Books to TV/Movie

I feel it has been a while since we have had a substance-y sort of post. Part of this is due to Real Life sneaking up on me and Alz with a vengeance, but we will persevere! Maybe!

In the mean time, please bear with us and our short and/or random posts, which brings me to today's topic.

BOOKS TO TV/MOVIE

I bring this topic up because I'm trying out HBO's TV series adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series, Game of Thrones. There's enough intrigue to keep me interested, and it's prompted me to want to check out the books (I've heard of the series before but never really knew what it was about).

This is a bit of a reverse in that usually, people talk about how they've read a book/book series and how they're excited to see the adaptation. In my case, there's been quite a few adaptations recently that have piqued my interest in the book(s).

I don't actually have anything insightful to say here, except that I think I generally enjoy TV/movie adaptations. It's fun to see worlds and characters really come alive, so to speak, and I think with the crazy advances we've had in movie-magic technology, it can be a real treat to see works of fantasy and sci-fi especially translated to the screen.

Of course, the ones I can immediately think of are the good ones, and we all know there are bad book adaptations. Oh goodness, how we know.

It's tough, after all, to satisfy everyone when book worlds and characters are so near and dear to their fans. And as anyone who has had to summarize a story knows, it's REALLY HARD to condense plots and characters and events and still get the same sort of punch originally delivered in the book.

It also matters how the people translating the book to other media view/treat the original work. I think when the people doing the adaptation have respect and love for the source text and aren't thinking about it in terms of the money-making (franchising) side, it shows through in the translation.

There's also that in-between place where the show/movie is really different from the book, but is somehow still good - just in a different way. Usually, it's because it still captures the spirit of the novel. I have a few of those on my list.

These are my somewhat random thoughts on the subject.

Here's what I'd like to ask you:

What do you think about book-to-whatever adaptations?

What are your favorite / least favorite show or film adaptations of books? Have any recommendations for me?

Anyone else watching Game of Thrones? If you've read the books, how does it compare so far?

See you all Friday either for Randomosity or Drooling over Book Covers. I've yet to decide. :)

Library Week 2011

Wow, it's already that time of year again! No, I don't mean Tax time (though that is true too, eek).

It's LIBRARY APPRECIATION WEEK! Huzzah!

Well, we all know libraries are awesome. So, I'm going to take a slightly tangential approach to this expression of my library love. 3 words: Books and Beyond

At some time during my middle school years, the city library received a grant. That grant was used to create a "youth committee," which was responsible for creating a library newsletter every 3 months or so. That newsletter was called Books and Beyond.

The youth committee consisted of student volunteers, and the newsletter was filled with book reviews, fun literary facts and games, and author spotlights. Too bad the YA section was still rather lacking and that the blogsophere wasn't so buzzin' with blogging authors back then.

Not all of us were straight-up bookworms, but we did love to read and talk about books, and we were all, in some way or another, a type of nerd (holler!). So if it weren't for this thing the library set up, I wouldn't have had this fantabulous experience (or read A Separate Peace for the 4th and final time even though it's in my dislike pile). I also wouldn't have this EPIC thing to share with you.*

I give to you this very special advice column.

Disclaimer: Advice is not to be taken seriously. The following was written by high schoolers - worse, high school versions of me and my friends. We thought we were really funny. (I think we still do.) It was all written in jest. Seriously.



Need Help? G Dawg Gives Advice!

Q: Dear G Dawg,
I'm in love with Orlando Bloom and he's in love with me. He contacts me through secret codes in his movies and public appearances. His bodyguard even shoved me once at a premiere in a meaningful way. I contact him by writing him everyday and sending him presents on weekends. It's been two years and I'm ready to take our relationship to the next level. What's my next step?
Sincerely,
Bloomluvr

A: Dear *cough* Bloomluvr,
A girl's best weapon is jealousy. I suggest you start dating Brad Pitt to make Orlando jealous. But you'll have to make some sacrifices. For example, you must change all of your screen names to "Pittgurl" or "BradsAngel." It'll be worth it, trust me. Once you pierce Bloom's heart with your arrow, he'll be eating lembas bread out of your hands in no time.
Best of luck,
G Dawg
P.S. Invite me to your wedding. I'll bring my boyfriend, Tom Cruise.


