Writing and Publishing (week 2)

Writing classes were held on Tuesday and this is another extract that I wrote in an hour. It was much harder this time because I was trying to write horror, which is a genre I haven’t done before. I’m thinking I’m better with genres such as fantasy, science fiction etc.
BUT! Here it is anyway!

I don’t like it but tell me what you think!

Drowning is often described as a peaceful death. Blue images surround you as your lungs give way and it’s just a slow motion ride to the bottom. Its quiet and nobody can touch you anymore. My uncle always told me that if he were to die a perfect death, to drown him in a river. He made me promise I would, if the topic of death was ever bought up again. I said my perfect death would be to wake from a peaceful sleep, wake up my wife and kiss her goodbye, before lying back on the bed and quietly passing. He said that was a silly way to die and that everybody should die alone. There is no need to say goodbye, when you’re always with the people you love
“Don’t ever think that death is the last thing that happens to you. It’s just the beginning of change. A new life.” My uncle never believed in heaven. Maybe that’s why, when he finally died my hands never felt dry again, and he never really left me alone…

* * *

My relationship with my uncle was always different compared to other families. Even my own family found it weird that I spent more time with him than my own father. Probably because my father and I were nothing alike and my uncle never seemed to mind me letting myself into his house to watch TV with him, play chess, and discuss my day at school. I never liked to tell my father about my time at school because he worked so hard to put me in the best school there is. Alabaster college was an affluent school that I didn’t belong to, yet a school my father wanted me to.
When my auntie died my uncle could no longer fend for himself. He lost all the will to live his life properly and slowly begun to sink into a slimy bile of depression. At this stage in his life, the topic of death was prominent in our afternoon conversations after school. While doing my homework as he cooked baked beans on the stove he would often recite his “fun facts” like
“Drowning is often described as a peaceful death…”
When walking to his house one afternoon I could see him sitting on his roof. I didn’t go to school for a week after he broke his ankle falling on it.
Another day I walked in on him standing in the living room with a gun to his head. I didn’t sleep from that day forward.
It soon became obvious that my uncle couldn’t be left alone anymore. I offered to stay in the house with him until he got some help…or found another way while I wasn’t looking. The day I moved in was the day I had to promise I would, if the topic of death was ever bought up again.
After a year of living with him he seemed to improve and I started to believe that my presence was helping him get over the death of the person he loved. One night when he was singing in the kitchen while washing up and I was finishing my homework he sung out
“I might have a bath before I sleep tonight Jimmy. Could you start running the water?” and I knew then, this was the night…

Jinx xx

Writing and Publishing

I feel compelled to write when I absolutely feel like it. This is why my blog isn’t overloaded with posts at the moment. Starting my new course I suddenly realised that my comfort zone of sitting down when I feel like it and writing what I want does not happen in the world of the writing business. When your publisher says “write another one”, you better believe you’ll be getting up every morning, showering and sitting down for hours on end staring at a blank page or staring at a blank computer. For most of us, this seems like an enjoyable thing and a place where many ideas come from. For me, it’s terrifying. Lucky for me I will be the annoying person who writers tend to end up hating.

But in the meantime, completing a writing and publishing course requires completing both the publishing side...and the writing. It’s both exciting and scary at the same time and I have no idea what story I will write. Funnily enough though, I know exactly who I’m going to dedicate it to. I’ve got dedications and ideas but, as we all know, ideas are just the beginning of something that needs to grow.

So when asked to sit down and write in class in Tuesday I started to think about how my mind works when asked to write when it doesn’t want to. And here’s what I came up with:

First, I write out questions I want answered. Some examples are:

How do people cope with death?

How do people understand the concept of death?

What makes us hate everything or embrace everything?

