Monthly Archives: October 2013

Hello

Hello dear internet readers,

I know I’ve been failing at writing a couple of posts a week, to make it up I’ve been cheating and “reboging.” But I promise I have some pretty good excuses, which go beyond not knowing what to write. One, I’ve been plotting for NaNoWriMo, I even wrote up a little outline, which is huge because I tend to hate outlining. Two, SteamCon in Seattle is this weekend. I’ve been spending a lot of my free time scouring Pinterest for ideas that I can actually pull off. Which I think my efforts are going to be rewarded, this costume will be way cooler than last years. So I have been distracted from writing insightful blog posts. But I am working on my review for “Interview with the Vampire” and come November I’m sure I’ll be posting to the blog a lot, though I doubt the posts will be insightful, mostly me lamenting my struggles and celebrating my triumphs of NaNo, you very well may get sick of me, but that’s ok.

I will be in touch,

~~Lady of the Pen~~

Growing Creatively

My dear friend’s thoughts on creative growth. Excellent read!

Improper & Elegant

As I sit at my desk pouring over my own work from the past few years, and having been focusing my time as of late to study those who are truly great; I come to see a vast growth in my personal writing. I know that we all must grow as artists. Our creativity changes with situations and emotions, as well as trial and error. Change is practically a force of nature, and we adapt or become irrelevant. So on looking at my own growth, and the growth of others, yes we adapt to the changes in ourselves and our lives, but what causes the adaptation? How is it that we creatively change?

From my current point of view I read my stories of youth and see that as my words have simplified, my plots have become complex and my points are made more clearly. In my own journey through…

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Dreams

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Do you ever have dreams that devastate you when you wake up and realize that it wasn’t real? As a child I remember having dreams where I’d discovered the secret of flight, only to awake and find that secret gone. It seems my dreams have shifted since I was a child–though I’d still jump to discover the secret of flight.

Last night I dreamed that I walked into a coffee shop and found Patrick Rothfuss and Neil Gaiman sitting at a table talking and writing. I obviously walked over and they then invited me to sit and write with them. It was amazing! I respect both authors immensely and consider them major influences in my writing. I was deeply saddened to wake up and realize that it was only a dream. But who knows? Maybe someday I will have such an opportunity. Anything’s possible.

~~Lady of the Pen~~

Inexplicable Anticipation

Do you ever get moments of inexplicable anticipation when starting a book or movie? There are times when I get a feeling, right at the beginning of a movie or book, that I’ve found something I’m going to love, this is a story that will strike a cord with me.

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I experienced this recently when reading Neil Gaiman’s book “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.” Within a couple of pages something about the style, the imagery, the tone, the voice had me bouncing up in down in my seat. I knew I’d found something special. And I was right. The words sang to me in a way that few books have.

 

 

ImageI had a similar experience when watching a movie called “INK.” It’s a low budget, surreal fantasy that portrays some very interesting concept with an artist ingeniousness that can only come from using all your creativity to make due with limited resources. I love that movie. It took a little longer than “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” I think it was the third scene when I realized that I was going to love this movie.

 

I’m fascinated by this strange phenomenon. There have been plenty of times I’ve adored a book and not had this feeling. But there are times when a storyteller’s work strikes a deep vein in me from the very beginning and I know there is no way I won’t like this story.

~~Lady of the Pen~~

Influences

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I believe that many of a writer’s greatest influences come from their childhood, especially those who write fiction. For me it started with my mom reading to me. She read “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” to me–and did a great Gollum voice. I read many books on my own as well and was especially fond of Tamora Pierce’s books when I was young, I remember being excited that girls could be cool too and have adventures.

I spent a lot of time in our woods surrounded by massive big leaf maples that could easily be a part of Middle Earth or some other grand fantasy realm. This was the perfect place to create an active imagination. I played countless imaginary games with my next door neighbors in those woods and later on, when they moved away, I walked the woods alone, with a machete and acted out stories in my head. I remember trying to write a couple of stories when I was 12 or 13, they were total ripoffs of Lord of the Rings and quickly died, though they’re entertaining to read now. I didn’t truly get into writing until I was 15. By then I knew I could no longer play imaginary games. I still tried from time to time, because I hated to let that part of my childhood go, but I’d quickly become bored. I couldn’t do it any longer and I mourned that loss and that’s when I turned to writing. I started a bad fantasy novel about a dutiful street guard, a mischievous thief, and a mysterious elven warrior and her flying tiger and their quest to save the kingdom of Dragoon from a deadly manmade plague. And 40,000 words and a year later I actually finished it. Since then I’ve continued writing pretty regularly. I’ve done NaNoWriMo for five years and written several short stories. But all my writing traces back to my childhood and my mom reading me Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and playing games in the woods. I believe that most writers write because they fell deeply in love with books as a child and they’re not willing to put that world of imagination aside. Maybe we can no longer loose ourselves in imaginary worlds like we could as children, but we can still try through the words we write and the stories we create.