Q: Dear G Dawg,
I can't stop drinking soda. Please help!
Sincerely,
Thirsty a.k.a. Soda-Jerk

A: Dear Thirsty a.k.a. Soda-Jerk,
OH MY GOD! Do you WANT to kill yourself? You've started down a dark path full of destruction. It will take great courage and will power to defeat this demon. You may have withdrawals and wake up from nightmares in a cold sweat. Heck, why are you still reading this? Find a doctor before it's too late!
Deeply concerned,
G Dawg
----

Q: Dear G Dawg,
When I graduate on June 18, it will be the last time I see my friends. I'm really worried. What will I do without them? What if I make no friends in college? What will I do?
Sincerely,
My-Best-Years-Are-Behind-Me

A: Dear My-Best-Years-Are-Behind-Me,
I've asked around and it seems like you don't have any friends. None of the people around you plan on talking to you after the hats fall. College can be a scary place. Too bad you'll have to live through it alone. Hopefully, your mom still likes you.
Love,
G Dawg
----

Q: Dear G Dawg,
I don't want to carry my books around because my homies will think I'm not down wit it. What should I do?
Confused,
P Unit

A: Dear P Unit,
I had the same problem with my homies and found the solution through personal experience. Get a boyfriend or a girlfriend and make him or her carry your books for you.
Love,
G Dawg


Sadly, G Dawg is no longer in the house for advising, but Loquacious Luce is equally up to the task. So if you have any pressing questions you would like answered, please do send them along to us by comment or email. Loquacious Luce is here to help you.

Q for YOU: What have libraries done to enrich your life?


*This mock-advice column was actually written for our high school newspaper, but we did it because we didn't want to write 2 Senior Goodbyes. We'd already done one for the library newsletter, so we wanted to have fun with the newspaper one.

Internet Addiction

Welcome to September everyone! I can't believe August is already over. How is it possible that we are already 8 months through the year? How? Eck, I just had a thought about my New Year's Resolutions, and I think it might be time for another progress report, which makes me kind of depressed.

LET'S SWITCH TOPICS.

Ahem. Last night, the cable and internet at my house inexplicably went out. The following conversation took place between the sister and I.

Sis: OMG, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

Me: Um, I'm going to read. *pulls out book*

Sis: What the heck! What am I going to do? I'm going to pull my hair out. I can't even read this! *picks up The Book Thief* I'm too depressed.

Me: Post-Mockingjay syndrome still? You're going to be more depressed if you read that (the Book Thief).

Sis: I know that. Mockingjay effed up my mind so much that I can't read this or anything. Argh. *flails* How did people live before the internet?


Me: What the heck. Dude, when were you born?

Sis: It's like when something good comes along, you know. Like what did I do on the internet before youtube?! *pulls out phone* Crap, even my iPhone is useless... (she doesn't have a data plan) *fiddles with it* Hey, you wanna play Cooking Academy? iPhone games save me again!

Me: Until the battery dies.

Sis: No, whatever! It's not like a blackout! If this was a blackout, I'd really be pulling my hair out.


The conversation did bring up a good topic - how people spend their time and how people used to spend their time. So who else is addicted to the internet? What do you do when there's no internet or cable? What do you do when there's a blackout?

In which the Universe gives me a Pep Talk

It's Wednesday, and it's hot. Finally. Honest to goodness, dry, approaching 3-digit Californian summer heat.

Anyway, it must have been the random (Californian)cold weather and gloominess the past week (and the cold I caught because of it), but I've been feeling down. Every once in a while, the uncertainty and stresses of Real Life overtake me and I freak out. I wonder, what the heck am I doing? (Actually, I wonder this a lot, but it's all about the tone with which such wondering is done.) Is this getting me anywhere? Am I making the right decision?

Times like these, I usually end up shaking my fist at the sky and saying, Congrats Universe, you win! Everything sucks!

But the Universe is surprising and sometimes, it is even kind.

• At the end of my crappy-mood Monday, I got an email saying I won the ARC of Sapphique from the sweet Steph at Steph Su Reads. You don't know how much I wanted this sequel to Incarceron, and now I don't have to wait until the end of the year for it!!! I never actually think I'll win anything, but this was truly surprising! And what a mood lifter! Coupled with scoring some books from Tere just the week before, I think this is my winningest streak of luck ever.

• The ever awesome Elana posted about adjusting your thinking towards the positive on Tuesday, which was more than timely for me.

• I was catching up on some blog reading and ran across Inky's Pep Talk post from a few days back, which had the effect of giving me a pep talk too. By the way, if you follower her on Twitter (@inksie), she's celebrating having 200 followers with a contest!