Then I think of characters who I think should explore these questions. But because I’m only showing you a small part of my draft I don’t want to give away my characters motivations and thoughts just yet, so we come to the third where I start to jump in and out of the mind of these characters testing them in different situations and deciding as I write what they will say and do. This character took me here. Tell me what you think:

I drove my car slowly up the driveway, cautiously almost even though there was nothing threatening ahead. I couldn’t tell you why the house frightened me. Standing tall and proud among the other houses that looked much the same as the one I was pursuing. Vines draped across the windows and snaked delicately down swaying slowly in the breeze. The house itself was red-bricked and seemed quite solid, a contrast to the vines. I decided on that day that I would hate the vines. That I would loathe the vines. That I would possibly cut them down just because of their delicacy. The fact that they couldn’t hurt me because they were nothing excited me, yet I hated them for making their weakness seem like a beauty.

My second day in the house proved to be pointless even when I was still unpacking. Nothing suited the house. My glass ornaments that were particularly special to me looked cheap and out of place against the rustic floorboards and wooden surroundings. I settled for rugs being decorations and hid away the glass ornaments. They didn’t even belong to me so I didn’t see why I should even be displaying them. I decided on that day that I would hate the house. That I would hate everything about it. The walls, the floors, everything.

Hope you like it!

Jinx xx

P.S new ideas require new pictures on my blog. This is kitty (Cornelius) and I bonding on my couch as I read another E. Lockhart book Fly on the wall.

Coraline

Coraline by Neil Gaimen was one of the first novels I read when I was young that changed the way I thought about life. There are always those stories out there that influence how you think and change your idea of how a world reacts to different situations. Some examples are stories like the uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, a new idea in a new world and yet we can always relate to it because it’s happening in our own life (plastic surgery, ranking people etc) Some new stories like Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr show old ideas (making your own choices) and old fantasy (folklore) yet put us in a new and modern world that makes you believe everything is true. Even the bible can be put under this category.

Coraline is a story about a girl in a new house in a new world foreign to her. She loves to explore and on a rainy boring day she goes hunting for something to do. This is where she finds a door that will take her on an adventure. Through this door is the appearance of the same world she had behind her; however when looking closely its very different, dark, bleak and very mysterious. Her parents have buttons for eyes and won’t let her go back through the door she came through. But that’s just the start of her troubles.

As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I loooved this story. It was something I hadn’t read before and I still haven’t read a similar or better story that had the same ideas as Coraline. I have watched the trailer to this movie and I think it captures the idea so well which I am very pleased about. From what I can remember from this story its dark behaviour was interesting, yet scary at the same time. I never wanted to put the book down yet felt the need to late at night or I would have had nightmares. I remember being very disappointed with the ending though. Such a wild and different story was summed up quite...normally? Quickly? I don’t know. It seemed to me that Neil wanted so much to finish the story that it seemed to just end so suddenly. His writing style throughout the novel was descriptive, yet when it came to the ending it was almost like there were a few pages missing. Therefore I rate this book 4/5

I read this book when I was in grade six and although I have been known to remember quite a lot of books I read when I was little and have a good memory of how I felt about them, truth be known I only remember the ones that had a great effect on me. And seeing as I’m a massive fan of books it’s easy for authors to entertain someone like me. I will always remember the books that changed my thoughts, my life and my world.

Jinx xx

Conversations with wife (part 2)

Wife: you know what book would be good to turn into film?
Me: what?
Wife: the uglies series...

That’s right, the “uglies” series by Scott Westerfeld. When hearing this I thought about it for a second and although it would be completely awesome, I also said to her that it would be incredibly expensive to create! Think about it, you’re creating a new world. Sure it’s meant to be set in America which is where almost every book I read these days are set, but I can’t imagine such a life Tally lives in to become reality. I guess it’s been done before. Star wars anyone! Epic genius *sighs happily*
What I thought was a good book to turn to film is Peeps. I loved Peeps for the fact that it was set in modern New York, yet had that science fiction side to it. Putting those two together makes everything in it almost...believable!
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Peeps, to sum up it’s a vamp book. However, vampires are called parasite positives or “peeps”. It’s funny, when you label something that’s fictional to slang or put a scientific name on it, it makes it all the more believable.
We realised, after having a rant about Hollywood being unoriginal, that it must be quite hard to turn a book into a film. That, in itself must be the real challenge. The following reasons are:

