Where have all the good books gone?

Seriously, I have not read a good fantasy book in a very long time. All right, I have not had much time to read fantasy books, but I have picked up a few recently, and I am appalled at the quality. Have my expectations gone up, or have the standards gone down? I was reading a book about a battle between the Greek and Atlantean gods, and the main character, who is an Atlantean god bound in human  form, is basically the author’s wet dream. In his human state, he is helpless and is a prostitute. She has him whipped, castrated and basically puts him through more hell than I put my characters through, but here’s the twist–he’s not horribly scarred. No, he’s Artemis’ toyboy, and she simply just heals him after everything.

 That’s not even the worst of it; the Atlantean and Greek gods say ‘okay’. That really puts me off the story. ‘Okay’ is American slang. It doesn’t belong in anything set before 1900, much less a time before Troy was destroyed. Honestly, is it just me who’s feeling that fantasy novels aren’t what they were?

I’m back.

Well, it’s been ages since I’ve last posted everything. I’ve been lost in a sea of academic confusion and obligations. However, the semester is over, and in a week or so, I’ll be getting ready for exams. So, all in all, not much time for writing, but I get by with about an hour every day.

I can’ believe the year has gone so quickly, actually. In the month or so which I’ve been missing (from this blog, at least), so much has happened. I discovered that I’m not as bad an essay writer as I’ve first thought, and my original work is taking shape. Of course, most of it has not been written, but at least I have an idea as to what I’m going to write about. There’s still a lot of research which needs doing. Apart from the Kingdom of Jerusalem (which is where I’m setting my story), I have to know something about what was happening in Europe during the second half of the twelfth century, and I also need to know what’s happening in the Byzantine empire. It’s a pity that most of the Byzantine records were destroyed by the Ottoman Turks. I suppose the ancients did like destroying things as much as they liked building them.

Sporking is still going on, but I’ve given up on Mockfiction; there’s a much better site, made by my friend. Mostly we just chat, and I haven’t done sporking for an age. Too busy, and then there’s writer’s block. I’ve just overcome one of the worst bouts I’ve ever had. I couldn’t even write fanfiction, and usually, that’s one of the easiest things for me to write. Luckily I still managed to produce some chapters, but the quality, I feel, is a bit dubious. Still, my readers seem to like them well enough, so I guess that’s all right.

It’s supposed to be spring in my country now. Late spring, to be exact. The wind’s still chilly, and one simply cannot enjoy a book outdoors because shivering is a rather distracting activity. Maybe a month from now, I’ll be able to do that. Thing is, I won’t need to study anything after November. I’m free for three months. Then again, maybe I’ll need to do a lot of studying for my novel.

Well, that was rather rambly. Mind you, I’ve been in a rather rambly mood for weeks. I think I’ll get on with another fanfic which I’m working on right now. I haven’t updated that one in weeks.

Ten things I want for my birthday…

My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I thought I’d make up a list of ten (as yet non-existent) things which would make my life easier, or simply breezy. Just a little bit of silliness really.

1. An automatic essay writer–just plug in the information and it will produce a well crafted essay. Better yet, plug in the topic and connect it to your brain so it knows your point of view, and then produces the essay.
2. A real automatic car–Just tell it where you want to go, and it will take you there. You can sleep in the back seat and sleep.
3. A portal maker–Even better than the automatic car. Just say where you want to go, a door will open and you can just step in. Very eco-friendly as there is little to no fuel used.
4. Writer’s block medication–A pill which will get rid of the most enduring of writer’s blocks.
5. Automatic note taker–takes notes in class automatically and without needing any effort on the user’s part. Includes accurate diagram drawing mode.
6. Automatic computer doctor–a robot which can fix all computer problems; just tell it what’s going on and it will diagnose and get rid of anything which makes the computer malfunction.
7. Automatic cooker–Just throw in the foodstuffs, raw, unwashed and unsorted, and watch it produce a six course meal, complete with dessert and coffee.
8. Automatic cleaner–it just cleans, and does it the way you want it.
9. Music writer–All I have to do is plug myself in and it will write down any weird tunes/symphonies which I create inside my head but can’t reproduce manually on paper. Watch as the world becomes a society of Mozarts and Beethovens.
10. Automatic researcher–will read all boring textbooks for me and when I plug myself in, the information will be magically transferred into my head. Better yet, plug it into the essay writer and do no work other than just the plugging.

