I turn 29 tomorrow.
yeah yeah turkey baby, no birthday parties because my friends would rather hang out in their gene pool for the week and i'm usually hit with the flu/pneumonia/relapse just long enough to miss out on pie and BBQ.
Suffice to say, I don't normally enjoy my birthday. But I do tend to treat it like my own personal New Year's and reevaluate my life. I'm going on 29 but still in college. And why? Flimsy excuse of "changed my major" "tried to find myself" "kept wanting tomove to Greece/Ireland/London/Tokyo" just don't do it anymore. I am disappointed in me. I'm supposed to be hitting this pinnacle of life experience by now. Old enough to start commenting on the folly of those "youngsters" back in their teens who think they have a grip on the world. Instead, all I have in me are questions of my own.
I spent 3 hours yesterday on the DavidsBridal website looking at dresses, playing with the 3D maps and designing wedding party attire. I'm not engaged. Most of my friends are married and popping out their 2nd and 3rd offspring by now. But Google takes me strange places when I let my mind wander.
I looked over my notes for this book. I think I've accomplished so much in the storyline but I can't seem to find that motivation and drive I had at the beginning. I tried taking a break from the work, but that just feels like forced procrastination. But then again, I feel ike I need a vacation.
A real vacation. Not a stay home from work for a week because I'm coughing up my lungs and still have to clean house "vacation". No. I want one like they get on those infomercials. The ones celebrities take their whole entourage on. Like the romantic movies. Some remote beach where my only responsibility is to enjoy each day and re....lax. Not gonna happen. I'm a cube slave. A full time student. And at home I have to play the role of non-wife housewife and addicted MMO gamer.
I step back and read over the life I have constructed for my Miss. JD and I know, it's me. I'm Mary-Sueing my own crap existence away into a novel. Escaping through her to the life I wish I was brave enough to run away to. Dear god, I've become a S.Meyers. It may not involve eternal pledges to sparkly immortals, but it's just as lame and shameful.
I should be reading to escape, not writing it. I apologize to my future readers if any trace of the pathetic rhetoric remains in my finished book. Any reflection of myself upon her will only tarnish her and make the story itself seem trite and ridiculous. I think I'm going to make a conscious effort now to make her contradictory to who I am. It's about time Jayne does something I wholly detest.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I heard that!
Did you ever read a line in a book and instantly imagine it on the big screen? The message and weight of those words was so powerful that you could hear the orchestra swelling up behind them, a coming-soon-to-CD crescendo accenting the final syllable followed by naught by profound silence, letting those words sink into the viewer's memory...
Maybe it's just my visually spoiled 80s generation talking, but I love when that moment pops out of a book. Almost as much as when I get the "Oh! There's the title reference!" moment.
I have a friend who is working on a screenplay adaptation of the ancient Celtic tales of Cuchulainn: The Hound of Ulster (most modern Western audiences know Ulster Cycle of the Knights of the Red Branch's English adaptation as the King Arthur Chronicles). I distinclty remember such a line from The Tain (the earlier part of the Hound's story) in which Cuchulainn chooses his destiny by taking up his father's sword. He is warned that to remain untarnished by battle, he will live a long life of obscurity. But to take arms he will die young, a hero. His reply while grasping the hilt:
"I choose greatness."
Translation debates aside, that's something that would stick with me as a moviegoer. How many of you would be so willing to accept a shortened life for glory? On that note, can't wait to go see 2012 for my birthday this weekend. I like to see acts of bravery when people are pushed their limits. Makes me wonder how many people outside, in the real world, could pull up enough courage to do the same.
Maybe it's just my visually spoiled 80s generation talking, but I love when that moment pops out of a book. Almost as much as when I get the "Oh! There's the title reference!" moment.
I have a friend who is working on a screenplay adaptation of the ancient Celtic tales of Cuchulainn: The Hound of Ulster (most modern Western audiences know Ulster Cycle of the Knights of the Red Branch's English adaptation as the King Arthur Chronicles). I distinclty remember such a line from The Tain (the earlier part of the Hound's story) in which Cuchulainn chooses his destiny by taking up his father's sword. He is warned that to remain untarnished by battle, he will live a long life of obscurity. But to take arms he will die young, a hero. His reply while grasping the hilt:"I choose greatness."
Translation debates aside, that's something that would stick with me as a moviegoer. How many of you would be so willing to accept a shortened life for glory? On that note, can't wait to go see 2012 for my birthday this weekend. I like to see acts of bravery when people are pushed their limits. Makes me wonder how many people outside, in the real world, could pull up enough courage to do the same.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Three Deaths and a Birth
I have this sick obsession with starting off a story with a death*. In this case, three. I have three main characters. The protagonist, the antagonist and the neutral narrator (the book). I decided a while back that all three should lose their fathers though at different stages of life and from different circumstances.
