onto this character's incredible name! RatoMil speaks Setswana, one of the eleven official languages in South Africa. She suggested "Tsalo-Sesha", which means "rebirth". Eazala speaks Spanish, and proposed "Serena", which represents tranquility. RatoMil and I were talking about full names, and I thought it would be interesting for our character to have a long name. I myself have two middle names, in addition to what I grew up thinking was an excessively long first name. I used to be really embarrassed about my long name, but I love it now. So instead of picking just one of the names that the artists suggested, I decided to combine them, and our character's full name became Tsalo-Sesha Serena, which just feels right.

The rest of the story recounts a group of invaders who come to the jungle in search of a mystical flower. The leader of the group reminds Tsalo-Sesha of her ex-husband, and I purposely left characteristic details about this man vague, so that readers may envision him however they want. There is another woman with the group, named Anna, who realizes that she no longer wants to help the others find the flower, and decides to stay with our protagonist in the jungle. The ending implies that Tsalo-Sesha is mentoring Anna as the rest of the invaders give up their search for Anna and leave.

And that's about it from me about the story of Tsalo-Sesha! And now here is RatoMil, first introducing herself, then talking about the story, her experience with the project, and finally reading the poem that we wrote together. In the next phase of the project, voice actresses and composers will add even more life to these characters, and I am happy to announce that RatoMil will be the voice actress for Tsalo-Sesha's story. So without further ado, here is the one and only RatoMil!

"Hello, I am Lerato Mileng, also known as RatoMil, all the way from South Africa, and I am a creative writer and storyteller, amongst other things. My first writing pieces, or written piece, was when I was an adult. I started writing creatively at a very late stage, as an adult. I was going through a very tough time in my life. To be particular, I was going through abuse. The experience was very painful whereby I could not find words to utter and express the feelings, and the next best thing I could do was write. I did what I call "bleeding on paper". Through that, poetry was birthed. I realized that this bleeding on paper created poems. I don't remember the first particular pieces, but it was poetry. I started writing through poetry, which was birthed by writing therapy.

When I recognized it as well as the passion, the love for writing, then I took it further, decided to go further into creative writing. From poetry, to now books, books to scripts, scripts to... You know, the journey just grew like that, at a very rapid speed. I believe that I found myself in writing. I found my calling. So that's how the journey of me writing started, through writing a poem, and bleeding on paper basically.

So I am the writer of Tsalo-Sesha, who is the Real-Life Mother Nature. Initially the idea was an Amazonian woman who was a hundred and ten years old, who becomes the real-life mother nature. It is an idea that came while I was going through the list of characters to choose to write about. And while I was going through this list, this story just came to me. I felt like actually, this story needs to be written. I want to write this story.

I suggested to Juliana, the facilitator of Wise Not Withered, how about a story like this? She loved the idea. However, we decided okay, let's come to a common understanding, common ground. There was a character on the list, that was a forty-nine-year-old World War III veteran who lost her legs. So we decided to join the two stories and make them one.

We worked on the story together, combining the two characters. Eventually our character became the seventy-nine-year-old Tsalo-Sesha, who is the real-life mother nature—the legless mother nature. She loses her legs in the process of the story.

Yeah, it's a beautiful story. You know, the story flowed through me. I feel that writing is a very spiritual thing. Some stories need to be told, and I feel that it was one of those stories that flowed out of me that needed to be told. It was easy for me to write it, because some elements of it I could relate to, referring back to the abuse I went through as well. It's best to write what you know about. Elements of nature, turning into mother nature... Was just a beautiful twist to the story that developed. With Juliana also writing this with me, coming in to add other elements, it just grew into a beautiful narrative.

Tsalo-Sesha was not originally born as Tsalo-Sesha. She is an African woman who was named Sammy Tswana by her parents. Sammy Tswana fell in love with a foreign man, from overseas, America. She went against her parent's will and eloped with this guy. They got married, they were happy, this guy was doing these great things for her, being the perfect guy.

Sammy loved plants, she loved nature, and had a good hand at growing plants. In this new home in America, she could not seem to grow her plants. The environment as well, there was no outside, it was this apartment... Concrete jungle, you know? She would grow her plants indoors, on the balcony, but they would always die. There's something about plants, they're very sensitive to bad auras. That was the subtext of the story, that the plants always died.

Eventually the main reason the plants died came out, which was that her knight in shining armor was not so much of a hero or a good guy. He was actually a criminal and an abusive person, and with time his character started showing. And this woman was now trapped in her home, abused and depressed, losing a part of herself every day. Through the story, Sammy had to escape.

She was good with art. She was a creative person and she loved flowers. So she started painting, and making some money. Eventually she raised enough to go back home. She escaped, she ran, on the first plane flight back to Africa. The plane crashed, and that's when she loses her legs. Somewhere in the jungle, that's where the plane crashed. Now she became reborn into Tsalo-Sesha, and became one with nature, and grew into something beautiful that lives for and protects nature.

Later on there were more characters in the story that came looking for something very precious. They wanted to take it back to use for wrongful means. There was a lady there that was special. Tsalo-Sesha was able to hide in plain sight, like a mystic being. The special lady was the only one who could connect with Tsalo-Sesha in a spiritual sense, and could feel her presence. Eventually they connected and became friends. It turned out to be a beautiful narrative. I just love the story, it's a beautiful story... It narrates how a woman can come out of a negative situation, a very testing situation, and grow from it, and become a powerful force.

