I'm currently watching Wonder Boys. I love this movie. I just put the book on hold at the library, and I hope I enjoy the book as much as the movie, though I expect in a very different way. Because I think it needs to be in a different way for me to like it. Since I expect it to be very different.

So the movie has writers and college students wanting to be writers and whatnot. Grady can't write a second book, and James has written a fabulous book -- one that needs a little bit of work ("Well, you can see the outline of the butt!" - James Leer [Tobe Maguire]) -- and well.... these people are successful as writers. Cause Grady's first one was amazing, supposedly.

But that's not what I'm worrying about right now. Success will come later if it will come. My question is far more basic.

How does one write?

I'm currently waiting for a response from a friend concerning the fiction class I'll be taking next term. Beginning Fiction Writing. I asked her what she thought she learned.

See, what I feel I do not know how to do is write. I do not know how to write. From someone who has won NaNoWriMo three times in a row and gotten praise from teachers and peers on a number of short stories, which admittedly is pretty much not anything to brag about, saying she doesn't know how to write is a little weird. But it's true. Someone asks me to write something, or I sit down to write, and I write, but I don't actually know what I'm doing. I'm just making it all up as I go along, how to do this huge task. It's not just with fiction. It's with essays, too.

What am I hoping to know by the end of the class? How to write. I want to be aware of what I'm doing. I want to know how to do it. And then I want to be able to improve.

I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.

Awww... there's something a little bit sad about this scene where Grady walks through his house, Terry laughs with James and closes the door, and the chick is sleeping. Yay, I love this litle bit. Go, Grady! YES!!! It's not a smart thing to do, but it all works out, so it's okay.

Anyway. Yeah, I think I'm done. This is a little bit of a whiny post, but I don't know how else to say this.

Now back to the movie. Man, I love this movie.

I WON NANOWRIMO! Just so y'all know... Like... the... imaginary people that read this... ANYWAY.

In writing land for me, what has been up lately?

....

Other than winning Nanowrimo (with about 50,200 words)... nothing. I haven't even FINISHED the novel. I just hit the 50,000 word mark. I am close to finishing, though. It's the climax, and we just have to have this final confrontation and then the resolution, and BAM. Done. Though that might be several more thousand words.

I haven't written in awhile actually. What is wrong with me? Well, school and applications and whatnot. I guess that gets in the way of things. But then again, I am watching silly, silly shows... I mean, I could be writing the Next Great American Novel instead of watching the MIghty Boosh and waiting for my copy of the Mighty Boosh book to arrive (mid-January, by the way.)

But as it is nearly Christmas (which I celebrate when I probably shouldn't, because I am not Christian. Or anything.) and then New Year's afterwards, I will make some changes.

Change 1 - ACTUALLY WRITE.

Change 2 - Give up the title of Queen of Procrastination.

Change 3 - Spread Good Will to all those I meet. Or at least try not to hate the really detestable people as much as I usually do. We're all just people after all.

Change 4 - Refuse to make resolutions I cannot keep.

NOTE: None of the above are resolutions, it not being New Year's yet, and so therefore, Change 4 does not apply to them. :)

Thank you and have a nice day.

"I kind of liked it your way how you shyly placed your eyes on me. Oh, did you ever know that I had mine on you?" - Faye Wong, Eyes on Me

I am a romantic. I can't write romance. I also don't read romance novels as a genre. But I like my stories to be romantic.

I find myself, recently, drawn most to mature romances. Now, this may sound a little weird considering I am saying this after finishing a manga volume revolving around a 16-yr old kid and a... 28, 29 year old? So you'd imagine that it'd be rather teen like. But the kid has to be mature and take into consideration things most teens in teen romances don't have to consider, making him more mature and the romance more mature (even though when it comes to what results from that romance, he's extremely embarrassed and reserved. But it's cute.) One of my favorite manga volumes ever right there, though... Ahh... I cry (from happiness) and I can listen to the drama CD again and again. (And I have.)

But, yes, back to mature romances. What is the typical youth romance you think of? A couple of teenagers finding love for the first time and it's passionate and awkward and full of confused emotions. More mature romances can still be passionate and awkward and full of confused emotions, but it's different somehow. I probably should put more thought into this before saying it, but...

