Sad, torch singing Snape!
Thursday, June 24, 2004Wrote almost 4 thousand words today! Woot!
Anyway, someone sent me a link to this short animated flash movie that stars a singing Professor Snape from the Harry Potter series. It' was cute! If you play it through the first time and it's slow, play it the second time, when, after the credits it has a replay button. It'll play smoothly. Really cute.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 6:34 PM
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Ergh.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004(kicks blogger machine)
Yes, there is an odd resemblance between the post on the 20th and this post. That's because I thought Blogger had lost the 20th's post, that it was gone, dust, cigarette smoke...ad so I re-wrote it. The two posts are different, in *some* ways so I won't delte it. I'll just...
(kicks the blogger machine again. One more time. Then hobbles away, limping.)
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 11:44 PM
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So, let’s try this again.
I quit blogging because my posts haven’t been coming through...so this time, I’m going to write the darn post in something I can *save*.
No were was I?
I’ve been writing, heavily, these past few days, all by hand. I think that my brain or my muse or something requires that I start a book by hand, because it seems to keep me on track. If I start typing directly into the computer, I end up with a printout an inch thick that feels like it’s bloated and all over the place. (Er. Water’s Edge. Though after I did an...argh! Outline, I thought that part of the problem was that there was so much I wanted to accomplish in the book, that maybe...maybe...it‘s a duology, rather than a single title. Need to maunder over it a bit.) I think this habit comes from back when I began writing at 13. I wrote during classes...especially math (Hey, 2+2=5 is all the math *I* need...anyway, God made calculators for a reason.) scribbling away on sheets of paper (pink...one of my first stories was written on pink paper....) or in notebooks. I especially loved those tablets they gave you at the beginning of every school year...the paper felt so good to write on. Do you remember them? Ours had eagles clutching a scroll that had places for your name, etc. on it. There was a quote, too, “Man needs learning to make something of himself?” I dunno. Any way, I remember, I used to get an extra one half way through the year from one teacher, by being honest with her about why I wanted it. Those were the *best*.
And I’d write in the lunch line, during lunch, at recess, in study hall, after tests...whenever I could. My first story was about a ballet dancer who was being stalked, and her romance with the guy who may or may not be the stalker. (Hmmm...Christopher Pike influence, there...) I rolled it up into a scroll (a *pink* scroll) and handed it off to barb, who came running up to me on the bus to tell me how much she loved my story. “I was grinning from ear to ear, I was so happy!” she said.
And that, I think, is why I write. Because of that moment. I used to write scripts for her, and for another girl, Francie. They were stories of meetings with Rock Stars (I believe that I wrote about the New Kids on the Block for Francie...now, that’s friendship!) and actors...romantic silly stories, parodies of fairy tales starring Bono and The edge with members of INXS thrown in for me. So, I guess, once upon a time, I did write fan fiction. Barb wrote me one, once, too...and that story is one of the most precious things I own.
I also wrote a story when i was nine, got about ten pages into it, and got bored. It was about twins. One of them was evil. That's all I remeber...surprised I remeber that much.
When I read Barbara Hamlby's Dragonsbane, my stories became more fantasy oriented. I loved magic, and realized the abiding interest I’d always had for such things could be used to make it.