1. Violence. So many books, especially young adult have a wide range of violence through them but somehow it seems less violent when you read it yourself, rather than having to watch it. When reading “Chain of Hearts” by Maureen McCarthy I thought that if they ever turned this into a movie that it would be *SPOILER ALERT* flashbacks of the girl jumping in the river...the car crash...possibly implications of the main character using self harm. Even if she didn’t, when turning a book into a movie a lot of things are changed. *END SPOILER* *cough* ERAGON *cough* but in the book itself everything is only the characters point of view and memory of the situations and was mostly implications of what happened.

2. Pleasing the audience. This brings me to the book “Coraline” by Neil Gaimen. When reading it admittedly I was young. It was one of the first novels I read and I absolutely loved such a bleak, dark story that was for my age group. However, because it’s suited to such a young age, when turning it into film they have to be careful with the violence. To do this, they are making it animation. It’s worrying me. Hopefully they can turn it into something like “Howls moving castle” or even “Death-note”. Both being anime, yet both being bleak and dark. I’m worried it’s going to turn a great story into something that’s comical, sweet and sappy. But there’s always hope with the audience. And then always some disappointment when you see the film. Because as much as we hope and hope and hope, it’s always, always, always different to the book. I know it’s going to fail, but deep down I hope it won’t! Even Coraline is worried!!

3. What to include. One of the hardest things to achieve is how much you include in 2 hours. Some people can do it and others just fail. Fail is Eragon, no offence Stefen Fangmeier. Epic is Twilight. I know it’s strange but I think that Catherine Hardwicke honestly did do a great job in capturing characters, setting and the storyline. Everything was included and nothing was given away. Thank you for not mentioning in the first movie that Jacob is a werewolf. Or even implying it. Because implications piss me off.

It’s always fun talking with wife.

Happy Valentine’s Day for yesterday!

Jinx xx

Conversations with wife

Conversations with wife today consisted of boys, friends, fashion, Valentine’s Day, family, food, the fires and of course books.
Wife made a mention of two things that struck up very interesting conversations. The first is books and changing them into movies.
It seems these days that every book that becomes slightly popular is made into either a movie or a TV series.
Here is a list of all the movies showing at Hoyts that have something to do with books:

He's just not that into you(one of the most popular “self help” books that was reviewed on Oprah years ago and is now even more popular in stores again because of the movie adaption that is based loosely on stereotypical females in different situations involving men)

Slumdog millionaire (another book that wasn’t that popular when first released but is now swarming our stores in bookshops because of the movie)
Twilight (enough said...)

Confessions of a shopaholic (a fictional story by a very well known female writer named Sophie Kinsella who has written many books which, I’m pretty sure, connect to each other. these titles are “shopaholic takes Manhattan” and “Shopaholic ties the knot” etc)

Underworld (although not an adaption from a book, this time the situation is backwards and novels were published based on the screenplay by the screenwriters Kevin Grevioux, Danny McBride, and Len Wiseman)

Hotel for dogs (not a very popular author for this children’s book but after seeing the movie some customers come in and have asked about this book)

Dark knight (a fantastic, epic adaption of the comic books)

Doubt (not based on a book this time but actually a play by American playwright John Patrick Shanley, who also directed the movie)

Marley and me (based on the biography that was also on Oprah. I remember when it first came out it went like hot cakes. I also remembering telling everyone who bought it to also buy a box of tissues as it will make EVERYONE cry)

Curious case of Benjamin button (a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald who also wrote stories like “The Great Gatsby” which was also made into a film)

Yes man (based on the biography by Danny Wallace who ran a test where he said yes to everything in a period of 6 months to see how it would change his life)