So that's what I want to write. Mature romances (and just for the record, I'm not dealing with level of explicitness here. You know what I mean.) But I can only imagine what that's actually like, and use other stories as a point of reference. But that's okay, I think. I'll learn. So my first "mature romances" might be pretty silly, but with time..  Which is one thing that makes the romances more interesting. The characters have had more time to sort out their confused hormonal feelings from their teen years and generally have more experience and knowledge about relationships. They can have a deeper, more meaningful relationship because they understand people better than teenagers do.

Maybe that's a load of hogwash, but that's what I feel it's like.


I love this song. Fame from FFVIII obviously. When it is played in the game, I love that part (a nice scene between Squall and Rinoa, who I think are cute together, even though for fannish pleasures I'm a Seifer/Squall fan all the way), but what I really love is how you can apply it to two other characters in the game. I'm not sure if it was written SPECIFICALLY for the game, but it certainly sounds like it does from the lyrics. I'm too lazy to look it up, though. I have yet to win FFVIII. That should be my goal this next year. Been trying since 8th grade. (I finally got to the last disk though! Wooo!)

Click here for an introduction to this post.

"........all..service.. Story..Heliogabalus..Vatican..request..take..vampire..hunt..toward..Charlie.However, there is a back in the request. ･･･ It faces it in Rafro that sleeps in the coffin, and disgusted Charlie forcibly takes Rafro and ..bed.. faces purchase. Bubble over..perplex..manage..hope..all..realize..bed..obtain..the..bed..ghost..provide. Others collection to drama CD ChapterI or Ferris wheel date of Rafro and Charlie complete collect story of synchronization original of three comic blur id magazines 2005 year drama CD ZEBEL EDITION........" -Description of Vassalord Drama CD: The Hidden Palace of Heliogabalus as translated by Excite Translator (parts I cut out are marked with multiple elipses as the translation has elipses already.)

..... *giggles insanely*

Ahhh, excite translator, how you... excite me.  Okay, okay, sorry for the pun. Bad one, I know. Oh well.

I cut some of the original Japanese (just the beginning and ending, trying to isolate one line) and this is what the translator came up with: "･･･It faces it in Rafro that sleeps in the coffin, and disgusted Charlie forcibly takes Rafro and ..bed.. faces purchase. There is ghost in the bed though the bed where all his hope was realized though it manages to be perplexed to bubbling over of Rafro is obtained ･･･. " Which makes little sense, and knocks out the fun that "hope..all..realize..bed..obtain..the..bed.." has. Unless "his hope" isn't the ghost's hope, but rather... Then it still is a bit fun. Suffice it to say, it's all interpretation anyway, pretty much, because the translation is so lousy in the first place.

Now, I read a lot of professionally translated things - manga, subtitles for anime/movies/tv shows, a few novels, though less often - so I'm not completely estranged from the world of professional translations. Within professional translations, you find a lot of discrepancies. I've read the released books from Only the Ring Finger Knows, by Kannagi Satoru with illustrations by Odagiri Hotaru, and they were... simplistic  and somewhat awkward. I wasn't ever sure if that was just due to some weird style thing or if the translation was bad (I ruled out that the writing was THAT bad, because it is pretty popular, the series, and there ARE four drama CDs, which I've listened to and seem perfectly fine from what I can understand.) I've been leaning toward a poor translation, more so because I recently heard that DMP, which released the books, has been known for poor quality translations of their BL books. Pity. If you're going to spend the money to license something and then translate it, you may as well get it done WELL.

For manga, I've noticed poor translation and editing before, too. I ran across a comparison of the fan translated Prince of Tennis manga and the professional translation done by Viz. ......... Like hell Atobe would say anything like that and Sanada? Yeah, right... And that was for the professional translation. There was also much to note on the editing. I've noticed this myself. Because they changed the names to the first name, for whatever reason which I can't understand, as I can refute every argument I can think of brilliantly, It isn't odd to see someone being referred to by the wrong name. Inconsistencies are common in Tokyopop's translation of Dragon Knights, and I've caught myself backtracking when I catch something amiss in Viz's version of Yu-Gi-Oh (well, I did when I still read it. And don't even get me started on the editing of the art... *shivers* That was... just completely awful...)

Now, I understand translating is a tough job. It takes time and effort and checking and rechecking and stylistic and slang/idiom decisions that the translators must make. But does quality need to be sacrificed for that? I don't think so. But then, who's going to listen to me? I don't know if I would even.