I joined Wise Not Withered because I wanted to be part of the force, the collective that works on changing the narrative of elderly women in the industry, particularly the game industry, as well as the whole entire world. Elderly women are seen to be frail, withered. The wise element in them is overlooked. They can change a lot of things, if the world can connect with the wise element of elderly women. I wanted to be part of that force that changes the narrative, and I knew that I could write stories that showed that part.

It has been a beautiful journey. It was a joy writing that story with Juliana, and the poem. It was just blissful! It just flowed. How I wrote it, how she also had pieces gel together, making one story. I loved the process so much. I can't wait to see how far this goes. I can't wait to see the finished product. I can't wait to have these stories, written by women, globally... This whole concept of the global collaboration project, changing the narrative of the elderly women, in the gaming industry, as well as the world. Thank you!"

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Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, every Sunday until May of 2020!

Cat Lady - DENI

Welcome to Week 6 of the Wise Not Withered character showcase! I am thrilled to present the character, story, and illustrations of Deni, a ninety-nine-year-old "cat lady", who has quite a fantastic saga of her journey back to her home with her cats, training them to hunt and battle, and live as wild cats do.

Similarly to Nero, the Retired Cyborg's story, I simply gave my bare-bone idea (which was "a different kind of cat lady") to Natasha, who took it and RAN. She crafted an entire back story, cast of characters (people, cats, rats), and a riveting plot.

Our illustrator was Carla, whose colorful, dramatic illustrations add even more life and character to Deni, her cats, and their home.

Natasha and Carla both took some time to really thoroughly answer some questions about themselves and their work on the story, so I will let them do most of the talking in this episode! :)

So first, here is Carla, the illustrator for Deni and the Cats:

"My name is Carla Rodriguez. I am from Bolivia, which is a country in the middle of South America. I am a graphic designer, and an illustrator.

My artistic influences go around everywhere, I guess. I do a lot of pop culture in general: comic books, manga, animation. What I can say is that my usual kind of work, that I do personally... I like to be very colorful, very distinct contrasts between colors. It's quite psychedelic, if I have to be honest with that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsJkNK6ATGf/

The influences which I have is a lot of Junji Ito, which is you know, horror manga. And Naoko Takeuchi. She isn't horror though, she's shojo. Very ladylike, woman-directed comics.

I love pop art. I think that the most-known is Andy Warhol. I do love the lowbrow art, which is like another kind of pop art. The surrealist pop is kind of a new wave that is coming around. Casey Weldon... Hikari Shimoda, which is also one painter in Japan that does a lot of work that is very surrealistic, pop art. Those are usually my influences, very psychedelic and surreal.

Well I really did like the theme of the cat lady. It's a pretty interesting theme because it used to be condemned to be a cat lady, like being a lady is something wrong. If you were going to be alone all your life only with you and your cats... Honestly nowadays, I think that is not such a bad thing, because I really do like my cats, and I do love animals. So for me, I'm okay with being a cat lady, to be honest. (laughs)

I wanted to show that Deni, as a person, she is not alone. She is a very social person, with a lot of love to give. I really like that of the character of Deni. I didn't want her to be like the stereotypical cat lady. At least the one that people thought would be the norm. She wears very bold colors, she has a bold personality, so that's what I wanted to show about Deni.

When it comes to the cats, I wanted her to be with the cats all the time, because when you love the animals, you just like them to be around you. They are like that. They try to go around you all the time, they love you. I wanted that to be on the illustrations.

Now when it comes to the illustrations and the background itself, I tried to make it like the jungle where she lives now. That's why there are lots of muted colors, greens, the sunset... She is the main point, in fact, the main focus of the illustration. She is very bright, and all of the cats are around her. She has two other cats on the bridge. She is surrounded by all of the creatures that love her.

She is a very bold, and very adventurous woman. I think that's the whole point of the theme of the cat lady. She is not only alone—she is doing something for her village. She knows the situation, and she tries to make something to make the village survive the whole onslaught of rats. That was one of the things I liked about the project. And that's what I tried to show in the illustrations!

I joined the project because I really did love all of the concepts that Juliana was telling me about: the different kinds of stories that we wanted to tell. I wanted to see all of them, in real life. For me, it was a thing of oh, I want to see them all! Because I found them all interesting. Especially when it comes to stories of women, different ages, especially old age, it's pretty unusual. I wanted to see it come to reality. All of the stories are fascinating and I love them! It's a good thing for everybody, I guess!

Also because, as a woman myself, I have to say that I always want to see that there are different kinds of things for me and for every woman in the world to do, when you [get older]. Society itself thinks that you are just valuable until one particular age. Let's say you are just valuable until you are forty years old. And then after that, you are just being waved out of society, because you are not "productive".

I don't think that's true, especially when it comes to women, we are so complex. We are not just one role that everybody tries to tell. Only an old lady that will stay at home, and that's it. Or a sweet old lady that just wants to bake cookies—which isn't a bad thing! But I want to have the chance to say okay, I want to do this too. Maybe I want to be in another place, maybe I want to have an adventure, I don't know. I like the possibilities.