At this moment I have written the prologue/first chapter as the opening of a film. Curse modern technology and its influence on my writing style!
The antagonist, JD, will attend her father's execution. On the way home she will be passed by a speeding car housing our protagonist, Michael, who is on his way to the hospital for the death of his father. At the hospital, Michael will recieve a last gift from his father, a family heirloom. It is the mad raving diary of his mother. In here, Michael will read of the death of another man. An author who gave his life to create a book.
Yeah, I'm no Spielberg, but I'd watch it.
*side note: I once wrote a short story where the narrator commits suicide and the entire story is told in flash back as he dies. Don't ask.
At this moment I have written the prologue/first chapter as the opening of a film. Curse modern technology and its influence on my writing style!
The antagonist, JD, will attend her father's execution. On the way home she will be passed by a speeding car housing our protagonist, Michael, who is on his way to the hospital for the death of his father. At the hospital, Michael will recieve a last gift from his father, a family heirloom. It is the mad raving diary of his mother. In here, Michael will read of the death of another man. An author who gave his life to create a book.
Yeah, I'm no Spielberg, but I'd watch it.
*side note: I once wrote a short story where the narrator commits suicide and the entire story is told in flash back as he dies. Don't ask.
Stepped Away; Wandered Back
They [those who write fiction author advice books] always tell the burgeoning writer to step away from his work and come back to it with fresh eyes. So, I have done just this. Forgotten in a folder on the C drive, I have ignored my work for months now. But, after a recent conversation, I am back and reignited by inspiration.
I also hate almost every word I previously wrote.
Fantastic.
Time to go oldschool notebook jotting on this idea. I don't want to let it die, but I might have to destroy it and rebuild once again. We shall see.
I also hate almost every word I previously wrote.
Fantastic.
Time to go oldschool notebook jotting on this idea. I don't want to let it die, but I might have to destroy it and rebuild once again. We shall see.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
"Orphans make great characters."
I forget now which professor first uttered those words, but I have since heard them repeated over and over again. Imagine a world with Annie, Madeline, Oliver, Pip and even Bruce Wayne as stable, mundane indivduals with no motivation for self-growth or adventure. I would venture to guess that we'd lose over half of our most beloved stories if the characters in them had grown up in stable homes. Orphaned children are forced into life without tools, without understanding. As readers thrust into a new world we cling to these characters for guidance and explanation.
It's easy to pity an orphan. Afterall, they have been robbed of that simplest and most underappreciated gift - childhood. Whether their parents were murdered or simply too poor to feed them, children who grow up without emotional nourishment will seek it elsewhere. The greatest part of this character dynamic is that you, as a writer, can take it anywhere. You can make a villain who people pity [Vader] or a hero who who slays him [Skywalker]. Though the source of tragedy is often similiar, deciding how a character will react to their tragedy is deciding their fate.
As for my antagonist, I murdered her parents. And like Dick Grayson and his ilk, I have decided to give her the middle-road approach to life. One that produces fits of anger and remorse but seeks to do well for those they care about. As a child who is taken in and guided by a surrogate parent I have given her a set of moral guidlines imposed by a desire to please and seek reward. Whether she will embrace or rebel against these ideals has yet to be decided.
It's easy to pity an orphan. Afterall, they have been robbed of that simplest and most underappreciated gift - childhood. Whether their parents were murdered or simply too poor to feed them, children who grow up without emotional nourishment will seek it elsewhere. The greatest part of this character dynamic is that you, as a writer, can take it anywhere. You can make a villain who people pity [Vader] or a hero who who slays him [Skywalker]. Though the source of tragedy is often similiar, deciding how a character will react to their tragedy is deciding their fate.
As for my antagonist, I murdered her parents. And like Dick Grayson and his ilk, I have decided to give her the middle-road approach to life. One that produces fits of anger and remorse but seeks to do well for those they care about. As a child who is taken in and guided by a surrogate parent I have given her a set of moral guidlines imposed by a desire to please and seek reward. Whether she will embrace or rebel against these ideals has yet to be decided.
Protaganist Procrastination
Well I couldn't just start writing this story without setting some sort of anchor for the readership to follow. I knew that Superman or super villain, the majority of readers should be on his "side" and see a large part of the world filtered through his lense. But I wasn't writing a book with clearly drawn moral lines. There is no "light" or "dark" in my world. So, trying to mold a likable character to root for became something set off to the side and forgotten.
