After months of struggling, here's what I know.
Writing original fiction is harder than writing fanfiction.
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anniehow’s journal. I admit, I don’t know what “The Big Read” is, but, apparently (and sort of sadly), they assume that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTQwP2g
As my friend GateBiscuit said so eloquently, there are NO WORDS! I'm still laughing! SO MUCH JOY!
- Music:Goldfrapp - A&E
Leesa_peerie mentioned that, in the UK, they're trying to extend the right of the government to hold a man without charge from 28 days to 42 days. What's interesting is, it's a LABOR party initiative. And, gosh darn it, aren't they supposed to be like our Dems? But, here's the kicker...our Dems aren't like your Labor, anymore than our Republicans are anything like your Conservatives...
I vote Dem in the US, but, seriously...I'd so vote Conservative in the UK right now. I voted Blair in a long time ago, and I cheered as Labor finally topped John Major. Not anymore!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2
Interesting, isn't it?
Ah, politics! How I love it!
Having worked on a tiny part of this case on behalf of one of the detainees a few years ago -- someone I absolutely believe should never have been kidnapped from his native Albania and placed in Gitmo -- I'm so, so glad that the Supreme Court finally recognized that its job is to protect the rights set forth in the Constitution, not protecting our administration or allowing paranoia to get the better of our judicial system. No matter what you think about what's going on in Gitmo or the men there, taking away a man's habeus corpus rights is abominable.
So, YAY for the Supreme Court! And score one for basic human rights!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2
(I'm still pissed off about the Bush-Gore election opinion, but this makes up for a lot of that)
Here's a short excerpt from the article I've linked above.
"The Court's ruling was grounded in its recognition that the guarantee of habeas corpus was so central to the Founding that it was one of the few individual rights included in the Constitution even before the Bill of Rights was enacted. As the Court put it: "the Framers viewed unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom." The Court noted that freedom from arbitrary or baseless imprisonment was one of the core rights established by the 13th Century Magna Carta, and it is the writ of habeas corpus which is the means for enforcing that right. Once habeas corpus is abolished -- as the Military Commissions Act sought to do -- then we return to the pre-Magna Carta days where the Government is free to imprison people with no recourse. "
Hooray for Fantasy Books!
Note -- I'm not touching graphic novels (Elfquest, Sandman, Watchmen, etc), short stories (except for the Complete Compleat Enchanter, because that was more a series) or plays (Midsummer's Night Dream, anyone?) or other forms of art. If you want to rec them, though, you can.
Oh, another note -- I'm not really up on the more contemporary authors -- i.e., people who have cropped up in the last five years or so. Fanfiction really did eat up my brain for a long time, so I just read the authors I knew when I went to the store. So, bring on the new authors! Who do I need to read that's new?
Thanks for suffering through that. And, yes, I'm brand loyal to B&N because I worked there. Feel free to use Amazon, Borders, Dillons, Waterstone's, Crown Books, Powell's, the Strand, or whomever else you like. But ESPECIALLY your library. Above all, start at the library.
[Also, apologies for the font issues. Weird issues with LJ Cut, and I can't seem to fix it.]
- Music:Offspring
water_soter asked for some recommendations of good/fun books to read in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Obviously, it's a massive genre, and there's disagreements over what books should be in there or just in the fiction section, or what is sci-fi and what is fantasy, what is adult and what is young adult, yadda yadda yadda, but *regardless*, I thought I'd pop the question to everyone who happens to stop by my livejournal from time to time. What do you recommend for sci-fi books? In other words, everyone recommend something!
So, where to start?
I still would recommend Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, even to someone who is older. Technically, they're for "young adults", but screw that. They're for everyone. AND they really are a great way to introduce the genre. They're a fast read (as opposed to, say, Tolkein), fun, and are quintessential fantasy. Plus, J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis and Tolkein are technically categorized for "young adults" as well -- it's all poppycock. When I worked at Barnes & Noble back in the day (for three happy years in my 20s), I would always put Tolkein in the adult section. All the bookstores do it now, at least for Tolkein. Thank you, Peter Jackson.
So what else is out there? This is where it gets trickier to recommend books, because, really, there are subsets within the genre and, after you start reading, you'll learn that you'll prefer one type of story over another. By the time I was 18, I knew I liked fantasy better. Then, about ten years ago, I fell for the humorists -- the tongue in cheek end of the genre (and it's a stellar and vast group). And more recently, the mystery writers. But before all that, I did read some of the more traditionalists, so...here goes.
All this changes in the next post. Fantasy Books. There's a lot of 'em listed in part two.
- Music:Mike Doughty
Here we are, deep in the middle of the big "gap" between SGA 4 and SGA 5. I've not read any spoilers...yet. (Friendshipper trying to tempt me into reading David Hewlett's interview yesterday was CRUEL! It took everything I had not to click on that link in her LJ! Okay--technically, she didn't write it to tempt me. She was just reporting. But, since it's always all about me, that's how I saw it. <bg>)
Instead, I've been diligently working away at the original story. The big rewrite of the old Four Kingdoms fantasy epic from my M7 days. As of now, I've written a brand new prologue/first chapter, reinvented half the characters into different people, and, curiously so far, very little except the plot seems to be staying the same. Dialogue, for example--completely different. Of course, it helps that the first book isn't very good--I don't feel so bad about gutting it. Thankfully, I've already fallen for the first woman character I created ("Oriane"), so here's hoping I can keep her real. I've been worried about writing an original female character, after so many years of writing men and writing fanfic.
