book

Voice and Tense

I realized today something that I’ve realized many times before, something which gets me more excited about college than ever – I need to learn how to write. What I mean is that I need to really study and practice in an orderly fashion, with someone to read my work and tell me that “this is good” and “this is bad” and “this needs some more work.” I love this blog, and I’m proud of myself for keeping it up – my track record on keeping organized blogs is disastrous, to say the least. The fact that I’m keeping this one up is due to my true devotion and love of practicing my writing.

But, as I was saying, I need to study and learn methods for it. The reason I realized this today was because I was spending my time at work, as I usually do, with trying to plan a new story. This new story is a sort of young-adult type thing, something that I decided to try after remember how much I love Sarah Dessen’s books. I started writing about my character from the third-person point of view, but after a page or so I realized that it sounded wrong. It wasn’t what I’d pictured in my head.

So I changed the voice, and tried writing her from the first person point of view: her speaking about herself. Once again, it sounded wrong because I was using past tense, and it sounded like any second she would be lapsing into current events. I realized that I don’t know how to write past tense but make it sound like the present, and not like the retelling of a story.

And so, whether or not I major in creative writing, I’m definitely going to take some writing courses when I go to college. I can’t wait!

On a completely unrelated subject – I find it highly amusing that WordPress, a blogging website, highlights the word “blog” as a misspell in its spell-checker program. WordPress is another word that is listed as misspelled.

Once Again With the Kids’ Books…

I know I’ve written about this before, but I cannot help delving into the subject again. What is it about children’s books that holds such a spell over me? I know that my memories of my books when I was a pre-teen are fond ones, and I know that the books I read over and over again as a child probably are what made me become such an avid reader in later life.

The reason I’m marveling at this again is because I just finished reading a story, a pre-teen story – I’ve joined a writing workshop where you critique other writers’ stories and in turn you eventually get to send in your own work and have it critiqued as well. I’m not brave enough to send anything of my own in yet, but I’ve been reading other writers’ works and enjoying it. So, as I said, I just finished reading a chapter book for children, probably for the ages of 8-11 or so.

The short book had me completely spell-bound. I felt like a kid again, giggling at talking cats and adoring the adventure and fantasy aspects of it. I felt warm and safe in the hold of a story that I could imagine having pictures accompanying it.

Nostalgia is something that overcomes me WAY too often.

After a Separation

I missed reading fantasy.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed reading Jane Austen more than I can say. I adored the snide remarks and hidden humor and the endless subtle sarcasm that permeates her language and her characters. I adored the descriptions of situations and the way she mocked them so thoroughly without ever once denouncing them obviously. I love reading books about the real world, with characters that were believable and made sense and in whose shoes I could put myself.

But the rapture, the utter ecstasy of losing oneself in a world so extremely foreign from one’s own – that is something I will never be able to give up. Letting my mind run rampant in forests, encircle itself with magic, leap up on horses and grapple with an enemy – all those things I let myself get immersed in as I delve into the latest installment of whichever fantasy novel I’m reading; those things bring magic into my life.

I really, truly, missed reading fantasy.

Lucy’s Diary, May 16th

For those who don’t know, Alex and I are slowly playing a little game with these entries. His most recent entry, which this entry follows quite immediately, is here: http://crystalgeek.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/journal-part-ii/

May 16th, 2008, Morning, “Larry’s Diner”

Dear Diary,

I cannot believe that I haven’t had time to write in you until now. As a confidante, you haven’t been much use yet, but don’t fret, dear, you will get to know more than enough now.

Life at P&S is… let us say, fast paced. My mind has been taxed in every area possible, and I believe that instead of getting fuller, it is rather emptying out a bit of its intelligence as the days go by and I learn to conform myself to the strict policy of “no opinions allowed,” the general policy of the teachers here. There are a couple who seem willing to hear us speak with a tone of voice other than a flat, learned-by-heart drone, but those two – the literature teacher and, surprisingly, the biology teacher – are the only ones. Every other subject seems to be taught by rote and meant to be learned in no other way.

This, of course, is frustrating enough. What is even worse than my studies is, unsurprisingly, the general company that I am forced to keep. Peggy, Sophie and Maria – the infamous roommates from HELL – are all so concerned about sneaking razors into the bathrooms to shave their legs that they never realize that they have more than three brain cells at their disposal if they’d want them. I’m sure that with time my brain will melt as well and I will only worry about how to sneak cheap lip-gloss from the pharmacy past the teachers and into the school on our afternoons off – but for now, forgive me, Diary, if I still try to find some use for my poor brain.

The library here is fantastic, which is my only comfort. Oh, that is not to say that I don’t play along with the other girls – I do, because there is no choice – but whenever I’m doing my homework I tend to dawdle for a while after the others have given up, so as to sit in one of the comfy armchairs and read a bit.