It wasn't until rereading Gaiman's Lucifer collection that I discovered my protagonist. Within the complicated moral structure of angels, demons and mortals the readers of Lucifer are introduced, breifly, to Meleos. He is a book collector of the rare and occult variety. And it is he who gives birth to the self-aware tarot deck known as the Basanos in Gaiman's universe. I was drawn to his reclusive life and his love for hoarding rare works of writing. However, I did not have need for a supernatural angel with godlike powers to breathe life into inanimate objects. Therefore, after a few hours of flipping through my bookshelf and DVDs I stumbled upon the missing element of my unnamed protagonist.
In a short watched anime called Read or Die exists a secret agent/librarian named Yomiko Readman. She is an introverted bibliophile who, while fighting for her life, is often more concerned for the safety of her books than herself. This was the humorous and more down-to-earth element missing from Meleos' personality. Where he is drawn to the occult and dark powers within books, she actually loves and respects her collection.
For my protagonist, I want him to be a fanatic collector. One who seeks rarity and historical importance from the books he hoardes. But I also want him to love and respect each page not out of greed or selfishness, but out of respect for the art itself. Respect for the creation. A fanaticism comparable with an animal rights activist sans the violence. This is my protagonist.
Now he just needs a name.
It wasn't until rereading Gaiman's Lucifer collection that I discovered my protagonist. Within the complicated moral structure of angels, demons and mortals the readers of Lucifer are introduced, breifly, to Meleos. He is a book collector of the rare and occult variety. And it is he who gives birth to the self-aware tarot deck known as the Basanos in Gaiman's universe. I was drawn to his reclusive life and his love for hoarding rare works of writing. However, I did not have need for a supernatural angel with godlike powers to breathe life into inanimate objects. Therefore, after a few hours of flipping through my bookshelf and DVDs I stumbled upon the missing element of my unnamed protagonist.
In a short watched anime called Read or Die exists a secret agent/librarian named Yomiko Readman. She is an introverted bibliophile who, while fighting for her life, is often more concerned for the safety of her books than herself. This was the humorous and more down-to-earth element missing from Meleos' personality. Where he is drawn to the occult and dark powers within books, she actually loves and respects her collection.
For my protagonist, I want him to be a fanatic collector. One who seeks rarity and historical importance from the books he hoardes. But I also want him to love and respect each page not out of greed or selfishness, but out of respect for the art itself. Respect for the creation. A fanaticism comparable with an animal rights activist sans the violence. This is my protagonist.
Now he just needs a name.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Setting: Universal or Universe Appeal?
Let me just say upfront that I have nothing "against" the Science Fiction genre. Some of my favorite stories (though most of them dystopian) are set in the not-so-distant future. I do not, however, enjoy Star Trek nor Wars to the extent of most of my friends. I think it has something to do with made up languages and aliens feeling too forced and generic but I'm sure there is more to my distaste for space settings.
When I first decided to write this story, I had considered many different locations and time periods. Space travel, as readers know it, can be ancient (a lost secret from ancient civilzations), modern (a heroic tale of man taming machine and nature) or futuristic (aliens and universal councils). None of these settings fit the story I want to tell. So space was out. Not erased, but not considered. My story has it roots on one planet and in one race, humanity. Whether or not its moral structure could be rewritten in a otherworldly setting is something I'll leave up to the screenwriters of the third installment. W&P III: Books In Space.
The main reason I decided to keep the story in a vague time setting is that it centers around a book. A timeless thing. That being said, books are not often found in futuristic tales where one has touch screens and direct-to-brain downloads. Kindle Gone Wild. No, I wanted a real book. A heavy, ancient, hand-written piece of text. That's why I don't have spaceships and aliens. But it's also why I tried to stay more science and less fiction. I wanted each story to taste familiar with just a hint of something exotic.
When I first decided to write this story, I had considered many different locations and time periods. Space travel, as readers know it, can be ancient (a lost secret from ancient civilzations), modern (a heroic tale of man taming machine and nature) or futuristic (aliens and universal councils). None of these settings fit the story I want to tell. So space was out. Not erased, but not considered. My story has it roots on one planet and in one race, humanity. Whether or not its moral structure could be rewritten in a otherworldly setting is something I'll leave up to the screenwriters of the third installment. W&P III: Books In Space.
The main reason I decided to keep the story in a vague time setting is that it centers around a book. A timeless thing. That being said, books are not often found in futuristic tales where one has touch screens and direct-to-brain downloads. Kindle Gone Wild. No, I wanted a real book. A heavy, ancient, hand-written piece of text. That's why I don't have spaceships and aliens. But it's also why I tried to stay more science and less fiction. I wanted each story to taste familiar with just a hint of something exotic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