The stories in the project—all of them are pretty different. They are not just an old lady in the house, waiting, knitting, or something. All of them are showcasing different things in life: different roles. That's what I really liked about the project.

When it comes to being on the project, I did in fact love a lot to be with all the girls. We were talking with Juliana and Natasha, which is the writer of Deni and the cats. I really did like her point of view when it comes to showing her as a character. With Juliana we were discussing about what she looks like, how she has to be, and everything. So I really did like the project, I would probably do it again. It was a very nice experience!

I like to work with a lot of people. I have my point of view as a Latin American woman, and Natasha had another point of view as an Indian woman, and Juliana as an American woman. It was pretty interesting to see the different point of views, and also how we wanted that to be reality in the character of Deni. Yeah, that was it! I think it was pretty cool."

And here is Natasha, the writer for Deni and the Cats:

Hi everyone. My name is Natasha. I am from India, specifically, from the state of Assam in the North Eastern region of India. India is a very large and diverse country, geographically, as well as culturally. There are many languages, religion, tribes, and communities. Currently, I work and live in the city of Bangalore, which is in the southern part of India

I started writing when I was very young. I used to write diaries and I enjoyed writing letters. As a teenager, I loved writing poetry. I think I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I did not undergo any formal training in writing until a few years ago, when I joined a writing workshop, called the Bangalore Writer's Workshop. In this workshop, I learnt the technical aspects of writing and it has really helped me hone my writing skills. 

About influences, I feel that our writings get influenced by many things, and many people. I think what influenced my writing in a big way is attending this workshop. My facilitators there and my batchmates in that workshop, along with all the lessons, have all help me improve my writing skills in an unimaginable way. In the sense that, technically I became stronger, and I gained a lot more confidence. I was less fearful of being honest. This was in fact a great benefit. I understood how vulnerable you have to let yourself be, if you wanted to write well. And I am not, I was not, the vulnerable sort, you know. I used to be more guarded, as a person, I think in a way I still am. Although with regard to my writing, I was told at the workshop that I had a very strong voice. I never knew about this before.

I mostly write for fun. And so far, I have written a few short stories. Although, my day job involves a bit of writing but that's a very different kind of writing altogether. Anyway, when it comes to creative writing, I mostly write for fun.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1o1i_jh6XV/

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About the story that I have written, it is about a ninety-nine-year old lady called Deni and her five cats. Deni is not the stereotypical cat lady. The cats originally belong to her granddaughter, Freya. And each cat has its own unique personality and is a character in the story. 

The story starts with Deni living with her granddaughter and her family in the city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia. Why Santa Cruz? Rather, why Bolivia. Initially, when I was drafting the story, I had mentioned America. And Juliana was like, why not some other country? And I was like, that’s right, why does it have to be America always, why not any other place? And Carla, the artist who has created the art for the story is from Santa Cruz. And we decided, it will be Santa Cruz.

Deni has spent her entire life in a valley called Along in the North Eastern region of India. But now at the age of ninety-nine, she finds herself living a city life. And this is because her granddaughter is concerned about her and wants her to live with them. They are her only family.

But Deni is not really happy although she is living a very secure and comfortable life. There is no purpose to her life. At the same time, the cats feel the same, you know, because cats instinctively like to hunt, play, explore. Left in nature, they would have been living a very different life. Deni has also spent her entire life in the valley of Along in North East India, surrounded by mountains and forests. The city life has given them security and comfort but deep down they are not happy.

And one day, there is news in the TV that a calamity is about to befall on Along Valley and its surrounding regions. It is because of the flowering of the bamboo, a unique and rare phenomenon that happens once in fifty years. The rats gorge on the flowers and it results in the proliferation of the rat population.

As soon as Deni hears this news, she knows what to do. She knows that she has to go back to her valley and do something. Deni is now unstoppable and is determined to prevent the calamity. She leaves for India and takes the cats along with her.

The rest of the story is about how she trains the cats to live the life that they had never lived, you know basically hunting, fighting, and getting trained to kill their prey and eating raw food and finally prepare to destroy the rat population. They do this with the help of other felines of the valley. And the story ends with an epic battle between the cats and the rats, basically, between a hundred cats and a million rats.

What part of my culture and interest did I incorporate in the story? As far as interest is concerned, I love cats. I have a cat, his name is Juno and I have him since he was two months old. He is about eighteen months now. So I have incorporated a few things about cats that I have learnt while taking care of Juno.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwkMLpfF9rz/

Regarding culture, Deni belongs to a fictional valley called Along in the North Eastern part of India. The North East of India is a very diverse place in itself: culturally, socially, economically. I have not really picked any one specific culture with details. However, she does have mongoloid looks. Like South East Asian physical traits because that's how most of the indigenous tribal people in the region look like in general.

Because of the dominance of the mainstream cultures in the media, the north east is not very well-known. When people think about Indian women, they have a certain perception. But in reality the diversity is mind-boggling. Not just in looks, but in cultures, languages, and religions. It has hundreds of languages, tribes, each with their own different a traditions, food, and clothing. I wanted the character of Deni to be relatable as well as have have a certain enigma about her. And so we incorporate some of the aspects of her looks, dress, jewellry, and so on from the tribal cultures of the north east. We don't of course mention any specific culture or tribe.