I just read that. Weird, isn't it? I mean, I'm a girl. I should be able to write a woman easily....
Anyway, I'm not the only one doing a "reinvention". I got a great laugh from ew.com's popwatch page, where they digged a little on the fact that Guy Ritchie (of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" fame, among others) is going to do Sherlock Holmes. This was the bloggers at EW's take, and it cracked me up:
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/06/s
Man, I love mad journalists!
Hope all is well out there! Can't wait until July!
Oh, speaking of...is anyone going to ShoreLeave? The con in Baltimore in Mid-July? I really want to go to the Writer's Conference thing -- where Ann Crispin and others are going to not only discuss writing in the genre, but getting published in the genre. Anyone else going? (Oh, and, yeah...David Hewlett, his sister Kate, and Jewel Staite are supposed to be there).
- Location:Work
Anyway, back to the old grind (I'm at work), and I also have to reply to all the kind and wonderful people who left me reviews on Figurative Hell! I'm sneaking the opportunity to do that at work today, since I can't focus with all the construction noise (my floor is being completely redone into cubicles. Ick).
I'll try to post some pics a little later this week. Hope none of you had any fun while I was gone! Hee! (I'm such a selfish person, so, so selfish).
I just wish I could show them all of it! Alas, we're staying in the south and Wales. But I will take them to the Lake District someday. I think everyone should stand on the edge of Derwent Water just once in their life. Well...Ullswater will do in a pinch, especially if the daffodils are in bloom. Either way, still my most favorite place on earth.
Anyway, I'll be back in two weeks. Don't have fun without me!
And, yes, I still have to pack. Gah.
- Music:U2
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sga_genficathon authors have been revealed! (Yay!) Very cool to compare and contrast that list with the authors, now that I know who is who. Thanks for running the whole thing, friendshipper! It was great fun (albeit, if I felt it was a little overwhelming as a reader -- I still need to read half the stories -- I can't even imagine what it was like as the moderator!) Anyway, yay!I highly recommend everyone head over and check if out, if you haven't yet. Especially the Ronon stories, which I think were my favorites (like Finding the Way, Exposure, Luck of the Draw, Ouroboros and others). Also, the humor ones? All rocked. The Master List is here.
Mine is here on LJ: Figurative Hell and Literal High Water
It'll go up on Fanfiction.net and my site later this week, after a little bit o' editing. It's got a number of errors in it from writing it way, way too fast as my poor beta will attest (I was so late, she had to beta almost the moment I was done with each section, because I was sending her another new section less than a day later. Poor NT. Above and beyond, old friend. Thanks). I'll edit this post when I get those up.
It's evil. EVIL.
I just can't comprehend the sheer amount of tedium it will take to put them all back in one by one. Why? Why would they do something so CRUEL?
So, what do I do? Do I take the stories all down? I mean, they're not readable without the scene breaks. But I do not have the time to fix them. Ack! Anyone else have a suggestion? I honestly don't know what to do here.
I don't know about all of you, but I still know who my very first, honest to goodness, hot and heavy TV crush was, and that was Face from the A-Team.
Why do I bring this up? Well, partly because I wondered who all your first TV crushes are (and I mean *the* first). But also because of this:
(FROM VARIETY) – Twentieth Century Fox's John Singleton-directed A-Team movie is set for release on June 12, 2009. Casting has not yet been announced. The movie will be based on the 1980s TV show starring Mr. T and George Peppard as members of a team of former special forces soldiers, set up for a crime they didn't commit, who lend a hand to innocent people in need. The script is being written by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted, 3:10 to Yuma).
And I'm totally at a loss of what to think about this. It's not the first time the notion been floated--maybe about the third or fourth time I've seen the idea in the press--but this one feels...well, it has a *release date*. That's kinda impressive. And scary. But, here's the thing--why is it scary? I mean, am I really that silly?
Apparently, yes.
So thoughts? Ruminations? Admonishments? Outright mockery?
Stolen from
leesa_perrie. Doing this from work to take a break from the slings and arrows and all that.
Oh, and, maybe I'll steal a meme from
friendshipper too. You have anything else you want to ask me, I'll answer it. Unless it's a little too personal and I don't want to. <bg> Oh, and one more meme, for fun. Five non-life sustaining material items I can't live without:
________________________________________
In this case, a missing scene. A few things were left unsaid, unexplained, and I so want to fill in those holes! So...yeah.
Meanwhile, I do have thoughts! I do! But I have to go work out now (or my work out partner will throttle me). This is what I get for waking up late. Can't wait to read everyone else's reactions to THE LAST MAN!
Another Work Fly By Post (I'm going to have to start tagging these as such)
So, on EW.com's blog (which really is a great blog, most days, despite their hatred for Stargate), they brought up the fact that yet another memoir, which was put in stores last week, is a hoax. A work of fiction, and the publisher is racing to pull it. It's a pretty sad (both for being pathetic, and for being geniunely sad) story: http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/03/f
Anyway, check out the responses on EW's blog, particularly from the girl who says she works at a publishing house. I think it's really interesting. And I really encourage chiming in. It's really a fun forum.
(Oh, and the userpic is from
naye. She took some gorgeous pictures of Stockholm, and this was part of a decorated doorway. You should go over there and look at them. And thanks again, Naye!)
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