And that long story is why, I think, I have to write by hand first. All of my books were at least partially started by hand. balancing Act’s first draft was all by hand, Blue Moon was written in chunks on the computer and off...it’s how I developed, and how I’ll always be.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 7:56 PM
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Sunday, June 20, 2004Do you hear that scream? That's the scream of someone who spent a half an hour writing a fairly more intelligent than usual post on writing only to have it dissashaggingpear.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:52 PM
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I've not been blogging because I've been writing. Actually writing. Like I'm suppossed to be doing but keep putting off because everything else always seem so much more important. It feels good to be actually hand writing a story...I keep going back to writing my first drafts out by hand, because when I don't start out by hand things tend to bloat and scatter and pretty soon you have a print out an inch thick and the story's not even half way over. I think it's because, when I was 13 and realized that I wanted to be a writer, most specifically that I wanted to write fantasy like Barbara Hambly, my writing time was usually scheduled during...erm...math class. I used to borrow medieval history books out of the library and outline them because I loved the middle ages and wanted a solid base for them (funny, not one book I've written...or short story that I can think of...has ever really taken place in Medieval times.) and my whole desire to become a librarian was based off the fact my research materials would be handy, if I worked in a library. (That and I love books the way some people love scotch. Or cocaine. )
Anyway. During school days I wrote. I wrote during lunch, standing in lunch lines, study hall, when ever I could get away with it, i was scribbling in a notebook. So that's why, I think, I need to hand write, at least until I have things in order. I hate it in some ways, it feels like I'm wasting time, you know? Like if I could do my story right into the computer it would save a crucial step.
But Ashton is obstinate. He wants to be written in ink. He thinks that real writers use ink. I tell him he's silly, which is why, perhaps, he won't tell me his first name. Ashton would also like to make sure I tell you that he was named Ashton well before I ever heard of Ashton Kutcher. I named him, in fact, for a London Gentleman's club that I'd read of in a book.
Minerva, of course, is much more easy going. Minerva B. Corvae...she's not truly keen on her name, either, since her father (a scholar specializing in Greek myths) insisted on naming her something that can't be flatteringly shortened, and gave her a middle name (after his mother in law) that can't be used instead. (Beulah)
So, those are the main charcaters in Palace of Bone...I've been reading what I wrote on the next book starring these two, Killing the Muses and trying to decide when certain steps in their lives, in their relationships, when in the planned three books I'll reveal certain secrets about Ashton, when i'll let them kiss, when I'll almost kill Minerva....
I ought to outline things, loosly, but I hate outlines. I'd rather let things work out for themselves.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:36 PM
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The Gospel of Story
Monday, June 07, 2004I think God likes stories. I think that's what we're all about...perhaps, now, I have stumbled upon a secret, the meaning of life...that we are here to create stories.
I don't mean by writing, but by living. This is a story of a man who combines his love of movies and books to create a website. There is the story of a woman who works in Washington DC, who writes wonderfully. This is the story of a book lover who used to live on a boat.
Everything we do is a story. We breathe story, we comfort ourselves with story, we dream to create stories that are about-us-but-not, about vampires and dragons and spaceships and romances that work for real. Where good over comes evil, where neighbors stick up for you, where ture love can be salvation. We have not stopped creating myths.
Every day is high comedy and low, drama and erotica, mystery and horror and sweetness. Every day is the gospel of us.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:17 PM
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List time!
Sunday, June 06, 2004Here is my list of ten things to do to make my life more joyous...what's yours? Feel free to comment with them below, or link me to your list. :-)
Drink soda out of champagne glasses.
Wake up and, while the dew is still fresh, check the garden for pixies.
Walk up to someone, randomly, smile harmlessly, and tell them that they are beautiful. Or Nifty. Or something nice.
Feel the rain and wind on my shoulders.
Blow bubbles. Especially on a very clean, bright moonlit night.
Carry holy water around...just in case.
Watch scary movies after midnight.
Swing...swing sets are ok, double points if the swing is in the woods or near water.
Read sometime when you should be doing Something Else.
Always leave room for possabilities...
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 5:03 PM
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I do confess a small abiding interest in actors...I need to keep my mind busy, and going to forums and visiting with people is rather fun. But there's a serious purpose behind the madness, for me. It's not about what they had for breakfast or how many children they have, to me, it's all about story. How do they use themselves to communicate, to create?