• My horoscopes are strangely on it today. As in, they actually kind of apply and they're giving me a pep talk too. They say:

Leo: Think of your recent misfortune as an auspicious sign -- if you hadn't hit this bump and just carried on as usual, it almost certainly would have exploded in your face at exactly the wrong time! As it stands, you have plenty of time to fix whatever isn't working and get yourself back in the game. Be grateful for this down time -- at least it gives you a chance to take care of business with somewhat less pressure.

Tiger: When times are hard, you must be more energetic and determined than the obstacles that you face. Nobody has ever run the gauntlet and survived to tell about it if they didn't have the drive and motivation to make it through. Turn depression or feelings of disappointment into a sheer will to improve your situation as best you can.

So the next time you're feeling down, do your best to push through it and stay positive. Sometimes, the Universe (and cool people) will really come through for you and remind you things aren't so bad. Chin up! You might make mistakes, but you'll get through it. Thanks Universe, and thanks everyone!  

What are you grateful about this Wednesday? Has the Universe ever been kind to you?

P.S. Alz posted about Music and Writing on Monday. Check it out if you haven't yet! Yep, there are two of us here, but Alz is more reclusive than I am.

What Time is It?

Time is a strange, elusive creature as many of you know. When you're really sleepy, have tons of work to do or have looming deadlines, there's never enough of it. It also slips by on swift feet when you're having fun. Then there are days when you feel every tick of the clock, and the week, day, hour can't end fast enough.

I've been feeling a bit of both lately, and it got me thinking about books and pacing. There are some books you just tear through, blasting through pages as if you were in a race. You're caught up in the action, the danger, the mystery! Your breathless anticipation matches the characters' own, and neither of you can believe all those events happened in a mere week or two! Or you've been with the characters through adventures that lasted months, maybe years, but it doesn't feel like it because so much has happened and all those things needed all that time.

Other books you read at a slower pace, savoring each word in your mouth and letting it seep into your mind. The story unfolds in beautiful segments like watching a painting in progress. When you put the book down, it lingers in your thoughts and soon, you're drawn back to it. But this book, you can read chapter by chapter; there's no rush.

You may have the same amount of love for both books, but you love them in different ways. Reading both these kinds of books is time well spent.

Of course, there's the flip side of this cozy balance I've visualized. There are those books that could have done with some trimming or some fleshing out. There are those stories you read where characters journey for months on end, and it feels like months when you read it. Not gonna lie, when I read it took the Fellowship a few months to get to Rivendell in Fellowship of the Ring, well, I wasn't surprised because sometimes those many pages of walking and singing felt like months. Conversely, there are also books where things just abruptly end, or there's all this build-up and the climax snips by and you're left wondering if it ever even happened.

So my question is, when you're writing, what's your perception of time like - for you as a writer and for your characters?

For me, writing is alternately slow and fast. I feel like it's very slow going when I'm writing because I think about things a lot (probably too much), and I weigh each word and sentence. But when I look up at the clock, a bunch of time has passed. Sometimes, writing these blog posts seems breezy to me, but I'm always surprised by how late it is when I'm done.

Also, I often wonder about how writers pace their stories. The whole pacing thing is pretty organic for me; I don't really think about it and I don't know if I could. I sort of just go with what feels right.

How do you pace your stories? Is it a conscious decision or does it just happen?

Randomosity on Fridays: Musings & Features

It's Friday, which means it's time for randomosity and fun times! I'm going to see OK Go in concert tonight, and I am uber excited. Quirkiness + good music + hotness = awesomesauce! The day needs to go by faster.

Randomly, did you check out the Google splash page today? You can play PacMan on it!

Anyway, here's my five.

1. I am steadily devouring books. Just finished Kimberly Derting's The Body Finder, which I enjoyed but I think the suspense was a bit dulled for because I watch too many crime dramas. Let's just say that watching Criminal Minds has upped my serial killer-related twist expectation to a whole other level. I'm reading Catherine Fisher's Incarceron, and it is flooring me with its awesome. The world is so interesting and intriguing. It's like Sci-Fi + fantasy with a dash of Victoriana. It makes me positively gleeful. And speaking of Glee, Joss Whedon directed a great episode. So much epic, and did you check out Mike Chang's and Artie's dance moves?