Revolutionary road (based on the book by Richard Yates which was written and published in 1961)

Frost/Nixon (based on the play that hit Broadway in 2007 before hitting the cinemas in 2009)
I’ve loved you so long (again a play by a French playwright Philippe Claudel)

The spirit (an interesting adaption as it’s based on a newspaper strip/comic from the 1940’s)

The day the earth stood still (the 2008 version is the remade version of the movie that screened in 1951. The story itself was based on the short story titled “Farewell to the Master” by American science fiction editor and writer Harry Bates)

The tale of Desperereaux (based on the children’s storybook that was published in 2003)

Hansel and Gretel (based loosely on the original fairytale with its own original ideas in the story)

The reader (based on the novel from 1995 the German writer Bernhard Schlink)

And that’s just movies that are in cinemas currently. There are waay more out there. I’m not bagging these movies i think its great that this is happening in many ways. In some cases it gets people reading more, like the twilight series and, if done right, can change the way you imagine the story in many good ways. Sometimes it even helps us grasp the meaning better when most studied books we learn in schools have movies connected to the books. However, when it comes to Hollywood coming up with something original, you got another thing coming! That’s not happening anymore!!
Thank you to IMDB for helping me research which movies are based on books. For more information on any of these movies and more visit this website
http://www.imdb.com/

The second interesting conversation I had with wife shall have to wait for another entry as I didn’t realise the first conversation would have gone on for so long!!

Thanks

Jinx xx

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Buy this book. do it. Right now. Do not question me!
Go now!
Ok fine. I’ll give my review so you understand why I love this book so much. However, it still isn’t 5 out of 5, rather 4 out of 5. The point was taken off because in the last 3 chapters I ended up hating the main character. She confused me so much and I wasn’t even sure whether I truly enjoyed the ending because of the events that took place and the characters motivations.
Set in the school of Alabaster, an affluent college, the author takes us on the journey of Frankie Landau-Banks’ life at school. The author’s writing style is just wonderful, as she speaks in the 2nd person. A style which I haven’t really read before, but enjoyed so much more than the more popular choice of the 1st person or 3rd person writing style for fiction. (Prove me wrong that there aren’t many 3rd person fiction stories out there by giving me titles!)
Set in the future of the events that happened at Alabaster College, the reader is told about this character Frankie. What is stressed throughout the first at least half of the story is how ordinary she is. No one notices her and no one cares about her. She’s not emo, she’s not a freak either...she’s just Frankie. Or Bunny Rabbit to her parents. When she meets Matthew Livingston, her world is changed around when she starts hanging out with him and his friends. Their life seems perfect, until she finds that Matthew is lying to her and keeps ditching her to hang with his best friend Alpha. So she follows him one night to find out what he’s up to. Because yanno it’s what everyone does!
What really intrigued me with this book is its fantastic language. The slang used by the kids in the school (particular Alpha’s language) was so clever and funny, yet stuck with you. It was the perfect slanguage. You actually wanted to be a part of this group of people, you wanted to BE these people, which I guess was the point E. Lockhart was making. Everyone wanted to be a part of this group for the pure fact that they had this wonderful sense of togetherness. They were a tight group, who stuck together and were always this joyous group to be around, especially the boys.
Another thing that intrigued me was the amount of feminist comments. Both genders can read this book, don’t get me wrong! but honestly speaking I think it’s more suited to females for the pure fact that females would understand the main characters motivations more, and because it was full of feminism (Helsinki look into this book!) Frankie was the main feminist and focused on issues surrounding the school and the people in it. Even her language and the way she spoke to males was very clever, and something I think we can all learn from.
The thing that annoyed me about this book was the main character. By the end of the book, I suddenly became annoyed with her. I thought about it some more after I read the ending and I figured I was mostly annoyed at the fact that she destroyed the lives of many others around her, yet still kept to her believe that what she did was right. Well in my opinion, it was not right. It was interesting and a fantastic story but she could have gone about things differently, which would have made the story change and be uninteresting. Therefore, making the events of the story unrealistic in a way. Another thing that made it unrealistic is Frankie’s age. She is 15 years old, however, the way she speaks, the way she thinks about how she addresses boys and her way of dealing with things thrown at her are not things that are usually thought by 15 year old girls. Especially when it is stressed that she is quite ordinary. She, in my opinion, is not ordinary. She is too unrealistic for me, she should have whined about her boyfriend more, she should have confided in more girls rather than dealing with everything herself. In fact the only person she told was her sister. And her sister is not normal either. Her name is Zada. Enough said.
For anyone that has read this story please please tell me so I can discuss it with you. I would very much like to discuss this in more detail.

