Ketutar writing

using facebook as marketing tool

2012-01-28T08:46:00.000-08:00

I suppose one could use these ideas to market one's book...

Making it snow

2012-01-12T02:40:00.000-08:00

Making it snow by Michael J. Sullivan

It is January and it should be a proper winter, with snow and all, now. It's not. It's raining. :-(
So I have been trying to make it snow, and when I work on it, I get snow, but it's really bothersome, because the water doesn't want to be frozen, it's too warm. So immediately when I let it be, it melts and turns into rain again. I've been working for an hour now, and I'm exhausted. But it will snow tonight.

P.S. It did snow... I went to sleep at noon and when I woke up two hours later, it was snowing :-) I'm so darned pleased with myself :-D It will snow more later :-)

Chicken Scratchings for self-publishers

2011-12-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

http://redhenassociation.com/chickenscratchings/

I was reading about book covers, then "how to lose a book sale in 2 seconds - or less", and then I decided to share this information with my readers :-D

I'm interested, perhaps you are too :-)

Book giveaway

2011-12-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

I don't know much about this, but I know I have been looking at Hilary Wagner's books. I mean... RATS! I LOVE RATS! RATS ARE THE BEST!!!

I so hope she includes us Europeans in the giveaway, and that I win! :-D

The Writer Magazine

2011-10-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to free email of The Writer Magazine. It's full of interesting articles. Now, because I'm not a "paid customer", I don't get the access to all the articles... Even though they offer a lot of interesting articles for free (like importance of reading bad writing), there's always some that are not free... Like "To make good conflict, play with the motivation", "7 tricks for the perfect pitch", or
"The importance of inclusive writing"... which made me think of something people say to me all the time: "Don't write about gay people just because you would like to have a homosexual character in what you are writing, if you are not gay, because you don't know enough of their culture and might say something a gay person would never say..."
Isn't THAT something really prejudiced to say? And it's usually gay people who say so.

I can understand that people are afraid to be described as charicatures and token samples of their group by chauvinist people, but what would the harm be, if I described the person just like any other person in the story, but just switched the gender of their beloved one? Is really the "gay people don't act like that, they wouldn't ever say things like that, have those hobbies, behave like that" the worst thing that can happen?
I perhaps need to try to be more clear. I have been thinking about inclusivity, and I would want to create a world that is NOT just white, heterosexual and Western. I was asking if I could just let the character kiss her girlfriend, the same way I would kiss my husband. The relation would be mentioned not because of her sexuality, but because she is the main character's BFF, and I want to add more color and depth to her character. My husband is an important part of my life, and I find it hard to imagine any BFF whose relations wouldn't matter.

Of course I don't know anything about being a gay and trying to hide that fact from the world, just as precaution, I know nothing about the things people do to avoid uncomfortable consequences, or... well... what ever motives people have. Some take the difference and turn it up, some play it down, and I know nothing about how people with differences different from mine do it, why and what are the consequences...

But in the same way, I know nothing about neuronormal people. I know nothing about people who are not white, female, social-liberal, polylingual, middle-aged, straight, Pagan, bla bla bla. In fact, most of the people know nothing about the life of people different from themselves - AND WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT - we are all unique individuals... so if people were to write only about what you know, and only about people who are like you - we shouldn't never write anything. Except horrible egocentric memoires. What a wonderful reading that would be... >:->

Well, then there's "Zombies can bring your story to life". I haven't read the article - I can't as I'm not a subscriber - but I was thinking about the things zombies are symbols of... or some people I know who are like zombies. There's emotional vampires, why not emotional zombies?
Come to think about it... what if Edward WAS a "real life" vampire... emotional one. What if he "really" was "sparkling"... you know some people with such a charm they seem to be sparkling, dazzling, shiny things? You know these enigmatic, extremely attractive people you just cannot turn to look at? Aren't all the vampires always described like that? Most psychopaths and narcissists are very charming. They need their followers, fan club, entourage... they don't seem to exist without people telling them they exist...
What about writing Dracula but in modern time and with psychological vampire as Dracula? Bah. Someone has certainly come up with that idea several times already :-D

How to turn into a werewolf. Really interesting insight to the world of Otherkin.

"Mortal Instruments"

2011-10-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

Such a stupid name...

The story was great, original, interesting and well told. But...

I hate Clary. I really don't see any good qualities in her. She's selfish, so darn egocentric, and then is supposed to dislike Jace for being conceited... I suppose she does, because he steals her stage. Which is why I suppose he had to fall in love with her, and make her the center of the universe again.She is unfair. She is immature, whiny, drama queen, never thinks about anyone else, it's always Clary, Clary, Clary. MY mother, MY brother, MY best friend, MY, MY, ME, ME, ME...
The book starts by a scene in a club she keeps going, even though her only friend hates the place and follows with her only because he's in love with her. Later in the book we find out her mother hates her going there too. Such a lovely, considerate person, who puts her beloved ones' needs and wishes before her own, huh?
She does things that she resents when someone does to her. First time she sees her mother after she's been in coma for a long time she dares to be afraid of her, because "oh my god, you don't look like my bohemian artist mother! You look dangerous! Stay away from me!" Then she starts screaming at her because she didn't tell her her real father is a psychopat and they used to live in a fairyland and she's in reality a demonfighting half-angel. Yeah... that's something you tell your kid. Nevertheless, she herself doesn't even think twice before choosing not to tell someone the truth because it might be hard to hear
or something.
I suppose it's really nasty of me, but Clary... you rushed to listen to bad poetry with your best buddy when she tried to tell you.
And what does the mother do? APOLOGIZES!!! As if Clary was right! As if she had the right to yell at her mother!
I suppose the mother deserves it, not for "lying", but for having totally spoiled the bitch.
The girl always did what she wanted, no matter how convenient it was for others, how well it fitted the general plan, how smart it was etc. Uh.

I threw the third book to the wall and broke its back. That's how infuriating the little bitch was to me.

Okay, let's play a little with mary sue litmus test.

Is the character named after you?

Let's see - Clarissa "Clary" Fray by Cassandra Clare (pen name)

Is the character's name an unusual spelling of a more common word or name?

Well, yes it is! 99% of Clarissas are either Cassie, Clare (Claire) or Rissa :-)

Does the character's name describe her/his personality?

Clara - clear, bright
Fray - fight
She's sort of a half angel and sort of genetically designed to fight... Yeah, I'd say so.

Does your (mortal) character appear to be much younger than she/he really is?
Yes

Is the character highly attractive without having to work at it? She's really beautiful and she doesn't know it... It's repeated over and over again how she looks like her mother, but her mother is beautiful and she's not. So yes.

Are one or more other characters attracted to her/him?
Yes

Is an otherwise chaste or stoic character immediately attracted to her/him?

Oh, but see - yes! You see, there's this angelboy who was brough up to believe love makes you weak, but then he meets this girl and from the first moment he's a changed boy...

Does the character have an unusual eye color, or otherwise exceptional eyes?
Green - I'd say so.
(The hero's eyes are golden, and the villain's eyes are black.)

Does the character have unusual or exceptional hair?
Well, it's red. I would say yes.

Character

Well... she doesn't have a clone or identical twin, she isn't a genius but she has this miraculous angel gift, talent, that no-one has ever had and won't ever have either bla bla bla
She isn't really related to royalty, but her mother is the archvillain and her mother is like a fairytale heroine in their hometown, so I would say "yes"
"Is the character rich or well-to-do" - well, being a daughter of a single mom who's an artist - I would say so. Of course, her mother is like the most talented artist in the world, and she inherited her talents, even though she thinks she doesn't draw so well and all.

Was the character ever estranged from her family/tribe/country/etc.
Well, yes! Her mother took her away from her homecountry to protect her, and no-one knew she existed.

Does the character have amnesia?
Oh, look at that, she does!

Is the character a minority, a woman, or a member of a lower caste, who succeeds or makes a contribution in spite of her/his social disadvantage?
Yes, she is! She's a minor and brought up away from the traditions of this proud race and somehow saves everyone. Hooray!

Does she have an angsty past and does she angst about it during the story?
Yes, to both. Oh, her mother LIED to her, and STOLE her memory, even though it never happened, and she wasn't raised like an half-angel, even though she would have been so good at it, and is, even though her mother LIED to her... you get it.

Was the character an illegitimate birth?
No, but a "secret baby"

She wasn't really ever abducted, her mother was.
She wasn't really ever abandoned, because her mother wonderfully disappeared straight after she had found someone else to take care of her
She never really run away from home, that was sort of taken care by the mother being abducted and her home trashed, and... well...

Is the character unusually accomplished for her/his age/species/etc.?
Yes

Does the character have a faithful pet or animal familiar?
she has a best friend who acts like her familiar and pet dog, except he is very much smarter than that. To Nephilim mundanes are a bit like pets, so I think this counts.

Does the character ever easily learn a difficult skill
Oh, but she's BORN a half-angel, so of course she knows how to use weapons by nature!

Is the character the sole or last practitioner of a particular martial art or magic?
Yes

Does the character have any particular skill at which she/he the best or among the best?
Yes

And is she/he widely knows for this skill?
In the end of the book she is.

I don't know anything about Cassandra Clare's taste in music, clothes etc. but Clary's taste in music, clothes etc. is described, so I assume Cassie and Clary share these preferences. Wouldn't know.
Also, Clary looks like a 12 years old boy, being 5 feet short, thin with "small chest and narrow hips", yet she is like the most beautiful girl this half-angel brought up by other perfect human specimen "the most beautiful people Clary had ever seen"... Cassandra Clare looks very much like me, and I kind of have two favorite "mary sue" looks, one is a 5 foot fairy and the other 6 foot amazon.

Anyway. Marysue. And in a fantasy book it's sort of okay to be marysue, but...

Anyway... It was a really good story, such a pity the main character was such a bitch I just wanted to slap her... or put her head in a bucket of water and keep it there until the bubble stopped.

P.S. I'm so infuriated with Clary and other such little details in these books that I had to go to Amazon.com and read the negative reviews to feel a little better, and was reminded of other little details that made me grit my teeth, and I was told that this story wasn't quite that original, but - I liked it, and I could see past the annoying little problems - something I couldn't do with Outlander, so I still think it's a good story. :-)

Sorry about the absence

2011-10-19T00:39:00.000-07:00

I've been busy. Not writing, now... or that too, but about languages.
I have these... seasons, I suppose they could be called. One can follow my blogs, and see clearly that there's a lot of posts in certain months, and then the blog is practically dead the rest of the year. Which reminds me of that I need to update at least two of them, for the sake of other things. Anyway.
Seasons... this the season to be j... er... to be learning languages. I'm taking the 52 in 52 challenge.
Yes, you guessed right. I'm learning 52 languages in 52 weeks.
Yes, that makes a language a week, about 200 words a day, the whole year, and in the end of the year I will have at least the basic understanding of 52 more languages.
I have chosen European languages (and a couple of non-European; Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic, because those two Ara-s are being spoken in this area by the countless of refugees from Middle East, and Hebrew - well... it's not only because my husband is Jewish, (that's why I'm going to learn Yiddish) but because a lot of magical scriptures written in Hebrew. It's kind of the third Classical Language, even though it's mostly just Christians who study that. Which, BTW, is the reason why Alphonse Constant... uh. What ever. And also because I have chosen languages related to each other and if I'm going to study Arabic, Aramaic and Maltese, I can just as well study Hebrew. I assume the vocabulary will be mostly similar, and thus easier to learn.)
I have also chosen some languages I already know a little, like French and Spanish and... well... I have been studying languages on and off since I was about 10. Okay, okay, I'm a linguaphile. What ever. ;-) The purpose - for me - is not to learn 50 totally new languages, but to improve my knowledge of 52 languages. I could have chosen English as one of them, heaven knows I could use improving, but I am all right with the amount of Finnish, English and Swedish I have. I read books in all three language all the time, and I think that's enough "brushing" I need. With the languages I've already studied the goal is to learn to read fluently, or at least comfortably... what ever the difference is. To get better in the passive language. I firmly believe in reading, and I can't wait to get my hands to the novels written in some of these languages... I am certain that I will read at least five of the languages on my 52 list well enough to dive into the literature... (says she with a mad gleen in her eyes...)

I have no doubt in my ability to learn 200 words a day, and understand, comprehend, grasp a language in a day so that I can also use the vocabulary, at least as passive understanding. I've done that before. (Come on - I'm an Aspie. I am Autistic - to some level. The girl has to have some benefits of the condition!) But I'm a fickle person, not especially steadfast, and I doubt my ability to stick to the challenge and commit and actually do the work. If my past tells anything about me, that's the thing. I am amazing to start things, and the worst to finish things. I noticed to my surprise that this is my seventh year with NaNo! SEVEN YEARS!!! And I haven't manage to stick to it longer than about a week, until last year, when I had the support of my husband. I just couldn't let him finish and not finish myself. :-D

Anyway, that's why I'm here.

NaNo is coming, are you ready?

I have lost my Otherkin Scribe. :-( I lost it when the computer crashed, then my genius husband managed to retrieve it, and now I've lost it again... and this time I lost it... somewhere. I have put it somewhere and I don't have the slightest idea where. It's not where I was certain of it was. Maybe it got a life of its own and wandered off. Uh. Hate when that happens. Maybe the Otherkin took it. Oh, well. I have written it once, I can write it again. It's not that it was something extra super special and wonderful and amazingly well written. LOL It was written 2005. Or something. I have learned a lot after that, and I still suck in English, compared to what natives do.

No, I am not going to actively improve my English, I will let reading work its magic. And I just read the Percy Jackson 5+2 and I am on Mortal Instruments, book 3. Interesting little detail - what these two series have in common is ichor.
Another little thing here... I just said to my husband, that one of the downsides with being a person who loves fantasy books written to 12 years olds is that there's plenty of supply, so we will never run out of books to read... so there is really no NEED to write a book I'd like to read. Even though it would be nice to read a book where the hero is acting like a real 12 years old, and the world treats them as it does preteens. It would also be nice to miss this teen anxiety and hissyfits. It would be nice to read about sensible teenagers - they do exist, you know. Actually, most teenagers are sensible. Sure, your brains fail you just when you need them most, and there are all kinds of new emotions and sensations and by now you know most of the people are lying, but - hey, that's life. That's the way it is. Nevertheless, most teens are "good kids". Nice, kind, sensible, relatively calm, lively and lovely. Yes, they will yap back if they think you're stupid, and they will, because you are, and they will rebel and they will question and they will think they know enough and you're just an obsolete relic of some ancient eras put on earth to bother them, but they still will not behave like spoiled, selfish, stupid brats. Most of them actually understands that it's important, even essential, in "can save your life" to do as you are told by someone you know is a lot better equipped to deal with the situation, like a teacher, a parent, a werewolf, angel, god, hero or what ever who's been doing "this" before you were even born, when the situation is some sort of an emergency or in other ways such that you have not dealt with that before. Fifteen years olds who go to dark backrooms after a bunch of guys waving knives is suicidal or stupid - or both, not a brave kid doing what she believes to be right. Stupid. A 12 years old kid who hasn't held a sword in his life does not win - or even manage to keep the sword for five minutes - when fighting the God of War or another kid whose been fencing since she was 7. A skeleton detective does not take a 13 years old girl he hasn't seen before this day with him to the world of demons, monsters and dark secrets, to "help" him investigate her uncle's murder. He takes her to her mom, and tells the mom what she did so that she will not let her sneak out the bedroom window.

"I like my heroines with bite"

2011-10-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

Stella Duffy wrote in Huffington Post about sympathethic heroines... the thing is that we have to find something likable in the characters we read about, to want to read about them. I think she has mixed likable and "niceness".

For example her Theodora."I say this with an awareness that the protagonist of my latest novel, "Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore" has been seen as unsympathetic by some. Of course, sympathy is in the eye of the beholder, so while some readers have found her cold, or even ruthless, others have found her funny, smart, passionate, as well as ambitious."

Yes, and a lot of people find Scarlett O'Hara unlikable. Like me, for example, or Alexandra Ripley, who was chosen to write a sequel to Gone With The Wind. And surprisingly many find the "new and improved" Scarlett likable, as they made a tv series of the damned sequel and more sequels and what not. That to me is disrespectful, extremely unlikable and hateful.

If you don't LIKE your main character, DON'T WRITE ABOUT HER.

If she's yours, go ahead and change her.

If she's not, DON'T WRITE ABOUT HER.

You have no right, no excuses, no acceptable explanation to take someone else's character and change her to your liking, just because you can.

So, Alexandra, thanks to Scarlett, I will not read one book of yours. You should have had the ovaries to say "no", and leave the sequel to someone who finds Scarlett likable, because she is passionate, ambitious and has bite.
Also, as Margaret descibes her very clearly in the beginning of her book, and says she has BLACK hair and pea green eyes, you don't go on giving her RED hair, just because you think it fits better, or because her name was Scarlett or because in some movie, tv-series, fan art or something she's depicted as redhaired.
No, if you think there's something wrong with Scarlett, you write a book about Ruby O'Donnell from Kerry, who has in every other way the same life as Scarlett, except that she doesn't, because your Ruby would not have seduced her sister's beau, and your Ruby would have realized the value of Rhett - or Seth Valet, and been happily married to him and mother of several babies, as brilliant and beautiful as their parents. Or something.

So - I like my heroines with bite too, but I find the biting girls likable... Sympathethic. I like heroines who are really intelligent, not just think they are SOOOO smart, and "wise gals". I like heroines who have self confidence enough to be kind and tolerant and friendly. I like heroines who have ovaries to stand for what they believe in, even when it's not "nice". I want a heroine who is personal and interesting rather than beautiful, I want a heroine who is rather strong than cute, rather salt than sugar, rather old and experienced, and mellowed down by the experience, than young and innocent and stupid. I want a heroine who is equal to all the males in the book, not submissive and worshiping. I want a heroine who behaves well, due to her kindness and compassion to her fellow human beings, not because she has been "raised right". I want a heroine who dresses nicely, but is not a fashionista. I want a heroine who used to be a tomboy, someone who doesn't curl her lips or roll her eyes, someone who is no-nonsense and takes on the jobs she knows she can do, because someone must do them, and does her work well, swiftly and without whining, because I don't drink whine, not even with cheese and crackers. I don't find the preppy High School girls likable, or shallow people who care only about their looks, or Paris Hilton types, or cheerleaders or Dora from Anne of Green Gables. It's interesting that even Lucy found her bland and boring, so she isn't talked about much.

Anyway. I found out that Texas board of education bans books because someone with the same name has written something else they don't like. On the other hand, they don't like music, if they disagree with the composer's/lyricist's/artist's opinions on something that has nothing to do with music.

Percy Jackson

2011-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Percy Jackson. Now... I like the idea. I think the movie was okay. I liked the book a lot.

Except...

He's 12. Sure, half-god, superman, but still 12. I mean - this is what you should be seeing. This is a 12-year-old girl (Joey King) and a 12-year-old boy (Quinn Lord with green eyes and black hair). You know, 12, the age when Harry Potter fought the snake in the dungeon. Remember how bravely Daniel Radcliffe tried to fight the basilisk but didn't manage to look very convincing? I do. That is a 12-year-old.

This 12 years old superchild beats the other superchildren the first week he's on the superchild camp. All the other superkids have more experience, knowledge and training.
He fights an adult super-superman within a month and - wins? An adult super-superman who is an expert in fighting. This kid has barely held a sword in his hand before June of his 12th year alive, but who cares, he manages to keep his side against the thousands of years old God. Yeah...
And the guy who wrote this is a father...

He likes Greek myths. He's been studying Greek myths. In depth. But he doesn't recognize Dionysos when he sees him, doesn't recognize a faun when he sees one, doesn't recognize anything he sees... and he has to be explained things from... eggs. I mean - he's sitting by a table with a satyr, having killed a minotaur and seen a flying horse, and the guys have to convince him that he lives in a world where the Greek gods are not just tales... I mean... I would believe I was dreaming or something, and if there are satyrs in my dreams, sure, pour in Greek gods and anything. I'll believe. Geesh.

It's like Donaldson and the white gold guy. Every step of the road insisting nothing that happened was happening, and even though some unbelievable, miraculous things happened all the time - like he not having leper any more - he refused to believe he was "not in Kansas anymore", and everyone else in the world he was knew better than him what it was all about. No way. Idiot.

They yap at him about not mentioning names, but when he guesses, then the names start dropping all over the place. Geesh!

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?”
"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West.”

What?!

What?!

WHAT!?

Oh, yeah. Europe is dead. Who cares what happens here. This is the Old World, so old it's practically dead. Just like the Old Testament, you know. Joka vanhoja kaivaa sitä tikulla silmään, as they say.

The girls' bathroom "smelled just like any public bathroom" - I don't think so. Girls' bathrooms don't smell as much as boys' bathrooms to begin with and this is the summer camp of halfbloods. It would have been kept squekey clean.
Also, the kid makes the water wash away the bullies. These experts on Greek mythology wonder who's his daddy...
He's not good at anything but canoeing. Who's his daddy? No idea...
He doesn't have the looks of any of the other campers, even though all the other kids look like each other, and his mother told he looks like his father. Who's his daddy? Blank stare.
He gets in the water and immediately gets better. Huh?
They have to see a glowing trident above the boy's head to get it!
Geesh.

And why the stereotypes? Why keep only some?

"If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force."
Yeah... I mean, Aphrodite's and Demeter's kids were really nothing compared to the kinds of... Orpheus and Heracles. Or Perseus Jackson. I mean... they just caused people to fall in love or fear, invented agriculture and stuff... nothing important. Whereas using water as weapon is something really big and mighty and powerful, a true force to consider. Yeah.

"You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge."
So there are children of the lesser gods around, but still Aphrodite's and Demeter's kids are not important?

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids.”
Athena was a maiden Goddess as well. No kids. Nevertheless, she's given them, and plenty of them.
"Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair."
Yeah... "male logic"?

I mean, if he twists the myths, why not twist properly? I suppose girls are not interesting. Demeter and Hera are the "three big ones" sisters... who cares. They are not interesting.

BTW Rick, goats don't eat metal. They don't eat tin cans nor aluminium cans. It's really stupid to make your satyr pack his backpack full of scrap metal and apples to snack on.
And a 28 year old faun doesn't know more than two songs? Sure.

Then the movie... He beats Athena's daughter, who is more or less a regular camper, the first week on the camp? Poseidon couldn't beat Athena, how would his idiot son won over Athena's daughter in her game? Please.

Golden blonde California Girl? And 12...?

At least the film makers realized how impossible it is for a 12-year-old to do what the book says.

P.S. The second book was not as good as the first one, but still okay.

Helle and Frixos! Not Europe and Cadmus! Now... that is unforgivable... almost got me off reading the book.

Harpies: "plump little hags with pinched faces and talons and feathery wings too small for their bodies" - like cafeteria ladies and dodos.
Oh. Let's use the later misfiguration to describe harpies, after all, they are female.
In reality harpies are the spirits of storm winds and gusts and very beautiful.

"The Chaos"

2011-09-26T05:46:00.000-07:00

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

-- Gerard Nolst Trenité

They say that "if you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world."
I can't. I don't even know what sward and ague are. I don't know how "face", "preface" and "efface" are pronounced differently. I'm really glad I'm Finnish :-D

P.S. A new person I've never heard of before; Barbara Newhall Follett... reminds me of The Lady Vanishes

Hobbits and Wonderland

2011-09-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

So - what's the connection? Both fractures of someone's imagination? Sure, but there are others... I didn't expect to find Wonderland when I started thinking about hobbits.

When I was in craft school, I wanted to have an exhibition of hobbitian clothes. I was inspired by a wonderful watercolor of a girl in Muhu costume. She was short and stubby and was wearing these amazing stockings, that showed under her skirt...

Tolkien says

"I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf)."

- velvet breeches, waistcoat, brass buttons... very folk dressy.