2. I borrowed The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason, but Luce is reading it first since I'm preoccupied with Incarceron. I cannot tell you how stoked I am to read this book because I LOVE Greek mythology, and I especially love the Odyssey. This book takes episodes from the Odyssey and re-imagines them. Each chapter is like a short story. Luce says it's very good so far: the language is spare but evocative - just like the style of the original epic poem.

Basically, when two pages of spare writing can blow your mind, it's a very very good thing. Excited!!!

3. Is seeing someone read consistently really that weird and/or uncommon? Luce and I were discussing how our acquaintances (i.e. coworkers, people not that familiar/close to us) seem to think it's very strange that we read so much, that we LIKE to read. There are assumptions that this reading thing makes us bookish, shy/quiet, maybe even antisocial. What I usually get is amazement that I've read so much so quickly. This is funny to me because I'm one of the slowest readers I know. But what strikes me is that these sorts of reactions seem kind of, well, high school, don't you think? In high school, there's the whole clique-mentality thing going on and a general idea that, 'Hey, you must be a nerd if you read a lot.' And sure, both of us were totally in the nerd crowd then, but outside of high school, I was under the impression this idea didn't hold as much sway. I mean, people read for a myriad of reasons, and they read different kinds of books. I know I'm kind of preaching to the choir here since I know most of you are readers and/or writers, but is it really that weird?

Besides, I thought the whole Harry Potter thing brought reading back like JT brought back sexy. No?

4. Speaking of high school, one of my HS friends, Miss Beverly at When Your Eyes Meet Mine, draws some really wonderful and cute doodles. I like her quote-doodles because sometimes, when I'm feeling down, one of those will pop up and it'll lift me up (see to the right or here). She also makes things like pins and scarves! Basically, she's quite talented and I think you should check out her work.

5. Also back in high school, while goofing off in Newspaper, my friends and I discovered this group of UCSD students who liked to make music videos and short films. Well, since then they've continued to do the video thing, and they've come up with some good ones. They're called Wong Fu Productions. They've expanded a bunch since those days of yore, and it's cool they're still around doing their thing. One of my favorite films of theirs is "Yellow Fever." Check it out below.



That's all everyone! Have a fantastic weekend!

Library Appreciation Week!

This week is National Library Appreciation Week!

I have many fond memories of my local library. Back in high school, I was part of the Library Youth Committee, which basically meant I sat around with my friends once every few weeks in a meeting room at the library and brainstormed ideas for the library newsletter. The newsletter was called Books and Beyond, and I'm sure it had some gems in it. So I had planned on sharing some of those gems, but as with many plans, it has gone awry - namely, I can't find my copies. Insert Fail!Whale here.

So instead, I will share a few library-related memories.

When I was little, I wandered through the shorter aisles of the children's section. I was a browser then, as I am now, and I chose based on my fancy. There were a few books I checked out over and over again like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I only ever wandered over to the "grown-up" section of the library to check out non-fiction books on animals. I remember one book I loved in particular. It was a book of animals in alphabetical order, but all the pictures were beautifully illustrated. Knowing I would have to return this beloved book, I made my dad redraw my favorite illustrations.

I practically lived in the mythology aisle (not quite enough books to call it a section) at one point. I was mostly interested in Greek, though I dabbled in a bit of Norse and Egyptian. There was a point when I'm sure I read every single Greek myth book my library had. It didn't matter that by then I'd read many of the myths related in those books multiple times.

The YA section has grown so much since back then. It's decorated with hand-drawn posters, and it's expanded enough to include manga. It's like a little slice of Borders.

Plus, the county libraries have a really easy system for searching and requesting books online. It's awesome, and it has made it so much easier to feed my book whims. This glorious system is what gave me a bunch of the great books I've recently read. Many of these books are pretty new, and I likely wouldn't have read as many of them if I didn't have this convenient, easy system at my disposal because I don't have that much room in my house to buy and keep that many books.

What are your memories of the library? How much do you appreciate libraries?

You can check out how others are celebrating the awesomeness that is libraries at Market My Words.

The Writing Process: Longhand Short Stories

I've found that I crank out my short stories best when written extemporaneously by hand in a journal between the hours of 12 and 5 am. Which is to say I'm about to go to sleep but decide to jot down a starter line or new idea before I do, and then it gets wildly out of hand, and before I know it it's 4 hours later and my hand is cramping.

The story then sits untouched, mere ink on paper enclosed in the darkness of the closed journal, for several days.

