Tracking the Odyssey

" Speak, Memory- of the cunning hero, the wanderer, blown off course time and again, after he plundered Troy's sacred heights."

- Odyssey 1

So it's ironic that my blog is chronicling my odyssey of writing stories, novels and poems on the road to publication, and in my honors class, I'm actually reading the book I took the name from. But I'm super excited, because I love love Greek mythology, always have. That's why I loved reading the Greek myth anthologies (and comparing them to the copycat Romans lol), Magic Tree House series, watching any Wishbone episodes of the Odyssey, King Midas etc and of course, the Percy Jackson series.

What's interesting is that the paper I have to write is not simply writing about an element in the Odyssey, but actually writing an argument about it. I can only use the textual evidence to support my thesis and write a 5-7 page paper. This is due in more or less 2 weeks. Yeah, and I haven't started.

Well, I've at least narrowed down the 2 prompts I'm interested in, but I can't seem to figure out which one would be worth pursuing, or which one would be easier to defend.I'm stuck between arguing the significance of women in the Odyssey or the significance of gods.

I'm also worried about plagiarism, which is a huge no-no, especially in college. But I can't help that my basic ideas seem to agree with what Sparknotes has, so what am i supposed to do??

I need owl-eyed Athena to guide me through this haha. I love the symbolism in Greek mythology, but come on, how many times do they have to repeat "owl-eyed" or "grey-eyed" Athena? It loses its specialness after a while...

I guess I've just always enjoyed the Odyssey as a story and never thought about it analytically. Greek myths are usually pretty obvious in their meanings, because they're meant to explain natural occurrences in our world that the Greeks couldn't explain. Sometimes I think authors don't really plan out any deeper meanings or motifs and all that stuff. They just tell the story the way it's supposed to be told and readers find all these underlying coincidences and such.

But you have to admit, the Odysseus is an amazing piece of literature. It has probably the only fictionalized couple that I actually cared about- Odysseus and Penelope. I really feel sad thinking about how long they were apart from each other, how she remained loyal to him, and how happy he was to see his family again. There's real hardship and suffering, which creates real emotions. Unlike a certain group of sparkling vampires we all now:)

Anyways, I will be plunging through the Odyssey at full speed to write this paper, but I have not forgotten my other mission-to prepare my novel for NaNoWriMo in November. It sounds far away, but I know it'll be just around the corner, teasing me to keep my pact. As long as I have the right tools and preparation, it should be smooth sailing for me.

Unless Poseidon decides to take his anger out on me along the way....