One more thing. I’d like to think that this Frankie chick ended up going mad. Even if it’s only implied in the story, I would very much like to think that she drove herself completely crazy. I think she deserves to have a mind of mush by the end when the author designed her to be unbelievably clever, sassy, funny and overconfident...all at the age of 15

Disreputably yours

Jinx xx
P.S BUY IT!

losing the bet

Nothing satisfies me more than someone losing a bet. If anyone can come up with as good a bets as Scott Westerfeld then I would like to duel with you. Helsinki, see if you can beat this original one.

We love Maureen Johnson. She is fantabulous. However, when she loses a bet to Scott Westerfeld and has to dress up as wonder woman and go to Dragon con. She is even more fantabulous.


This video has some of the best footage of what authors do in their spare time. Only the coolest of nerds go to Dragon con, especially those who lose a bet and have to go as wonder woman.
Here is the link and my commentary! blogger wouldnt let me put the video up! *growls*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T89a6kJap34


1.37- those guys have some balls!
1.47-the person all these people are saying hi to is john green. He could not attend dragon on. And I forgot why. But the usual group of friends that Scott has includes john green as well as the listed cool people. Oh how I wish I was friends with all of them. They’re all so cool!
1.49- for anyone who has seen Garden State this guy reminds me of the policeman Largeman runs into. Funniest guy ever.
Andrew Largeman: You're a COP, Kenny?
Kenny: Yeah, I know!
Andrew Largeman: ...Why?
Kenny: I don't know, man. Had nothing better to do.
Although, I so don’t want to be served by him at Maccas. Would rather my Louise to serve me.
2.00- oh god.
2.35- we love Theo Black. Keep watching and Helsinki you will love him more. He reminds me of a character that’s jumped out of the game World of Warcraft...and although he lost points because of that. He gained them back by being an awesome dude!
4.15- yeah do the skill!! Do it so Helsinki can see!
4.24- yes! Oh my God marry me. Shame he dropped it though...
4.58- hellz yeah! My beloved Pacman! If you people remember me talking about this person I mentioned how he couldn’t get through the elevator. There is another video of him failing to fit both sideways and long ways. But I can’t find it. Never the less, this is him waiting in line to go through some doors that will obviously prove to be quite difficult. If I was ever going to Dragon con ( and if I was ever cool enough to attend) I would dress as Pacman. Tim, you can be my dots that I gobble...or whatever the things he chases and eats are...*winks*
5.26- as much as I adore him...I wouldn’t wear my own merchandise. It annoys me as much as Tres Cool wearing a Green Day T-shirt in one of their videos. Both are completely awesome. But come on that’s a little silly.
5.36- I wish all merchandise T-shirts were as cheap as those listed. Instead of 40 dollars for a small band t-shirt. And I would be pretty upset if I had to ask if they had any XXXXXXL t-shirts...just because yanno...they seem to have every other size! Either their very small with sizing or...Australia is fatter then I realise...seeing as that’s American sizing.


To watch more of Maureen I suggest the video “MJ goes back to school” especially for you Helsinki. I thought you would appreciate from 1.50 onwards ^^


Here is the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2kVl9VnrE&feature=channel_page


Enjoy!


Jinx xx