I then unearth it and type it up, making minor revisions as I do so, and taking notes on future ideas/changes. It sits for a few days more.

Then I bring up the file and revise, usually expanding the wordcount considerably in the process. The story then sits for another few days to weeks to months.

Next I chop and revise some more. This is usually the hack round where segments and bits that I've changed my mind about end up littering the cutting room floor. Some of these bits are saved in case I change my mind while some get deleted forever.

The next few days are spent polishing and reading and rereading and usually not really liking it very much. I let it sit for a while (how long is quite variable, but generally a few days at least and a few weeks at most) and then I reread it to see if I like it anymore. Usually I do, because I've had some time to forget the slave-labor spent on it and, after all, distance makes the heart grow fonder (hopefully).

By this point, I consider the story mostly complete, although I am of course prone to changing my mind about things and there's always room for more editing anyway. But this supposed-to-be-sleeping business does tend to give birth to whole (or mostly whole) stories within the short span of a few hours, as opposed to when I have a story idea I've been thinking about and then try to write it out on the computer only to have it sit around in bits and pieces, lackadaisically adding to it every few weeks/months/years or so. I suspect that the period of relaxation in the inspiration-hot-spot shower beforehand has something to do with this unexpected fount of pre-slumberous creativity--that and the additional pressure of omg-I-should-be-sleeping-now-but-I-need-to-finish-this! Deadline pressure can produce miracles, as essays and reports and the world of academia at large can attest.

Which is not to say that I am utterly incapable of completing a short story by computer composition alone. Just that I've noticed it usually takes much longer. Probably this has a great deal to do with my attention span, which by all rights should belong to a two-year-old in a sparkly toy store as opposed to a graduate student in a writing program. I like instant gratification and a sense of reward, and having the entirety of a story written out, no matter how rough, makes me feel tremendously accomplished--and I like to tell myself that getting the writing done is the hard work of baking the cake, while revision is the icing, the gilding, and the spun-sugar flowers. (Which is, of course, a lie. Revision can be and often is way harder than the actual original composition.)

What do you prefer? Writing longhand or typing on a keyboard, or perhaps both? Do you prefer pen or pencil or felt-tip marker? Do you write on looseleaf paper or in a fancy journal?

"Real" Books FTW!

I forgot that it's a short week. Almost missed a posting. Oops.

Anyway, I've been sort of following the whole E-Book/Kindle/Nook/iPad vs. Real Book thing on the Interwebz, and while I kind of really want an iPad (What? It's shiny and beautiful, if a bit unfortunately named), I'm firmly in the "real book" camp. A little while back, XiXi did a post about 10 Ways a Real Book is Better, which I heartily agree with (not to mention her post totally made me LOL). All very good reasons, but I'd like to expand a little more on that and just ramble about why I love myself a good, paper-in-hands book.

1. Reading is an experience: A big part of the reading experience for me is the physical presence of the book - the weight of it, the feel of the paper, the smell, and the sound of flipping pages. There is just something about the book itself being there in my hands that adds to my enjoyment of the actual reading. Basically, the whole act of reading is kind of ritualized and has all these psychological associations. You expect to do certain things when you're reading - flipping the pages, curling up on a couch, reading in the dark by flashlight, etc. Those things that you do, the presence of the book, all become almost as important as the reading itself. It's this kind of association and psychological connection that E-Books will be hard pressed to rival.

It's kind of like why it's so hard for people to quit smoking, for example, because a large part of the addiction (nicotine aside) is the psychological aspect of it - the act of smoking and what the person associates that with. Look at me, I retained that college learning; thanks Drugs and the Brain professor!

2. Reading on screens is not for me: Yes, I do spend inordinate amounts of time staring at a computer screen (and sometimes a TV screen), so it doesn't seem like a stretch for me to be reading on a screen. However, I can't seem to do long-term reading on one. Articles and blogs and essays, sure! But books? Not going to happen, friends. I used to read quite a bit of fanfiction back in the day, and I really did enjoy it and loved the whole fandom thing, BUT I really hated reading on my computer screen. Now that I think about it, that's probably part of the reason I dropped out of the fanfic thing, despite my continued interest in some ongoing fics. I just got tired of reading on the computer, and the thought of it deterred me from picking fics back up. I used to have friends who would print whole fics out for better reading (and travel purposes), but I always felt too guilty about wasting paper to do that.