These velvet breeches are what I imagine when I think about hobbit costume, and they are from late 18th, early 19th century. The time when the idea of national costumes and folk dresses was being created... So we are not talking about Victorian costumes for hobbits, but Georgian...

So I have been thinking about this for 20 years. I have sketches, ideas and notes, but not a stitch to show. Anyway, I was thinking about the dolls to wear these, like in Victorian and Albert museum... You know, the white mannequins with just a dash of color on their faces... but I'd prefer faceless cloth mannequins. I have been thinking on how to make them myself, and that has kind of been the problem here.
So I started thinking about easier alternatives, like papier mache dolls. (Easier for me). And then I thought about that perhaps there already is mannequins available, so that I don't need to make them myself!
A hobbit is about a meter high. That's about the size of a five years old child. Now, the dfference of a child and a hobbit is naturally that adults are shaped a bit differently from children. Quite a lot, actually... Naturally, the child mannequins could be padded, but... the shape is still not quite right. Too much padding needed...
So I started thinking about little people, and especially the "proportionate dwarfs"... You know, when I was growing up and I first learned about dwarfism, the term "midget" was the appropriate term to use of proportionate dwarfs. I wonder if they make mannequins for miniature people? Wouldn't know.

But that lead me to googling "proportionate dwarfs", and one of the results was "The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb"

This book is about Lavinia Warren, who was a miniature person, a proportionate dwarf. She had a rather interesting life, she and her sister, Minnie (Huldah).

This is the wedding picture - In the middle the happy couple;

Charles Sherwood Stratton (General Tom Thumb) and

Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump (Vinnieh);

Vinnieh's maid and little sister Huldah Pierce Warren Bump (Minnieh)

(to be mrs Edmund Newell, who was better known as General Grant Jr. or Major Edward Newell)

and Tom's best man George Washington Morrison Nutt (Commodore Nutt).

I was interested, so I looked for more information, and at Amazon.com among the reviews I found this:

"I thought it unrealistic that Lavinia, a full grown woman, was portrayed as having only fear when it came to the physical side of life. The lifelong horror that grips Lavinia whenever she imagines a man might touch her is hard to explain based on one offhand comment of her mother's she overheard as a child. We tend to outgrow childhood and we tend to rebel against the strictures of our parents, yes? Why is her marriage so empty? Her supposed love of PT Barnum is as unfounded in fact as the author's treatment of Alice Liddell in "Alice I Have Been." I know, this is fiction, and in fiction a writer can take liberties. But I found it odd that in a book about a child (Alice), a six year-old was portrayed as having a grown woman's understanding of her own erotic power, and the desire to use it to capture a grown man's sexual attention. In this book, an adult woman (Lavinia) is portrayed as a frightened child who prefers not even to imagine such a thing. I think this was a strange choice on the part of the author, though not as strange as her choices in the "Alice" book."
-- Just Karen (Amazon.com)

I have to say that I don't find the idea of a Victorian woman having "only fear" when thinking about sex. Our attitudes are the children of all kinds of things, and something one happens to overhear has significant importance in shaping of our attitudes and opinions. I was afraid of sex, because I had read and heard over and over again, from every possible source, that first time hurts. It doesn't - if you do it right. Now, I was born 1969, grew up in the "sexually liberated" 70's and 80's, there was plenty of sensible, correct and... what's the word? Anyway, plenty of sex quides and erotic novels around that gave me the idea that sex is something enjoyable and nice... this was not the case with Lavinia. She was surrounded with "close your eyes, and do your duty, it will pass quickly" and "you are not supposed to ENJOY ANYTHING ESPECIALLY NOT SEX!!!" messages and, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Victorian women considered sex as nothing but a duty, and not a very nice duty at that... I mean... we have "better than sex" cake. CAKE! We have jokes about people's sex life and the lack of it. Women trying to bribe their husbands and boyfriends to do things like taking the garbage out with sexual favors. Women faking orgasms. Good sex being something rare and amazing... and WE live in a time where sex is not considered generally dirty, disgusting and sinful.
On top of that, she was the size of a three years old child. As far as I understand, most adults find the idea of someone having sex with a three years old girl horrifying, and not only because of the mental damage, but also because of the physical damage. I find the fear quite reasonable.
Also... there's a lot of people in the world who live in celibacy. Some have chosen it themselves, some have not. Some accept self-satisfaction as part of celibacy, some don't. They are mostly all right and don't much miss sex. People don't NEED sex. We need intimacy, touch, hugs and kisses, pat on the shoulder, someone holding us tight when the storm passes, we need holding hands and gentle strokes over cheeks...
Now, I have to say that I haven't read the book, so I don't know if Vinnie was described to get terrified if her husband tried to hug or kiss her, but even that would be understandable in time when those things were considered being "almost sex". It's still not unrealistic, I think. There are people who are so afraid of food they rather die of hunger than eat, and they have no rational explanation to their fear either.

About six years olds with desire to capture a grown man's sexual attraction - ew. That's why I couldn't read the Time Traveler's Wife either. Poor Henry. Brr. But - now again I have my own interpretations, that do make sense for me. It's not unusual for children to feel flattered, delighted and happy about attention, and see past who it comes from. It's not unusual for children to imagine their lives when they are adults and say things like "when I grow up, I'll marry ---" without any implication of having sexual fantasies about the person in question. Marriage is something you do when you become adult, and it's like mommy and daddy (usually) and it involves love and children. Some kids even know how children are made. Kids are not stupid. None of this has anything to do with having erotic feelings about adults, pedophilia and lolita phenomenon and all that stuff... I haven't read this book either, so I cannot say my opinion on what Melanie Benjamin tried to say, but - as a lot of people have read Time Traveler's Wife and NOT caught the "child with desire to capture a grown man's sexual attraction", there's always the possibility that it doesn't really exist here either.

Nevertheless, here's two more interesting people:
Lavinia Warren and Alice Liddell

Sir Geroge Sitwell

2011-09-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

(in)decorous taste posted about sir George Sitwell... He also refused to pay his wife's bills so she was injailed and his daughter refused to go to her mother's funeral because she didn't approve of her parents. Those two kids on the floor are Osbert and Sacheverell... such names :-D All three children became writers.

There you have a man who really lived his life as he wanted... "as you would live if money was not an obstacle"...
How would you live yours?

And why don't you?

What's your motivation?

2011-09-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

Money, fame, recognition... they are there, aren't they... it doesn't matter that you write because you have to write, or because the book you want to read doesn't exist, or... the not-so-noble and rather-stupid motivations are there. I admit.

But that's not why I write. After having thought about it long and hard, that's the DREAM part of it. I HOPE and WISH I could support myself with my writing, and it would be WONDERFUL if I got RICH by doing something I love to do! Amazing! That's the reason why I send my manuscript to a publisher :-D That's not why I write.

Of course it would be nice if people recognized my worth and value as a writer, if I got praise, awards, fans and all that... or sort of. Fame is not a nice thing... people think they own you, if you are famous. You don't even need to be very famous, just enough for people to know you exist, and there are always people who will start objectifying you.
It's like celebrity crushes. I suppose all women have them, perhaps even men. In Polyvore there's this "50 celebrities you'd date" thingy.
Now, I have a crush on Nathaniel Johnstone. Who? The string instrumentalist of Abney Park. What? Never mind. I mean... he's just an ordinary guy living somewhere in USA. It's like someone would have a "celebrity" crush on me... you see, I am an internet persona - google Ketutar, and most of it is me - and my photo has been published online... so it's possible. Unlikely, but possible. :-D Now, Nathaniel is a bit more famous than I am, (4 million results to some 70.000 ;-)) but I don't think he can be called a celebrity. In his own circles I presume he is, but... outside? No. So - why do I think I have the right to make him the object of my fantasies? I know OF him... People believe they have the RIGHT to people they KNOW OF...
Now... what if fantasies actually influence other people? What if the power of thought is so strong we actually effect other people's lives by fantasizing about them? What if celebrities don't manage to keep up their marriages, because there are so many fans imagining being married to them? What if these thoughts seep into their dreams, and make them confused of who they actually love? What if...?

Also, praise... if it doesn't come from inside, it's pretty worthless. If there's a hole in your "bucket", nothing will fill it. You will still believe yourself more than anyone else. Even if the whole world would tell you you're amazing, but you think you're not, you will only believe the whole world is either lying to you, or really gullible. You KNOW you're a lie. You KNOW you're not worth anything. You KNOW it would have been better if no trees were killed to make paper to print your books on. Electricity on your computer is wasted with you writing the words...

So - in the end, I am the only person I have to please and entertain with my writing, and the only person whose opinion matters anything - so my own pleasure and entertainment is in the end the only motivation that counts...

Make it count ;-)

50 + 50 books all kids should read

2011-09-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

50 children's books

* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

* Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.

* Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner.

* Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.

* Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken.

* The Owl Service by Alan Garner.

* The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

* Moominsummer Madness by Tove Jansson.

* A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna.

* The Castafiore Emerald by Hergé.

* The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson.

* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

* Just William books by Richmal Crompton.

* The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.

* The Elephant's Child From The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

* Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson

* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

* The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono.

* The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy.

* The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett.

* Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah.

* Finn Family Moomintroll (and the other Moomin books) by Tove Jansson.

* Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney.

* I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

* The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.

* The Tygrine Cat (and The Tygrine Cat on the Run) by Inbali Iserles.

* Carry On, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse.

* When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr.

* Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett.

* The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson.

* The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

* Mistress Masham's Repose by TH White.

* Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

* How to be Topp by Geoffrey Willams and Ronald Searle.

* Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz.

* Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo.

* Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

* The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

* Animal Farm by George Orwell.

* Skellig by David Almond.

* Red Cherry Red by Jackie Kay.

* Talkin Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah.

* Greek myths by Geraldine McCaughrean.

* People Might Hear You by Robin Klein.

* Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman.

* Einstein's Underpants and How They Saved the World by Anthony McGowan.

* After the First Death by Robert Cormier.

* The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.

* Beano Annual.

Hmm... which children's books I think all kids should have read?
Astrid Lindgren, at least some of it. Preferably all :-D Emil and Pippi anyway.
C.S.Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Mary Poppins
The Wind in the willows
Three musqeteers and Monte Christo
Something by Burroughs and Verne
Something by Enid Blyton
The Secret Garden
Watership down
101 dalmatians
Black Beauty...
Well, all the classics :-D They are classics for a reason.

50 picture books

Shaker Lane by Alice and Martin Provensen

Next Stop Grand Central by Maira Kalman

I Can Fly by Ruth Krauss Illustrated by Mary Blair

Come Away from The Water, Shirley by John Burningham

365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental Illustrated by Joelle Jolivet

That Rabbit Belongs To Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell Illustrated by Neal Layton

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

Big Rabbit’s Bad Mood by Ramona Badescu Illustrated by Delphine Durand

Madeline And The Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans

Oh, The THINKS You Can Think! by Dr. Seuss

~~The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My by Tove Jansson~~

The Story of The Little Red Engine by Diana Ross and Leslie Wood

The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson

Would you Rather by John Burningham

The Circle of Days by Reeve Lindburgh and Cathy Felsted

This Little Chick by John Lawrence

~~In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak~~

The Adventures of Uncle Lubin by W. Heath Robinson

~~Little Bear by Else Homelund-Minarik and Maurice Sendak~~

~~The Illustrated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel.~~

The Complete Nonsense and Other Verse written and illustrated by Edward Lear

~~The Just-So Stories written and illustrated by Rudyard Kipling~~

Just William by Richmal Crompton, illustrated by Thomas Henry

Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorn, illustrated by Granville Fell

~~A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by John Leech~~

~~The Adventures of Tin-Tin written and illustrated by Hergé~~

The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, illustrated by Mervyn Peake

Albert and the Lion by Marriott Edgar, illustrated by John Hassall

~~Sindbad the Sailor and Other Stories From the Arabian Nights illustrated by Edmund Dulac~~

Pierre by Maurice Sendak

The Miracle of the Bears by Wolf Erlbruch

Trubloff by John Burningham

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Jitterbug Jam written by Barbara Jean Hicks, Illustrated by Alexis Deacon

The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr

Wave by Suzy Lee

Olivia by Ian Falconer

Le Voyage d’Oregon written by Rascal, illustrated by Louis Joos

The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey

~~Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak~~

~~The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin~~

Geraldine, the Music Mouse by Leo Lionni

Croc and Bird by Alexis Deacon

~~No Kiss for Mother by Tomi Ungerer~~

Puss and Boots by Ayano Imai

Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski

Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrate by Maurice Sendak

Crictor by Tomi Ungerer

The Rabbits by John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan

Ginger by Charlotte Voake

The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr

Slow Loris by Alexis Deacon

Clarice Bean, That’s Me! by Lauren Child

Starting School by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

~~The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff~~

Marshall Armstrong is New to our School by David Mackintosh

~~Cars And Trucks And Things That Go by Richard Scarry~~

~~Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak~~

Dogger by Shirley Hughes

Scarry's books, Sendak's books... the little caterpillar... brambly hedge and Beatrix Potter... and... well... take the kids to a library and let them loose in the picture book section, and let them borrow one book every week. So they'll read 50 books every year, since they get interested in books :-D They will find books they are interested in, because there are so many of them.

If they read Tintin, Asterix, Oompapah and Lucky Luke, great! If they read other series, like Donald Duck, fine. Kids aren't supposed to read "good" literature, but get in the habit of reading.

Hush, hush...

2011-08-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

Nothing is happening on this front. Or any other front for that matter.

Well... I'm into food now, updating my food blog and such. Right now I'm a food writer :-D

I also try to get my Asperger's understood and under control. It's good for a lot, they say, but right now it's hard to get to the good things as they are locked behind the anxiety.

To my surprise I noticed I have 16 followers to my Illustrator's Inspiration blog! WOW! :-)

More interesting people: Remember Me

I like Flixter...

2011-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

I like Flixter... I especially like the suggestions of similar movies the other users give. I find it useful... but then there are people like this "lover one hot sexy" aka "krazy sniper". "She" just suggests anything "she" happens to think. Here's some of her suggestions as movies like The Enemy of the State. (She gives over 100 suggestions, BTW)

Men in Black (1997)     25/21 (54%)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)     9/7 (56%)
Romancing the Stone (1984)     6/5 (55%)
Johnny Cash i København (Johnny Cash in Copenhagen) (1971)     7/6 (54%)
National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)     5/4 (56%)
Osmosis Jones (2001)     5/5 (50%)
Dr. T & The Women (2000)     3/3 (50%)
Highlander - Endgame (2000)     8/8 (50%)
King Kong (2005)     19/19 (50%)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)     5/5 (50%)
Ali (2001)     7/8 (47%)
Purple Rain (1984)     10/11 (48%)
Pet Sematary (1989)     7/8 (47%)
The Omen (1976)     8/9 (47%)
Das Boot (The Boat) (1981)     6/7 (46%)
On Golden Pond (1981)     5/7 (42%)
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)     4/6 (40%)
The Birdcage (1996)     5/8 (38%)
Van Helsing (2004)     10/13 (43%)
Bloodrayne (2006)     4/7 (36%)
Glitter (2001)     4/7 (36%)
Stalingrad (1992)     3/6 (33%)
The Little Mermaid (1989)     11/15 (42%)
The Breakfast Club (1985)     8/12 (40%)
Pretty in Pink (1986)     6/10 (38%)
The Lord of the Rings (1978)     14/19 (42%)
The Hobbit (1978)     9/8 (53%)

Okay... men in black and ali, both has Will Smith, so I suppose that could be... similar... Not really, but... there's at least some sort of logic there.
Johnny Cash in Copenhagen. What? How is that a movie similar to Enemy of the State?
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? Huh? THE LITTLE MERMAID??? My 9 years old niece loves the little mermaid, but I doubt she'd like enemy of the state.
I never knew Pretty in Pink is about the government surveillance and control of citizens. Everything one learns as one lives.
Interesting thing here is that even though I could see some sort of wink to this theme in movies like Best Little Whorehouse or Breakfast Club, if dragged to the extremes, On Golden Pond? Four weddings?

The most interesting thing is not these random suggestions. What do I know how this person thinks... the most interesting is the following numbers. More than half of the people in Flixter thinks Johnny Cash in Copenhagen is like Enemy of the State! Almost half of the people think Little Mermaid is like Enemy of the State!
People like this drives Aspie me mad. They are sabotaging a good system, created to help people.

P.S. If you'd like to befriend me at Flixter, I'm Ketutar there too :-)

I'm a book hoarder

2011-07-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Don't you read?" or the fears of a book hoarder

Well... one reason is that it's not my book. I live with another book hoarder, you see.

But, as I write this, I face one wall of bookshelves, filled with books, books stacked on books, in two rows and all that. I suppose most book hoarders know what I am talking about. Let's go through a couple of shelves, and I'll tell you why the books on those shelves are kept.

I got that book from my parents.
That I got from my brother.
That from my sisters.
That I bought myself, because it is a very beautiful and inspiring book. I feel good while reading it.
That I bought because I'm interested in the subject.
That I got as a Christmas present, because I'm interested in the subject. I wouldn't have bought it, but it was a gift, and you don't throw away gifts. Or give away or sell them.
I got that one.
That's Henric's.
Those were part of a book listing. I wanted one book in a set of four, and even as I don't want the others, they are good books, and one should never, ever throw away books - not even bad books - and no-one will buy them.
Those I bought because I thought I'd like them, but I hate them.
That's my Alexandre Dumas collection from 19th century. I doubt it's worth anything, but it makes me feel rich, and I love Dumas' adventure books.
That's my Jules Verne collection.
I might read that self-help book some day.
That one is on my to-read-list.
Those I enjoyed reading, and even though I doubt I'll ever read them again... books are friends, and you don't throw away, give away or sell your friends. Besides, no-one would want them either.

Besides. Books are beautiful. Books are not clutter. A hoard of books is a library, and that's a good thing.

Hrmph

2011-06-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

The previous post was deleted because it was published in wrong blog. Obviously it should have been published in Need More Fiber. The error has been corrected now.

I don't know if I said it here, but I have realized that I suck at writing novels, at least at this point of my life. There is something I'm better at, and that is screenwriting. Movie scripts are shorter and I can use my strengths; creating characters and writing dialogue, better. My biggest problem with novels is that I have really learned to kill my darlings and use as few words as I can to say it. I just cannot fill in a novel. Perhaps I'll try again in some twenty years or so.
I am planning on changing my novel ideas into movie scripts.

Now, I was reading the Writers' Guild of America's list of 101 best screenplays... and there are both Godfather I and II. I don't get it. I would really like you to explain to me why it's supposed to be so great a movie? What's good with the script?

I find the movie boring and depressing, filled with angst, and... well... It HAS some great acting performances, I don't say anything about cinematography, editing, directing, lights and camera... I assume those are okay, but the SCRIPT IS INCREDIBLY DULL, BORING, UNINTERESTING...
I don't find any of the characters in any way interesting, I don't care one bit about any of them - or perhaps a little about daddy Corleone. I find Michael whiny and weak, and his wives are... pale. What I remember best from the movies was the horse's head and the girl blowing up in the car. I have seen all three movies. I saw them as an adult, just a few years ago, just to see what's the big deal with these movies, and I had to force myself sit by the television and keep watching.
I didn't laugh and cry, I yawned and murmured about being so stupid that I decided to see these movies. That's nine hours I'll never get back.
Perhaps there was metaphors, allegories, parabels and deep wisdom and what ever, but it was hidden so well I missed it. And what's the plot? What's the hook? What's the theme of these movies? A story of a spineless mafia boss who doesn't agree with the ideology, but is forced to take upon the responsibility, and the kills, mames and rapes crying all the way to the bank. I mean... what's the purpose with these movies? Mafiosos are people too? What? There are good reasons for people to do what they do? Huh? What? I don't get it.
So I really need you to tell me why this is supposed to be a good movie and a good movie script.

Best cast in movie history? Doubtful, but the actors cannot save a crappy movie.

"there is certainly no denying that The Godfather was a very well made film and innovative in some ways due to it's cinematography, editing and certain camera effects"
I have seen extremely well made movies with all the best editing, "cinematography" and camera effects, but those things don't make a crappy movie good.

"It is near flawless."
In what way? I can find dozens of flaws. The worst flaw being the crappy script, which for some reason has been voted as one of the 101 best movie scripts the last 100 years - by WRITERS.

" no one is more attractive than Al Pacino as Michael Corleone."
I can come up with 100 guys who are more attractive as Michael Corleone by Al Pacino. On the other hand, I'm not into that kind of guys. Nevertheless, an attractive main character doesn't make a movie script good.

"The only movies that can even hold close to The Godfather Part II are Raging Bull and Once Upon A Time In America. Yes, I just listed three movies with De Niro. That man is a legend, a genius, and a godsend. The day he dies...is the day that true cinema dies. Same goes for Scorsese."
Frankly, Scorsese is responsible for some of the worst movies in the movie history, like The Age of Innocence. The scenography is amazing, the costumes, make-up, lights and camera, absolutely delicious, but the script! The movie made me hate Daniel Day Lewis and think he must be one of the worst actors ever. The girls did their best to save the movie, but not even they could rescue it from Scorsese. Yuk.
But - if you think Scorsese and De Niro are "true cinema"... you think there was no cinema before 60's and there will be none after 2030's, probably even earlier. Your loss.

" a masterfully shot movie with tremendously powerful and unforgettable performances."
Probably masterfully shot. I don't know much about that. What I do know is that there are dozens of movies that are just as masterfully shot.
Unforgettable performances? Can't remember any of them. Marlon Brando had mouth full of tissue for some weird reason. I thought he was better in Streetcar Named Desire. Al Pacino was better in The Scent Of A Woman. Robert De Niro is lovely, I agree, but he isn't in the movie that long time. On the other hand, I assume he made some impression to me, as I find daddy Corleone most likable of all the characters in the movie.

"Mix that in with an unflinching look at organized crime rising in the early 20th century of American culture, as well as more themes than you can shake a stick at...as well as one of THE most memorable closing scenes that decides a character for LIFE..."
Why would anyone want to look unflinched at organized crime rising in the early 20th century of American culture? Godfather, Goodfellas and Scarface made mobsters "fashionable". Every "gansta" says Scarface is their favorite movie and they act like him. These movies are idolising crime, that's what they do, with "unflinching look at organized crime". Bull.
"More themes than you can shake a stick at" is not a very good idea. Keep it simple. When people try to say thousand words with every screen of a movie, all we get is a confusing soup of boredom.
THE most memorable closing scenes that decides a character for LIFE. I can only remember the closing scene of Godfather I.

"To truly appreciate this film you need to watch it start to end in a dark room with no1 bugging you and break down the film scene by scene and take note of the camera work, acting and dialogue. Withing the first 30 minutes you realize why Marlin Brando was one of the greatest actors to ever live, then to watch Al Pacino be born as the next greatest actors of our generation in the restaurant scene moments later. Truly an amazing movie."
I saw it in a dark room with no-one bugging me and my idea of a good movie is not one where I CAN break down the film scene by scene and take note of the camera work etc. A good movie is one that makes me forget that it's actually people saying what they are paid to say, written by someone - in some cases a lot of someones - thought of hours, days, months, even years - in world constructed just for the make-believe... when I start noticing scenography, acting, clothes, camera and lights, editing and such, it's because the script stinks to high heavens.

"Engrossing motion picture that features some of the finest editing, cinematography and performances ever. There is a wonderful theme of family that runs through this film and its later sequels. No one is truly judged. Love is unconditional. God is the one who truly judges."
Oh? I didn't see unconditional love. I saw unconditional love die, because people considered their obligation more valuable than unconditional love. I saw people being judged for petty things, judged and condemned to be killed, betrayed, left, degraded... punished in different ways. The people who we are supposed to believe are unconditionally loved are being judged for failing The Code put in place by someone else. People are being forced to follow someone else's rules, Michael, Sonny and Fredo, but also everyone connected in any way to the family. Daddy Corleone does care about the people, everyone of his "subjects", but Michael doesn't care...
I also didn't find the movie the least "engrossing".