Bleurgh…no title today

My tricycle arrived today. It’s the type of blue that I like, and after a few rounds, I got rather good at it. Now I just have to pluck up the courage to actually ride it out onto more open roads. My mother keeps on nagging me to get ‘real life’ friends, but it’s so difficult to actually find a topic to talk about to complete strangers. They don’t understand my sense of humour, and I’m not interested in the gossip about their lives. My world is so completely different from theirs; I live through my imagination. My life isn’t just about jobs and money and boyfriends. Well, actually, it lacks two of the three thngs mentioned.

I guess I’m just not a social person. Social events such as parties make me want to run in the opposite direction, simply because I detest modern ‘music’ (i.e. pop, rap, hip hop etc.). The fact that I can’t stand these things means that I don’t often meet new people. There isn’t exactly a writers’ society out there either, and even if they was, they would dismiss my stuff as ‘not serious literature’ because it doesn’t reflect modern society. My work’s just pure fun. I don’t do it for any reason other than to put a smile onto someone’s face or make someone laugh.

Heaven

I just watched the second half of Kingdom of Heaven again today, and it was still an amazing experience. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I’m even more in love with Balian. The acting was beautiful and touching. I could feel his shock when Sibylla declared that she didn’t really give a damn about what she did as long as she had power. I know I’ve already written that scene in ‘With You, I’ll Be Only Sibylla’, but I’m wondering whether I should write a very short piece from Balian’s point of view at that moment in time. For all the stories which I’ve written about him, I’ve never written his perspective in first person before. I’m a little afraid of the first person perspective, because it doesn’t sound like the character, but it sounds like me talking. It’s also rather limited. However, considering this is Balian, and he’s been my muse ever since I started airing my work, I’m willing to give it a try.

I also managed to skip out that very emotional scene when Sibylla takes off her brother’s mask and sees his ravaged face. How did I manage to skip it? Probably I was too busy thinking about Balian and the creosote bush. Maybe I should do a oneshot of that as well, just to fill in the gaps. Actually, there are lots of things that I could write if I want to elaborate on Sir Ridley’s masterpiece. Too many ideas; too little time.

A Random Bout of Typing.

I’m feeling rather good about myself at the moment. I was not rushing around trying to get everything done this morning, and I wrote a decent amount, so I’m pretty proud of myself, actually, since in the mornings, I’m generally not motivated to do anything. I also finished one essay in the weekend, so that might contribute to my confidence this morning, since I have almost three weeks to work on my other one.

I’m waiting for the university printer to work at the moment. It’s still early, so the room is relatively empty. There are still free computers. Later in the day, it will be very full. I have so many papers in my backpack that it is not funny. I’ll have to sort them out and file them tonight, or else I’ll lose track of everything and I’ll never be able to locate my notes. It takes so much energy to simply make myself do the work though. I’d much rather write about something, as long as it is prose and not something argumentative. Now, that takes far too much energy.

The concrete outside is dark with water. The branches of the trees are skeletal in the pale grey winter light; they are naked, save for a few brown withered leaves still clinging onto them. Very few people are out and about on this cold dreary mrning. I can see two people sitting on a bench, talking and smoking. Well, at least one of them is talking. The other just sits there, staring in front of her as if she is simply part of the landscape.

Waves of hot hair waft from the heater beside me. It gets a bit irritating, actually, but I chose the seat because it was close to the window and because the computer was already on, so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to start up. There is a text that I have to read for this afternoon’s tutorial, right after my class on Islamic history. I don’t feel like reading it, but I know I have to, or else I won’t be able to contribute. However, the remnants of the weekend still stain my mind. I want to make a video for YouTube, or just simply type and let the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard sooth me. It’s almost like meditating. Whenever I just let myself go and simply write or type, it’s like I’ve gone into a trance. Nothing really seems to matter except the sound of the keyboard and the words of the screen, or, if I’m writing with pen and paper, the scratch of the pen, the scribbles, and the texture of the paper.