About the place - I imagine it to be a beautiful valley surrounded by paddy fields, blue mountains, shining rivers, and lush forests. When I first started writing the story I did not have any particular message in mind. All I wanted was to, you know, enjoy writing the story and hoped that the readers would also enjoy reading it.

But now that the story is complete, I can see some important messages emerging. In the story, Deni is ninety-nine-year old and she is actually a normal, elderly, woman, who has lived a normal life, close to nature. Her only special skill, is being able to befriend animals and importantly felines. But she becomes very sad and lonely in the city, while living a safe and secure life. Like most of us, in fact, she cannot seem to be able to decide whether to choose security and comfort over freedom. It's a very difficult choice to make, and we have to strike a balance somewhere, for most of us.

Even the cats feel the same although they do not analyse and introspect like Deni does. But as soon as they find a purpose to live, their lives are filled with joy and excitement and something new to look forward to. So it's a beautiful life to live, you know, when you live with a sense of purpose.

Deni realises her mission to save the people of the valley. But she does not do this alone. You know, she does not undertake the entire mission on her own shoulders. She trains the cats to to help her. Therefore, the message is that you can find a purpose to live at any age, no matter how old you are, you can live a life filled with purpose. A life filled with purpose is a happy life.

And when you're old, with all the wisdom and the knowledge that you have, you know, you can always pass it on to others, help others, perhaps, find their purpose in life. The cats, for example, were also living a purposeless life. Although Deni decides to use them, she does it by helping them find their own true nature. And that's when all of their lives are filled with happiness.

Secondly, the epic battle that the story ends with takes place between a hundred cats against millions of rats. But the cats win at the end. So I think this has an important message in the sense that in any battle, number does not matter. Purpose and unity matters. So who wins ultimately is not a matter of how strong your army is, it's a matter of your conviction and your purpose so that is very important.

I think for Deni, it's very important to have a voice that is is determined and strong, but at the same time a voice that is not like that of a typical leader. Because initially, she cannot decide and does what her granddaughter wants her to. She is a regular ninety-nine-year old woman. When her granddaughter ask her to stay back in Santa Cruz she does not refuse outrightly, because she isn't sure about the pull and push in her heart between security and freedom.

She does not make a choice until she hears the news of the calamity and that is when she takes a call. when I think about it, for most of US as well, it is very difficult to choose actually between freedom and security. But when the time is right, Deni becomes very determined and sure. So the voice has to be affectionate—that same voice can also be sure and assertive when the the need arises, when the mission demands.

I don't have much idea about music but I feel that the story is very cinematic in a way that it has interesting characters, a definite plot, humour, and of course, an epic battle as a climax. So the music i feel should also be very cinematic.

I joined the wise not withered project because I felt that it was a very unique project with an important purpose. We all know that old and middle aged women are not really represented in a powerful light. And by power I don't mean brute power, but power of character, personality, and intent. The power of conviction.

I knew that I had to participate in it because it's not everyday that you get an opportunity to write about a ninety-nine-year old lady as the main character. I don't think I would have been able to come up this idea on my own although I have written short stories in the past, I have never written anything like this before. And I am so glad I did.

—

Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, every Sunday until April, 2020!

Widowed Writer - AHLAAM

Welcome to Week 5 of the Wise Not Withered Character Showcase! Today we are presenting the Widowed Writer, 40-year-old Ahlaam. I am currently losing my voice a little bit, so please bear with me again in this episode!

My initial ideas for this character— the youngest of all twenty-five—was that her husband passes away unexpectedly, and she struggles to let herself feel the pain and move through the grieving process. I knew from the beginning that I wanted her to also have a close relationship with her older sister, and that she would have vivid, colorful dreams.

The writer I found for this character is the talented Kanisha Vincent, from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. Kanisha's poems on Instagram were so beautifully put together with lots of lovely imagery, and she was one of the few writers I contacted directly about a specific character.

As I mentioned in previous episodes, one of the greatest things about this project is the huge variety of styles across all of the writers that I recruited. Kanisha did a wonderful job of telling a story through a combination of dreamscapes and reality, sometimes blurring the line in a way that makes the reader feel the turmoil that Ahlaam herself is experiencing.

The story begins with what seems like reality: Ahlaam and her husband Yaromir are enjoying each other's company over breakfast, with beautiful details about their surroundings. Right as they kiss, the entire scene shatters and Ahlaam wakes up, realizing she was dreaming, and the truth about Yaromir hits her hard once again. Ahlaam's older sister Tia is with her throughout the story, looking after her and doing her best to support her sister with her presence and cooking.

Ahlaam continues to slip in and out of consciousness, and in her dreams she interacts with and sees memories of Yaromir. One of the last scenes is another dream where Yaromir, or rather a projection of him, encourages her to start writing again.

"She had a lot of work to do. She was going to create a memoir that would honour Yaromir’s memory. The accident had taken him from her physically but he would continue to live on in her heart. The pain would probably never go away completely, but her love would continue to burn bright."