You are now wondering, dearest and only friend, what I am doing in a diner on a morning such as this? Well, the truth is that I really shouldn’t be here. But you already guessed that, didn’t you? It’s not as bad as you think though, dearest. We’re allowed out Sunday mornings into the small, dreary town. Sophie and Maria were off to the arcade to look for James Dean types and Peggy and her friend Sue went to the pharmacy to score some more makeup. I decided to give them all the slip, and I came here to treat myself to some pancakes and maple syrup. I must say that the diner is a cozy place, and I’m enjoying the silence immensely. It is hard to be surrounded by incessant chatter all day long without a moment’s reprieve.

Diary, I have just noticed something rather odd. How very strange! There is a young man, very thin, with dark hair and dark clothing, who is sitting at another table – I believe he was on the flight with me! What a strange coincidence, to see him here. Who could want to come to a miserable little place like this? Diary, he is eating pancakes as well, and he looks tired to the bone, as if he were up half the night. He keeps forgetting to take bites though, because he’s on his cell phone, trying to understand someone’s directions to a place called “Gaitec’s Reach.” Silly man, he seems quite distraught – in a good looking sort of way.

Ah, well, I suppose I should order the bill and head back to the girls now… I’ll ask them what Gaitec’s Reach is, though, because it is such a rare, romantic sort of name that I’m quite curious!

I hope to be more diligent about our sessions from now on. I cannot promise a thing though, because I’m still trying to catch up on my studies.

Much love to you, Diary!

As ever,

Lucy

P.S. I talked to my wicked cousin, She-Who-Sent-Me-Here, and I conclude that she’s enjoying the silence of her big, empty house just fine. She says she’s glad of getting me away from all the “bad influences that those little friends of yours were” and that she’s “pleased at your progress in your studies – your teachers send me weekly reports, you see.” Thank goodness I managed to hide my belly-button ring from her, or I’d have lost the only thing I like about my appearance now!

Austen-Esque

After spending every free moment of the day reading “Sense and Sensibility,” I found myself unable to resist the urge to try to write the sort of passage that might find itself in a Jane Austen book. I’m sure I haven’t succeeded very well, but there’s something irrationally enjoyable about trying to write in such a manner that you must hear the words being read aloud in your mind or you will not understand quite how the sentences end.

While it is true that the estate of Mr P was not large, it is also true that it was spacious enough for him, his wife, and their two young daughters, to live in comfortably. So they did, and while Mr P spent his life working hard in various positions involving sales, he managed to live without worrying about yearly income and without ever needing to trouble the minds of the women of his house.

Mrs P was by nature a peaceful woman, always cheerful, even in the depth of the great aches and pains which afflicted her in older age. She was an excellent example to her daughters, both of which grew up to be miraculously practical and intelligent women. The eldest, Amanda, was educated well and supported herself by her pen. She did, however, make the rather scandalous choice of making a second marriage, even after her first was dissolved mutually by both her and her cold-hearted husband. Her second marriage, by which she provided Mr and Mrs P with two grandchildren, it was agreed by all, was much more successful.

The younger of the sisters, Miranda, was always the more rebellious, and although she might have vexed Mr and Mrs P by her scandalous pursuits at one point in her life, she eventually became a source of pride to her family, for she was free in mind and in spirit in ways which the new world found becoming and agreeable, and even profitable.

While both Mr and Mrs P met untimely and early endings, their daughters kept up a steady stream of correspondences and remained the greatest of friends, even after needing to sell the estate which they so loved. Although deeply regrettable, the selling of their beloved Flora estate was nevertheless an unmatchable help in both the sisters’ lives, for both, headstrong and independent as they were, led quite modern lives and needed funds to keep these in order and comfort, as they aspired to do for many years to come.

Newspeak

I have, as the title would imply, been reading George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” It is an incredible book, and I am truly ashamed of not having read it before now. Then again, perhaps now I can understand it better than I would have four or five years ago.

As anyone who has read, or even heard of, the book knows, it is about a society and a government that have developed themselves in a way that eradicates all possibility of independent thoughts and actions. Or rather, the people who matter, the higher levels of society, are not allowed to freely think and feel, while the masses, the “proles”, lead their lives oblivious to what is going on in the government and in the country, concerned as they are with their day to day trivial matters.

While all of that is disturbing enough, one of the things that most troubled me as I was reading was the concept of “Newspeak.” Newspeak is the new language, one that is comprised of shortened words and terms so as to eventually kill the possibility of independent ideas, because there just won’t be enough words to express them. In the book there is actually a whole department whose job it is to eliminate words, useless words that aren’t necessary. I truly felt my heart pound with shock at the explanation in the book of how language doesn’t need the words “excellent” and “splendid” because they’re just “good” with a bit of exaggeration. Instead, there would be “plusgood” or “veryplusgood” to express things greater than just plain “good.”

