*Warning* For those of you that are concerned by this, there is an instance of language later in the post. If that kind of thing really, really bugs you, then don’t read this post because the instance of language is kind of important for understanding the rest of it. I have considered cutting it, but what I’m trying to say would suffer greatly from its omission. Thanks for understanding.
Right now, as well as (still) looking for a summer job, I’m taking a writing course. I signed up for it basically as soon as finals were over, which earned me an incredulous look from my mother, but I don’t mind. Why? Aside from the fact that I absolutely love learning things at all times and will actually go and research topics that interest me if I’ve gone too long without learning something new, I knew I needed something to help me out with my writing. Not that it’s unspeakable horrible (unless I have really, really nice friends who are also much better at acting than they let on), but that it hasn’t really been flying. It’s more like slogging through thigh-high mud while wearing shorts and flippers that are at least two sizes too big. No, not mud. Slime. Nasty, green slime like the stuff that floats on the top of a lake or pond that has way too much algae in it. That slime. But now I’m fixating.
While I getting ready to work on one of my lessons, I started thinking about Main Character and that I needed to know more about her because she was really lacking in the motivation department. Remember, in my first post, how she was being snarky with me and wouldn’t cooperate? While that was, um, lovely, she didn’t have enough motivation to keep up with it even as I slapped together a very sloppy version of what she was demanding. Then my thoughts wandered to the assignment for a previous lesson where I made what is basically a map of all the things that are the most important to me, and I wondered if I just needed to look at it and see what applied to her. Then I thought about the map itself.
‘Monsters,’ I said to myself. ‘Monsters are everywhere...’
May 28, 2011
May 18, 2011
How Very Smee Your Cat is!
As noted in my last post, my website software has issues with italics in the midst of non-italics. All book titles will be, unfortunately, put in quotation marks.
I first discovered L.M. Montgomery through CBC’s adaptation of “Anne of Green Gables”, where Megan Follows did a wonderful job of portraying Anne. Many years later, I read the book for the first time and enjoyed it even more than the mini-series.
When I found out it was the first in a series, I went a little overboard and tried to read the whole thing at once. It’s a long series and, wonderful as she is, one can have too much Anne in a week. I got as far as half-way through “Rilla of Ingleside”. Sometime I will finish it, but I will have to be more strategic in how I read that whole series from the beginning again, because I don’t remember some of the books very well. Although, you have to admit, eight and a half books in a row before glut is a testament to L.M. Montgomery’s writing skill. The (chronologically) first prequel trilogy to “Dune” got there after one and a half books for me.
But, for those of you who have read the Anne books and have no idea what on earth the title refers to, allow me to turn to L.M. Montgomery’s less famous trilogy called “Emily of New Moon”. It is my most favourite trilogy of all time (so is the original “Dune” trilogy, but these two trilogies are mutually exclusive, so I feel fine in giving them the same standing). What endeared me more to the Emily books than to the Anne books was that I identified much more with Emily. She was a writer, and very serious about her work, like me. Anne was an extravert, whereas Emily was an introvert, like me. Her wonderfully complex and imperfect family consisted of individuals that could practically leap off the page, and she reacted to them in ways similar to how I would to people like them. From these books about one of my favourite characters, I learned several things about writing:
I first discovered L.M. Montgomery through CBC’s adaptation of “Anne of Green Gables”, where Megan Follows did a wonderful job of portraying Anne. Many years later, I read the book for the first time and enjoyed it even more than the mini-series.
When I found out it was the first in a series, I went a little overboard and tried to read the whole thing at once. It’s a long series and, wonderful as she is, one can have too much Anne in a week. I got as far as half-way through “Rilla of Ingleside”. Sometime I will finish it, but I will have to be more strategic in how I read that whole series from the beginning again, because I don’t remember some of the books very well. Although, you have to admit, eight and a half books in a row before glut is a testament to L.M. Montgomery’s writing skill. The (chronologically) first prequel trilogy to “Dune” got there after one and a half books for me.
But, for those of you who have read the Anne books and have no idea what on earth the title refers to, allow me to turn to L.M. Montgomery’s less famous trilogy called “Emily of New Moon”. It is my most favourite trilogy of all time (so is the original “Dune” trilogy, but these two trilogies are mutually exclusive, so I feel fine in giving them the same standing). What endeared me more to the Emily books than to the Anne books was that I identified much more with Emily. She was a writer, and very serious about her work, like me. Anne was an extravert, whereas Emily was an introvert, like me. Her wonderfully complex and imperfect family consisted of individuals that could practically leap off the page, and she reacted to them in ways similar to how I would to people like them. From these books about one of my favourite characters, I learned several things about writing:
April 25, 2011
Earthsea, Genderless Humans, and Learning From One Fantastic Author
(I apologize in advance to all formatting nazis... I haven’t figured out how to get my website-making program to make only some words italic. This means that, sadly, all book titles will be encompassed by punctuation marks. The English geek within me grieves deeply.)
Lately, I found the website of Ursula Le Guin, one of the most distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors of all time, and one of my favourite authors. If you have never read anything by her or have never even heard of her I want you to immediately stop what you’re doing, go to the nearest bookstore, find one of her books and buy it (trust me, there will be at least one there), then read the whole thing. You can come back to this when you’re done.
The first book I read by Ursula was “The Farthest Shore”, which is the third book of her series set in Earthsea, a world that consists mainly of islands (as far as the map shows). Yes, I read the third book first. I didn’t care. It had the coolest dragons I have ever encountered in fantasy, a wizard who treated magic and its effect on the world so seriously that he barely used it, and a voyage to the land of the dead. I then proceeded to read the fourth book second, the second book third and the first book fourth. By then, I discovered the real order to the series, read them all properly and concluded with the fifth book. I have never, before or since, mangled the order of a series so much, but I have never, aside from Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet, loved a series more. You heard me. I like it better than the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Foundation books, the whole Dune series, the Dark is Rising series... what is it with speculative fiction and series, anyways? But I have a point. I will continue towards it.