The illustrator I found for this character was Jennifer Geller, a Russian artist who has lived in many different places around the world. As with all of the Wise Not Withered stories that involve multiple characters who are not blood-related, the widowed writer and her husband are also an interracial couple, Ahlaam reflecting Kanisha's Afro-Caribbean background, and Yaromir reflecting Jennifer's Russian ethnicity. When the three of us were throwing around ideas about the story at the beginning, Kanisha made sure to ask Jennifer specific questions about her culture so that Ahlaam's husband Yaromir would have an evidently Russian influence. She ended up using the words "solnce" (the sun) and "dorogaya" (darling) as terms of endearment from Yaromir in Ahlaam's dreams, which added a really lovely touch to the story.

The illustrations Jennifer made for Ahlaam's story are absolutely gorgeous. I especially love the ones she created with dreamy backgrounds that remind me of a star-filled night sky. Be sure to check out my website to see a few of the breath-taking illustrations.

Kanisha took some time to introduce herself and talk about the story she wrote for Ahlaam, which is titled "You Must Think Me A Prince". So without further ado, here is Kanisha!

"Hi! My name is Kanisha. I'm from the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. That's in the Caribbean. I started writing when I was in primary school, really early. I used to love writing stories. That could've been... Probably like, maybe sixteen to eighteen years ago.

My influences would just be trying to express the dreams that I would have had. I really do love story-telling, so it didn't exactly matter what I was talking about; I just wanted to tell a story. I do write mostly for fun. The only story that I've shared outside of friends would be the story of Ahlaam. I do share my poetry, but it's really just for fun.

So in the story of Ahlaam, she is grieving over the loss of her husband, with the help of her sister. It's just about a journey through her grief, and how she is able to cope and deal with it, and the support systems that she has.

Caribbean women... Very strong. That is what I wanted to bring through, or I wanted to showcase in the story, the strength of a Caribbean woman. That's really basically the most relevant cultural incorporation in the story.

In the story, Ahlaam is supported by her sister. What I really would like readers to take away from the story is that most of us—I know especially myself—don't know how to cope with someone else who is grieving. It is not necessary that you have things to say, or you know what to do at that time. And it's just about being there and being in support. So the way that her sister deals with Ahlaam's grief, that is what I want readers to really focus on in the story.

I do think that Ahlaam's character is very sure of herself, she is very sophisticated. Like the character, I think her voice would have to be very smooth, very calming, just so charismatic is how I would think about it.

Well I wanted to join the Wise Not Withered project because I just feel like Ahlaam's story was meant for me. Like it was fated that Juliana approached me with the story. I have very vivid dreams, and the way that Ahlaam's story was pitched to me was more or less the same. So I identified with the character in terms of shared experience. That's really why I really wanted to get into it. As well as I've never had anybody approach me to write a story for them before, so I thought it was a very interesting opportunity that I just couldn't let pass me by.

It was a good experience, I loved actually writing the story. I loved the feedback that I got. It was different, it was new. It definitely made me feel like I could do this again."

I love that Kanisha said she imagined Ahlaam's voice to be smooth, calming, and charismatic, because I would use those exact adjectives to describe Kanisha's voice!

To end the episode, I'll be reading an excerpt again:

"'Ahlaam, wake up, you’re crying. You must have had another nightmare.'

As Tia shook her out of sleep she felt the moisture on her face, the wetness of the pillow below her. She looked at the empty space next to her again and began to cry in earnest. It was Monday. Her sister had come to bring her breakfast. And her husband was dead. The grief descended with intensity, folding her being in onto itself. Stealing her tongue and leaving her in tears. No matter how much Tia begged, Ahlaam continued to wail.

She could smell the scent of eggs scrambled with butter just the way she liked them. Just the way Yaromir used to make them for her. He hated those eggs, but every time she felt ill or sad he would make them especially for her because he knew they made her feel better. The salty scent of bacon and the fluff of pancakes accompanied the eggs. But for all their deliciousness, they made her feel sick. Tears blurred her vision as everything faded away again."

—

Stay tuned for more Wise Not Withered character showcases, every Sunday until the end of April, 2020!

Walk-in-the-Park Pageant Queen - CASSANDRA

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast Season 2, the Character Showcase! This is Week 4. Today I am proud to highlight the Walk-in-the-Park Pageant Queen, Cassandra! She is a 65-year-old writer, blogger, mother, grandmother, former pageant queen, and celebrity from the fictional world of Filizuela.

Story Background

The writer for this story is the lovely Izhar, from the Philippines. The illustrator was originally from Venezuela, but unfortunately she was going through some very hard times in her country, and she understandably had to withdraw her participation. Izhar and I decided to keep the name of the country though, "Filizuela", which is a combination of the Philippines and Venezuela.

My original idea for this character was simply that she was a "Walk-in-the-Park Romantic", who meets a nice man on her walks in the park. That's all! Izhar really took it to the next level. The story begins with an interview on a talk show, where we learn about Cassandra's extensive background and first claims to fame. She was almost crowned Miss Universe forty-three years prior to the start of the story, making history not just for the title but also for a catastrophic accident where she fell on stage and irreparably damaged her foot. Ashamed to leave the house right after the incident, she turned to writing, though eventually also public speaking, and she briefly ran a custom shoe-making company.