My eyelids feel heavy, as if I am about to fall asleep again. It must be the warmth of the room, and my relaxed state, because if it was a bit colder, I would be wide awake. Temperature is so important to levels of concentration. I like it a little bit cooler, but everyone else seems to be fine in the warmth. Perhaps I’m used to a colder temperature indoors, since at my place, we hardly ever use heaters, prefering to wear coats indoors.

Perhaps I should stop typing now. My fingers on the keyboard feel good, but the sound and the rhythm are making me sleepy.

How to waste an hour…

I have an hour from now until it’s time for me to prepare for my next and last class of the week. It’s sort of boring, because the forums have all  been more than quiet, there are no interesting books in the university library, and I don’t feel like continuing with my short story just yet. True enough, I have an essay due in two weeks, but I’m not in the mood for research, mainly because I did a very similar essay last semester and if I reword it and add to it, it might just work. However, to do that, I’ll actually have to go back and look at my essay first.

I am actually bored out of my mind. My fanfiction drafts are at home so I can’t start typing up anything. I have my mp3 player with me, but I can’t here, so there is hardly any point. I can’t wait till I get home and can start typing up my update so that I might finish early and watch a movie. I bought three of them on Wednesday, and I haven’t watched a a single one.

Might actually go and make myself work on my oneshot, or just another scene for Chance Encounter.

The Complicated World of Fanfiction

I realize I haven’t written much about my writing and creative life in this blog, and it’s supposed to be a writer’s blog. What can I say? I’m just a bit ditzy like that, and I am a professional when it comes to going off topic. Just because I haven’t been writing about being creative doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative though. I’ve spent the most of the past three weeks trying to think of how to go about writing my latest fanfiction creation, Chance Encounter: Legacy of the Third Age. I’d been consulting all sorts of Tolkien experts and discussing options with them; I’d even read bits of the Silmarillion. While it has been hailed as one of Tolkien’s greatest works, and I loved his other great work, The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion was a really dry read, at least for me. I’m the type of person who latches onto a character and then attempts to put myself in the character’s shoes. The Silmarillion is more like a history text.

Anyway, I read the relevant bits, did a lot of discussion, and that was just for the back story. It really goes to show how hard writing is when you want to do it well, and fanfiction, just because it can’t be published, isn’t what douchebags write. You need to do a lot of research or else they’ll flame you to kingdom come.

Speaking of flames, many people can’t tell constructive criticism from a flame, which is sad, because while flames are sometimes just copy-and-pasted messages, constructive criticism is designed to help the writer. Sure, it doesn’t feel great when you first read it, but after you’ve absorbed it, you realize that you were doing something wrong, and you learn from that other person’s experience.

So, if you ever get a flame (generally goes along the line of ‘your writing sucks big time, and you’re so bad that you should jump off a cliff’, or something like that), you should just reflect a bit before replying. Is your writing really bad? Have you checked your spelling and grammar? Have you totally warped the fandom you’re writing in? If you answered yes to the first, no to the second, and yes to the third, then maybe you should change the story, or go to someone else for advice. If you get a flame, you’re probably going to get concrit as well, if your story needs changing. If you only get that one flame, you might also have to check whether the flamer hates you. There is a lot of faction struggle going on in the fanfiction world, and some people flame each other because they hate each other. You might be the friend of someone who has an enemy, and the enemy will see fit to flame you because you are their enemy by association. Also, don’t reply to the flamer. It just makes them happy.

So, yeah. That’s my advice for the day.

And now, I should be writing some concrit for someone, and then go off to eat breakfast/brunch, and write in my journal. I finished my first Moleskine notebook yesterday, and now I’m going back to the cheap stuff for a while before I continue with the rest of my Moleskines.