""The Godfather" is a huge piece of film entertaining, involving sentiment, nostalgia, filial affection, pride, integrity, loyalty, corruption, honor, betrayal and crime"
It wasn't entertaining; I missed the sentiment; nostalgia, perhaps, for mafiosor; I'd say possessive "affection" instead of filial; pride for something not worth being proud of; not much integrity, loyalty or honor but corruption, betrayal and crime, yes.

"an exquisite Mafia epic"
A Mafia epic, sure. But, frankly, most epics are terribly boring and pompous. So also Godfather.

"their steadfast loyalty, love for blood relations, and code of ethics"
With other words, sense of self-preservation, possessiveness and... er... I assume even questionable ethics are ethics.

Save The Cat

2011-06-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

I read Save The Cat yesterday. It was interesting, but after having read mixed reviews of the book and having thought about the pantser/tinker issue, I suppose it would be best to use Save The Cat for the editing process, and not the writing process. I think it would be best to just sit down and write the 110 pages needed for a manuscript and THEN read Save the Cat, and check if the characters and the structure is right, and so on.

I think it's interesting that Blake Snyder finds "Villains closing in" a difficult part of the manuscript. I think it's kind of natural. First you state the present and the reason why the present has to change. All stories are about change, so all movies are about change as well, so the status quo cannot stay, it has to change. Either because of inner reasons, which is what happens in a drama, or outer reasons, which is what happens in an action movie. (Put very loosely :-D )
Then you present how the main character starts changing, steps into act two, and the movie is all about play and games. This is where you put the jokes and such. It's like the phase in losing weight where you are full of motivation, you are losing weight, you get results, you are eager, willing and full of energy and do all kinds of things.
Then comes the midpoint, which is sort of a top (or low point, if that's how you want to play it) and after that everything changes. The week when no weight is lost, the week when you are full of resentment and resistance, you don't want to exercise, you don't want to watch what you are eating, you question your motivation, you wonder why you should lose weight in the first place, because you should be all fine what ever you are, and all the scary stories about heart attack and such are just boogie man stories, told to scare people to buy diet products. You're fine, you don't need to lose weight, you don't need to sacrifice and all that... You just don't care anymore, it's not worth it - and what happens is that the "villains" creep in. A week later you find out that you have eaten you back to where you started. You might even have a minor heart attack, something to scare you properly - perhaps someone dies because of obesity. That happens, you know. Humans are not created to weight over 100 kilos.
Then comes the mourning period, and it follows the stages of loss and grief. You cannot believe you spoiled your diet. You are angry at yourself for doing that. You are really sad because you failed. You are full of regret, fear of that you cannot make it all better again, you can't fix it, full of anxiety and despair.
Then, when you hit the rock bottom, you take yourself from the neck of your collar, and decide, for real this time, and keep the diet, and don't even look at the scales or mirror for half a year, not before someone tells you how much weight you have lost, how good you look, when you notice you have to buy new clothes, because your trousers keep falling off you... and you climb to the scales, heart shivering of fear, and see that you have reached the goal, you have lost the weight, and you didn't even think of it. The diet has become a lifestyle. You have a skinny lifestyle, not fat one, so you are skinny, active, healthy and happy. You won.
So we put in the closing picture, which shows happy, smiling and beautiful you walking down the same street the miserable, sad and fat you was walking in the opening picture.

I hate being so negative :-D

2011-06-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

I get these ideas... well... nothing special in that. Everyone does.

Yesterday I was slouching on the couch, knitting myself a summer top (I have started it three times, and ripped it twice, because it was way too big. I won't rip it again.) and zapping. I like food programs, I see myself dressed in vintage clothes, you know, a bit pin-up girl style, talking about food with passion and knowledge and sensuality, like Nigella, Sophie, Leila and Jamie - a bit like Annabel, except with a nice voice.

Anyway, I also like to watch fashion. I like fashion. I think I could do a good job as a fashion designer - at least if I follow the fashion actively - and I believe I would do a better job as many stylists out there. I was watching the 10 best and worst dressed in rock, and I was amazed that they didn't mention Lil'Kim in the worst dressers list, and that they chose Sean Combs as the best dresser... never mind that...
I was also watching at Women on Top, and they were featuring Jodi Jones, the photographer. And she mentioned wanting to have a child, a daughter she could teach what she has learned of life and everything... and I saw a movie flash in front of my inner eyes, "Jodi's Son". What if she got a son? I have always wanted a son I could teach everything I have learned about life and all, and I picture him as an adult and still devoted to me, of course, I'm a bit of a Yiddishe Mama...

I have been writing too long at 750 words. I haven't been writing my BuNo, but I have been writing my June challenge at 750 words. It's typing 750 words on the page as quickly as possible, and that means it's just stream of conscience, with not much heads or tails. Not very good as literature, but - uh.

Also I was watching Heath Ledger's biography and someone said something about brotherhood... yes, there was an advertisement about the French weeks on some movie channel and France is about equality, freedom and brotherhood, and they were showing a clip of two men hugging each other, and together with Heath Ledger and Brokeback Mountain, and because I have been watching How I Met Your Mother lately - I had a marathon and I saw the last season in just a matter of days - and we have Barney Stinson and Bro Code, and all that melted together into a tv show of brothers. Then I naturally thought about Sisters, which is another tv series I loved.
The other tv series I love being Friends and HIMYM, which lead me to wonder why all the women in tv series are skinny and pretty. Mike and Molly was being attacked because people "didn't feel comfortable watching two fatties make out"... even though a lot of people in the Western world, especially in United States ARE "fatties. People just don't want to WATCH "ugly" people...

You know Dove's campaign for real beauty? People were saying that these women were UGLY and they didn't want to see "ugly women" like this on streets... You know this picture is retouched as well. The skin is made smooth, the teeth whiter and all the scars and stretch marks and other such blemishes are removed... yet there are people out there who have the guts to call these ladies UGLY. Especially when the person expressing the opinion looks like he should consider himself lucky if he got a girlfriend like this, because in that case the girl would have accepted a spouse below her level of attractiveness...
Frankly, I doubt the idiot has ever had a girl friend, so the only women he has are the ones he fantasises, and then, naturally, only "the best" is good enough.... but I didn't think HIMYM, Friends and Sisters were made for such guys. If Monica had stayed an overeater, it would not have made any difference in her character. Phoebe could have been fat, or at least "normal".
Like Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones is supposed to be chubby, but her weight is under 60 kilos all the time in the diary... and to me - weighing some 100 kilos - that is an insult.

Reminds me of an idiot, who said he likes Jonathon Earl Bowser's art, because his girls are chubby, like normal women, and not skinny, like the media likes to show women today...

I WISH I was as chubby as that woman! Or chubby like Renée Zellweger playing Bridget Jones.

BTW, have you noticed, that when a man is chubby is not a question of a little bulge on the tummy... Unless you're Gerard Butler, of course.

So - I would like to ask writers all over the world, especially those writing romance novels and tv scripts, to make their heroines more "normal". Because, most women of the world are not actresses, and shouldn't need to compete with such beauty ideals, just as men looking like Gerard Butler in this photo (NORMAL) shouldn't (and most wouldn't) feel chubby. Jonathon's women are skinny, some with big boobs, some with smaller boobs, but none of them is chubby.

(Yes, of course I'd rather look Gerard Butler looking a little bit different, but as I am trying to lose weight and fighting my impulses and impatience, I know it's not easy to look like this:

yet, that's Gerard Butler's back two years ago, and I'm pretty sure he looks about the same in his latest movies. That's kind of his job. So, let the guy "hang out" every now and then, okay? It's not that he's ugly even when he's "chubby".

Anyway, back to being negative :-D
As I had the idea of screenplays, I went on looking for some help on how to write them, and as Quentin Tarantino learned to make movies by watching movies, I thought that I could learn to write screenplays by reading screenplays, so I went to Simply Scripts and stumbled over Babz Buzz, and she was talking about Blake Snyder, who according to Babz was an angel. "Everything he did was positive".
And I love that quality in people. I don't have it. I'm always whining and grumping and complaining and criticising and ranting and... as you see. I love positive, happy, glad people, but even when I try to express this, I start whining about the unrealistic expectations on women's weight.

Uh.

Here's about the role of The Board

I am a ranting person

2011-06-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

Looks like some people cheat. You can't write 750 words in 0 minutes or 2 minutes. The fastest typing speed ever was 216 words per minute, and I doubt even she could keep up with that kind of speed for any longer time. An average PROFESSIONAL typist writes some 60 words per minute, the best PROFESSIONAL typists reach 100-120 words per minute, and at that rate - a PROFESSIONAL typist writing a pre-written text - it would take 5-10 minutes.
So - someone writes the text first and then cuts and pastes it on 750 words... IF they even WRITE the text and not just copy it from somewhere - IF THEY copy and paste it, or if it is someone else doing it. No, that's counterproductive, and not what the site is there for.
That makes me wonder how strong some people's perfectionism and will to win is... 750 words is a very private place. No-one else but you can see what you write, how many words you write, your typing speed or any other such details. The only person you are decieving is you. YOU will lose the important information in the statistics, like typing speed and if you need to watch out for the adverbs ;-) It is a commitment, and copying and pasting a piece of prewritten text - whether it is yours or not - is cheating. And it is cheating you...

Writing practice: morning pages - at 750 words
the power of writing and morning pages
now, it should preferably be done by hand, as Julia Cameron, who - as far as I know - invented it, says, but then you really should type it from your handwritten notes into 750 words later...

On the other hand, a lot of writers handwrite, not type, but what are you doing in 750 words then? It is very technical, internet page, and, frankly, stealing your time you could use writing the "real thing"...

No. Cheating, I say.

And about the ranting; here's part of my 750 words of today:

Frankly, I haven't thought of that the Christians - or the fundamental evangelical Christians - are raising their children to obey blindly and believe the authorities without questions and verifying the information. Of course this thing about creationism and evolution become a big thing then; one authority claims one thing and the other totally opposite. The children need to be told which authority is correct, and as the school refuses to support the religious authority, the children would need to question his authority and verity of what he is saying, to be able to obey and listen the authority that is being supported by their parents and their government, that is the school... after all, they are being told to be good and obedient in school and do what the teachers say. It would not be acceptable to question the teacher, as that would be opposing an authority... so in reality it is the children who are between rock and a hard place.
Really sad. Considering that one would need to give a tiny allowment - or what it is called - that is, to acknowledge that science tells what and how, and religion who and why. These two are answering two different questions, and therefore cannot be contradicting each other.
It is really sick to believe the earth is just some thousands of years old, but when I asked a FEX about why the Bible MUST be literal truth, she answered, that if it wasn't NOTHING in it would be truth...

It took me 17 minutes to write, and it is rated PG because of "sexual content". What? Where?

"Sexual content (Words like horny, aroused, hump): 25"
I use the word "love" once, "hard" once (between rock and hard place) and "creation" once or twice... but there is no reference to even "kiss", "hug" or "marry", not to talk about "harder" words. No euphemisms of love-making or genitals, at least none I know of. Not even "man" or "woman". So why is my language so "sexy"?

Here's the two first texts I wrote to 750 words: Spinsters and the vampire story - after those two my sexual word count was up to 100 or so. Huh?
Well, the vampire thing is littered with the word "love", and there are some mentions of sex, arousing and seduction, but the spinster story? What's sexual there?

This is really bothering me. Where is the list of sexual content words in linguistic analysis?

This feminine tosh

2011-06-04T01:51:00.000-07:00

V.S.Naipaul claims that no female can write as well as he does and that he can recognize if a man or a woman has written a piece immediately, because women are sentimental and have a narrow view of the world...

The Naipaul test
I got 7/10. I would very much like to know what Naipaul got :-D
BTW; I tried to use Naipaul's words to decide, and that made me mark his text as written by a female.

I wish authors would stop making such claims, how ever true they think they are. Makes me believe the guy hasn't read many female writers, which unfortunately is true when it comes to most men.

Esquire: 75 books a man should read - greatest work of literature ever written?
I have read two, started two, and read other books by the authors, but... only one is written by a woman.
So Jezebel compiled a list of 75 books a woman should read
I think I get 7 of those :-)

Juno begins...

2011-06-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

I have something I think Tart might appreciate... Beauty and other pleasing things :-D It's my Tumblr account where I plan publishing images I find pleasing :-) Fairytale illustrations, more or less naked men and heels :-D

I have been thinking about what I'll write this June (for BuNo - I like to call it Juno) and I have been printing a lot of my digital notes and they are inspiring. I just wonder if any of those will ever grow to a full novel size, or get edited or get sent to a publisher or published or... *sigh*

Here's a little something I found today: Escaping the Inkwell
No time to look at it more now, but one day...

Romantic heroines

2011-05-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

I have been going through my notes from the Barnes and Noble "Writing Romance Novels" course by Leigh Michaels, and part of my notes are about the characters; 8 female archetypes. I was going to write about that and how the Waif created some waves... but I read on and I just have to react on Leigh Michaels "creating a sympathethic and heroic heroine"...

Now, I don't have her books so I haven't read the excerpt she is using to "prove" how her heroine is sympatethic and heroic... but her description... er...

In what ways is Morganna likeable?
Though she'd like to scream at the butler, she doesn't.
wait a minute, she'd like to scream at the butler? Why? If the butler behaves in ways that are not correct and polite, he's not worth his job, and he doesn't like or respect this girl he's being rude to. I hope he isn't HER butler. She takes care of her mother and sends her to rest.
She has a sense of humor, even in the midst of the troubles, she can joke a bit.
She sees things as they are and doesn't hide from the facts.
She not only feels responsibility for her mother's financial condition but she bristles at the suggestion that it isn't her problem.
Bristles? Someone suggests that she doesn't need to take upon herself such responsibilities - in which this someone is 100% correct - and she bristles?
When she unintentionally makes a rude statement, she immediately retracts it.
So she makes unintentionally rude statements. Oh so likable.

How is she real?
She hasn't told her mother all about this man she's met.
hmm...
She's just a little tart-tongued at first ("did my father owe you money too?") and positively cutting at the end when she says she'd live in a cardboard box and eat cat food rather than be a trophy wife.
Someone offers her help and an easy way out from her problems without her asking for it, and she's not only sarcastic, she tells to a presumably attractive and okay person that she'd rather live - and let her precious mother live - on streets and eat catfood rather than marry him? That might be "real ", but it's not likable, sympathetic, heroic or attractive.

---
---

Sympathetic?
She's suddenly lost her father, and worse, her respect for him because of the situation he's left her mother in.
She loses her respect for her father because he's a dunce when it comes to money? Or because he allowed her mother to stay a trophy wife and do absolutely nothing, not even create a network of friends who could take care of her, if ever need be? Or because he didn't discuss with her mother about the finances, just like she doesn't discuss with her mother about the finances? Or what? How is this sympathetic?
She's threatened with losing home, lifestyle, and social standing, though these are less important to her than her mother's losses are.
She was born into a social standing. You don't lose that just because you lose your money, because Money knows it's irrelevant. You can be a millionaire today, penniless tomorrow, and millionaire again day after. As far as I understood the hero wants to marry her because of her birth, not her money.
Now she's faced with a difficult choice. She can save her mother, but at great cost to herself
Shouldn't be a difficult choice, if her mother's wellfare, status and lifestyle is that important to her. Besides, she can get divorce at any point, for example if she falls in love with someone else, and wishes to marry that guy What's the sacrifice here? He's bound to be attractive, and if she respects money, she should respect him.

Heroic?
She deliberately doesn't point out hurtful facts to her mother - like the people who should have come to call, but didn't.
So her mother is an idiot. So her mother is an unlikable idiot with no real friends. Go ahead and tell her anything, she won't get it anyway. I'm sorry, but being codependent is not heroic. It's stupid, harmful to everyone involved, places herself as a guardian of her mother, and as far as I know, her mother is not mentally handicapped or in other ways in need of guardian, but a grown-up woman... In fact, in the next sentence Leigh says she has no other reason to why she couldn't work except age and lack of experience. Where is HER chance to grow and be part of the decisions involving HER life? How does her daughter DARE to assume the guardianship, especially after her father failed so badly she lost her respect of him?
She knows that because of her age and lack of work experience, her mother is helpless to change her ciucumstances, and she doesn't hold it against her.
Why not? I'm sorry, but even trophy wives are capable of doing something so that they are not totally helpless if something like this happens, and frankly, even they are responsible for their own lives.
She's taken a job; though it can't repair the damage, it's something and it seems the only thing she can do.
It should be enough to give her an apartment and feed her. What else is needed? I mean, really, they have no friends in the whole world? Neither of them? How damn likable and sympathetic and wonderful are these people, actually? If I was left homeless and in debt because my husband can't keep his money, I have friends and family who would take care of me, at least until I get to my feet, and I AM disabled to some extend.
And when she's offered an option that can secure Abigail's future, she listens.
Oh? She's just a little tart-tongued at first and positively cutting at the end when she tells the guy she'd live in a cardboard box and eat cat food rather than marry him. I'm sorry but if I was the guy, I would say "So be it. Live on the street and eat cat food. "

I'm sorry, Leigh, but your description of your perfect heroine doesn't sound the least likable, sympathetic or heroic, on the contrary, she seems to have real attitude problems while at the same time being your typical codependent waif. *sigh*

I'm pretty sure I have read her books. I used to read a lot of Harlequins back in 80's.
Also, she is a published romance novel author, I am not. "More than 85 contemporary romances", and "more than 27 million copies of her books have been printed, worldwide, in 650 editions. Her work has been translated and published in 120 countries in more than 20 languages"... so, obviously she is right and I am wrong.

It's things like this that make me wonder if I'd ever manage to write a romance novel any publisher would be interested of.

Then back to the types... let's forget arche and stereo for a while.

Now, I don't think these two systems can be fitted on top of each other like this.
I also don't quite agree with these descriptions.

The best friend should be paired with the spunky kid, who is the quintessential "best friend". Why name her "spunky kid"? Why not "best friend"?

Men can be nurturing too. Where is the father figure? Are you saying it's okay for a woman to mother her lover, but not a man to father his lover? In spite of generations of women suffering from father complex, yearning for the acceptation of an older man, we are not to even mention this, because it's "ugly" in the eyes of feminist? Or what?

The free spirit? Loner-lover. And they exist in males too.

The waif? I'm sorry, Beverly, but some women are waifs. Some women are the silent mice watching the situation to develop as they decorate the room as wall flowers. Some girls do stay girls until they die. Innocent, pure, even as Sweet Charity, she will endure.
Now, if she has "tremendous strength of will", that I don't know. If you see Bella of Twilight as a typical waif, then so, because that girl will always get her will through... in spite of what ever who ever thinks.
They usually just follow the flow, and let themselves be taken. They are the classic romance heroines, young virgins, powerless victims of circumstances and in desperate need of the hero's protection, care,
I'm sorry, all feminists of the world, some women are like that, and they are not worse for that, and shouldn't be not talked about, or not portrayed as heroines, just because they aren't alpha females.
Interestingly enough, most waifs end up being just that - alpha females of an alpha male... mothers of more alphas, and you can be sure that mother keeps all her kids tightly tied with her apron strings...

And... doesn't that sound quite a lot like "ruler-thinker"...?

My father used to say "to minimize by praising" (ylentämällä alentaa, in Finnish - works better) - but make you to submit by telling how good you are, how much stronger, better and all you are, so you should be the one who sacrifices yourself, you should be the one who does all the work, you should be the one everyone gets to kick and walk over... after all, you can afford that, as you are soooo good! Ha.
I waited for 30 years for my turn, until I realized it will never come. There are always people who "need more", who should be compensated... Always.

Some waifs are not smart enough to use this to their benefit, but some are. Southern Belles, you know. Kitten factor.

750 words

2011-05-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

http://750words.com/

I like the site, also, because it has these interesting statistics...

As you write what's from the top of your head, your attitudes, interests and writing style comes VERY visible.

What? I write like five times more "sexual content" than your average writer? And about half the violence, and only 1/4 of swearing. Oh.

I know I'm bound to use less articles than your average English user, because I'm Finnish and we don't have those nasty little things in our language!
I'm also happy to see I use less adverbs than your average writer :-D Together with qualifiers, I actually use MORE than your average writer... the avg is 19.6 and my score is 19.8.
I thought I used more "ahs and ums", because of the idea of the 750 words.
I am also really negative :-D

Oops... that means that I spend a lot of time ranting about "them"...

Use a lot of past tense...

and - to my surprise - talk a lot about things I see.

So - if you are going to write BuNoWriMo, you might want to write it at 750 words... just a suggestion ;-)
Join the site now, if you aren't already in, join the monthly challenge, and kill two flies with one strike.

What do I want to write?

2011-05-26T01:21:00.000-07:00

the Writer magazine offers an article from 2006 for registered users to be read for free. "What do you want to write", is it called.

I want to write EVERYTHING. Or almost everything. I don't want to write manuals or school books.
But I want to write novels, children's books, YA, romance, horror, scifi, fantasy, adventure, magical realism, contemporary novels; I want to write poems and lyrics; I want to write screenplays and plays; I want to write non-fiction about witchcraft, divination, arts and crafts, human rights, spirituality, food and frugal, sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle; I want to write articles, fillers, columns, crossword puzzles and such for magazines - I want to write a magazine from cover to cover :-D; I want to translate books and illustrate books.
Reminds me of DaVinciDilemma.com

Yes, I want it all, and I want it NOW! Instant gratification isn't fast enough!

I got my hands on The Power, and I was amused and somewhat p'd off, because it starts with what I have been saying for over 10 years. If you want it, you are meant to have it. Your dreams are your own, given to you, because you have also been given the best possible qualities to reach those dreams. Not everyone want the same things, unless they have been programmed to want it.

What if I had a weeklong stay at a writer's retreat where I don't need to care about anything but writing... all my needs and obligation are taken care of... all I need to do is get up and write. What would I write?
Not much it seems :-D
Frankly, I am a childless, middle-aged woman living on benefits with a caring and loving husband who is a great cook. All my needs and obligations are practically being taken care of, and still I don't write. I just keep yapping about WANTING to write.

What do you feel strongly about?
What excites you? Motivates you?
How do you spend most of your time?
What events have impacted your life?
What types of reading do you enjoy?
How much time can you devote to your writing?
How steep is your learning curve?
What obstacles do you face?

What are your writing goals?
Why do you want to write?

Why do I want to write?
Because I envy writers, because I wish I was one of them, because that is what I would be very proud to say I do... and I believe our dreams, wishes, desires are given to us because they belong to us, because we can reach them...
Of course I dream of getting the Nobel literature prize and other prizes, and all that. Which writer doesn't?
Of course I dream about writing The Next Big Thing. Which writer doesn't?
Of course I dream of getting rich, economically independent, having enough money to afford anything I've ever wanted, by writing. Which writer doesn't?
Perhaps I am too material, and that is one of my obstacles. Some writers don't dream about money and fame. They just write, because they have to write. Because they have stories inside them that have to get out. Because some divine intervention has chosen them to be the medium of the words... or something.

It's that time of the year again...

2011-05-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, not even a week to the beginning of BuNoWriMo - or JuNoWriMo ;-)
Burrows' version of 30 days of madness in writing :-)
I had forgotten.

Well... perhaps because I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, my BIL has probably MDS - his little brother fought leukemia and won - at least the first battle and I hope that was the last one - so let's hope the big brother can tackle this too. My father is feeling better now, (he has prostate cancer spread to bones) so we are very happy for him, but my brother-in-law... I am very worried about him, my sister and their kids. Very worried indeed... and there isn't much to do. *sigh*
BTW what with these Myelodysplastic syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Myalgic encephalomyelitis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder... why doesn't the sicknesses have simple names, like lupus, shingles and pox? My mother has difficulties in remembering that I have Asperger's syndrome (AS) and Fibromyalgia (FM), my husband and a handful of other relatives have ADHD/ADD and now my brother-in-law has MDS... (I think it means misformation in bone marrow or something... oddly shaped blood cells). Poor mommy.