Takeaways from the Story "Renewed"

When Izhar and I first came up with ALL of these ideas for Cassandra's background, I almost thought it would be too much, but one of the points of this project is to showcase the adventures that older women still have into their older years. Cassandra is sixty-five, so it makes sense that she's been through a lot in six and a half decades! Not every character in the Wise Not Withered project has a fully fleshed out background that's in the story, but when we decided to include an interview at the beginning, it seemed fitting to briefly mention a lot of stuff that she's already gone through.

In the interview at the beginning of the story, we mention many life challenges that she's faced and overcome, but the focus of the story is on her life now getting back into writing, and her budding romance with Sebastian, a fellow walker in the park. Her injured foot is part of her character, but just like her age, it's not the only defining characteristic of who she is.

The rest of the story is told in first person by Cassandra. When she first meets Sebastian, he doesn't speak much English, and Cassandra doesn't speak much Spanish. From the start Izhar and I wanted to include some comedy in their interactions, using a translator app to communicate. Since the story takes place in the year 2054, I wanted to include an older woman who uses technology on a daily basis, as I assume Izhar and I and others our age will be, even in a few decades. I wanted to show that Cassandra already knows how to use her phone and all of its apps, and not need the help of her daughter or granddaughter, since she would have grown up with it.

It was very important to me that we also show challenges that Cassandra faces in her new relationship, reference her past relationships, and show how it takes real, concerted effort to not fall into assumptions that your new partner will make the same mistakes as old ones. In the middle of the story, Sebastian lies to Cassandra about losing his job at a resto-bar. She has the opportunity then to come to terms with the fact that people can lie sometimes to people they love, to save their own reputation; she had to learn to forgive him and ultimately realize that his lie wasn't even about her. It was important that they specifically talk about being honest with each other, too.

Now a bit about the two artists behind Cassandra's story:

The story ends with a lovely beauty pageant that Cassandra puts on for other older women. One of the most magical parts in the story is when Cassandra walks around the stage near the end, to show the audience a real beauty queen walk, and Sebastian comes out to accompany her on the violin.

The illustrator I found for this character was Laura Mendoza, from El Salvador. I wanted to find someone who spoke Spanish, who could check the words and phrases that Izhar and I incorporated into the story, between Sebastian and Cassandra. I first found Laura on Behance, and I was really interested in her imaginative and colorful style.

Laura and Izhar both took some time to introduce themselves and talk about the work they did for the Wise Not Withered project. So without further ado, here's Laura!

from Laura Mendoza (illustrator)

"Hi, my name is Laura Mendoza, I am from El Salvador which is a very small  and beautiful country in Central America. I am an illustrator and graphic designer. I also teach at two universities here. I like traveling, get to know new people and places, illustrated books, create characters and their stories, and learn new things.

My life experiences and points of view become part of my creative process with which I develop several illustration and design projects. I draw since I was a child, and I keep doing it until now. I got more conscious about this with the pass of the time, because I understood that I wanted do this professionally. So, I started to learn different media, developing my drawing skills and getting a more organized creative approach.

For Cassandra's character, I tried to pay attention to the characteristics of a mature empowered woman, surrounded by a creative and artistic environment. A woman passionate about the art of writing and delighted by music. A fighter woman and excited about life.

I thought the project was different and very interesting for pursuing the identification of adult women as part of different situations, cultures, languages, and roles. For the fact of giving prominence to women of different ages who interact in diverse life situations and who get ahead in the different problems they may encounter and also, women that can become inspiring references for others."

Thank you to Laura for sharing with us, and now, here's Izhar!

Izhar Aloy's Message (writer)

"Hey guys, it's me! My name is Izhar and I'm from the Philippines. Today I'll be sharing to you my thoughts and experiences about the story of Cassandra. So first of all, I wanted to tell you about myself: I was the one who wrote the story—actually, me and Juliana wrote about the character Cassandra.

I thought it was hard for us to connect at first, knowing that we live in different countries: I'm from the Philippines and she's from America. But thanks to technology, we're able to connect anytime with each other! So it was not that hard to pull the story off, and it turned out to be very beautiful and inspiring.

I'm twenty-three years old, and I am a writer. I have been a professional writer for three years now. I know it is my job, but I don't want to call it a job. I'd love to call it a hobby! So writing is my hobby. It's definitely my go-to whenever I want to do something fun. I write novels, poems, songs—most of the times songs, because I'm actually a musician too.

By the way, English is not our mother tongue, not our first language, so I apologize if my English is not very good, but I will try my best to communicate! (laughs)

Ever since I was a kid, I loved writing. It's really one of the hardest questions to answer, like when people ask me when I started writing. I don't know, because I feel like I've been writing since I was a kid. I love reading novels, I love reading books: self-help, inspirational... My greatest influences are Sydney Sheldon, Robert Ladlum, Jane Austen, Daniel Steele, Sophie Kinsella—classic writers! I love reading novels, and I guess novels in general are the things that inspired me to become a writer myself.