Good intentions amount to nothing.

You know, I had every intention of reading my history textbooks and going over my notes today. Knowing me, it didn’t happen. I was too busy reading and replying to my reviews (that was during late morning and early afternoon), and then once again, I’m stuck to the computer screen. It’s just that the internet is so interesting, and I have so many things I can do online, compared with the fairly limited amount of activities I can do offline. But I will do what I’m meant to do tomorrow (who are you kidding, Tel?).

I launched my new story yesterday. These days, my life seems to revolve around my fanfiction and my online social life. My parents keep on telling me that I need to go out more, but real people seem so mundane. I hardly ever find anyone who can talk about the weird things which I’m interested in. My best friend is all the way over in the North Island, so I can’t really talk to her, except through instant messaging. Honestly, the phone bills cost more than if I want to call somewhere far away like Alaska.

There’s this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I should concentrate on my studies, but where is the fun in that? All right, studying gets you money –my scholarships tell me that much– but it’s so boring. All you do is sit there and stare at the page and hope that your sponge-like brain can absorb something and retain it. Let’s face it, most water goes out of the sponge after you take it out of the water. At least my exam marks from last semester weren’t too bad. I didn’t fail anything, so I’m slightly relieved.

All right, I’m just rambling and being boring here, and I haven’t even written in my journal. I’ll go off and do that now. Oh, and I’m feeling a bit hungry. Maybe it’s time to rob the pantry.

Idiots and…wise people?

The other day, I was making up a statement concerning freedom and wisdom and I needed a group noun for wise and smart people. Being the relatively studious sort of person, I went and got my Oxford Thesaurus off my bookshelf and tried to look for something which would suit. One of the few words I knew which meant someone smart was ‘genius’, but as there was such a fine and fuzzy line between genius and madness, I couldn’t use that for my saying. I looked up ‘genius’ in the Thesaurus. That didn’t yield any good results (‘Einstein’ wasn’t exactly what I was looking for) so I went and looked up ‘intellectual’ instead. There were very few synonyms, but after a while, I chose ’sage’. The word ‘intellectual’, while appropriate, didn’t have the right rhythm. The thing is, I didn’t find many nouns which meant ’smart people’.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the word ‘fool’. That was the other word I was using in my statement. There were so many synonyms listed there that it would take a while for me to type them all out. I found ‘idiot’, ‘ass’ (very insulting to donkeys, in my opinion), ‘halfwit’, ‘blockhead’, ‘dunce’, ‘dolt’, ‘dullard’, ’simpleton’, ‘clod’, ‘dope’ etc. just to name a few. The most important observation was that there were a lot more synonyms for ‘fool’ than there were for ‘intellectual’.

So what does that tell us about society? It was just a curious thought. Why are there so many words for a stupid person? Do we live in a society of idiots, or are we just a defamatory society which delights in putting people down? Either way, it doesn’t look great.

Restlessness sans Reason

You know those days when you feel totally restless, and you’re in a bad mood but you don’t know why? Well, I feel like that today, although I think I know why; the reason is so irrational that it can’t really be counted as a reason though. In fact, I shouldn’t really care, but there’s this teensy weensy part of me who is determined to be a child and care about it. All right, it’s about relationships, and I’ll leave it at that. Perhaps I should spend the rest of the day with my journal and my camera, or perhaps a sketch pad and a pencil, or something very very time consuming which takes up all of my concentration. Chatting with the girls online is a good way to relieve stress, I guess, but I feel like I need something more intensive, like video making. I’ve been making a trailer for my latest fanfic, but it’s finished now, and I need a new subject to make a vid on. So far, I’ve only managed one tiny shot of my dad pushing the lawnmower for my completely-from-scratch vid (that being said, I’m using other people’s music).

I feel a bit better now, after having typed up that brick full of rambling. Why can’t I do interesting blog posts recently? I did have this interesting idea running around in my head, but now that I can write it down, I have forgotten it. I think I need to actually start using my multiple writer’s notebooks.

I’m feeling lazy. What’s new?