For instance...pull out some tapes with Sean Bean in them. How is his Richard Sharpe different from his charcater in Ronin? What's the difference between them and Boromir? How does he use his body, his hands, his face, the inflections in his voice, his eyes, to make those three very different men? How does the charcater you create when you read the Cornwell books compare with Bean's version? Also, do the books seem to change a little, from before the movies were filmed to after? If you watch Oded Fehr in The Mummy, then catch an episode of Presidio Med, everything -- from the way the two men hold themselves, the general expressions on their faces, the way their voices sound -- are very different. It fascinates me to watch the same person taking on these charcaters and making them different.
It teaches me something that I think I can carry into my own work. These people are translating words into pictures, they are solidifying the (...oh...I can't think of the right word...) image of what we concieve this type of character to be like. A gesture, how that character empahsizes certain words, can give you clues how your reader would percieve your own character. You also can see what works, and what doesn't. After all, a character of your own, when you first conceive of him or her, is nothing more than a blank wisp of thought that you add things to...an actor that you can impose total authority upon.
Also, I've been learning a lot about response to character. One of the actors I've been studying recently is a treasure for what I was talking about -- Alan Rickman. Watching how he approaches each role...how he translates the author or scriptwriter's story...is always a treat. Especially interesting is how he took a character from the Harry Potter books... (never read them, but I found a few excerpts describing Snape online) a rather unattractive and unlikable character, and turned him into something that women find alluring and mysterious.
How is this applicable to writing? Well, you need to understand, not just what makes a person a person, but you need to know enough about what visual (and mental doesn't hurt) clues will tell your reader who this person they're drawing in their minds is. If you are a good writer...and I truly hope to be one of those someday...a reader should be able to know pretty much who is speaking or acting without having to relie on the tags. Every charcater should be a totally different individual. For me, this helps partially because it is the same person doing all these things. And you need to do this with several people, because the way one would do a charcater is not the same way another would.
It's also applicable in that we get to see audience reaction. How do the people respond to what the actors are doing? What do they seem attracted to? What doesn't seem to work for them, and why?
I want to know this because I've never made a secret that I want to write things that move people, that provide an escape hatch. Movies are easier to study because it's so compressed...we all spend the smae amount of time watching it, while a book that might take me three days to read might take you a week. And for all that, we're all spending the same amount of time, we all see different things.
It's not something that I spend a great deal of time on...it's one of those projects I build on. But I think understanding the audience, understanding my own reactions, will make me a better writer.
So if I'm not a fan-girl, can I explain the verbal "Woot!" I made when I found From Hell, Chocolat and Dark Harbor (The first two are Jonny Depp Movies, the second an Alan rickman) for 3 bucks in a used movie bin? Er. No. But it is pretty fun.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:04 PM
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Suicide
Tuesday, June 01, 2004I heard recently that a girl at a local high school killed herself. I was accidentally eavesdropping...that thing you try not to do, you're just sitting there, and there's a space between thoughts, and something someone else says draws you. You don't mean it, but there you are, being rude.
I remebered another girl. God, she was so quiet...silence seemed to surround her. I'd talk to her when I could, try and bring her out, say silly things to make her laugh, and the best I would get was a sweet smile, a nod, a shake of head. When I heard she'd killed herself, I was so sorry...genuinely hurt, and I missed her even as I felt guilty that I hadn't tried harder. We had been, in a way, sisters in unpopularity. That was the better part of me, feeling.
But when the teacher announced it, she also annouced that a special counceller would come in, and all these people who tortured her and were mean to her...and even people who just pretty much ignored her...they were all crying and saying how terrible this all was, and going to the councellor to learn how to "deal with the loss of their classmate."
It made me so angry. I'd felt suicidal from time to time...you feel so lost, sometimes, at that age...but right then and there, looking at these hypocrites, I swore I'd never give them a free hour out of class over *my* cooling body.
This post seems to be more apropo of nothing than my usual, but perhaps the thought will get out there, into the air, and maybe some young person will get angry instead of sad, and keep their heads down and wait it all out. Because trust me, life gets *so* much better after High School.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 2:54 PM
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