BTW, here's some blogs I find interesting at the first sight and would like to look into deeper - perhaps you might like them too :-)

http://thegiraffabilityofdigressions.blogspot.com/
http://julieflanders.blogspot.com/
http://thewarriormuse.blogspot.com/
http://wordgrrls.com/
http://fearofwriting.com/blog/
http://parafantasy.blogspot.com/

I received an invitation...

2011-05-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

Annie's Attic Mysteries.
I like the concept, but after FINALLY having finished Mary Kruger's painful knitting mystery I'm very wary about crafting related "mysteries".

BTW, let me tell you about Mary Kruger's Died In The Wool... OMG! It so very well pointed out that you really need to know your subject before you start writing... Now, I have to say that there might be some differences in the American way of doing things and the way I have learned, but I really find it hard to believe the differences would be that... big and obvious. Nevertheless, those details were easier to overlook, but the main point that made the book unenjoyable to me was the main character's behavior. She forces herself into the investigation, holds back information from the investigator, and then gets angry with him, because he arrests one of her friends. Mind you that she lives in a tiny town where everyone knows everyone and are practically "friends" with everyone - had he arrested ANYONE it would have been "her friend", and she would probably have pouted about it. Then this friend's wife, who is also the main character's best friend, gets angry with her, because... I really don't understand. Because her husband was arrested for a murder that happened in the friend's yarn shop? Or?
The main character is also supposed to be a knitting designer, and doesn't know anything about internet, selling patterns online, free patterns online - and this book was published 2005.

"Are you going to have any patterns available?"
"Of course I am. That's the whole point."
"I didn't mean that. I meant, sample patterns."
Ari stared at her. "Give them away, you mean? The whole point of this is to make money."
"A lot of people have put free patterns online", Barbara said.
"Really? Why would they do that?"
"Sometimes it's the only way for people to publish their ideas", Kaitlyn said quietly.
Ari turned to her. "Have you done that?"
"What, and lose my copyright? If I tried to publish it in print later, I wouldn't be able to because of that." She paused. "When I was first learning to make web pages, I did put a design on my own site, though, a simple one. A scarf in garter stitch."
"Well, anyone can make one of those, so that's okay."
"It was for beginners", Kaitlyn said defensively.
"And it was nice", Susan said firmly. "Of course, though, she's right. Why give something away for free?"
Barbara was leaning over Ari's shoulden. "Ari, haven't you ever looked at anything to do with knitting online?"
"No. I told you, I think the Internet is a waste of time..."
blah blah blah
"Maybe." Ari was frowning at the screen. "people really put their patterns online without expecting payment?"
"I hate to say it, but I've gotten some good ones that way."
"Hmm. maybe that's an idea. What do you think?" She turned to ask Kaitlyn.
"Why?" Kaitlyn said.
"As samples. You know I do that every now and then in here. It gets people to see what I do, and I usually get customers from them."
Kaitlyn was frowning. "Well, if you want to."
"I'll think about it. I think I'll check out some other sites here tonight", she added.
blah blah blah

Free knitting patterns. Now who would put those on the web?
blah blah blah
Typing some more, she st back, waiting for results. "Free knitting patterns", she read aloud, scanning one group of type. It had a web address highlighted at the bottom. Below, there was another grouping and then yet another. Shew glanced up to see the number of results for her search, and blinked. It numbered in the thousands. "That many?" she muttered, and clicked on the address for the first site.

Now, this is the results I get today... it wouldn't have been much different 2004. Knitty has been around since 2002, Knitting Pattern Central since 2004, I started my blog 2006 and Ravelry was launched 2007. In 2004 Magknits was around and Fibertrends' felted slipper clogs was a free pattern online... oh, that I didn't know that then... *sigh* Today the pattern has sold over 8000 copies. Think about that a little, miss Kruger. Who indeed puts their pattern online for free and loses the copyright? What?

Anyway, the knitwear designer in the book clicks the first link that appears, and gets someone's personal page where the owner provides free patterns, and among these she spots her own design. It seems that the owner of the site has been lifting patterns from books, leaflets and prints, and publishing in her site. Now, remember, this was the first result of the list, according to miss Kruger. The knit designer returns to the "main screen" and finds out that ALL the sites giving knitting patterns away are of the same quality.

"Some of the sites were for businesses that sold patterns, like hers. Others gave credit to the original publishers. A lot of them offered original designs, free of charge. Too many, though, had been pirated.
Ari was more than disturbed now. She was angry and appalled, as she leaned back in her chair. Kaitlyn had mentioned designers losing their copyrights if they published online, but this was far worse. This was direct infirngement, direct theft. She wondered if the publishers knew. She wondered if her own designs had been stolen."

It - naturally - turns out that that indeed had happened, and that plays a big part in the whole murder investigation.
But - the author of the book knows so painfully little about yarn, spinning, knitting, keeping shops, keeping sheep, designing... uh. Murder investigation, even how people behave, act, react... The main character uses a lot of time thinking about how everyone is going to be SO upset, but totally ignores her own 7-years-old daughter. She whines "running your own business is 24/7. So is being a mother. I have to find some time to work on new designs. And somewhere in there I have to get housework done", but she isn't doing any of this much in this book. I think she has 2-3 SHORT discussions with her daughter, PLANS sitting down to design, but, ah, cannot, because she is interrupted, and then she goes off to Internet to google her name again. Yap yap yap yip yap. Whine whine, yada yada, blah blah blah.
No. No more Mary Kruger for me.

If you want to read kntiting related murder mysteries, read Maggie Sefton. It's not the best mystery book I've ever read, but if I'd give Mary Kruger 1-2 on the scale 0-10 (Yes, I have had worse.) I'd give Maggie 7-8.

If you'd like a copy of Mary Kruger, pocket, bought from bookstore, but read by the dinner table, so it's full of stains, thrown discusted away several times, picked up again, after lots of sighing, being waved in the air during upset exclamations and explanations on how one actually spins, or that you can hardly garrot anyone with wool, because it's almost as elastic as rubber, and tends to break before it gets tight enough to actually stop anyone from breathing, and that you don't keep your sheep free on your front lawn. You just don't. If you know ANYTHING about sheep, that is. Anyway, if you want a copy which is in no way mint condition, but you get the second book, that IS in mint condition - I think I have opened it once - with it, just tell me and I'll send it to you. :-)

Anyway, back to attics. I love Elizabeth Enright's "Return to Gone-Away" and Villa Caprice! I DROOL over the piles of Edwardian clothes... I have dreams about places like that... table after table covered with interesting, beautiful, amazing things, shelves, cupboards, closets, cabinets, chairs, even floors, everything covered with colors, patterns, lovely things... *sigh*
One could wish Annie's Attic Mysteries are similar, though I'm not quite happy about the idea I get from looking at the homepage of the series.

So - there we are again. If I want to read something, I need to write it myself ;-)
I just hope I had the same selfconfidence I had 10 years ago :-D Now I'm not so sure I can anymore :-)

A couple of interesting articles I found

2011-05-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

How creativity is an act of devotion

there are only seven stories in the world

The secret of creating a good story

I'm not saying much about that, I'm still tired and slightly confused, and pondering about how to market my Zazzle shop better. Yes, I have such a thing. I have had it a whole week right now, and I was being very sad, because no-one visited it... then my husband told me that it might be because no-one knows about it, and I went "but I have said it several times in my blog and facebook and tweeted too!", and then I remembered the guy who had tried "everything" - and meant writing one letter or something. I haven't tried everything. So, I'll go and try a bit more ;-)

Fascinating history

2011-04-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

As a consequence of wanting to know a bit more about Wallis Simpson, I found a new blog - or it's very old, actually, as a blog considered, as the last post was made in last decade... And most of it is about Rome and Greece and such, and slightly uninteresting, but there are a couple of post that made me interested.

The Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Men

Here's a bit more about the affair

Count Fersen and Marie Antoinette - Count Fersen and Marie Antoinette revisited

Altered portrait - eyes made smaller, nose longer and fatter, Habsburg lip given and hair blonded (she had a very pretty golden hair, which would have looked quite white powdered). Frankly, I don't think the paintings of her are THAT beautified. The painters had to make the people look themselves. Even if the skin was smoothed, eyes perhaps made a bit bigger and proportions tweaked a little, the changes were so small one shouldn't even bother thinking about them.

I think about Princess Royal, Anne of England, whose is supposed to look like a horse...

A very pretty horse that is :-) But she too has long face and nose and sort of fleshy lower lip, and even though her eyes are by no means small, they can give that perception.

The paintings made of Marie Antoinette later make me think of Maggie Smith.

She isn't really beautiful either, with her rather long and narrow face, but... frankly... none of these women is ugly.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous To Know

The Secret Meaning of Elizabethan Salads
So fascinating... symbolical foods taken to the next level... that could be used in a book.

The Seductive Lady Hamilton
Emma, Lady Hamilton, as seen by Louise-Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun
about Lady Hamilton
Lady Hamilton; a regency romance era heroine

Christine de Pisan

Napoleon and Pauline Bonaparte - Incest?
Famous Affinities of History
the Coincidental Dandy: Wayward Venus; the Life of Marie-Pauline Bonaparte Borghése

Olympe de Gouges

Lady Godiva, peeping Tom and taxes

Boudicca, revenge of a warrior queen

Messalina, the worst wife in history?

Valeria Messalina's statue colored

Nicola Pagett as Messalina in Granada's The Caesars

I think Messalina could well have looked very much like her...

I think she is very pretty... Nicola, that is. Probably Messalina as well.

Theodora, the whore who became an empress

History and women: Nefertiti
Unusual Historicals and Michelle Moran; Nefertiti

The Great Courtesans
Marquerite, Violetta and Marie
Vintage Powder Room and Deauville
La Païva - pickled and preserved

Scandalous Women - blog

The Hero Workshop
Why are scandalous people more intersting than heroes?

Historical warrior women
Jean d'Arc - the wrong hero

Quaintrelles:

Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
Cora Pearl
Marchesa Luisa Casati
Coco Chanel
and Marlene Dietrich

P.S: Once again, Fascinating People -

A couple of blog entries from Scarlett Gypsy

2011-04-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Writing: Physical character description

Those innovative, fun-loving Victorians...

and some others :-)

30 days of writing meme? I challenge anyone reading my blog :-)

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

When I was about 10 I created my own fantasy universe with horses as sacred animals and matriarchy. My Empress, my Mary Sue, did all the things I wanted to be able to do. I created characters and storylines as I needed them, told myself stories to fall asleep to, entertained myself when I was alone, or waited, or traveled, run the forests discussing with my imaginary friends... I still do, after 30 years :-)

750 words

2011-04-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

A wonderful site!
I love the statistics part. It gives a much better idea of how quickly I write than all the others so far.
Right now it takes about an hour for me to write the 750 words, of which 1/2 is actual writing.
I write about 13 words a minute, which would take me about 2 hours and some to write the 1667 words needed for NaNoWriMo... Hmm...

Spinsters

In Susan Coolidge's last Katy book was mention about the unmarried sisters of hundreds of Englishmen who traveled with their brothers to keep their houses in the New World. Not a word of these sisters have ever been mentioned. It's time to make their lives and thoughts important.

Uta Northwood didn't have much talent in anything, nor was she beautiful, so she was deemed useless and unattractive. When it was time for her brother, Lionel, to make his to take over the world in the name of British Empire, it was considered self-evident that Uta would follow with him and make some use of herself.
Uta did have talents and gifts, but these were not of remarkable kind. Sure, her taste in clothes and homemaking was boring, as she didn't care about which colors went well together, or silly, frivolous details that made things unique and pretty. She used the clothes that were functional, stood against dirt and wore wearing well. Because of this her clothes were usually shiny wool of some ugly, dirty color and very old-fashioned. She chose furniture with the same thoughts, sturdy, ugly things that would last several lifetimes, and make her brother's great-grandchildren cry. Her talents were in organization, and never were cupboards and drawers as tidy as hers, her brother had never any problems with economy, and there always was bread in the basket and clean, fresh water in jug. She was not stingy and had always something to eat for everyone who asked for it. She did expect you to work for your bread, though, but she could clearly see one's limits and never expected too much. She was made to keep house, and as her brother's companion and housekeeper, she found her place.
Now, such life is not very pleasant. Her friends were those who weren't good or interesting enough for anyone else, like she herself was, but as a friend she was worth gold, always loyal, to a wise, always there, and she remembered all the important dates and preferences.

Her best friend was another sister. This woman was the sister of a Canadian doctor, and they lived in their old home. He had married and had six children with his wife, who then had gotten ill and died when the youngest was just a baby. Jenny had stepped in and was keeping the house and family, but she wasn't very motherly person and didn't much like children either. She kept them fed and well dressed, and saw that they did their duties, other needs they had to satisfy otherwhere.

Jenny and Uta lived in the same little town and used to visit each other rather frequently. They met first in market. They both had wanted the same thing, and complained, and it was ordered, and they both thought it was for them, and crabbed it the same time. Two almost identical leather glove covered, thin hands with long fingers, one glove grey, the other brown, landed on the thing, and the ladies looked up and for a second thought they were looking in the mirror.
Then they realized that the colors were wrong - one sepia, other black and white, both thin, dry women in boring and ugly but functional and sensible clothes, face not used to express feelings, which were considered mere waste of time anyway, and therefore surprisingly young and smooth, watery eyes, thin, colorless eyebrows and lashes, long nose, sharp, thin lips and remarkable chin line... and for the first time in their lives, Jenny and Uta felt kinship of souls, and they smiled.

Victorian girls' novels

2011-04-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Susan Coolidge's Katy books, and I am struck, in the comparison with Louisa M. Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, by how a middle-class Eastern coast family has very different living standards than a poor Western family. Clover has to keep a house for herself and her brother and she doesn't seem to know how to cook and bake.

"Fairly good soups could be bought in tins, which needed only to be seasoned and heated for use on table. Oysters were easily procurable there, as everywhere in the West; good brown-bread and rolls came from the bakery"

Also, the need of "help" in both Little Women and Katy books is surprising... In Little Women there are five (5) women (from age 9 and up) living in a little house, and they have a help! In Montgomery's Anne books she is a good help for Marilla already when 12, and all they think is that Matthew would need a boy for some of the farm work. March women had only a house!
I can understand that sometimes help is needed with laundry and perhaps when the whole house needs to be cleaned thoroughly, but not all the time. Katy's father had a cook, a maid and a handyman, and still they "needed" a housekeeper. I really don't get it.

BTW, What Katy Did Next is horrible! I remember liking it when I read it as a girl, but now I'm disturbed by all kinds of things. The "lovely" Amy who's dumb and selfish as a girl can be, spoiled rotten, and yet Lily, who is what Amy is growing up to be, is considered horrible. That Englishmen didn't know who Jane Austen was. That an Italian woman would have thrown a sick child out from her house. How everyone not American was somewhat weird, evil, primitive, ugly, dirty and so on and so forth.

I'm getting back on writing :-)

2011-04-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

After four months of no writing to speak of, I'm getting interested again :-)

Angels and demons, vampires, dragons, fairies... aliens. We describe all supernatural, paranormal creatures to come from the skies or beyond, "extraterrestials", aliens, space creatures, when in reality they are just as terrestial as the rest of us.

John Gray, a vampire, loves to read vampire stories, and discuss them with his human friend, Celine. Celine has a slight crush on John, and John knows this, and teases her about it, because he like having her as a friend. He's more than 300 years old, and the game of love, sex and blood has grown old and boring. It's all the time the same. Stupid teen-aged girls believe to be "The One" who changes you, whom you'll love and who will rescue and save your soul... and it never happens. Human are simple creatures, easily controlled, easily manipulated, especially when you were once one yourself. It takes only a lifetime to know man, and that all men - and women - are the same, and that's all it takes.

A young dragoness visited them every now and then, and she was foolish enough not to have learned the finer aspects of human control. When she first met Celine, she asked if she was John's pet, and he answered that she was his friend. Similar but better than pet.

People were always speaking of the coldness of vampires, the lack of feelings, but in reality it was lack of chemicals, good for nothing but disturbing the thinking process. His brain was still working as it always had been, but now the human needs and emotions weren't bothering him. Sure, it had been amusing to seduce girls, even older women who should have known better, for a while, but in the end it stole time from more interesting issues. Also, there is a saying of youth being wasted on young people. He was as good as youth, stronger, healthier, more handsome, perfect, so why would he behave as youth when he had the wisdom and experience of old age? No, sex and partying was for the young people, he wanted more of life. Friends, among other things. It was sad though that everyone was immature compared to him, but in time he learned to appreciate the quality of being unspoiled and fresh. It was also amusing to see young people have the insights anew he had had already so many lifetimes ago.

Now he was reading the new books about vampires being written by young women, and in everyone the vampires were presented as sexually desirable. Depending on what was considered exciting at the time, the vampires were given other qualities. Some 50 years ago danger was arousing, now it was romantic, eternal love. In a time when ethics and morals weren't so strict and limiting, old-fashioned values were seen as something exotic and interesting. Nevertheless, the mere idea of a vampire falling in love...

"Do they really think this story is believable?" he asked Celine.

"Yes, it's romantic!"

"I'm sorry but isn't this man supposed to be over hundred years old?"

"Yes"

"And he has never loved a woman in his life?"

"No..."

"But now he sees this girl and falls in love with her immediately, passionately and possessively?"

"Er... yes..."

"And she as all teenagers have no idea of what they actually want, like, think or prefer, but she decides the best thing for her is to become a vampire as well."

"Yes, because she couldn't live without him."

"It is surprising how well we actually can live without everyone and everything we have ever loved, Celine. I'm sure this girl would think differently in some 20 years. Most likely she won't understand what she ever saw in this man."

"But that's the thing, it's love! She will love him forever, and he will love her, and they will live forever, together, young and beautiful. It's a lovely story, John! I don't expect you to understand, as you have never loved anyone, but..."

"I see... so the author made her a vampire because it is impossible for a man and a woman to love each other for as long as they both shall live. Wouldn't it be lovelier, if she grew old as normal human beings do, and live being loved by him, and die in his arms, being loved by him, even as she is old and sick? I think it would be more romantic that way. Also, kinder to her surroundings. What about her parents? Are they never to see her again, because she will always be a teenager, and never to have children..."

"She will have children."

"With whom?"

"With the vampire."

"With the vampire?" John laughed. "I love this author. I have to have all her books. Though I suppose there won't be any more books about this couple after she has given them their happy ending, forever after, young and beautiful, frolicking in the forest together in eternal love..."

Edith Nesbit a thief?

2011-03-31T00:50:00.000-07:00

Edith Nesbit is one of my favorite children's book authors. Now, another author, Ada J. Graves, wrote a book about "railway children" some 9 years before Edith did, and the similarities of the story line are there...

Edith Nesbit accused of plagiarism

Quite possible. It is also possible that both ladies were inspired by the same story, perhaps a news article. Anyway, what I find incredibly amusing is that both ladies have been dead a good while, and this "theft" happened over 100 years ago. Nevertheless, there are people taking sides in this story.

"There was a huge sweep of railways spreading across Britain from the 1830s and it had a profound effect on the whole country, so it was inevitable that there would be children's fiction about railways, and it's a classic trope of children's adventure that the children do something crucial that saves the day. In a book about railways, that's likely to be something to do with saving a train, and red has always been the colour of danger. I don't think it's enough of a coincidence to be certain."
- Kate Agnew

Ok... so are there more stories like this around?

I don't think it makes Edith Nesbit look bad. She published more than 40 books, when mrs. Graves published two, and not even her own grandchild had read her books until she was over 60. Edith Nesbit's books have influenced many of my favorite authors:

"She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers, including P. L. Travers (author of Mary Poppins), Edward Eager, Diana Wynne Jones and J. K. Rowling. C. S. Lewis wrote of her influence on his Narnia series and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew. Michael Moorcock would go on to write a series of steampunk novels with an adult Oswald Bastable (of The Treasure Seekers) as the lead character."

and the Railway Children was not even her main work... I started reading Edith Nesbit after having read C.S.Lewis' biography.

It's only her Railway Children that has been translated into Finnish... interestingly enough. I think I need to do that. :-)

Let's say she read Ada's book and stole some interesting storylines. She has fame enough for two Victorian writers :-D Let's republish Ada's book and let us decide for ourselves, huh?

Things that do happen...

2011-02-10T05:29:00.000-08:00

I don't feel like writing. Haven't felt like writing the whole year 2011. I suppose this is the way I work.
What I have done is art and crafts. I have FINALLY finished my OWOH 2010 gift for Jennifer. It took only about a year. :-D

Jennifer wanted me to make a portrait of a dog and write "loyal" on it.

I am not happy about this.

When I said I'd make a picture of an animal and emboss any one word on it, I didn't think anyone would ask of a portrait... I don't think I'm good enough to make portraits, especially on animals. Animals to humans look very much the same, but naturally they are just as individual as we humans are, each and every one unique, specific individual.

I don't know this dog well enough to recognize what makes him different from all the other chow chows, and I'm not even good enough to "copy" a photograph... my picture is too wide, short and teddybearlike, the ears are too big and the nose too little, and I didn't manage to get the square face right...

So I have been procrastinating and procrastinating, fighting my perfectionism, until I finally told myself that

a) I have never said I'm good at this. I showed Jennifer examples of my work, and I'm good enough to draw/paint an animal that looks like an animal, and this dog looks like a dog. It's actually a rather good picture of a dog. It's just not a good portrait of this specific dog.

b) I don't get paid. It's a gift. It's not proper to criticize a gift. :-D

and

c) I would be pleased with a "portrait" like this of our dog. It would be enough for me that the dog in picture looks like a black-and-white springer spaniel :-D

I think, hope, Jennifer will be happy with this. After all, it's better to get something, that is less perfect than nothing, how ever perfect it could be :-D

But, guess what? I have managed to misplace Jennifer's address...

"The Essential Man’s Library: 50 Fictional Adventure Books"

2010-12-26T13:14:00.000-08:00

"The Essential Man’s Library: 50 Fictional Adventure Books"

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
She by H. Rider Haggard
Ayesha: The Return of She by H. Rider Haggard
King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
Southern Mail/Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne
The Tigers of Mompracem by Emilio Salgari
The Pirates of Malaysia by Emilio Salgari
The Two Tigers by Emilio Salgari
Congo by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Lost World by Michael Crichton
The Odyssey by Homer
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings Series by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
True at First Light by Ernest Hemingway
The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Sea Wolf by Jack London
Roughing It by Mark Twain
The Beach by Alex Garland
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Inca Gold by Clive Cussler
Sahara by Clive Cussler
Treasure by Clive Cussler
The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne
Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
In Search of the Castaways by Jules Verne

19 out of 50... not bad ;-)

Something funny, something emotional...

2010-12-23T03:20:00.000-08:00

In Turku, Finland, there is a declaration of Christmas Peace on every 24th of December, at 12 o'clock Finnish time. At that time I will be by the television, watching the event, with a cup of tea in my hand and tears in my eyes..., thinking about all my maternal female relatives. We will be forming a circle of women holding hands, for 10 minutes. Some of the hands are extended from beyond the veil, some from hundreds of miles away, but the circle will be there, and I will be part of it, as long as there is anyone around who remembers me.

Be Jolly By Golly Blogfest

2010-12-20T04:33:00.000-08:00

I'm tired and bored with life. Not very Christmassy, huh? But here's my "Christmas lights". I have two IKEA light wreaths in living room in stead of a tree.

I have been cleaning, decorating and baking the last couple of days. Cookie jars are more than full of cookies, the fridge and freezer are full of Yule food and now all I can do is sit and wait for tomorrow. It's the Midwinter's Day tomorrow, winter solstice. :-) Yule.

These are spoon cookies.