I should be typing up my latest fanfiction chapter at the moment. It’s supposed to be three to four thousand words long, and while I have it all written out by hand, getting it down in electronic form can be a bit of a bother because typing can be rather boring, especially if you are watching out for stupid mistakes. Creative writing is unlike simply blogging or journal writing. You actually have to think, and if your brain is like mine, it sometimes just can’t be bothered. One good thing is that I have the entire storyline figured out (even thought this is actually no big deal because there are only two chapters left to go, including this one). I think I have the situation under control. The same cannot be said of the sequel, but that’s part of the fun of creative writing, I guess. To quote Bilbo Baggins, ‘you step out onto the road, and if you don’t watch your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to’, or something along those lines anyway. Everything in writing is quite unexpected; it is for me at least. That’s why I don’t like planning anything beyond a very vague outline. Too much planning ruins the element of surprise which makes being a writer exciting.

 

Onto other things. My parents and I were discussing private schools this morning. I myself was educated in a state school, and from what I can see, there is no difference between a private school and a state school. The same curriculum is taught (the Ministry of Education sets that) and in fact, the only thing which makes a private school a private school is the ridiculous cost. Their uniforms are more complicated and more expensive, the fees are very high. I feel that sending kids to private school isn’t really a good thing for them; it does, however, boost the parents’ ego to see their children in a ‘posh upper class school’ or whatnot. I find that quite objectionable, especially since these people seem to think that people who attend private schools are somehow more cultured than those who go to state schools.

 

The most important thing about a school is actually the quality of teachers. I have to say I have not been too impressed by the quality of many teachers whom I have encountered. Some of them seem to think that their job is to intimidate students. Others just sit in the classroom and make sure that the students are not burning down school buildings. Hardly any of them teach, and of the small minority who do teach, not very many try to make the experience enjoyable for the students. I’m not quite sure what most of them are being paid for. I remember sitting in a math class, and not being able to keep my eyes open because a) the light was at optimum sleep level and b) we were only copying notes from overhead slides which were so old that the writing on them was blurry and the plastic was yellowish. The writing was also in cursive and illegible. The only thing I learnt in math was how to draw, because I had nothing else to do.

 

Elementary/primary school was even worse. Not only did I not learn anything, I lost self-esteem. (that was covered in the post ‘Rub it in their faces’). Those teachers were a waste of time, waste of money. They did do a lot of successful advertising because almost everyone felt they were working hard. I don’t see what’s so hard about photocopying numerous worksheets and then handing them out, or taking the students out for a run each day. The work wasn’t even marked, so naturally, I had no incentive to do it. Besides, it was completely boring, and there was no point in doing about a hundred sums per day when you did not even get to know whether you got them right or not.

Exams, doom; what is the difference?

I guess I should be studying, since I have an exam in less than two days. But I’m really not in the mood. It’s Sunday, and I feel like lazing around, reading novels and generally not doing anything useful. There isn’t really much to talk about, considering I’m not in the mood for writing good prose, nor am I actually doing something interesting at the moment. I’m still involved in that political debate, except Tibet has totally gone out of the picture. Who would’ve thought that one little comment on YouTube would lead to a huge long discussion about the nature of the Chinese government? I doubt that many of the people whom I debate with realize that I am not yet twenty. They talk as if I should know about all the ‘-isms’ which supposedly academic people tend to allude to, although my history professor did say that ‘isms’ ought to be used very carefully, because they are often stereotypical and vague, encompassing a large variation of definitions.

I have gone on Fanfiction.net and given some constuctive criticism (or ‘concrit’ as it is known as on that site). Not much though. Recently, I have not been in the mood, preferring to laugh about bad writing. Maybe I need something to lighten the sombre mood of someone who is about to meet their doom. Exams are very daunting after all, especially when you realize that it is impossible to finish them, or some of them anyway. I’m looking forward to when they are over, so that I can just relax and forget about them. Halfway throughout the actual exam itself, I just stop caring, and concentrate on doing as much as I can in the time that I have left. That was what happened during my Medieval history exam anyway.