So let's talk about the character. The character Cassandra is really, really beautiful. I wrote the story and then I gave it to Juliana and she edited it. So basically she did most of the work. (laughs) So when I read it, when she sent it back to me, I literally cried. The story is just so beautiful, and the character was so amazing. It was more beautiful than what I hoped it would be, like seriously. It [turned out to be] such an amazing project.

What inspired me to write about the character honestly was this project itself, the Wise Not Withered project. First of all, I wanted to say thank you Juliana for building this great project: it's such an amazing movement to empower women all over the world. There was actually a time when I was writing the story that I didn't know what's next. I was completely mental blocked, and I didn't know what to write next. I don't know what I wanted the character to be, what will happen in the story... I went to the Wise Not Withered project website again, and I refreshed myself with the mission and the vision of this project.

Amazingly, it did not just help me to get through the story, to finish the story. It also reminded me that I should write with a purpose. Purely entertainment is good, but I should be more than that. I should be a woman of character, a woman who writes with a purpose. Not just write in general, if that makes any sense. So I was so happy that I became part of this project.

Maybe you're wondering why I inserted beauty pageants in the story. I'm from the Philippines, and if you know someone who is a Filipino, you would know that Filipinos are so into pageantry. I don't know, there's just something about pageants that makes us feel excited, and connected. You know that feeling when you have someone who represents your country, represents your place if it's a local pageant—it's just amazing.

The best part is watching the Q&A's, the question-and-answer portion of the pageant, because that's when we really learn from the inspirational answers of the women in the pageant. Here in the Philippines, we like to use their famous lines in our every day expressions. I know it sounds crazy, but we do! (laughs)

What lessons do I hope readers will take from Cassandra's story "Renewed"? There's actually a lot. Hopefully readers will be able to get a lot of lessons and takeaways from the story. But maybe if there's one lesson that I wanted them to learn is that... To never be afraid to fail. Failure is natural. We always fail, so let's not be afraid to make mistakes, as long as we learn to get back up, and to learn from that experience, and to actually use that learning to be an empowered woman. Be renewed, start anew, and to continue life!

What I love about her the most is that she's not afraid to fail. Or maybe she was at first. But she later on realizes that when we have a lot of downs in life, that's when we are able to get up! And also, that makes us more patient to other people. We will also learn about forgiveness in the story. I feel like that's the very reason why she was able to forgive—the story would hopefully teach us that patience is a wonderful thing. When we have failed a million times, we will be patient to other people who we see face the same troubles and the same challenges that we have had in the past.

And also, hopefully the people would be able to view life in a different perspective—that's also another takeaway I hope people would get from the story. I read once that a life that you have lived for yourself alone is a life not worth living. That's a quote from one of my favorite local writers. When I designed the story of Cassandra, I wanted her to be inspiring. It was not selfish! She was old and she realized that at the end of the day, at the end of your life, when you look back, it's not that fun if you purely lived for yourself, and not for other people. When you die, what do you get? It's good when you look back over the years, and you see that you have lived a life that you shared with other people. You have lived a life that inspired many people. You have lived a life helping others, being an inspiration, loving and being supported, not just living for yourself.

Hopefully this is a great message, especially for young girls, young ladies. We should hope to be someone inspiring, someone worthy to look [up to]. Not just someone who achieved the goals, achieve that, achieve this...

Lastly, why did I join the Wise Not Withered project in the first place? I live in the Philippines, and we have such a very patriarchal society. I tend to get less respect than anyone else, because I'm a woman, at least from my experience. When I discovered about this project, when I met Juliana, when I knew about this project, I was so excited. I was a yes man immediately when I saw this. (laughs) This is where I want to be part of. This project is what I wanted to do.

This project reminded me that I'm not just writing, I should write with a purpose. I should write to inspire other people. Being involved in this project makes me feel that way, that I am writing with a purpose, makes me feel like for once in my life, for a very rare moment in my life, I was able to connect to other parts of the world and actually be an inspiration hopefully, especially to young girls. To never be afraid, be yourself, to never be afraid to achieve your dreams, to fail, and to be a more empowered woman. We are all deserving of love, we are all deserving of respect, whether we are a girl or a boy.

I am so excited, like really really excited for you guys to check out the story. I think a sweet, mature, grounded voice, but at the same time patient. Really, really sweet! I think that's the kind of voice quality that I want the character Cassandra to have for the voice-over. I'm so excited for this project to be done, to be completely done. I know it's going to be a really, really great success! Thanks to you, Juliana! I love you guys so much! Bye!"

To end the episode, I will read a short excerpt from the story "Renewed":

I got up from my bench and began to slowly walk toward the path home, when I came across a piece of folded paper on the ground. I picked it up. It must have fallen from someone’s pocket because it was folded up, a bit haphazardly but freshly dropped with the yellow color of the pages still untarnished. I unfolded the paper and stared at the words for a second, realizing it was written in Spanish. I tucked it inside my bag.

I always found writing of others so intriguing. Decades ago when Olivia was a pre-teen, we would go to the craft store and get journals and gel pens and write in our diaries together. Sometimes we’d share our entries, but most often not. I knew that Olivia still kept a daily journal; I had been writing in a journal for years too, and kept a somewhat inconsistent blog. Blogging was still pretty new to me, so I hadn’t put too much of an effort into it yet.