We will be watching the Polar Express movie, eating cookies and drinking our version of "butterbeer" - that's just caramelized sugar with milk and a spoonful of real butter melted into it and whisked frothy.

Have a lovely Midwinter, all of you :-)

Tired, tired, tired...

2010-12-18T04:31:00.000-08:00

And so fed up with writing... I suppose my writing burst ended with November.

The problem is that I don't want to do anything else either.
I SHOULD be preparing for Yule, which is not even a week away.
I was supposed to make presents, and I haven't managed to do anything. I made Yule cards and wrote addresses on. Now I just need to put on the stamps and post them. :-D
I was supposed to sew me a Yule dress. Not going to happen. Haven't managed to even get the fabric for that.
No crafting done, no baking done, no art done...

Well... I do have an excuse. FM is flaring again. But all I really want to do is watch Christmas movies and eat candy.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

2010-12-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com has announced 2011 writing competition.

"You are eligible to enter the Contest if you are at least 13 years old at time of entry and a legal resident of one of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Québec), China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States (the 50 states and D.C.), or the United Kingdom."

You must also be available to travel to USA somewhere between 9.-15.6. so if you live outside US, see that your passport is good and you're allowed to travel to USA ;-)

"We must receive your Contest entry between January 24, 2011 at 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time) and February 6, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time)."

"You must register at www.CreateSpace.com/abna to enter the Contest". I'm not sure if you need to provide the taxing information... I suppose not. I hope not. :-D You'll be providing that to Penguin, if you win ;-)

"You need to include
(1) the complete version of your manuscript ("Manuscript") (in digital .doc, .docx, or .rtf format);
(2) up to the first 5,000 words, but not less than 3,000 words, of your Manuscript, excluding any table of contents, foreword, and acknowledgments ("Excerpt");
(3) a pitch of your Manuscript consisting of up to 300 words ("Pitch"); and
(4) the personal information required on the entry form", but all personal information, like your name, must not be in the manuscript, excerpt or the pitch.

"You must be the only author of your Manuscript, and your Manuscript must be a novel (not poems, collection of short stories etc.) between 50,000 and 150,000 words", in English and your original work and fictional, unpublished and without images

You may only submit one Entry for only one category - either YA or adult fiction.

BTW, I joined the 750 words. There's plenty more interesting ideas at "I wrote a novel, now what" :-D

A Scribe's Yule

2010-12-11T03:36:00.000-08:00

For Marieke's Midwinter Blogfest

Midwinter's day was no different in the life of Otherkin Scribe. She was sitting in her room, and writing down the stories that were told to her, just like any other day of the year. The stories were different, though.

The angels were talking about the good will that enclosed the whole planet into a warm blanket. In spite of all the stress and arguments, small accidents and moments of irritation, there was a will of good, warm thoughts, short smiles that crept on the faces when people saw the beautiful decorations and other people hurrying around with packages and santa caps. People were smiling more, were a bit more open, a bit kinder... it was nice being an angel at Yuletime.

The monsters were talking about the bloodlust, as they always were, but this time it was the lack of it they spoke about, not the urge to kill, maime and torture. A werewolf said that he hadn't been able to kill a rabbit, because it looked so soft and cuddly on the new snow. A vampire told he had started looking at the blood drops on the snow, and how pretty they were, and his victim managed to run away, screaming.

The harpees spoke about decorations and competitions and recipes, who had the best cookie recipe and how much the imported lawn decoration from France had costed. They also brought in decoration to decorate the library, but the Scribe told them to be sure all that would come down before the New Year.

The elves talked about caroling and how people started humming, went home singing along in their heads, and how the carols were designed to bring people Yule spirit. After they left, the Scribe found herself humming the old carols she'd learned as a girl. Then she chuckled for herself and allowed her to sing.

The minotaur coming in next looked at her a bit confused, then smiled and sang the song with her.
"Now stop!" he said and told about how nice it was to just let it all go, drink himself wasted and relax. It was as if his obsessions had left him, and he was kind of happy to be alone.

They all spoke about different things, and all let the Scribe in to their heads and hearts, so she was watching the cuddly little bunny in the moonlit forest, hopping over the square with no fear and no hurry... she felt the silence and peace in the minotaur's head and smiled. She saw all the Christmas decorations, smelled the scents of cinnamon and oranges, tasted the different flavors of Yule food, heard the carols and felt the good will. She remembered her lonely Christmases from time before she was made the Scribe and smiled. It might be just another work day, but it was so much better than anything she had had before.

Victorian Wizarding Christmas

2010-12-11T03:07:00.000-08:00

This is my entry for the HP blog fest

One would think that Christmas is not a joyous happening in a purist families, but then one would be wrong. We all have our vices and virtues, and so also the pureblood families.

Misapinoa loved Christmas, and all the traditions involved. She happily adopted any tradition, and so also the mugglers' German traditions. She had been 4 years old when Prince Albert introduced the Christmas Tree in England, and now, after having been married to Jimbo for 10 years, and having given birth to a little witch and two small wizards, the Christmas Tree had become part of their traditions too.

Misapinoa and Jimbo had decorated the tree in the living room for themselves, with certain help from the house elves, of course, and the nanny had kept the children busy in the nursery during this time. Then they ate the Christmas dinner in the dining room, before letting the children in to the decorated living room.

How the children's eyes shone as they saw the tall tree covered with sparkling stars and glass ornaments, tinsel and candles, and all sorts of edibles, like gingerbread men and paper cones filled with nuts and candy. Under the tree was a pile of lovely things, toys and mysterious packages.

The eldest, Miram, was by the power of his 8 years, used to this and knew what to do, but 5 years old Jimsina and 2 years old Soames weren't quite certain yet. Miram ran to the tree immediately and started playing with the toy set built to go round the tree through small landscape with real snow falling and miniature people and animals moving about.

"Go ahead, dear", said Misapinoa gently to Jimsina, who went then to find a big, beautiful doll, that looked just like her. The doll blinked and smiled.
"Is this to me?" she asked.
"Yes, darling", her father answered, smiling. He caught Soames just before he was about to step on the rails, and sat down on the floor giving Soames a toy dragon with smoke coming from its nostrils and eyes flashing. Soames peeped happily and hugged the toy, that growled softly, then he got interested in Miram's toy train.

There were many other parcels and toys for the children, a few for the parents, and even some for the house elves. All the elves got a new, clean pillowcase, with their initials embroidered on them, and there was a lace incert on the girls' pillowcases. Jimbo gave Misapinoa a new set of jewels, beautiful emerald earrings and necklace, that would go beautifully with her green eyes, and Misapinoa gave her husband a new seafoam pipe carved in the shape of a dragon.

After the gifts were shared, the Blishwicks danced around the Christmas tree singing carols and then Misapinoa gathered the children in front of the table theatre and Jimbo acted with paper dolls a Yuletime story to entertain the family. It was always the same, Jimbo only knew one story, but it had become a tradition. The children watched the beautifully decorated dolls move on the tiny paper scene and forgot it was their father telling the story. Soames fell to sleep sucking a huge chunk of toffee in Misapinoa's lap, and even the elder children started nodding. When Jimbo looked up from behind the theatre, he saw all three kids sleeping around his lovely wife, whose green eyes shone brighter than the emeralds on her neck and ears.

Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

2010-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

LOL I loved this one :-)

Okay, so I have "bad" taste. Guess what? I don't give a dime :-D

I know it was more delightful to read Grisham's and Evanovich's Christmas stories than aspire to palestrically drudge through the amaranthine locutions of Franzen...

"Christmas in bounty hunter Stephanie Plum's world isn't quite like Christmas in Whoville. With only four days to go before December 25, she doesn't have a decorated tree in her apartment or any presents bought. Plus she's chasing an elusive bail-jumper named Sandy Claws; a hunky guy named Diesel is literally popping in and out of her apartment; and a mob of manic elves is threatening to assault her with cookies. The end result is that Stephanie is feeling a tad stressed over the holiday season. Life isn't any calmer over at her parents' home in the Burg, where Grandma Mazur is dating a new octogenarian stud muffin; sister Valerie is wailing over some unwelcome news; and Stephanie's mother is coping by belting back tumblers of Red Roses in the kitchen. Just where is the elusive Mr. Claws hiding, and why? What's causing the power blackouts all over Trenton? And what about the mysterious villain, Mr. Ring? Is all of this real, or is Stephanie just having a very bad dream?"

I like Steph, Diesel and granny with studmuffins and rainbowy teeth :-D

Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections.

2010-12-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

I cam to page 71 of 568 when I realized that life indeed is too short to read bad books.

Yes, I find this a bad book.

"The novel won the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was nominated for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was shortlisted for the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
In 2005, The Corrections was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels.
In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation."
In 2009, website The Millions polled 48 writers, critics, and editors, including Joshua Ferris, Sam Anderson, and Lorin Stein. The panel voted The Corrections the best novel of the first decade of the millennium "by a landslide"."
Wikipedia: The Corrections

Franzen himself was "ambivalent at his novel having been chosen by the club due to its inevitable association with the "schmaltzy" books selected in the past." You know, like Nobel Prize winners and other exaggeratingly sentimental, greasy books.

Jonathan likes words. The longer and more unusual, the better. In the first 70 pages I met four or five I've never even heard before. Like crepuscular and corpuscular.

He also likes grains.
"...not a pure tone but a granular sequence of percussions..."
"...as of the graininess of the high-speed film..."
Twice in the first 11 pages.

He also uses a LOT of italics.

He uses way too many words to say practically nothing, but makes it LOOK very impressive and important.

I don't like any of the people I have met so far. I am not the least interested on how it goes for any of them. Let them rot and get involved in sex scandals and embarrass themselves, who cares!

I have read more than 10 percent of the book, and there's still no plot.

This is the plot summary:
"Alfred Lambert, the patriarch of a seemingly normal family living in the fictional town of St. Jude, suffers from Parkinson's disease and dementia. Enid, his longsuffering wife, suffers from Alfred's controlling, rigid behavior and her own embarrassment at what she perceives as her family's shortcomings. Their children all live in the Northeast. Gary, the eldest Lambert son, is a successful banker whose personal and family life is controlled by his beloved wife, a gifted manipulator and reader of pop-psychology books. Chip, the middle child, is a former academic whose disastrous affair with a student loses him a tenure-track job and lands him in the employ of a Lithuanian crime boss. Denise, the youngest of the family, is successful in her career as a chef but loses her job just at the peak of her career after interlocking romances with her boss and her boss's wife.

The separate plot-lines converge on Christmas morning back in St. Jude, when each child is forced to make a decision about what kind of responsibility to assume in helping their mother deal with their father's accelerating physical and mental decline."

After ten percent of the book we are not even in Christmas.

I don't get what is supposedly making this a "great novel". I think it's pure crap, and as life is too short reading crap, I won't read this book.

John Grisham: Skipping Christmas

2010-12-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

I looked forward to reading this book:

"Luther unfolded a spreadsheet and began pointing.
"Here, my dear, is what we spent last Christmas. Six thousand, one hundred dollars. And precious little to show for it. The vast majority of it down the drain. Wasted. And that, of course, does not include my time, your time, the traffic, stress, worry, bickering, ill-will, sleep-loss - all the wonderful things that we pour into the holiday season."
"Where is this going?"
Luther dropped the spreadsheets and, quick as a magician, presented the Island Princess brochure to his wife. "Where is this going, you ask, my dear? It's going to the Caribbean. Ten nights, ten nights of total luxury on the Island Princess, the fanciest cruise ship in the world..."

In their dreams.

The first half of the book is a nightmare... Then it gets worse... to end so lovely I cried :-)
I recommend this to everyone swearing over Christmas. A book about the true spirit of Christmas. :-)

Except that I would have let the daughter hear about it...

1/5 Christmas books read :-) One sock ready :-)

Who's Hal Clement?

2010-12-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Ellie was kind enough to thank me, so I visited her blog, again, and found this:

I am:

Hal Clement (Harry C. Stubbs)

A quiet and underrated master of "hard science" fiction who, among other things, foresaw integrated circuits back in the 1940s.

Which science fiction writer are you?

To my shame I have to admit I don't have the slightest idea of who this guy is. It might be because only one of his books was translated into Finnish, and I have read 99% of scifi in Finnish...

Then there was this short story challenge... it's international, but has entry fees... so... Have to think about that a little bit more :-D

Holiday Reading Challenge

2010-12-06T12:13:00.000-08:00

All about {n} is hosting a Holiday Reading Challenge. It started already three weeks ago, but I am confident I'll manage :-D

This is my reading list:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich
and
Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

All these I can get from Södertälje library, unless someone snatches them tomorrow in front of my nose. :-D
I should read these before 2011, which gives me 24 days, about 5 days for book. I'll read them in that order, so if I don't have time to read them before New Year's Day, it won't be a big problem :-D
The reading challenge is all about reading 1-5 books somehow connected to Christmas.

Also The Christmas Spirit is hosting a reading challenge :-D

"cross overs with other challenges is totally permitted AND encouraged!" Okay!

Added 8/12 - I have added links to the books to the reviews :-) The review gets up when I have read the book, and the link gets up after the review is posted :-)
Also, I was lucky - I got all the books from the library! Yay!

December Blog Parties :-)

2010-12-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter blog fest
http://writing-art-and-design.blogspot.com/2010/12/hp-blogfest-reminder.html
Write 500 words Harry Potter fan fiction about the theme "holidays"
Use any characters from any of the 7 books, for example the house elves and post it in your blog on the 11th of December.

Midwinter Blogfest
http://www.mariekenijkamp.com/musings/?p=567
Write about your main character's Midwinter celebrations (not more than 500 words) and post it in your blog on 11th of December :-D

Christmas Tales blog fest
http://elliegarratt.blogspot.com/2010/11/christmas-tales-blogfest.html
write anything Christmassy (under 1000 words, preferably :-D) and post it in your blog on 12th of December

Twisted Christmas fairytale
http://tgunwriter.blogspot.com/2010/11/twisted-christmas-fairy-tale-blogfest.html
Write 500-1000 words twisted fairytale and post it in your blog on 18th of December :-D

Be Jolly By Golly blog hop feast
http://melissa-throughthelookingglass.blogspot.com/2010/11/test-ignore-bloggers.html
Blog about your Christmas/Yule/Chanukkah/whatever on December 20th.

12 days of yule blog party
http://ladycattrashadow.blogspot.com/2010/11/12-days-of-yule-blog-party.html
Post from 20th to 31st about the given themes

36 dramatic situations

2010-12-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Now I have read Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations... Interesting.

I have learned a new word: suzerainty.
"Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy."
Oh! Israel-Palestine!

His language is old-fashioned and not too well translated, and his ideas, values, attitudes, prejudices? are so... hmm...

26th dramatic situation: crimes of love; Sixth : Homosexuality:
"The tribadic or sapphic branch has not been used upon the stage; Mourey alone has attempted it, but in vain in his "Lawn Tennis." The objection which might be urged against it (and which probably explains why the drama, in the ages of its liberty, has made no use of it) is that this vice has not the horrible grandeur of its congener. Weak and colorless, the last evil habit of worn-out or unattractive women, it does not offer to the tragic poet that madness, brutal and preposterous, but springing from wild youth and strength, which we find in the criminal passion of the heroic ages."

Lesbian love is "weak and colorless, the last evil habit of worn-out or unattractive women" :-D

It is what you make of it, dear Georges... But, poor Georges was born 1868. I find it interesting that he can at some level understand an attractive and powerful man's passion, love, desire, to a young and attractive man, and that the man "dared to express and gratify" these "unnatural" feelings, that his love was responded, and he calls the story "fine and moving"... But for a woman to feel passion, love and desire to another woman, they both must be either "worn-out" or "unattractive"...
This is all information of Gabriel Mourey's Lawn-Tennis I have managed to find:

"His explicitly lesbian one-act play Lawn-tennis, understandably turned down by Antoine for the Théathre Libre in May 1891, has similarities with Jeux but was never considered as a model. Camille and Elaine go much further than the three coy dancers in Nijinsky's supposedly daring scenarion twenty-two years later, and Mourey's 'mixed doubles' were extremely short-lived!"
Debussy and the theatre by Robert Orledge

"A group of young artists led by André Antoine had recently founded the cooperative Théâtre Libre to experiment with new forms and controversial themes. They had promised their friend Gabriel Mourey that they would produce his lesbian drama, Lawn-Tennis, but upon reading it, they considered it too risky and dropped the project."
French Theater by Louis Godbout

"This short piece is Lawn-tennis, by Gabriel Mourey, Antoine's friend. It seems that they associated tennis and lesbianism already then, because it is a love story of two women. One, Elaine, is feminine and has long been under the inluence of the other, Camille, who is rather masculine; it is therefore the model of fem-butch we are being served. The action takes place on a tennis court where Camille, back from a long journey, is desperate to see Elaine, who married in her absence, and does all she can to avoid the meeting. Camille's hope rises, when Georges, Elaine's new husband, confides to her that their love is crumbling. He believes Elaine loves another man, but Camille joyfully assures him that there has never been other men in her life.
Camille finally manages to see Elaine. She confesses to Elaine that she still loves her, confident and trustful, but in the moment of her victory Elaine tells her in disgust that she is pregnant and she wants to break up the relationship with Camille and go to her husband. Camille mad with rage then strangles Elaine, saying "yes, I'm here, it's me, Georges, your Georges whom you love..."while Elaine desperately cries for Georges"
- Le Rideau Rose, histoire du théâtre gai et lesbien jusqu'en 1969 by Louis Godbout
(my translation - consider that my French isn't that good.)

I think that is more "madness, brutal and preposterous, but springing from wild youth and strength, which we find in the criminal passion" than "last evil habit of worn-out and unattractive women"... And it was written 1891.

Well... what ever. We have come a LOOOOOOONG way in 100 years... Or most of us, at least :-D

"But it is not possible to detail in these pages, even if I so desired, the second part of the Art of Combination; that which we in France call by the somewhat feeble term (as Goethe remarked) "composition." All that I have here undertaken to show is, first, that a single study must create, at the same time, the episodes or actions of the characters, and the characters themselves : for upon the stage, what the latter are may be known only by what they do; next, how invention and composition, those two modes of the Art of Combination (not Imagination, empty word!) will, in our works to come, spring easily and naturally from the theory of the Thirty-Six Situations.

Thus, from the first edition of this little book, I might offer (speaking not ironically but seriously) to dramatic authors and theatrical managers, ten thousand scenarios, totally different from those used repeatedly upon our stage in the last fifty years- The scenarios will be, needless to say, of a realistic and effective character.
I will contract to deliver a thousand in eight days.
For the production of a single gross, but twenty-four hours are required.
Prices quoted on single dozens.
Write or call, No. 19, Passage de 1'Elysee des Beaux-Arts.
The Situations will be detailed act by act, and, if desired, scene by scene"

But I hear myself accused, with much violence, of an intent to "kill imagination." "Enemy of fancy !" "Destroyer of wonders!" "Assassin of prodigy!"
These and similar titles cause me not a blush.

- Georges Polti

Such a pity he didn't write the Art of Composition as well :-D

What KIND of story - Alexandra Sokoloff

Nothing much...

2010-12-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

I found my NaNoWriMo 2008 novel. Some 3000 words. Ha.

I was also reading my blog, this blog, the earlier entries. I've read 2008 and 2009 now, and was reminded of Alexandra Sokoloff. I think I might want to try her index card method on my novels...
I also need to read the Process For Writing better, but it's 10 P.M. and I'm ready to sleep now... it has been a long day :-D

I'll leave you with Allison Winn Scotch and JUST WRITE!
Cheryl Klein's mid-line edit ramble on line-editing
and Joanna Paterson's the secret: 20 ways to attract more comments to your blog
P.S. Smart Bitches who read Trashy Books have Chanukkah give-away.

Thank you :-)

2010-12-04T02:23:00.000-08:00

Helena was talking about how good it feels to get praise as a writer, especially when the praise is about the "right things" - you know, the ones one hopes to get praise for :-)

The she says: " Of course I should boast that I happily have INTELLIGENT readers who leave witty comments and several of whom have their own blogs (Hart, Ben and Ketutar, in particular)."

Thank you, Helena! *_* My husband can testify that I squealed when I read my name on the list :-) I love to hear someone thinks I'm an intelligent reader who leaves witty comments :-D
You made my day :-)

Then I followed her blog links, took the spelling test at Crystal Clear Proofing, (5/10 :-( I really need to work on my English, spelling, vocabulary and grammar), and found this: Nanonono!
Made me giggle.
And decide I want to take on the challenge... 60K words in 5 days... Hmm... My best result so far is 7K words in one day... That is, 7K original fiction. I can easily spout thousands of words, if I'm "expressing my opinion" on one of my pet peeves. Israel-Palestine and Indo-European religions, mainly Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. I wrote a several thousand words blog entry yesterday in the subject of Eckhard Tolle and A New World. *yuk* (I am not being nice there, so if you love the book, think ego is a "bad thing" or don't want to read a negative critique, don't go there.

Anyway, NaNoNoNo! took me to Emma Darwin's blog and "revising and editing"
Her books look interesting :-)

I like readin' Patricia's blog, and this time she was talking about the review war at Amazon.com...
I do read the reviews at Amazon, and they do have some influence on me, in such a way that bad reviews might make me decide not to read a book, if I'm not sure I want to read it.
I use Amazon.com's recommendations, "frequently bought together" and "customers also bought..."

I am very interested in Catherine Fisher's Saphique and Incarceron, I think the books look promising and the excerpts and synopsis sound interesting, and then I like Cornelia Funke and Orson Scott Card, so this gives me enough reason to believe I would like these books.

Then I go and find out more information, usually the author's homepage, if there is one.

I haven't read the reviews on Catherine's books.
I read Pi's Journey because of the reviews and... I hated the book.
I read Da Vinci Code because of the reviews, and hated it.
I read Outlander because of the reviews - or started... I just cannot finish it, and life is too short to read books I don't like. There's plenty of books I like out there, so if my "general knowledge" is lacking due to the fact I haven't read some popular books, so be it. I hate Outlander too.
I didn't read Twilight because of the reviews... but then I decided to make up my own mind about it, and started reading it, and I cannot go on, because I hate Bella. I suppose Stephenie isn't that bad a writer, and she'll get better too, if she doesn't let the fame get to her, but keeps writing, and tries to stay popular even when she doesn't write YA vampire books. Good for her. But I sincerely hate Bella and cannot find any reason why both Edward and Jacob (and all the other guys as well) find her so attractive. She's full of herself, moody (usually moping) and doesn't treat people well.

Then I think about my Dido, and how I hate her too. *sigh* For different reasons, though, but still... but if I made her so that I'd like her, I wouldn't have a story. She would have sold the amulet in the first place, how ever much she liked it, and how ever much she disliked Hallam. Nevertheless, that's one of the reasons I hate her. I was taught to say "yes" if I don't have a really, really, really good reason to say "no", and not liking someone is not a good reason. Saying "no", because you don't like the person asking is just mean.

Blog leaping and hopping...

2010-12-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

JAM session: Writing mechanics

I don't know mine...

When I was about 15 I wrote my first novel. It was a fantasy story of a boy, red horse and blue paper doll. I saw it in my dream, started with the dream, and then continued. I explained to my sister what it was all about, and she said something... don't know exactly what, but what I remember is that I got the impression she thought it was a bad story, boring, repetitive and cementing patriarchal gender roles. Might be she didn't think that, that perhaps it was just a bad synopsis - she never read a word of what I had written - and I easily misunderstand, but... I didn't write one more word to the story.

Then I have learned a lot from different "rules" of writing. As I pointed out in an earlier blog entry, I have learned to "skip the unnecessary burden" - which practically means everything. You know, "don't drivel, don't describe, don't use passive voice and adverbs, kill your darlings, keep it short and simple is best." Now it makes it really hard for me to write novels. I mean, of course one could call a 50K novel a novel, but it really isn't. It should have at least 15K more words, and even then it would be considered a short novel. Preferably 75-90K. I had to "kill my darlings", that is, all the "rules of writing" I have gathered during my life. I had to throw out my ~~-ly~~ badge.