How horrible the English language would be if ever it were reduced to such a bare bone! Just think; novels, poetry, plays and songs – all ruined, unable to exist anymore or even be written. Shivers literally go down my spine at the very thought.

Storytellers

There are those rare people who can make stories come alive with their voices and bodies. True storytellers are rare – many people know how to tell a joke well, how to tell a funny happenstance or exaggerate something that happened to them. Few are the people who can make up a story on the spot and tell it in a way that makes it seem real and true and exciting.

I don’t know if I’ve met anyone yet who has come close to the way I imagine a perfect storyteller. Perhaps the kind I imagine only exists in books – the bard, traveling from inn to inn, paying for his or her meals with a story, with a tale of valor or wisdom or strife. Perhaps perfect storytellers can only exist when written down in words, when described with such things as “fiery eyes” and “a voice like no other” and “commanded attention without effort, a presence which filled the room easily.”

People don’t sit around fires and tell stories they make up – no, today everything is based on old legends or stories or the Disney versions of those stories, and people discuss politics around the fireplace, and only tell their children stories. Is storytelling a lost art then?

Little Stories

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about children’s books. When you’re a child, the books you remember most are the ones that you’ve either read with your parents over and over again, or else they’re the ones that tell about everyday events, things you can relate to. For instance, I remember this book I read again and again as a girl, a book with three whole chapters! I felt so proud of myself, reading a book with chapters – it was a book about a little girl going to school; how her lessons are harder and how she plays hopscotch with her friend and how she makes friends with a boy who’s always picking on her.

I’ve been wondering though, how you go about writing a children’s book. They’re often so simple on the surface, so rudimentary and easy to read and sometimes even so mundane – and yet, the good ones are enchanting. You never forget the books you’ve read as a child. But how does a writer go about writing a children’s book that could be published? How do you write a children’s book that’s good enough to be something you charge for and isn’t just a story that you tell your own kids?

It can’t be as easy as it would seem, writing a children’s book.

Movies of Books

For most of my life I’ve been vehemently against the adaptation of novels to the big screen. I’ve always felt that it ruins the book – so many parts are skipped, or changed, or made to fit the Hollywood world rather than fit the style of the novel. However, over the years, I’ve seen quite a few movies that were made by adapting a novel into a screenplay, and I’ve had varying degrees of satisfaction from them.

There are the classic ones, the ones that I actually, and shamefully, didn’t know were based on novels until quite a while after seeing the movie: A Clockwork Orange and 2001 Space Odyssey are two of those. They’re both incredible and incredibly weird.

Then there are the ones like Bridget Jones which are so true to the feel of the novel that they’re actually worth seeing. Another like this is Atonement, the novel of which I read right after seeing the film. It’s an amazingly moving and wonderful film and almost 100% true to the novel – what’s definitely true to the novel is the atmosphere in it.

Then there are the fantasy books that are exasperatingly and constantly being made into films. One such is The Golden Compus which I will NEVER see because Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials are way too good to ruin with a flashy film. Another example are the Harry Potter films. I saw the first movie and was so sick to my stomach by how the novel was butchered that I haven’t ever seen any of the sequels and I never will. But then, there’s Twilight, and that I’m going to see right now, tonight. But mostly because I don’t actually appreciate the book all that much – not enough to respectfully pass on what’s supposed to be an entertaining feature for anyway.

What do you guys think of books being made into movies?

The Authentic Self Book

I was having trouble with what I should write about tonight. I sat at my computer, with my wonderful-and-still-exciting screen, and I stared and stared and discarded idea after idea. I am ashamed to say, I caved. I opened a new tab, and typed in “writing prompts” in Google. I then chose the first two websites that came up and started browsing the prompts, thinking how fun it would be to write about some of those things. And yet, it felt like cheating. Little did I know that I would still find my subject on one of these websites.

As I looked randomly at the advertisement sitting smugly above the prompts in one of the sites, I found my subject. A giggle escaped my lips, and I proceeded back to WordPress and typed in the title of this post. Yes, the ad was for something called “The Authentic Self Book.” Written underneath the name and the website, it says this: “Are you living an authentic life? Unearth your authentic self. Start journaling your joys, griefs, and all the other life themes in between, and you’ll discover who you really are.” [Random aside – WordPress spellchecker says “journaling” is not a real word.]

I’m all for keeping journals. I’m all for living authentic lives. I’m all for finding out as much as you can about yourself and being honest about your life, your feelings, your virtues and weaknesses. However, and this is a big however, I find it incredibly hard to believe anyone who wants to be so-called authentic would buy a book like this.

Teehee, I love the randomness of the interwebs.