I also get that technology has made reading on screens much better now; I get that reading on Kindles/Nooks/iPads is not the same as reading on the computer. I still don't like it. I have an iPod Touch, on which I have a few E-Book short stories. I started reading one of those short stories. I liked the story, but I still haven't finished it because I can't get into reading on the iPod. (I should finish the story though...)

3. E-Book reading is less visually satisfying: When I finish a book and close it, I get an immense feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Part of this has to do with being able to see my progress through the book. I'm sorry, but seeing my bookmark a third of the way through a book, then half, then near the end is more satisfying than watching the scroll bar on the side of my page move towards the bottom. You can "flip" pages in an E-Book, but you can't see how far through the book you are - like really SEE it.

Speaking of visually satisfying, there's also just book design. I confess I have very little experience with E-books, but real books are just pretty! Yeah, I know in iBook, you get a nifty virtual bookshelf to display the beautiful covers of your lovely E-books, but book design is so much more than a nice cover. There's the size and spacing of the words on the page, the font chosen for the headers and chapter titles and text. Some books have illustrations, others have simple page decorations, and still others have pages with uneven edges. You don't get that with an E-book.

4. What am I going to do with all my cool bookmarks? This speaks for itself.

In conclusion, I really like books. They are one of my Great Loves. So ends my soapbox spiel for Thursday. Yay short week!

Savory Scenes: Food where?!

I promised more posting for the New Year, yet here I am lagging. Anyway, I'm here to make up for it with a post about food and writing.

When you think of some of your favorite memories or best experiences, what do you think of? What makes up your recollection of that dreamy trip to France, that exciting cross-country road trip, or that amazing study abroad in China? What did you enjoy most at your last birthday party, Christmas, that family trip to wherever?

There are lots of things that come to mind I bet. The sights and sounds – the Eiffel Tower at night, singing 90s pop songs with nothing but road stretching ahead, laughing at your baby cousin playing the drum set in Rock Band even though she can't reach the foot pedal and barely knows what's going on.

Okay, but seriously, did you think of food?

No doubt you are thinking up some memorable Food Moments right about now. Some of my best memories are food-pervasive, and indeed, there are lots of holiday/family/socio-cultural traditions and behaviors that are at the very least held down by the kind of food served. What's Thanksgiving without turkey? In my family, that's the only time of year we EVER by a turkey and a huge slab of honey-baked ham. It just wouldn't be the same without those things present. For Lunar New Year (which started on January 26 this year), there are a number of "lucky" foods you're supposed to eat for good fortune and health in the coming year. One of the dishes should be a whole fish, and you aren't supposed to eat all of it so that you have leftovers, signifying an abundance of wisdom/wealth/fortune/etc. for the new year. My memory of this most recent Lunar New Year? PIZZA. 3 delicious creations I made at home with my sister and friend.

And when you leave a foreign country or different state/province/city after you've stayed, played, and eaten there, what do you miss? Honestly, I miss the food (if it's good, needless to say). I spent the past four years of my life at Berkeley, and yes, I miss my friends, the campus, bits of college life, but I also really miss the food – chicken tikki masala at Curry House, Lion King rolls at Sushi House, pizza from Cheeseboard, Chai Lattes and fluffy foccia-bread sandwiches from Sufficient Grounds, freaking love-of-my-college-life Bianca Mochas from Café Strada. They were part of what defined my experience at Cal, and I capped off my graduation with dinner at ritzy Chez Panisse with my roommate of four years.



Two months in Taiwan this past summer and among the many amazing things I experienced, I miss the abundance of cheap and delicious foods, especially snack foods. But especially, especially, snowflake shaved ice. There are so many Taiwanese people around where I live, but why is there no snowflake shaved ice?!



So the point here wasn't to make you drool (and if you are, watch your keyboards!). It's to show that food is an integral part of our experience, sometimes a definitive part. It's obviously necessary to our survival but it's also in our psychology, our societies, our cultures, and thus in our literature. It comes as something of a surprise to me then that I find very little time spared on food in my earlier writings and even now in my "serious" projects (there's tons of food in silly things I write). When food is mentioned, it's mentioned in passing as an environmental detail or note on perhaps the direness of a situation where characters find food scarce. On a somewhat higher level, it might be used as a personality quirk/indicator for a character. Basically though, where there is food, its use is very functional.