But - to other things: Steampunk Aesthethics

"The technological marvels of the Victorian period were rare and often unique, both historically and in 19th century literature. Individuals invented new technologies based on the latest scientific and engineering discoveries. Steampunk should embrace that diversity and rarity."

Yes! I want more steam and less punk :-D Jules Verne is supposed to be an idol. :-)

If a soccer mom took over Santa...
Though... aren't they called curling moms?

Found this "interesting" (creepy, actually) "coincident" when checking if they are called curling moms: straight after each other were these results:

That was NOT what you were supposed to do with your win! I'm pretty sure there are warning texts with the curling iron that tells you NOT to do that to a baby. Should be... I wonder if someone sues the company now, because the warning texts don't tell you not to curl your baby's fingers?

Drabble Day

2010-12-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

Challenge from Aheila

It was the same old story, girl and boy meets, girl falls in love with the boy, perhaps he in her too, something happens and they depart. At least one heart is broken, the tears roll, words are uttered that can never be taken back again.

But while it lasted, it was wonderful. They used to walk by the canal, watching swallows write love poems on the sky. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, his were brown, and the kisses were like wine and honey.

He didn't like wine, she hated honey... perhaps it was better this way.

About writing journals and writer's block

2010-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

Anna at Anna's Obsession asked how people get over their writer's blocks.
This is what I answered:

Writer's block is when you sit there in front of the computer or an empty paper and just stare at it. You come up with nothing to write. Absolutely nothing.

I thought it was just words, couldn't imagine it ever happening, but then came NaNoWriMo, and I was there. Staring at the empty screen.

I got over it.

1. I have a writing journal. It isn't very organized, it would be better if it was.

2. I write down my ideas. Where do I get the ideas?

Just like you, I too have interesting dreams. I remember my dreams when I don't try to remember them. I have written down several. Sometimes it's just words, or images, something associations.

I like to fantasize a lot. I fantasize when I walk the dog, when I take the bus, when I wait in line, when I do the dishes and especially when I try to fall asleep. I have written down some of these too.

I write fan fiction. I like taking existing story lines, characters, ideas, and play with them. Most often the fan fiction is unrecognizable, if you just change the most glaring bits, like names and descriptions.

I like reading. I read everything. From newspapers to books, contemporary novels, classics, children's books, any genre. I like watching television. I like movies. I like music. Every now and then I read, hear or see something, just a line, that makes me think. When I search for books at book store, I read the synopsis, and sometimes that makes me think.

The life itself is inspiring. Perhaps a couple of words heard in a bus, an usually beautiful day... things happen. Writers are artists painting with words.

Then there are those book, you know, that make you say "I could have written this better..."
Do it.

If nothing else works, there are several writing prompts around.

3. Then it's just to sit down and write. Even if it is "I am a writer. Writers write, so I write. I write mighty kingdoms and people of flesh and blood, and it is possible that somewhere, somehow, sometime, they live. In another galaxy, far far away from here... there was a little boy who dreamed about flying like his father. His father was an angel, but his mother was a mortal woman, prude and pious, and she was horrified to find out how an angel could desire what by the wicked, lusty people is called love, and she hated what became of this..."

And there you go.

Also, a habit of writing - every day, 2000 words or 10 pages (or what ever goal you have) - makes it hard for you not to write.

"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."
-- Toni Morrison

Dean R. Koontz says in "Writing Popular Fiction" this: "A writer's block is most often caused by one of five things: overwork, boredom, self-doubt, financial worries, or emotional problems between the writer and those close to him.
If overwork is the cause, stop writing for a couple of days or weeks; when you're ready to start again, you'll know, because the typewriter will no longer appear to be a formidable opponent, but a delightful toy.
If boredom with the piece in progress has slowed you to a standstill, put it aside and begin something new, no matter how close to the end of the piece you may be; chances are, if it bores you, it will bore editors and readers also.
The simplest way to cure a case of self-doubt is to shame yourself without restraint for your lack of confidence and start something new which may, by its freshness, restore your confidence. Don't worry if you go through a dozen ideas before you hit something that gets you going again.
Financial worries must be solved before you can write again, even if that means you-the full-time freelancer-must take a job, temporarily, to keep above water, or you-the part-time writer-must take a part-time job and temporarily forsake writing until your financial position is less
chaotic.
If emotional entanglements occupy your mind and keep you from producing, sit down with your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, and talk out the things that are bothering you. Not only will such sessions improve your love life, they will improve your writing as well.
No writer's block need be more than a few days long if he is determined to break it."

Then I wrote this as base for an article to write, about Writer's Journal:

"A writer's notebook gives you a place to live like a writer, wherever you are, at any time of day."
-- From A Writer's Notebook, Unlocking the Writer Within You, by Ralph Fletcher

A writer's notebook is an idea storage and a resource bank.

You will need:

- a journal

Your journal should be such that you like to write in it. You have to like its looks. Choose covers that give you the feeling you are a professional writer, or inspirational covers.
I write on anything, but some people want their paper white, others prefer cream or pastels or other colors. Some prefer paper with lines, some unlined. The paper comes in different weights, surfaces and textures. Ordinary printer paper is white, light, smooth and dense. Choose the paper of your journal so that you enjoy writing on it.
Also, choose the size and bind so that you feel comfortable to write on it anywhere and carry it everywhere with you. A larger, spiral bound journal with soft covers might not be a good choice, but choose that, if you like writing in such. You can always get it loose hard covers.
Also, you should not feel afraid to tear off pages, draw lines over everything and get it dirty. It is supposed to follow with you until you have filled it, in every weather and environment, you are supposed to feel good to write in it in crowded places, in rain, in a coffee house - everywhere. Don't choose an expensive book you want to keep tidy. The writer's journal is not meant to be used with a ruler, nor is it meant to be graded. You are the only one who is supposed to see and read it.

- a pen

Choose a pen that you like to write with, and that is easily used. I use a mechanic pencil with 0,5 mm HB lead. I like to both write and draw with it. Don't choose something romantic like a quill and ink. It is hard to take it up in a bus to jot down a conversation you happen to hear, that inspires you.

- if you have a pencil, you need an eraser too. If your pencil is not mechanical, you need a sharpener.
- scissors, tape, glue, stapler, paper clips
- post-its
- perhaps highlighters or markers

What to write in it?

It is a good idea to start with a table of contents. It helps you later to find what you are looking for.

- write down quotes you like
- write down passages from books you like
- write down poems you like
- write down words you like
- write down interesting names - for characters and novels
- write down interesting snippets of discussions you hear, from real life or television
- write down comparisons, parables, descriptions, everything like this you like
- write down how other writers have described sounds, smells, sensations, taste, in a way that you like
- paste articles and newspaper and magazine clippings in it
- paste inspiring images, pictures, artwork, doodles in it or draw straight into it
- paste interesting comics in it
- paste into it inspiring scraps you find, like discarded score boards, lists, tickets, flat things rescued from the street or garbage, ephemera, stickers, stamps...
- add pressed flowers or leaves
- add samplers to it
- put brochures and programs between the pages. Fasten with a piece of tape or a paper clip.
- save inspiring letters and post cards in it
- draw maps, charts, diagrams, templates, webs, tables, pedigrees etc. in it
- write down lists in it - places to visit, professions, likes and dislikes, phobias...
- write down interesting characters you have met, read about or seen in television or movies
- write down your dreams and fantasies in it
- write down your questions in it
- write down your ideas and thoughts in it
- write down interesting snippets of information
- add post-its and notes
- cut inspiring covers and synopsis from book magazines and catalogs and paste into your writing journal
- write the research notes in it
- write ideas for good leads and endings in it
- write down interesting writing prompts in it
- write down themes, plots, scenes and storylines in it
- write down single emotions, memories, happenings, but not as in a "normal" journal, in which you register your everyday life, feelings and thoughts. A Writer's journal or a notebook is an idea bank, not a diary.

- write down the ideas, thoughts, dreams these words inspire

And then I read this:

Keeping a journal or notebook fosters the journal-writing skill, not the fiction-writing skill.
-- Caro Clarke; the writer's notebook, or let's not really write

Oh.

But then I remember the Renaissance method. Several authors manage to write fiction even though they have a writer's journal :-D Go ahead and do what ever you like. It's not that your ideas get stale or die because you write them down in a journal.

P.S. A note to female writers, age 13-22 - it's time for Cleopatra Award
The competition is open for all young women, who write in English. It's international, so not only for those living in USA, Canada and UK, like so many other possibilities.
You can submit a short story, an essay, a poem or an excerpt (not more than 2000 words) from a novel or novella (or novelet ;-)) and your entry should be about the themes explored in "The Lily of Nile", a historical novel about Cleopatra's daughter, written by Stephanie Dray, who established and sponsors this literary competition for young women.

My NaNovel

2010-11-30T04:15:00.000-08:00

Dido Heaven is a witch who doesn't believe in magic. Not really. Until, one day magic starts messing up her tidy, normal life and forces her to believe in it.
Dido is fully happy with her life, a good book, cats, a cup of tea and apples, who would ask for more? Sure, it was nice when the handsome man walked into her store, but why is he so adamant about a necklace? And what made the windows shatter? Why are people dying around her? What is it with all these beautiful people forcing themselves into her life? Strange things happen, things that cannot happen, may not happen, shouldn't happen... why, how, who...?
There are only questions, questions, questions, but no answers, at least no rational ones. The only possible answers are impossible to believe. There is no magic...

Is there?

------------------

Excerpt: Heart of Amber

“I’ve seen windows shot at. They don’t break like this.” Nasir said looking at the glass daggers embedded into the wooden desk. “Magic would explain this nicely”, he said.
Dido was speechless for a moment, then burst out saying: “Magic doesn’t explain anything!” She frowned in disbelief. “It’s for subtle influences, praying for peace, and angels, and... fairies... and global warming... and...”

Merit badges

2010-11-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

The Merit Badger has created badges for writing and reading. Nice: I like badges :-)

I have paid my library fees, I sniff books (mmmm.... old books, new books, most books smell so good... except a smoker's books or books from a New Age shop where they burn incense all the time. Yuk.) And I read epic fantasy, and historical novels, and basically everything. My book shelves are a mess, and there are books everywhere, and I judge books by the cover, even though I read also books that don't look that nice on the cover. But I don't remember ever reading an ugly book believing it's crap and then found out it's not. It's usually the other way around. I read a book by the cover and it turns out to be everything but what is promised by the cover. *sigh* And I read banned books and communicate with other book lovers on-line, and OMG was I disappointed with His Dark Materials. *sigh* And I share my books, even when a couple never came back, and I like to talk about books I like and as far as I know I have converted a couple of people :-D

A lot more writing badges... I think I earned most of these at NaNoWriMo :-D It started with writer's block and ended with over 50K words. I have not written every day, but I have kept my butt on the chair and written, without knowing what is going to flow from my fingers, and I had a REALLY good day with over 7000 words. I have been distracted by all the amazing blogs and other sites on-line, and I have managed to drag me out of it, and sit down to write. I have created worlds and places, written High Fantasy, and my husband hates me, because I keep talking against -ing and -ly :-D Even though I use them, I do, a lot. Eagerly, willingly and with pleasure :-D I have written by hand, and when I eat, and when I watch the television. And, as I already said before, I need more padding! Oh, and I type like 60-70 wpm. And I am SOOOO envious at some people. Mostly all published authors :-D And all who have got a Nobel prize, and all who have become rich rich rich by writing, and especially those whom I don't like. *sigh* :-D

Now I'm a bit uncertain of if this is okay... is this "derivative work"?

Writing Blogs Written By Men

2010-11-29T03:52:00.000-08:00

Why You Shouldn't Write Often

Okay, so perhaps I'm not a GOOD writer, but being a BAD writer is better than not being a writer at all.

No, you don't become a good writer by writing, you become good at writing - the mechanical process, the profession, the activity - which is something you need if you plan being a writer.
You become a good writer by reading.

I have been reading some blogs lately, trying to find writing blogs written by men, for my husband, who is trying to get his writing blog by a man fly.

I don't like Men with Pens, even when it is a blog - sort of - written by men, about writing.

My Literary Jam and Toast is a blog to my taste. It is written by a woman.
I also like Grab a Pen - also written by a woman.
I also like Fiction Groupie :-) By a woman.
and Becoming a Fiction Writer... yes, also by a woman.

I found:
Lee Goldberg's A Writer's Life
Neil Gaiman I love, but he writes so seldom to the blog. Good, I say. I want him write many, many books :-D
Paulo Coelho's blog might be something for my husband... It is something for me :-) It's just not so much about writing.
Neither is Wil Wheaton's In Exile, but I like it nevertheless. And he is a man who writes.
Jurgen Wolff's Time to Write might be what he is looking for...
John Baker's blog is not for me, but perhaps it is for someone else.
There is the wordswimmer, written by a guy. Makes me realize I do NOT like blogs with only one entry showing. I don't care to push the "Older posts" all the time.
Cole Writing looks interesting.
There's Tom Conoboy's Writing Blog, Luc Reid's Reidwrite, Advanced Fiction Writing by Randy Ingemanson, "The Snowflake Guy", Crawford Kilian's Writing Fiction, Alex Cavanaugh's blog, Ted Cross' blog and Nathan Bransford's blog, which was the one I was thinking, when my husband complained about the lack of good writing blogs written by men. I like that one very much :-D
I also just have to mention Benny's Fluent in Three Months, even when it's not about writing... at least, most of it is not. He's working as a freelance translator, so there's something useful for writers too. ;-)

And then there are several multi-author blogs, with mixed gender authors, and I assume SF Novelists would be what he's after.

Clear with Mr. Clarity sounds interesting too... and I assume Mr.Clarity is a man :-D It's not the kind of a blog I assume my husband is talking about, but an interesting blog nevertheless.
I also suspect the Man Cave author is a man... I think he should be, if he isn't :-D
I am also under the impression that Just the Cheese is written by a man.

I don't know if Query Shark is written by a man or a woman, but it looks interesting.

Also, Ralph Fletcher's Tips for Young Writers looks interesting. I'm going to go and read it after I have written this blog entry :-D

100 recommended books

2010-11-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

I am going to make a confession... I haven't read most of these (41 of 100) But I suppose I'm better off than most. Watery Tart says BBC says people in general have only read 6 of them...

I have read the bolded, the italialized I have started to read but haven't been able to finish for one reason or another. (Probably because at the moment I started to read it, I found the book so darn boring!)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

(I would like to say that there is no need to read the New Testament. There isn't much of a story there. Read the Old Testament with the apocrypha.)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

WTF?

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

YUK, YUK, YUK!!!

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Loved this one... why it is on the list... don't know.

57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I don't think the list is about GOOD books, more than "you should at least know the story, and the original story, so that you won't go telling people things like "The Little Mermaid marries the prince and lives happily ever after". Or that "Scarlett O'Hara had red hair" or that "Anne of Green Gables went to France to find Gilbert during WWI".

So - having seen the movie doesn't count, nor does some "fan fiction" (which sequels and prequels written by other than original authors are) and abridged versions.

Also, there are some new books on the list I don't think should be there. I strongly doubt anyone will read books like Da Vinci Code in just some decades. Right now it's still riding on the waves of the big publishing bang, but... Who noticed the publishing of the sequel?
The same goes with every book on the list published during the last 20 years.

But I don't know what this list actually is. Recommended? Best books? What?

Yay, Winner!!!

2010-11-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

I didn't know it would feel like this... I actually cried :-D And then I laughed, and listened to the cheering people :-D You are amazing bunch of people, NaNoWriMo and Office of Letters and Light :-)

Yes, I am a NaNoWriMo winner :-)
I have written over 50.000 words in November.
I am not done yet :-D
I am also especially proud because from 4th until 13th I didn't write much at all, and then it took me a little to get back on track again, so I have written 30.000 words in 10 days.

I feel darn good right now :-)

Some 7000 words later...

2010-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

I'm hopelessly in love with my male lead... Is that bad?

It should mean, that if I love him, so will others...

but if I am getting jealous at my female lead - and she is still stupid... or actually she isn't. [I made a MarySue to bash her a little. She had to be a MarySue, otherwise she wouldn't have had the right to bash the poor girl. Heroines may not be bashed... because people are supposed to identify themselves with her. Anyway, after the bashing and straightening up, she is now only extremely ignorant and full of weird prejudices, but not stupid. It's more believable now that the hero could fall in love with her. I just don't like it one bit :-D Perhaps, because she isn't me - the MarySue is, and she's already married to the villain, and even though he is all nice and that, I like the little brother better :-D Maybe I get my villain leave his wife for the heroine, so that I... er... MarySue can get the hero ;-> No, he would never do that. But, on the other hand, look at her. Who would? On the third hand (how many are there?) she might be a total bitch. Of course she isn't because she's MarySue, but because she is, why would her husband ever even think of cheating her?]

I'm starting to feel more and more that I'm writing a Twilight :-D The female leas is "normal, average, not too pretty" (but kind of pretty, anyway) and the male lead is like SOOOO gorgeous. :-D
Isn't that suppose to happen too? But I wanted to write a mystery, thriller, suspense... and now I'm writing a paranormal romance :-D Nothing wrong with that, but... *sigh* It's like when you WANT to write one thing, but the story decides it's something else.

Also, there is this Finnish author, Kaari Utrio, whose heroines are ALWAYS red-heads and heros ALWAYS blonde... so I'm writing a Kaari Utrio! And it was totally accidental. I wanted a red-haired heroine, but not one with amazing green eyes, no, she would have brown eyes.
Then I made the villain, and I wanted to make him a Nazi, so - behold, Lucius Malfoy. But he would have dark blue eyes, slate-blue eyes, warm eyes. (He looks actually quite a bit like my nephew... Interesting.)
So then he invented himself a wife, who had the same color hair as the heroine, but different color eyes. Well... she decided to become real, not stay an invention, and my MarySue was born.
Then I created the hero, who is villain's little brother, so he had to be blond too, but whereas his brother was silver-blond with dark eyes, he was to be like a spring day, with sky-blue eyes and light, golden hair.

*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
Well... Wasn't I supposed to sueify my book and add purple?

Anyway... isn't it nice to be a writer, you can take every person and character and mix it up and take what you like and leave what you don't like, and then play make-believe? In a world where everything is just as you like it... except when the characters and the plot and the side plots and all the other bits and pieces decide to take the story to a whole different direction... but that's nice too, it's like one of those books, you know, written just for you. You get to be the first person to read this brand new story!

P.S. I wrote over 7000 words today for NaNoWriMo... I was hopelessly behind after my 10 days in Finland, but now it's starting to look possible again :-) Wahoo, me!

P.P.S. From writer today: a 12 step program for writers who care

Can you tell I'm procrastinating?

2010-11-23T17:39:00.000-08:00

Book Covers, Appendix I

2010-11-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

A little inspiration for Helena :-)

James Bond covers

These are first edition dust jackets by Richard Chopping.

As far as I know, he didn't do it in this style for all of the books, which is a pity.

Pan covers from the 60's - above - and the 70's - below.
The 60's covers are surprisingly modern... I would have said 80's. I also have to say I think they are the most serious of the James Bond covers, and gives a bit seriousness to the books... They don't look immediately like pulp fiction.
The 70's collage covers really funny and very typical for the time :-D Though I wouldn't have thought this as James Bond cover...If I had to guess, I'd have said they are hobby book covers :-D

Richie Fahey's charming collage covers from 2003

And last, Michael Gillette's centennial covers. I simply love these. So perfect, have the bond girls and pulp fiction feeling, but still so stylish and beautiful and... yeah, different colors ;-) I'm bound to like that in covers :-D

Modesty Blaise Covers

Again, simple is best. The first one is the first cover ever made for Modesty, the last on the first row are the newest covers, from 2007.
The middle row is covers for the cartoon books, but would work for novels too.
The last row is the first print, as far as I understand. I love #3 - the pin-up girl with the HUGE iron something and the little bow... oh so CUTE!!! ROTFLMAO

Actually... for an action novel to work, Artemis Fowl covers might do too...

Book Covers

2010-11-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

I don't remember if I have talked about this issue before, but I was watching the "30 covers in 30 days" at NaNoWriMo, and I am reminded of the talent of the designers/artists making book covers...

I have a simple taste. I like the graphic covers, with the name of the book, the author and perhaps a picture.

I also like colors. I fell in love immediately with these new covers for Jean M. Untinen Auel's Ayla books... I love the cave paintings, and the simplicity of these covers is just... perfect :-) I hope the artists also makes the cover for the next book, that is supposed to come out next year.

And then there's always the magical, mystical, mythical and medieval... ;-)

Just wanted to mention here that I love Pauline Baynes, especially her black-and-white illustrations. May she rest in peace :-)
Her miniatures are absolutely amazing... I wish I had the patience and endurance to keep working with my miniatures, so that one day I might be as good as she was :-)

Added a little later:

I would very much like covers like these for my books:

These are inspired by Swedish John Eyre,

who made the covers for the Swedish prints of Dan Brown's books,

and something similar to this for the Finnish author, Väinö Linna.

I don't like the colors, nor the daisies, but the idea made me cry.

Thank you, John, for understanding the Finnish folk soul and Väinö Linna :´)

P.S. I found this about the Outlander covers. Oh, how I wish they had stayed with this cover! I would never have thought it was something for me... :-( I hate the book. :-D

P.P.S. These are the covers for my NaNoWriMo, designed by yours truly. :-)

Words are magical

2010-11-22T02:54:00.000-08:00

"Movie makers have it easy, it seems. To convey an emotional tone they have sets, lighting, props, music and the ability to show the foreground action and the background action."
- Every Picture Has a Story, WOW

And so do the writers. We have words to light the scene, to set the tone, to add music and props... we make the story move fast by using verbs, or slow it down, calm and gently, to a nice, slow pace by using the versatile and descriptive adjectives... Words have color, tone and pictures. War is a hard and red word, death final and dark... love is a soft and pink word, dog happy and blue and brown, like little boys, frogs and carpenter pants. You can see the freckles, old straw hat and fishing rod, even when today they seldom exist. The dog has brown spots and it jumps around the boy and laughs, with tongue hanging out.
As Stephen King says, we are magicians working with telepathy all the time...

The article about symbolism is very interesting and inspiring. It made me think about how I could use symbols in writing, the magic and power of words, and seeing my work a little more like the work of the director and editor of a movie. Thank you, Patricia, for leading me to it :-)

Among the things she posted were Jane Friedman's There Are No Rules about query letters
and The Dreaded Rewrite, which I suppose I should be doing with my NaNo. I have started writing the story, got to the middle, introduced all the characters and I have outlined the end, but I don't know how to lead the beginning to the end, because I hate my stupid (yeah, she's dumb as a boot) MC, and cannot find one reason why my male lead would find her in any way attractive. Except that she's not uglier than any other woman, but my male lead isn't stupid, so he isn't shallow either. *sigh*
So - I just need to brighten her up a bit and make her a little more likable... perhaps she could have a soft spot in her heart to alley cats and kids, or something. Stand by the soup kitchen once a week and feed children... like she has asked the local public school if she may borrow their kitchen at weekends so that the kids who have nothing could come and at least have one warm meal in their tummies every day, or something.

I don't understand why I ever thought...

2010-11-21T04:48:00.000-08:00

that I would be a writer :-D

Yes, it's that phase of NaNoWriMo going on with me. I have managed to write over 15.000 words in November, and we have passed the 2/3 line, so I'm only some 15.000 words behind the schedule.

In spite of all my good plans and preparations, I'm stuck. I don't like my characters, and if I don't, who will?

It's really annoying, because I would LIKE to write books about all the things everyone else writes books at the moment; mythology, supernatural, superstitions, paranormal thingies... but I don't WANT to write about what everyone else is writing. :-(
It kind of doesn't cut it to say that "well, isn't there tons of romance novels too, and tons of fantasy, why not tons of novels of the paranormal, supernatural, mythical, magical and mystical?", it doesn't help telling myself that "It doesn't matter what anyone else writes, I'm the only one who can write what I write". I would LIKE to write something a little bit more original than that.