Lately, I found the website of Ursula Le Guin, one of the most distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors of all time, and one of my favourite authors. If you have never read anything by her or have never even heard of her I want you to immediately stop what you’re doing, go to the nearest bookstore, find one of her books and buy it (trust me, there will be at least one there), then read the whole thing. You can come back to this when you’re done.
The first book I read by Ursula was “The Farthest Shore”, which is the third book of her series set in Earthsea, a world that consists mainly of islands (as far as the map shows). Yes, I read the third book first. I didn’t care. It had the coolest dragons I have ever encountered in fantasy, a wizard who treated magic and its effect on the world so seriously that he barely used it, and a voyage to the land of the dead. I then proceeded to read the fourth book second, the second book third and the first book fourth. By then, I discovered the real order to the series, read them all properly and concluded with the fifth book. I have never, before or since, mangled the order of a series so much, but I have never, aside from Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet, loved a series more. You heard me. I like it better than the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Foundation books, the whole Dune series, the Dark is Rising series... what is it with speculative fiction and series, anyways? But I have a point. I will continue towards it.
March 30, 2011
Worldviews
How we see the world will show up in our writing. It has to, if we want to be honest about what we write. But what happens when our worldview is one that others mock? I’m not talking about when a story becomes so preachy it’s ridiculous. I’m talking about when what someone believes is mocked for no other reason than the person believes it.
Intolerance?
Perhaps.
But when members of your own worldview are considered intolerant, somehow the worldview is now fair game for ridicule. It’s like when someone on the Internet is trolling. Apparently, the rest of us reasonable people can troll them back simply because they’re trolls and have forfeited their rights to being treated decently. So, in a similar fashion, if a worldview has a history of “trolling” other worldviews, then it is somehow okay to go ahead and troll back, even if the person on the other end has and would never commit the atrocities others who profess the same beliefs as them have done in the past.
I, for one, would be terrified to tell anyone my worldview if it meant such treatment. Can you imagine hiding what you believe simply to avoid others lumping you into a category that you know you don’t belong in? And then, imagine the fear of writing anything honestly, because sharing a story is sharing your soul, and what others see of your soul may too easily stop at a label saying “I’m ____, therefore I am a bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, uncaring, intolerant jerk. Feel free to use me as your punching bag. In fact, here’s a reflection of the deepest part of me to tear to shreds. Enjoy.”
Anyone else feeling sick?
Intolerance?
Perhaps.
But when members of your own worldview are considered intolerant, somehow the worldview is now fair game for ridicule. It’s like when someone on the Internet is trolling. Apparently, the rest of us reasonable people can troll them back simply because they’re trolls and have forfeited their rights to being treated decently. So, in a similar fashion, if a worldview has a history of “trolling” other worldviews, then it is somehow okay to go ahead and troll back, even if the person on the other end has and would never commit the atrocities others who profess the same beliefs as them have done in the past.
I, for one, would be terrified to tell anyone my worldview if it meant such treatment. Can you imagine hiding what you believe simply to avoid others lumping you into a category that you know you don’t belong in? And then, imagine the fear of writing anything honestly, because sharing a story is sharing your soul, and what others see of your soul may too easily stop at a label saying “I’m ____, therefore I am a bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, uncaring, intolerant jerk. Feel free to use me as your punching bag. In fact, here’s a reflection of the deepest part of me to tear to shreds. Enjoy.”
Anyone else feeling sick?
March 13, 2011
Drama, Drama Everywhere! Part the Final
Remember when I talked about everything going wrong before Ex-Villain left? It was like the stars were out of alignment or something. You know how, in quite a few fantasy stories, Macbeth included, when the wrong king is on the throne, nature seems to unravel? Well. Allow me to remind you of the enormity of the situation:
“Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story.”
(You see what I did there? Flashback to another post? With the quotations and the copy-pasting and the... okay, stopping now.)
When Ex-Villain left the story, along with the rest of the results of his fantastic organizational skills, all of these things returned to normal. Almost all of them. For some incomprehensible reason, people continued to drop like flies. At first, it seemed reasonable, so I let it go. They were exhausted and overworked. They had just come back from a gruelling experience. They had poor immune systems. A really bad headache.
Then about ten of them fell over simultaneously, and I knew this had to stop. I immediately turned around (figuratively speaking, of course) and faced the story, only to be met by the most adorable Bambi eyes I have ever not seen in my life. The conversation went as follows:
“Mystery Character started doing nastiness never intended in Author’s conception of the story. Villain’s father came disturbingly close to being raised from the dead. Masses of people began keeling over for no apparent reason. Magical storms inexplicably gained status as near-sentient beings. As things kept progressing, it felt like a balloon of wackiness was rapidly expanding from the climax of the story.”
(You see what I did there? Flashback to another post? With the quotations and the copy-pasting and the... okay, stopping now.)
When Ex-Villain left the story, along with the rest of the results of his fantastic organizational skills, all of these things returned to normal. Almost all of them. For some incomprehensible reason, people continued to drop like flies. At first, it seemed reasonable, so I let it go. They were exhausted and overworked. They had just come back from a gruelling experience. They had poor immune systems. A really bad headache.
Then about ten of them fell over simultaneously, and I knew this had to stop. I immediately turned around (figuratively speaking, of course) and faced the story, only to be met by the most adorable Bambi eyes I have ever not seen in my life. The conversation went as follows:
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