But as we discussed, food can be and actually is so much more. It's evocative, romantic, metaphoric, sentimental, and culturally significant: tea and tea traditions in various parts of the world (e.g. UK, Japan), everything about chocolate, the pomegranate that sealed Persephone's fate, the famed Apple of Eve's eye. So, I wonder why I'm having a hard time thinking of creative uses in fiction for food, especially in speculative fiction where all sorts of crazy magical things happen, but what? No food? In SciFi/Fantasy, off the top of my head, I can only think of the drink klah from the Dragons of Pern series, and lambas bread from LotR but honestly, I haven't read all of the LoTR trilogy and only remember that from rather hilarious outtakes/fandom crack from the movie franchise.

Of course, this ignorance may be due to my own limited reading and imperfect memory, but food and food traditions seems to be an underused part of world/character-building.

In other genres of fiction, I can think of more interesting or at least more prominent roles for food. There's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the setting and candy are practically characters themselves, and there's Chocolat, which I'm going to admit now, I've never read but I loved the movie. The chocolate in that story was used both in the literal sense and as a metaphor for passion and the richness of life. Jhumpa Lahiri uses the specific ingredients and process of making Indian food to help characterize her protagonist in a short story (the title of which escapes me) from Interpreter of Maladies; the smells of the spices is a key part of how the young boy in the story remembers her. The food not only speaks of the woman's past and culture, but it draws parallels to the scope of her life and is indicative of gender roles.

This under-use of food seems at least kind of related to how taste is less used than sight or sound in descriptive writing. Taste is just kind of hard to describe, but food isn't and I think all our worlds would be richer if there was just a little bit more of it. After all, our memories and experiences certainly benefit from the presence of food.

What are your best memories of food? What are other examples of great food/taste usage in fiction? When have you creatively written about food or used it to enrich a character/world? I'd love to hear about it because I'm a big fan, and I'm sure you are too.

Fairy Tales

I absolutely adore fairy tales like how I absolutely adore classical mythology. I know this isn't one of my best openings, but I've been procrastinating on this post and I figured I should just out with it. It's a new thing I'm trying: thwarting my self-thwarting.

Back on topic though, fairy tales hold a special place in my heart. They were probably my first introduction to fantasy and magic both in picture book form and in movie form (thank you Disney). RANDOM ASIDE: Not going to lie, I'm something of a Disney junkie. If you're ever visiting Disneyland, drop me a line. I will get you your one-day pass' worth of Disneyland fun. Also, one-day does mean FULL day. You can't do a Disneyland run properly in half a day, and considering ticket prices, it wouldn't be worth it. Yes, I know where practically everything is. Yes, that's without a map. And yes, that's how many times I've been there. They were, shall we say, the earliest seeds placed in my undeveloped imagination, and as such heavily influence what I like to write and what I like to read.

This pertains to me particularly so at this moment because my NaNo novel was a reboot of something I only vaguely started in the last year or two, and it is based on a fairy tale. I also put myself through the torture of writing my own fairy tale for the novel, which meant I went and read/researched a bunch of fairy tales to get the cadence and style down. (Again, Surlalune for fairy tales plug. Why didn't I find this site sooner?!) Even so, my novel-verse fairy tale still doesn't sit well with me and I'll probably have to revise at least the second half of it. Mostly, what I want is for the entire novel to have a sort of fairy tale tonality to it. I want magic to be embedded into the story, but I want it to feel precariously paradoxical. I want the presence of magic in the world to feel eerie. That's not really happening at the moment, but it's nice to have goals, right?

While the collaborative work that Alz and I really should work on again (now that NaNo is over) is not of the fairy tale ilk, it does in turn draw from various mythologies and legends.


As for my reading tastes, I think the specific appeal of fairy tales for me lies in its ability to walk the line between charming and eerie, and they bring magic into otherwise seemingly ordinary worlds: children run errands for their parents, but then they meet a talking animal or a witch in the woods; peasant girls marry into better lives, but find their husbands ask them to fulfill extraordinary and impossible tasks; shoemakers try to make ends meet, and while they sleep, helpful elves come to answer their prayers. The settings and situations are often mundane enough, but magic is an acceptable intrusion. The world of fairy tales is liminal - real and imagined, enchanting and frightening, sweet and also grotesque, bittersweet.