BTW; did you know that 10 years ago I didn't know there were romance novels about witches and vampires :-D I thought it was a novel thought, and that I might be able to write that. Perhaps, if I HAD written what I wanted to, 10 years ago. *sigh*

What was the 1st Paranormal Romance?
Isn't Dark Shadows and everything it bred a good candidate for that? How many of today's paranormal romance authors have actually seen and been influenced by the series? I think many...

Also, the curse of Mary Sue. I mean, we all write Mary Stus all the time, because we want to read about things that make us think about something else than our normal, boring lives, and we want to have a heroine who is smarter, prettier, more talented, more capable than everyday woman - especially me, who is not... well... I can't say "especially smart, because as far as I know and intelligence can be measured, I AM especially smart :-D Not that it's much help to me. If I am that smart, writing a book shouldn't be a big problem, don't you think? But obviously it is.

It really shouldn't, because I can whip up a character, interesting but not Mary Sue, at any moment, and create this character a whole family, and neighbors with families, inhabit whole villages with imaginary people.
I can write dialogue, and I think it sounds ok.
I have ideas about stories, histories, storylines, and what nots. I can invent ten things, give my characters goals, fears, hopes and needs, that lead from one point to another...
I can also easily write a synopsis. It might not be an interesting synopsis, but a synopsis that says with a couple of words what the story is all about. Maybe that's my problem...
I have read so many times "kill your darlings", "avoid Mary Sues", "avoid purple prose", "keep it simple, keep it short", "if you can say it with one word, why use two" and so on and so forth, so that I keep killing and simplifying and peeling and trying to say with one word everything, so in the end I have only a handful of words, that are enough to tell the whole story... but it's not a novel. It's a synopsis.

Maybe I should do the opposite... try to write purple prose, Mary Sues and revive my "darlings"...

It was a dark and stormy night...

My hubby's blog

2010-11-20T00:47:00.001-08:00

http://bearinabottle.wordpress.com/

Do visit it, he has some nice ideas and insights :-)

Five senses and wits

2010-11-14T01:00:00.000-08:00

This is from Wikipedia:

In the time of William Shakespeare, there were commonly reckoned to be five wits and five senses. The five wits were sometimes taken to be synonymous with the five senses, but were otherwise also known and regarded as the five inward wits, distinguishing them from the five senses, which were the five outward wits.

Much of this conflation has resulted from changes in meaning. In Early Modern English, "wit" and "sense" overlapped in meaning. Both could mean a faculty of perception (although this sense dropped from the word "wit" during the 17th century). Thus "five wits" and "five senses" could describe both groups of wits/senses, the inward and the outward, although the common distinction, where it was made, was "five wits" for the inward and "five senses" for the outward.

The inward and outward wits are a product of many centuries of philosophical and psychological thought, over which the concepts gradually developed, that have their origins in the works of Aristotle (who only defined four senses, however). The concept of five outward wits came to medieval thinking from Classical philosophy, and found its most major expression in Christian devotional literature of the Middle Ages. The concept of five inward wits similarly came from Classical views on psychology.

Modern thinking is that there are more than five (outward) senses, and the idea that there are five (albeit that it superficially matches the gross anatomical features — eyes, ears, nose, skin, and mouth — of many higher animals) does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. (For more on this, see Definition of sense.) But the idea of five senses/wits from Aristotelian, medieval, and 16th century thought still lingers so strongly in modern thinking that a sense beyond the natural ones is still called a "sixth sense".

These are the v. wyttes remeuing inwardly:
Fyrst, commyn wytte, and than ymaginacyon,
Fantasy, and estymacyon truely,
And memory, as I make narracyon;
Each upon other hath occupacyon.

Stephen Hawes, The Pastime Of Pleasure, XXIV "Of the Five Internall Wittes"

Hering, sight, smelling and fele,
cheuing er wittes five,
All sal be tint er sal pas,
quen þe hert sal riue.

Cursor Mundi, lines 17017–17020

Sounds interesting... I wonder what to do with it :-D
"Chewing, the fifth sense..."

Oh so tired...

2010-11-13T09:41:00.000-08:00

I arrived a couple of hours ago, and I have eaten and slept, so I'm better, but I'm tired, depressed and in slight pain.
I wasn't good at taking my medicine and now I'm afraid I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
I have been living with my hypersensitive respiratory system with some asthmatic reactions and I'm allergic to animals, dust mites and such things, and I have been living in a messy home with animals for too long, and now my lungs are closing down...

I really feel I'm getting paranoid and hypochondriac, seeing spooks in shadows and suspecting every mole of being malicious skin cancer, every consequence of my overweight of being a serious health problem, every normal stroke of flu of being something serious with my lungs.

It's kind of laughable and at the same time sad, because I am frightened.

Ah! O Ve! Oh, Fah!

2010-11-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, the story goes like this.

I am writing my NaNo and it's going pretty well. I have some 7000 words written now, and it's day 3, which means I'm more than a day ahead of the schedule.

It won't probably last for long though, as I am to fly to Finland tomorrow, and cannot take my laptop with me, because it weighs some kilos anyway, and I need the space to something warm to sleep in, because it's freezing in Finland where my mother lives, and... anyway, I'm going to Finland for a week, tomorrow.

My considerate, loving and kind husband bought me a new mouse. Tiny thing, wireless, easier to use for my so often aching hands. He comes home with his prey and, naturally, wants me to try the new gadget. I'm not that into trying new things the first possible second, but, how could you say no, huh? He indeed is so kind and nice, and did buy me a mouse to make it easier, and he is so eager to try it and all that, so of course I said yes.

Now, the problem is that I was writing my NaNo when he came home, and as I got distracted, by him coming home, by the new mouse, and I am a little stressed by the trip, so I forgot to save.

We were trying out the new mouse and it didn't want to work too well, and at some point something happened, and the computer understood I wanted to shut down Word. It does what it always does, that is asks if I want to save, or not, or cancel, and in my stress over everything going on, I clicked the wrong option. That is "don't save". Poof!

Also, I hadn't put the Word in my laptop to make a safety copy of what I'm writing, so there's no safety copy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily, it was only a couple of hundred words, and I could still remember pretty much what it was about, but... There's always this nasty feeling that what I wrote first would have been the best version, and this second one is not as good and will never be either.

Anyway, I came here to read some other blogs, and Watery Tart managed to say just the right thing to comfort a woman in despair.

1st day of NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T03:16:00.000-07:00

This is from 1000 Artist Journal Pages by Dawn DeVries Sokol.
I love Artist Journals, and this is a book with 1000 pages from different artists :-) I think I would have chosen other journal pages... I think I need to make my own artist journal/altered book with 1000 pages after my favorite journal artists :-) When, oh, when do I ever get time to write? :-D

Anyway, it's the first day of NaNoWriMo, and you might be sitting there without anything to write. Just start writing from the beginning and when you have emptied that issue, pick the next one and write. Go on, one thing you can do, now, today, to change the world...
It's actually a very good idea for a novel. :-D "Maire Nic Dhòmhnaill woke up one morning from a dream. It was a very nice dream, vivid, colored, made her feel happy... and she decided to change the world..."

Ideas R' Us

2010-10-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

if nothing else works, write writing prompts :-D

Found Shit

Make a jumpstart jar

"While reading "poemcrazy: freeing your life with words" by Susan Wooldrige (Three Rivers Press 1997), I became enchanted with her chapter about word tickets.
I went out to OfficeMax and bought a roll of them and began writing my own words on them... but the tickets were small and my handwriting too hard to read, so I began collecting words by cutting them out of newspapers and magazines and gluing them to the tickets. I added in provocative phrases, and in no time at all, I had filled an old Reebok shoe box full of tickets..."

On Writing a Novel: Three Letters

Philip Pullman's Pep Talk, 1/11-08

Now, go and do something else, and don't even dare to think about writing. It starts tomorrow...

Resolution - and other things

2010-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

When I was googling "writing novel resolution" for my "synopsis" post, I got a lot of interesting links.

Resolution: Write a Novel
I like what D-Dub says :-)
I like the blog too. She doesn't say much but it's interesting. On the other hand, I find almost anything said about writing interesting :-D

NaNoWriMo at About.com

Story Structure and Plot
Peder Hill has collected some interesting information about writing.

Three simple resolutions for writers for 2010
1) be realistic, 2) read and 3) write :-D

Writing the novel by Stephanie Gertler
Why do people keep asking "where do you get your ideas"? I get my ideas from the same place everyone else does. Where do you get the ideas of your dreams? Because, everybody dreams, you know. Even if you don't remember dreaming, you do dream. We get the ideas from our lives, what we see, hear, experience, understand and associate. Big deal. The answer is always the same. There is no idea store you order ideas from. Even if there was, you wouldn't be able to use them, if you didn't have ideas of your own.

How to create subplots
I don't think I have been thinking about subplots... maybe that's why I'm good at short stories but not novels :-D

Lisa Gardner: Writer's Toolbox

Resolved: Writing is a job
"The startling conclusion of this experiment was that the more hours he spent working on compositions, the more music he actually composed. I don't know why this struck me as such a radical concept, but it did -- time spent working equals output of work. Amazing!"
ROTFLMAO Indeed... amazing :-D

Sagging Middle Syndrome

Seven elements of novel writing, or, actually, seven tips for novels. You could follow these tips and create a novel outline, if you still wonder what to write.

Combine it with:
The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot
Aunt Sarah's Handy Dandy Plotting Recipe
and
Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method
and Footsteps to a Novel isn't bad either :-D

Fiction Factor: Endings

Quick Fixes for 6 Fiction Writing Weaknesses

Create a Book from Your Columns or Articles

I also learned a couple of new words: Blogel, Blogella and Flogel :-D Now, blogel is a blog-novel, and blogella blog-novella, but what is flogel?

Some writing competitions to keep an eye on...

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

Yearly, in January

First Crime Novel Competition
Yearly, in Autumn-Winter

Writers and Illustrators of the Future
Quarterly competition

You don't need to be available. Ever.

2010-10-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

You don't need a facebook account, Twitter, a blog... I read only some weeks ago an article about a man who writes his books with pen on paper, he doesn't have a computer, internet, facebook, twitter, blog or anything like this. He's a "good old-fashioned author". And it works for him.
If you find yourself in Facebook when you should be writing, in Twitter, in the internet surfing and reading interesting things, writing in your blog, you might be using your internet to procrastinate what you should REALLY be doing. Writing.
Some writers do tweet their life away.

Why professional writers need a blog - or not.
Do writers need to network? Do crackers need cheese?
How Twitter helps freelance writers
How social networking helps freelance writers
Television and your future self

Muses

2010-10-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

"There are only three Muses: one who is born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third, who is embodied only in the human voice."
-- Varro

Muses are the origin for such words like amuse, museum and music... and these are the places you should go to find the Muses... what you find amusing, collections of interesting things and things that touch you, make you feel, wake emotions in you...

In Star Trek Deep Space 9 there was a "muse" who inspired people to greatness while nourishing themselves with their life.

Would you change the rest of your life to the chance of creating a masterwork?

You don't need to...

Where do your ideas come from?
Poet's Journal, Part II
Where do your writing ideas come from?
Stephen King's answer (not the warehouse one ;-))
The Idea Store
Where do ideas come from?
Philip Pullman's answer (P.S. Philip, perhaps that was a joke as well...?)
Simon Rose: Where do ideas come from? Part I, II, III and IV

Day 44 of the 100 days' challenge...

2010-10-27T01:04:00.000-07:00

I have been a bad girl. I haven't been doing my job. I haven't been doing much anything.

Of course I have my excuses, I'm not feeling well, I'm in the middle of changes, my parents are sick - daddy has prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, and mother has problems with strokes and such... But - that's life. There's always things happening in life. Life shouldn't be an excuse not to write and do your job :-D

The truth is that writers write, and if you rather do other things, you're not a writer. It's ok, it's totally ok. Not everyone needs to be a writer. And even if you are not a writer now, today, you might become a writer later. Jose Saramago's most important novel; Baltasar and Blimunda, was published when he was 60. It was his 4th novel. 15 years later he received the Nobel Prize, and 27 years later he was dead. (A little more numbers - he wrote his first book when he was 27, it was published 20 years later. All his books were published during the last 40 years of his life.)

For 20 years or so I wrote little and published nothing.

- Jose Saramago

I suppose, all I can do is do better the last 66 days :-D

P.S. Another tips from those who supposedly know what they are doing:
Learn to write in the manuscript format from your very first draft, so you don't need to think about that at least. The editors say a lot of manuscripts are discarded because they are in the wrong format.
And, before you react on that, think for a minute that you need to read 20 novels every day, to choose one of them to be recommended to your friends.
20 books A DAY!
You won't be choosing the 120K tiles, you won't keep reading anything that doesn't catch your interest the first 20 pages, probably you don't give the book even 20 pages to impress you, and you won't read books that have "bad" language. You also won't be reading books that are difficult print or in other ways uncomfortably formatted.
So, give the editors some slack, and remember that they probably need to go through hundreds of novels every day. Try to make it a bit easier for them to discover how amazing your novel is ;-)

The usual manuscript format is:

* an 8-1/2 x 11 inc page (A4)
* 1-inch margins all around
* double spacing
* a clear type font in 10 or 12 pitch
* opening chapter paragraphs that start halfway down the page
* 25 lines to a full page (could be a line or two less. Generally, a 25-line page equals 250 words. This is important information to have when, later, an editor asks you for a word count.)
* a header at the top left of every page that includes your last name and a slash mark followed by your title (in this down-and-dirty stage you can replace a working title with "Best-selling Novel" for motivation, if you wish)
* page number on the right.

- According to Garda Parker

Great first sentences

2010-10-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

Call me Ishmael.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)

It was a dark and stormy night...
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

It was like so, but wasn't.
Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2 (1995)

All this happened, more or less.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

They shoot the white girl first.
Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)

and other 100 best first lines from novels, as decided by the American Book Review

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The Bible

In the beginning there were the marsh, the hoe - and Jussi
Väinö Linna, Under the North Star

The First Chapter

Taming your novel

2010-10-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

Plotting the novel

Choosing a genre

Why do you need to limit yourself to a genre? Why not just write the book and then define which genre it is?
Of course that can be done, but different genres require different style of writing, and if you are aware of the style of writing, the times when you are sitting there not knowing what to write next get shorter and fewer.
Also, different genres ask different questions about characters, environment etc.
Finally, it's easier to sell your book if it has a clear genre.

types of novels and which one you should choose

But... should you?

never let genre get in the way of a good story Mixing it up

Other things on the subject of taming the novel ;-)

TV script-writing trick helped organize YA novel

Who Needs ‘Em? Conflict, Resolution, and Organization

How to Organize a novel
- in the sideline is links to other interesting articles.

Organizing the novel writing adventure

Lela Davidson's How to write a novel in six months

What's your motivation?

I love this First Sale interview series at Dear Author, romance writing blog. It's a nice reminder of why one wants to write a novel and get it published too :-D

Setting goals to your writing career
Setting writing goals

Write for the right reasons
Fiction Factor: Motivation

10 disciplines for fiction writers

the necessary evil

2010-10-24T05:54:00.000-07:00

cleaning...

You really need to keep your environment clean and ordered. It helps you to write, because
a) you will be THINKING about cleaning, if you haven't done it. It takes surprisingly big amount of your brain capacity, which you should be free to use fully in your writing.
b) clean space is inspiring. Your mind will try to fill it. Use this to fill your pages with words ;-)
c) People with allergies are only very, very sensitive. Everyone gets tired of needing to breathe dust. You don't need to be tired, you need all the aid you can get to be alert and awake.

If all the members using the household take their responsibility (and even small children and animals can be trained to do their bit), it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes a day to see that your home is "clean enough". It doesn't need to be spotless, so clean that you could eat from floor (you can't. Ever. And won't either.) or not even the hotel standard. It's a home, not an ad for a cleaning firm or a hospital. (sometimes it is, but not usually, at least for writers.) If you keep the floor empty so that you can drag the vacuum cleaner through the home once a week, it's good enough.

You just need a couple of rules:
1) there is a place for every item and every item has a place.
2) You put the things back right after you have used them.
3) Put the visible scraps, garbage, crap in the garbage bin when you see it (or straight after you have stopped creating it).

This means that after breakfast, you put the egg shells and used teabags and coffee filters and what nots in the garbage bin, and you wash the dishes you used and let dry.
After having taken a shower, you dry the floor and hang your towel to dry in its place.
After having brushed your teeth, you wipe the sink and mirror.
Just the way you wipe your bottom, flush and wash and dry your hands after having used the toilet.
It doesn't take a long time, but it makes all the difference.

If you do arts and crafts, you clean up your work place every day after having used it. This is what we learned to do in craft school, because we weren't the only people using the same room and tools, so they had to be clean and everything in place for the next user. You can easily show yourself the same consideration.

You should wipe the laundry machine and clean the floor from all possible excess washing detergent and lint every time you have used the laundry machine. This is what we do in Swedish common laundry rooms. It doesn't take long time, but makes all the difference in the long run.

If you take a book from a book shelf, you put it back in after you have read it.
If you use a pair of scissors, you put them back into the drawer or nail or where-ever you storage it.
You either hang your clothes to air or put them in a laundry basket after having worn them.
You pack the clean clothes to their correct storage spaces as part of taking down the dry clothes from the line (or out from a dryer). Don't just take them down/out and leave in a pile somewhere.

You should really see just a little afore of yourself. Bend down and pick up your hair from the shower drain. Wipe the table, counters, stove, sink, what ever you have used after having used it. If fat drops burn on stove or if your toothpaste dries on the sink, it's a hell to get it off. It's barely a bother to wipe it off fresh.

Also, choose your tasks wisely. For example, don't bother making your bed, because airing it is good for you. We have gathered a lot of unnecessary rules from our upbringing, television, friends and magazines. Find out why you do things, and stop doing things you do just to stop people from talking about how nasty you have at home. Most creative people have at least somewhat cluttered homes, and you don't need to be "good at housekeeping". It's a skill and should be appreciated as such. Housewives and SAHMs do an amazing job, but seldom get credited for it. We should really ease up a bit and understand that I don't need to be a superwoman and good at everything. It really IS enough to just vacuum once a week (or dust and swipe the floors, if you don't have a vacuum cleaner), it really is ok to have dishes in the dish drainer. You don't need to dry the dishes and set them neatly in a cupboard. It's ok not to make your bed. It's ok to have it arranged so that it works for you, and if it works for you, don't care about what people tell you.

Your guests will usually note ONLY 4 things when it comes to cleaning
1) dishes. Dirty dishes are #1 thing to make your home look uncleaned. Also, everything you offer your guests to drink or eat with/from should be spotless.
2) toilet - see that your toilet is sparkling clean, that the sink is clean, that you have picked up all the hair from all drains and that there is plenty of toilet paper and clean hand towels available.
3) kitchen - the area where food is stored, prepared and eaten should be clean. The tablecloth must be spotless. It's better to eat on bare (well cleaned) table than with a stained tablecloth.
4) entry - you should have space for your guests to store their coats so that they won't be brushed upon or stained by; there should be some surface to put the things the guests have on their hands, like handbags, gifts, gloves and so on, during the time they take off the outer garments, and there should be a chair or stool to be used if needed when taking off and putting on shoes, if shoes are to be taken off. (Which it is in Scandinavia). It is also a nice touch to offer your guests slippers or socks or such, if the shoes are to be removed, but that's just a petty, pretty thing and doesn't have anything to do with cleaning :-D

Make it easy

Get yourself a rug in front of the doors, because that will stop a lot of crap being carried in your home on feet of people.
Have a washcloth on a rack by kitchen and bathroom sink for easy access and therefore also easy wiping of the surfaces, and also so that you can quickly rinse it and hang to dry for next use. Have plenty of paper baskets, garbage bins and tabletop waste baskets, and empty them when they are getting full. Not when they are full, but when "there's place for a couple more x's there". Otherwise you will come to the waste basket with your hands full but no place to put the garbage in.

I would like to point out a couple of things here. You need to check the back of your stove every now and then, as when you fry, you will get teeny tiny layer of fat on the wall behind the stove, and when you boil something, the steam will wash down this fat, and it will collect on the electric parts of the stove, and might cause electric problems, even fire.
You need to keep the fridge cooling grills clean from dust. It takes just a bottle brush and a couple of swipes to do this. This will help the fridge working and keep your electric bills down.
You need to keep the fridge cleaned. Empty it and wash it once a month. It is not at all uncommon for people to have something spoiled, old, rotten or moldy in their fridge, how ever "good" they are, and this takes space from good food, makes the good food go bad quicker, and it also makes you less likely to use the fridge, let the good food go bad, because you are not sure if you can use it, you don't know what you have and have not and so on and so forth. So clean the fridge once a month.
It is very important that you keep your AC clean. It can make you sick if you don't.
Also, keep the heating elements, lamp shades and such dust-free, because you will get a nasty smell of burned dust if you don't.

About once a month, take a round in your home with a duster, and dust your books, pictures, all the little things on open shelves, walls, tops of doors... well... everything, especially if you are a collector (or hoarder. Creative types are usually dragons in disguise :-D). We usually don't, but doing this will remove a lot of "invisible" dust and stop it from becoming visible.

Finally, if you need a quick clean up, wipe the mirrors, door handles and light switches. It's amazing how much such details do. You can almost have as nasty as can be, but if the mirrors, door handles and light switches are clean, people are likely to think the rest is "not usual" :-D

P.S. A lot of people swear in the name of FLY lady. I don't. I used to be part of that, but they were getting more and more obsessed with cleaning... it wasn't ok to just wipe the sink clean, you were to use bleach and boiling water and all sorts of unnecessary, even harmful things, that took way too much time and bother. It really is enough if you just take a dishcloth and wipe the sink, tap, tabletop and wall behind, as the last thing you do after having washed up your evening meal dishes, and not even bother being meticulous about it. My breaking point came when one of the members was sharing how she and her siblings EMPTIED their mother's home while she was in hospital, without her knowledge or approval, and everyone was praising this member... I'm sorry, but human rights, values and integrity are thousand times more worth than the cleanest home in the world, or the economical value of their prospective inheritance. Dang! Also, I was p'd off by the constant pushing of the merchandise. EVERY DAY you were told how much easier, even possible, your FLYing would be if you just had this or that gadget, daily chores were built around using one of their gadgets and so on and so forth. They weren't even interested in giving people alternatives. I asked, and was basically told to find a way around it myself.
Sure, I did. I also quit the whole dang thing, and I will speak against them at any possible venue, because I firmly believe they are after selling their crap and forcing the "clean" dictatorship on creative people who WANT to hoard and collect things and live in "chaos".
I mean, there are "filers" and there are "pilers", and neither system is good for the other. My husband won't be ABLE to find anything from my files, just as I can't find anything from his piles. He knows exactly what's where in his piles. They tested this, and asked 5 pilers to find one specific piece of paper. 4 out of them found it in under 5 minutes.
I haven't always been a filer, you know. I was born a piler. My brother tried to get me cleaning, so he asked me fetch one specific thing from my room. I went to my room, digged it out from the piles of clothes, craft material, school equipment et al, and gave it to him. He asked for something else. The same thing happened. He tried with a third things, this time a specific part of a machine, about the size of a pencil, and flat. I was back to him with in in a minute. Then he laughed and said, "ok, this is not going to work. Just go and clean your room!".