When I got home, I took out the paper again and gazed at it, intrigued by the arrangement of short lines. It looked like it could be a poem, though it could have also been a grocery list for all I knew!

When I arrived home, my granddaughter Sheen greeted me, “How’s your walk, Mamita?”

“It was fine. The sun was extravagant today. And,” I pulled out the paper from my bag and held it up, “I found something really interesting!”

“Oh, what’s that?” Sheen asked suspiciously.

“It’s in Spanish,” I told her with a smile, then suddenly got an idea, “I could use my translator app for this!”

I opened the app on my phone and checked the words out, line by line. And man, what did I find? A poem. A love poem. I grabbed a notepad and rewrote it all in English.

“The sun rises around the trees in bloom

The birds fly and my beautiful queen...

She arrives, radiant as always”

“The writer’s a natural poet, Mamita,” Sheen commented.

“Maybe he’s writing this for a woman he loves,” I concluded.

“What makes you think that it’s a ‘he’?” Sheen teased me.

“I don’t know, I just feel it.”

I spent the rest of my day keeping myself busy with house chores, while the paper and the poem buzzed around in my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what the words were about, or who it was written by. The person who wrote the poem seemed so inspired to write. Inspiration... Something that had been lacking in my life for the past few years.

—

Stay tuned for more showcases of the Wise Not Withered characters, releasing every Sunday until end of April, 2020!

Traveling Model - HUAN LING

Welcome to the Wise Not Withered Podcast, Season 2: the Character Showcase! Today I will be talking about Huan Ling, the 96-year-old Traveling Model. I am currently battling a particularly intense flu and will most likely go to sleep right after recording this, so please bear with my sniffly, congested voice today.

The last two weeks featured wise women with complex, emotional stories. One of the great things about this project is that there is so much variety! Huan Ling's story is very light-hearted and simple, but it still does a great job showing how rich and wonderful one's life becomes the more time goes by.

I actually found the illustrator first for this character. Suyu Chen was one of the very first artists I recruited about a year ago, and I honestly can't remember how I found her. She was the first person to reply to my cold email agreeing to join the Wise Not Withered artist team! Suyu tried out lots of different styles, from hand-drawn to image collage to digital graphic design. We ultimately went with her digital, colorful, vivacious, and angular illustrations.

Nicole Page was the writer for Huan Ling's story. I found her on Instagram, using some kind of "travel" hashtag, and she was one of about forty women that I had messaged that day, inviting them to write a story about a Traveling Model. I really loved the vibe I got from her page, called "Beautiful Soul Nicole", and I honestly thought that maybe she'd be too cool to answer me! So I was thrilled when I received a response from her. I heard back from only two people regarding this character, so it was definitely one of my more stamina-and-character-building cold-email-sending days.

The story Nicole wrote is absolutely endearing and very charming! I knew I wanted the Traveling Model story to be about a fashionable grandmother and her photographer grandson, but it wasn't until I was emailing Nicole back about the story that the entire outline just poured out of me. She had asked about the story I envisioned, and this is what I came up with as I was answering her:

Key desired plot points: Establishment and development of grandmother-grandson relationship.

1) When Grandson is born, Main Character (Grandma) relives the thrill of having a baby again, in addition to becoming a grand-mother and accepting another view of her own daughter and herself.

2) Grandson grows up, idolizing his grandmother, a supermodel. Establish bits of their personalities.

3) Grandson hits a pivotal turning point in his life (high school graduation, or first romantic relationship break-up, first job, or even in early teen years with hormonal mood swings, etc.) and stops talking to Grandma as much.

4) Grandson discovers love for photography in college, reaches out to grandma again since she is still a model and in photo business (I also envisioned Grandma being the former CEO of Instagram or a fictional equivalent of a high-tech multi-billion dollar social media company, maybe retiring before Grandson was born). They connect as adults for the first time, discussing careers, life events, etc.

5) Grandma invites Grandson to tour with her to the next three locations she’ll be modeling. He takes professional photos of her at her fashion shows as well as selfies together.

The story that Nicole came up with is told like a theater screenplay, mostly dialogue with bits of third-person narration in between each section. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, it's been so much fun to see the wide variety of writing styles that these women brought to the table.

We chose the name Huan Ling to reflect Suyu's Taiwanese heritage, and Kevin as the grandson's name, to reflect Nicole's American heritage. Both Suyu and Nicole have extensive histories when it comes to traveling the world: Nicole was born in North Carolina, moved to New Hampshire, then to New York, studied abroad in Russia and visited the UK, France, and Italy. She also went to Peru for shamanism, and now she lives in Ecuador! Nicole has an inspiring story of her journey into yoga and healing herself from anxiety and addiction. She wrote a book called "Bite-Size Yoga: A Better Way to Beat Burnout". Check it out on Amazon here!

Suyu grew up in Taiwan, has traveled to Japan, Singapore, Palau, Malaysia, Dubai, Amsterdam, Italy, China, Hong Kong, Seattle, and New York, and she's lived in England, Canada, and now Iceland. Suyu wanted to fight against the stereotype that models are shallow and brainless and only care about appearances. I think we all succeeded in allowing that idea shine through.

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Stay tuned for more Wise Not Withered character showcases, releasing every Sunday until the end of April, 2020!