They represent a type of story and reading experience that I particularly enjoy. I love The Last Unicorn so much because it's told with that sort of "fairy tale" voice, though dressed up to be more lyrical. Also, I just finished reading Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories, which is a collection of, well, fairy tales - some retold and others newly wrought. (Haven't read her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell yet, but I have it.) The lovely part about the stories is that magical occurrences aren't always spelled out for you (very classic fairy tale-like); you're given just enough to draw conclusions but are left with a sense of wonder. It's that eeriness again, the sort of haunting quality the stranger fairy tales have. I suppose it's that feeling that magic could be "just around the corner."

Fanfiction: Unleash your imagination?

While sifting through my personal archive of old high school newspapers and library newsletters, I somehow ended up looking through the old files from my family's old desktop. This would be the computer we used through those wonder years of middle school to mid-high school. I found on both the computer and in one of the newsletters evidence of one of my staple hobbies through those years: fanfiction. (My other hobby during those years was forming a mock singing group named SMACK. The scary thing was we actually performed in public spaces.)

So is fanfiction a good or bad thing? Opinions on the subject vary. On the negative side of things, some see it as a violation of copyright and a poaching of established worlds and characters. This is basically true. It's plagiarism to take the words and ideas of another person and present it as one's own. Some people feel it treads on the rights of the creator or that it corrupts a given world and/or characters. Then there are those who feel it's just plain lazy on a would-be writer's part to dabble in fanfic. After all, such writers have a big bulk of the work done for them -- they've already got a world and a set of characters to work with. Another thing that gives fanfiction a bad rep is the sheer amount of fanfic there is out there, and I'm not going to lie, not all of it is good. In fact, a lot of it is on the wince-worthy side of the spectrum. And let's face it, when you read a fanfic that is particularly bad, something that butchers both your beloved characters and the English language, it's going to leave an exceedingly bad and lingering taste in your metaphorical mouth.

On the positive side, people also see it as a creative outlet for showing appreciation towards established worlds and characters. There's that saying that mimicry is a form of flattery, and in fanfiction's case, it's mostly true. The subject of fanfiction--whether it be a TV show, movie, book, or person--is so beloved that fans just can't help but want to be a part of it. Sometimes they want to see characters go on more adventures or delve into what makes characters tick. Other times, people want to know more about side characters or about events that happened before the start of a series. Then, there's closure. Ever watch a show or read a book and wish there was more? What happened to the kingdom after the Big Bad was defeated? Did a certain supporting character get a happy end? Did a man suffering from an apparently terminal illness die by the time of the epilogue or is he still alive? (On this last point, Alz knows what I'm talking about. I want to know, damnit!) Well, fanfiction is there to speculate on those questions. Plus, supporters of fanfiction see the practice as all done in good fun (and that's what disclaimers are for). It's a form of discussion and bonding among fans over a mutual subject.

Fanfiction can also be seen as a way of practicing writing and receiving feedback (good, bad, and constructive). For example, if characterization is an issue in your original work (i.e. your characters all sound the same, or you're really tempted to make a character do something--because YOU CAN--that would otherwise be viewed by others as wildly out-of-character), you might use fanfiction to help you out. In a fanfic, characterization would/should be based on the characterization in the original work. You would be constrained by the character markers and actions from the original work (as well as fans' expectations for recognizable characters), which may help you learn how to write characters distinctly. This skill can later be transferred to your original characters, who will benefit from your ability to make them sound like distinct and different people.

Both sides of the issue have merit, but what does all this have to do with me? Well, like I said, I found some fanfiction on my computer--my fanfiction--and it severly tested my will power to STOP myself from deleting everything in a fit of blind editorial rage. It also reminded me of all the hilarious, crazy, and fun times I had with my co-writers in middle and high school when we created these abuses against the English language. The stories were fun and outrageous--just the way we liked it--and the characters were, well, very exaggerated and not at all well characterized. But hell, it was FUN, and sometimes the plots were well thought out, and mostly they were freaking hilarious to us. The best part was I found stories I'd sort of forgotten and I still found the ridiculousness of their plots LOL-worthy. My co-writer and I remembered how much laughing was involved as we discussed plot over the phone, and we realized that we STILL found the exact same things funny.

It's been a long time since I've written any fanfic (though I suppose abusing Alz's poor characters counts...), but I do still sometimes read it (re: closure). If anything, fanfiction represents a distinct period of my tween-teenagehood. It also shows, as Alz so sagely remarked, my growth and improvement (oh heavens, the improvement) in my writing. Like, seriously.

In any case, I think the dual nature of fanfiction is best exemplified by the wise words of one of my fandom-participating cohorts, "You have to wade through a lot of shit before you find the good stuff."