If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
- Albert Einstein

files and folders

2010-10-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

I love files and folders :-D
I love 43 folders
I love worksheets

"Buy some manilla folders and label each of them with a chapter number. 90,000 seems like an enormous amount, but achieving small segments of 3,000 words each is a more realistic goal. - Write a short outline for each chapter and paste it inside each folder. - Arrange a plot-line map and stick this on the wall in front of your work space."
- Lee Masterson: Write a Novel in a Month

How to keep a project file

Some people think a project file helps at taming the novel. It is easier to check up the details if you have written it somewhere, not in the novel itself. It is inspiring to look at the collected information, worksheets, drawings, maps, what ever you have in your folder, file, notebook, box...
You might be asked questions about your work, and it is so much easier to do if you have it all in one box
Someone might want to research your work in the future :-D

Stanley Kubrick's Boxes

As mentioned, being an Aspie can be an asset...

2010-10-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting thread in Wrong Planet... speculations about probable Aspies in the television/movie world :-D

Dr. Temperance Brennan - Cat Woman, Patience Phillips - My Super Ex Girlfriend, Jenny Johnson - Kramer from Seinfeld - Milton from Office Space
Michelle from American Pie - All from 3rd Rock from the Sun - Spock, Star Trek - Data, Star Trek - Dexter, Dexter's Laboratory
mr Bean - Teal'c, Stargate - Adrian from Rocky - River from Firefly - Chloe O'Brian from 24
Peter Parker, Spiderman - Inger from Help Me Help You - Lucius Hunt from The Village - Seymour from Ghost World - Phileas Fogg
Gil Grissom, CSI - Bob Melnikov, Regenesis - Dr. House - Dr. Spencer Reid - Parker, from Leverage
Sheldon, Big Bang - Jerry Espenson, Boston Legal - Mary McDonnell, Grey’s Anatomy - Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice -
Benton Fraser, Due South
Maurice "Moss", The IT Crowd - L from Death Note- Catherine, Washington Square - Dr. Who - Mary Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
Edward Scissorhands - The Thermians, from GalaxyQuest - Gaius Octavia, Rome - Robert Goren from Law & Order: CI - Monsieur Hulot
Lal, Star Trek - Max Fischer from Rushmore - Charlie Eppes, Numb3rs - Reed Richards, from Fantastic Four - Maximillian Cohen from Pi
Joxer from Xena - Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice -Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks - Dr. Daniel Jackson of Stargate - Steve Urkel from Family Matters
The Lone Gunmen from X-Files - Dr. Cox from Scrubs - Anya Jenkins, the ex-demon, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Abby Sciuto On NCIS - Viktor Navorski from The Terminal
Ross and Phoebe from Friends - Simon Lynch from Mercury Rising - Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis - Dr. Sayer from Awakenings
Velma from Scooby-Doo - Good Will Hunting - Eugene Tackleberry, Police Academy - Dr. Raymond Stantz from Ghostbusters - Neo, Matrix

Even if these characters were not Aspies, THIS is what an Aspie looks like :-D

pet peeves, dreams, fantasies...

2010-10-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Everyone has subjects that get them going :-D

I can write 10.000 words on the subject of Israel-Palestine in one sitting without breaking in sweat :-D
I'm laughing, because this is one subject that really gets me going, and I speak and speak and speak, and no-one listens... it's just too controversial, too flammable, too explosive and everyone has their mind made up, set in stone, so it's no use to say anything. A totally useless subject. But... it could be used to something else. I could create a fantasy world with the situation, and follow two persons, one from both sides, and write The Fox and The Hound or Romeo and Juliet - or both - placed in the situation.

I have also other pet peeves, like Christianity and its quest of world domination. Another subject I can easily write and write and write about. That too could be turned into a novel, because all quests of world domination are the same; fascist, chauvinist and xenophobic in nature.

Every now and then I see someone, hear something, read something, that makes me yearn...
It is too late for me to have a life as a pilot, but it's never too late to WRITE the life of a pilot.
It will not happen that I would become a new Oprah, but I can write about the new Oprah.
I won't be climbing Mount Everest, but I can make my character do that - and everything.
(Well... just follow Helena on her journey in (on? to? I don't know. Choose the correct preposition, please, because I can't :-D) becoming Layla...)

I love horses, so I created a fantasy world build around equine worship. The world is matriarchaic and the empress of the place was (is) a "Mary Sue", named and shaped after Jadis of Charn ;-) (She's not evil, though, and not interested in world domination.) The world has a sort of Bene Gesserit priestess system, with a scent of temple prostitutes (they are called "every man's wives", but not in sexual sense, but in the companionship, listener, comforter sense. They do sex too, if necessary, but usually it isn't.), and a soldier caste called Annas. (I am passionate about martial arts and swords.) It is a Medieval world, because I'm a medievalist, thanks to Tolkien :-D

I love self-sufficiency, frugality and such; and I love late Victorian times, so I started writing a Pagan version of Little Women, blending it with one of my favorite books, Farmer Boy, and adding a bit of Katy by Susan Coolidge and a little of Edith Nesbit ;-)

You get the idea? Take your pet peeves, day dreams and fantasies, and translate them into novels.

In Angela Booth's 100 day writing challenge, we were asked to write a list of our assets, and I wrote and wrote and wrote... everything I am, everything I'm good at, everything I'm interested in, everything I'm afraid of, every problem I have, everything is an asset.
If I have a phobia, I understand how phobia works, and can write about any phobia.
The writers are told to write about what they know, and that is who I am. This is one reason why I decided to write my NaNo this year about a witch.

It's not fantasy. (Or, sort of it is... slightly mystical thriller/adventure, like Katherine Neville's The Eight, Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian or Kate Mosse's Labyrinth.)
In it the main character is a witch, having a "witch shop" - a shop I'd like to have, if I didn't have social phobia. She sells books on witchcraft, occult and mystery, New Age and Pagan religions. She sells jewelry, clothes and artefacts, divinatory tools, incents and spell kits and such things. She sells things both new and used. She makes a lot of her things herself, and here too I'm building on myself. Once a month she doesn't sell anything, but receives customers for reading.
Like most modern witches, she is Wiccan and has her weekly meetings with the coven she's a member of, and like most modern witches, she doesn't really believe in all the stuff... sure, she believes in reincarnation and that there is more to the world than one can see, but she doesn't really believe in magic and fairies. She thinks it's mostly just a question of attitude and positive thinking and power of mind, symbols and projections and such.
One day the trouble walks into her store in the shape of a woman selling her an old piece of jewelry, an amber heart in gold filigree cage, in long chain...

This is basically how long I have come. I have some problems here, because she is a witch and has been working with the "stuff" for years, so she would sense the necklace is cursed or haunted or something, so she wouldn't buy it... Perhaps the woman selling the necklace explains the bad vibrations by telling a story that she got the heart from her husband who has been cheating on her, so she hates it now... Or perhaps it wasn't the witch buying the piece of jewelry, but a stand-in... perhaps the witch needed to see a doctor or something, and had a friend keep the shop open for her.

Anyway, if you like to connect with me at NaNoWriMo, I'm Ketutar, and I'd love to be your writing buddy :-D

Becoming an educated reader :-)

2010-10-20T05:49:00.000-07:00

Life is too short to read bad books - or even half-good or not-totally-rotten books. But if you do find a "bad book", what makes it bad? (I mean, the readers scoff at certain books, like Twilight or Da Vinci Code, but the editors will tell you that if you'd only read some of the slush pile, you'd think Twilight was actually ok.) You could say it's the missing storyline, but that is not true. There is a storyline, somewhere in there. So what made you miss it?

Learn from others' mistakes, don't just criticize, judge and complain ;-)

In his book "Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer", Roy Peter Clark says: "Using a method of close reading, I find a passage that intrigues me, put on my X-ray glasses, and peer beneath the surface of the text to view the invisible machinery of language, syntax, rhetoric, and critical thinking that creates the effects I experience as a reader. I then forge what I see into a writing tool."

(Follow the link. It takes you to a rather thorough article on how to close read, by Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University.)

Want to write bad novels? Here's how
Names to run away from real fast

But...
"At first the names of these boys seem a bit pretentious: Wrath, Rhage, Zsadist, Phury, Vishous and Tohrment. There’s also Butch, a terrific human cop. A few pages into the book and you forget about the names – and in fact, they suit the characters brilliantly."

"Szadist is well named. He was sold as a slave when he was young and ended up a blood and sex slave for someone referred to only as the Mistress. He suffered unspeakable abuse – mental, physical, sexual and is now a ‘damaged being’. Out of control, sinister, sadistic, etc."

The thing is that if your readers like your book, they won't mind the names :-)

Purple prose

Purple Prose Parody contest :-D

BTW, from one of the 2006 entries: "I am Beyotch, fiercest of the Vampire, member of the Red Stiletto Sisterhood With my band of warrior-priestess sisters - Whench, Skankh, Harhpie, Tsukabus, and Piszed-offe"

ROTFLMAO! I love Piszed-offe :-D

P.S. I found this: "How to find unique names for your characters", and sure... it's good advice, if you want an uncommon name... but why would you want that?
Sure, it's better to name your Fantasy hero Kraom than George, but... I really HATE VEHEMENTLY the efforts of people to have "unique" names.
Sure, I'm Ketutar, and that's pretty unique, so who am I to say anything, but my "real" name is Sanna, and that's pretty usual. The thing is that I don't need to spell my name to anyone :-D
Think about Twilight - the characters have totally common names; Bella, Edward and Jacob.
Think about Narnia books. Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund. Edmund isn't that common today, but it's still a normal name.
You don't NEED to write about Quylene Cybrnac.
You can use a phone book to find your names, or obituaries. Or competitors' list at a sports event.

the art of lying

2010-10-19T05:52:00.000-07:00

Lying and poetry are arts -
-arts, as Plato saw, not unconnected with each other -
and they require the most careful study, the most disinterested devotion.
--Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

Exaggerate normal things. Imagination is a wild thing, amazing thing... Lie. Make-believe. Tell stories.

"Lying frees the liar from the constraints of truth, moving him or her into the higher realms of deliberately-conceived art and away from the grim realities of unpolished nature."

Lying, or storytelling, as antidote to unhappiness

Sinbad the Sailor and Baron Münchhausen - liars or storytellers?

Levitation - or how to suspend reader's disbelief

Hyperbole in Fiction Writing Engages Readers

Storytelling is not lying

He's a real fictional character - sometimes exaggeration works

writer's journal

2010-10-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

I love journals, diaries and notebooks. I love the free format of writing. :-D There are no expectations or requirements, or rules in keeping a diary. You just express your thoughts the way that suits you at the moment... sometimes it's writing, sometimes it's drawing, sometimes it's newspaper clippings or scraps, or photos... a pressed flower... something. Anything is allowed, anything is good, anything is... perfect.
I suppose I love notebooks because I'm a perfectionist, and notebooks are always perfect. Even when they are not, because there are no rules :-D

I love the spell book from Practical Magic, I love the Book of Shadows from Charmed, I love Indiana Jones' diary... or Simon Templar's journal from "The Saint"... I like Edith Holden's Country Diary... I would like my Writing Journal to look like that, but I suppose that... er... that's a bit of "perfectionist". My journal doesn't look like that :-D

THIS is what my writing journal looks like ;-)

I write my "journal" on loose leafs and keep them in a box. On the down, left one can read "Lara Croft, St-Exmin, Modesty Blaise, Xena". The person on the right side is a dragon in her human form. Dressed in red leather :-D Under that is one paper written in Swedish, and another which has a dialogue in English. The lady one can see is very good... sort of Balder. She is discussing with an evil man, a monster, who wants to destroy everything and control everything, and he has demanded the lady comes to him so that he can kill her. Anyway, this is what my journal looks like. I usually write with mechanical pencil with 0.5mm HB lead. I write and draw and sometimes "color" the pictures with the same pen. I sometimes use a ball-point pen. I don't use colors, because this is sketching, and using colors would make it something else than taking notes and writing down the thoughts.
But... I would LIKE to have a journal like those mentioned above :-D

have your journal and a pen with you all the time. Write in it
- ideas you get
- interesting articles, news, pictures from newspapers and magazines (you can also paste this in your journal ;-))
- snippets of discussions you hear
- descriptions of people you see
- all your favorite quotes and passages from books, tv shows, movies...
- writing prompts
- interesting questions, memes etc. you come across, that you think would help you understand your characters better
- flashes you get, your characters, discussions in you mind, such things

Creating a Poet's Journal
Writer's Notebook
Keeping a Writer's Journal

P.S. Words and Writing Ideas

Rewards

2010-10-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

People are talking so much about the importance of rewarding yourself...

I have many faults. One of them is that I am codependent. I am horribly codependent. I cannot reward myself, because I am perfectionist, and I never, ever manage to reach "perfect". I also will take the rewarding as a challenge and try to get a perfect reward as well, and that doesn't exist either.

I also suspect that the reward system might not be as good as people say it is. I know I need to reward my inner brat, keep her happy and see that she has good time and fun, if not during the "boring stuff" I need to do, then after, as a reward... "if your homework is done, you can go to the movies with your friends". But... I have AS! I don't go anywhere with my friends! I am not especially fond of such! *sigh*

It's more like this: I love to write. I love the feeling of 10-finger-typing on my laptop. I love the images I get in my head, the stories, the characters... oh I so love the characters... and... I just like writing. So writing in itself would be reward enough.

Anyway, go and grab yourself a badge for this year's NaNo, if you haven't already done that. There are some for just advertising, if you are not participating. But I would encourage you to give it an effort. It really isn't that hard, and then you have done that, and you don't need to think about it again :-D

Lords and Idiots...

2010-10-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

"Herroille ja hulluille ei pidä näyttää keskeneräistä työtä."

There is a Finnish saying: "Unfinished work shouldn't be shown to lords and idiots". Don't share your work with anyone. Don't speak anything about it. The critique will kill your enthusiasm, and you need it to finish the work. It is amazing how little is needed to kill the spark, just a few negative words, even when they are not meant that way, can do the job.

“If there was only one tip I could pass on to new fiction writers, it would be this: Don’t go around blabbing about your book! There is a magic, an energy, an intensity that needs to go into your creative work, not into telling people about it.”
- Aaron Elkins

P.S. The Writer Magazine is having an open doors week, and I feel like a kid in a candy store :-D
I have already read a lot of interesting things, and I've been there only for an hour or so :-D
I especially liked the Dean R. Koonz interview... he is one of my author ideals ;-)

"From the age of 15 until I was 35, I read on average 200 novels a year"
- Dean R. Koonz

Brat Management

2010-10-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

I know, "time management" is usually a "bad word" for creative, free spirits like writers :-D But it really isn't. Because we, the creative, free spirits are brats, and we need to grow up.

Sure, there are some positives about having an inner brat, of course. Brats are not only a menace. Dennis was kind of charming in his well-willing energy...

One thing brats are not good at, and that is commitment, work and other "boring" stuff. Responsibility, duties and "sticking to it", not bratty attributes.
Keeping promises - nothing for brats.
Instant gratification, inspiration, new ideas, having fun, now that's what being a brat is all about.
Brats are good at starting things, innovation, pranks and mischievous stuff, daring and doing "stupid things" and "silly things".
Brats are passionate.
Brats get easily frustrated, bored, offended and hurt.
Brats are egocentric, feel quickly that something isn't fair or right.
They should be listened, though, because they are usually right. Listening to your inner brat will save you from burnout, impossible expectations, working too much, and being used. But they shouldn't be in charge.

Having an inner brat is like living with a teenager. They are delightful people, but not capable to take responsibility of needing to take care of the family. In fact, they are in a very vulnerable place and in need of being taken care. Think of children (of any age) as dogs. Dogs need the human to be the ruler of the pack. Your children - inner and outer - need YOU to be the adult, the caretaker, the parent, the responsible party. And just as you won't train animals by whipping them into submission, you don't raise your children by demanding blind obedience under the threat of abuse.

Managing your inner brat is just as difficult as raising your teen-aged child. You need to show your inner brat that she doesn't need to fight to be listened to and heard, that she doesn't need to rebel just to get a chance to have some fun. This is why it's important for you to keep the promises you make to yourself. Set a time, and then not work beyond that time frame, unless your inner brat thinks it's fun. Make a list of possible rewards, things you think are fun to do, like games, going to movies, taking a walk in the park, feeding ducks, going to an amusement park or what ever rocks your boat, and then remember to reward your inner brat for being a good girl and staying put for the time you need to write.

It's Your Inner Brat
Inner Brat in action
Managing my inner brat
embrace your inner brat

write what you know

2010-10-14T01:39:00.000-07:00

When I agreed to participate in NaBloWriMo, I wrote an outline for the whole month at one sitting. I have been adding, rewriting, changing and improving the entries, but the skeleton is already there. :-D

Today's post was supposed to be posted in a week, but something happened that made me change my mind. i got the Newsletter for The Writer Magazine and one of the articles in it (available to registered members - just register, it's free and the articles are interesting) was "Write Was You Know - And Be Sorry"

"Write what you know ... and prepare a toast. To a life without shooting stars that carry strange life forms, talking animals, machines that come to life, mysterious strangers, sudden revelations, words you’ve never heard before—and the thoughts in other people’s minds. You may have to forfeit forever the music of a close-range gunshot on a cool blue morning or the clash of battle-axes at the gates of Mordor (although you may not miss the hiss of the demon who’s taken over your spouse’s body)."

Yes... be prepared to write a boring story, because what we THINK we know is... actually very little :-D The thing is that... we know more than we think we do.

Also, a lot of things we write comes from our dreams, fantasies, nightmares, from what we read, see, hear, associations and ideas, subconscious transformed into symbolic stories... we CANNOT but write what we "know" :-D

How to outgrow "write what you know"?
Write what you don't know

"Most people think "write what you know" means you have to put characters in situations you're personally familiar with. But in my opinion, that's not what it means."
- Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent

Tina Morgan agrees with her

It really is more about tapping into your assets, "what you know"... You do create more authenticity, more real and believable characters, dialogue and everything, if you write what you know. I am reading a mystery where the victim was murdered by choking her with wool yarn. Hand spun wool yarn. What *I* know is that wool yarn is VERY elastic. It will break before it creates the tension to actually kill anyone. I doubt you could strangle a person even with a woven wool scarf. You would need to stuff the wool into someone's throat to get this person to suffocate. Or this is what I think, so every time I read about the yarn I cringe. This is why you SHOULD be writing "what you know".

Just remember that you don't need to stop learning to know things ;-)
Don't limit your subject choices to what you know NOW, but have the world as your oyster, and learn about the things you want to write about.

Lovely Hart suggested I'd go and see what lovely Helena writes in her blog "becoming Layla". Become who you want to write about, so you know what you want to write...

A couple of pages I find extremely inspiring: Fersen74 and baroncorvo

You Only Live Once, Expectations and Quaintrelles

and

Scandalous Women and Fascinating People

The difference of reading source

2010-10-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

If you write your book on computer, you might want to print out the daily portion every day, so that you can read the paper copy in your bed before sleeping, make notes in the margins, mark the typos and such, and dream about it ;-)

It's really not breaking the "don't read, don't edit" rule, because you are not going to make the changes in the draft. Not yet. That's for the editing part. You are not editing, you are keeping your mind focused in your story.

There are some studies that say people have a specific relation to paper copies, print. For example, people read print faster than they read screen. My husband says he can use his visual memory with paper copies, but not with computer pages.

You should also read out loud what you have written. The ears are remarkable writing tools :-D You will be able to hear if the flow and rhythm of what you have written is ok, but you are not able to see it.

The best 22 writing tips ever

#1 being WRITE!!!

Your people

2010-10-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

You should really know your characters, well, before writing about them, you know. They are your best friends.

You know that you don't "create" your characters. They just appear, like any new acquaintance, and what's left for you is to learn to know them, observe them, interview them.
If you really care about your characters, you will remember Harry's eye color. If you don't, no-one else will either.

Unleash Your Characters
Creating Character Profiles

Don't be lead astray ;-)

2010-10-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

Do you know how to write a novel?
- One word at a time.

To be able to actually get the writing job done in 30 days, you have to be really careful not to allow anything lead you astray...

- reading what you have written
An absolute no-no. If you do, you will start questioning yourself, perhaps editing, rewriting... and then you are lost.

- rewriting
It's good as it is. Come on, it's not the final manuscript, it's your FIRST DRAFT! Write, don't rewrite. You have the 50.000 words goal to reach. You can rewrite it in December. Or not rewrite at all, just chuck it. But now, write.

- editing
You know it can be said "better". Don't try to say it better, at least not right now. Besides, 9 times out of ten, your first way is the best after all :-D

- new ideas
Oh, the shiny new ideas, thousand times better than anything you have written so far, and especially the crap you are trying to write right now.
Just jot it down in your writing journal, and get back to work, which is writing THIS idea.
Even if the idea isn't shiny and better, but just a good idea, write it into your writing journal, to be used in the future.
Now, if you get new ideas all the time, and you would use more time writing down your ideas in the writing journal than actually writing, it's time to let them go. Let them pass your mind on their way to someone else who has more time or less ideas. You have enough, you can let a couple go. You really need to DO something with the ones you already have.
Also, the flow of ideas will not stop. Even if the fear of failure or success or what ever makes you THINK you have no ideas, the second you are not afraid anymore, the ideas come back.

- forgetting details
Suddenly you don't remember what color eyes Harry had.
Doesn't matter. Put it in brackets, make a mark in the margin, write in your writing notes to check the color of Harry's eyes. Don't stop writing to check it. You can do that after you have done writing.

- background research
You really want to write a magnificent fencing scene, but know nothing about fencing.
Doesn't matter. Write what you know, make a note in your writing notes, watch some movies with nice fencing and read a couple books about fencing and swords, so that you will know WHEN it's time to edit the draft. Don't do it when you are writing.
It's even quite ok to add a big blob into your draft, and write "here fencing scene", and then act as if you actually just wrote it.

- the life
This is something that cannot be avoided. Of course, you can get a butler who takes care of every phone call, visitor and your mother, or go to a tent in the middle of a forest somewhere, and sit there with both ear plugs and earmuffs, but I'm sure SOMETHING will happen - like your tent catches fire or a moose runs over it or something.
Leave yourself a short note and leave the last sentence unfinished. Might be that you won't remember anyway what you were about to write, but, I doubt it will be a truly big loss for the world literature. Just get back in the flow and keep writing.

- procrastination
There really isn't much else to do about this, but SIT DOWN AND WRITE, DARN IT!
You can procrastinate all you want after you have written your daily words. But only till next day.

- perfectionism
At one point of the writing you realize that it's the worst thing you have ever written, hey, it's the worst thing written in the history of mankind, and probably nothing written in the future will be as bad.
Doesn't matter. Keep writing.
And keep the text. If it IS the worst thing ever written, at least it will be fun to read :-D

- fear
At some point you realize that what you are writing might actually work... it might actually not be that bad, and it might become a real book.
Doesn't matter. Keep writing.

- normality
What you write is totally uninteresting, boring, old, said already thousand times, by thousand different people, your POV is the usual one, and so on and so forth. Nothing new, exiting and interesting here, thank you.
Guess what? A Finnish poet wrote a very short poet, which I happen to love. "It has already been said, but I say it again, to you."
There's hundreds of love songs, and all of them are practically the repeat of "I love you". You probably like some of them, don't like most of them, absolutely love a couple... it's the same with literature. No-one has ever written what you are writing right now. May be that it has already been said, thousand times, but there is someone out there, who needs to hear it from you to get it.
Keep on writing.

time
- There just isn't enough of that stuff.
Most people already waste time here and there for nothing. Television and internet are two big villains here. You can collect minutes by walking a bit faster, showering a little quicker, getting up when you wake up... Have a day in a week when you plan the food for the whole week, cook big portions and freeze them in tv-dinners, and shop everything you need at one go. Clean every day for 15 minutes, and you don't ever need to spend hours in cleaning. Learn to use your human network and delegate jobs. Don't take upon yourself jobs you don't need to do. Study some time managing and organizing. Declutter your home, your life and your mind.
And PRIORITIZE.
You don't need to write EVERYTHING there is to write. Just this draft. Just the daily words.
If you REALLY want to write, you find the time for it.

33 rules for writing fiction