I hope that my works will get translated into other languages. Sure, it won't be EXACTLY like my words, but the story will still be there and the emotions can all be conveyed. I just hope for quality rather than speed.

One of the translation errors (or so I've always thought... Whether it was from English to Japanese or from Japanese back to English...) that I can't stand is Markle from Howl's Moving Castle. In the Miyazaki movie, Markle is a young boy who is Howl's apprentice. In the book, Markle doesn't exist, but a boy (older, age 15, not 6 or however little he is) named Michael does. I can deal with the movie Solomon or whatever she was called, even if she IS a mish mash of characters. But Michael to Markle? That's not acceptable to me. Sure, his age changes, but why couldn't his name have stayed the same? Lettie was still Lettie, even if she isn't really Lettie in the book, and they didn't explore that storyline (time constraints, MICHAEL'S age change, etc.) But, again, I don't know where the mistake was made, so I guess I can't point fingers. Well, yes I can, but not COMPLETELY fairly.

I guess that's all I really have to say... Maybe I'll cover this topic again, because there really is a lot to say, but this is what I feel like saying at the moment.

Vassalord is originally a manga by Chrono Nanae (I didn't touch much on the spellings of names. I've seen Krono before, but the official translation has been Chrono, so... And then there's the fact of whether or not the author/original publisher spelled it a certain way already or not.) about a cyborg vampire (and vampire hunter) and his vampire master, who he uses as his meal. Rayflo's the master and Charley's the cyborg vampire. Tokyopop uses Charley, while I've seen Charly and Charlie before. Charlie makes the most sense to me, but...

And if you want to know what the Japanese introduction is saying (or what it SHOULD say and mostly does, actually...), here.
Hello. I don't know if this is correct, but it sounds cool all the same. Welcome to Eddy's blog. I hope you all enjoy your stay here. I write about my writing. I also talk about my thoughts on different aspects of the publishing world. There are probably mistakes in this as I am using an online translator. In fact, that's partially what I am going to talk about today. Please, read and have fun. Comments are appreciated.

"Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." - Collete

So you write a story. Big deal. It's not done yet.

I've been (half-heartedly) editing a story of mine, the only one I completed over the entire course of the summer (fanfiction doesn't count, and I only finished one of those, anyway.) I can't cut things, though. I've always found that I have issures cutting lines and words from my stories. It's not very good, I imagine, to have that issue. I mean, you should have pride in your work. And there should be things that you really do like. But I think that in the end, if it's unfixable crap, you have to recognize it as unfixable crap and start over.

... While I think most of my work is crap, I certainly don't think of it as unfixable, but I don't spend any time trying to fix it. Maybe my attachment to it is a problem, maybe my not editing it is a bigger problem. Maybe these aren't problems at all, and I'm just imaging my entire life and nothing is real. But that's getting a little Matrix, isn't it? (I don't think I can use that reference, actually, as I've never seen the Matrix in full, and therefore know very little about it. The whole bug-in-the-stomach thing scared me too much. I don't know if it's the red or the blue pill that takes you back to our little dream world or not.)

So, I think I should look at my story again and get rid of repetitive lines and such, at the very least. On that note, I'm going to also be looking for editors soon, so be forewarned. I'll probably send a mass email to my friends begging them, with a description of the story, and the explanation that this will happen 8 more times or so, and they can refuse or accept based on whether they're willing to help me with this and if they find the story interesting. Because reading things that don't interest you is just painful.

Changing direction, I bought... 6 books, one manga yesterday at a halfprice book store. With 20% everything. I went a little shop happy... But it was only $33.02 in the end, which is pretty sweet for that amount. There were more manga I wanted, but I figured I should restrain myself a LITTLE. I can go back later and buy them maybe. Though they won't have the sale anymore. Ah, well.

One of the books was The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy. It looks rather interesting. It lists and talks briefly about, by media then year, movies, television, authors/creators, games, iconic characters, worlds (Discworld had a fairly long section in this, obviously.), magazines... With a foreword by Terry Pratchett. So I thought it sounded pretty awesome and it looks pretty good, too. Though I am forced to giggle when the first full page picture for the Television section they choose is a half-naked Kevin Sorbo as Hercules (which I'm watching right now, incidentally.) Which is probably one reason I did laugh, the whole currently watching thing.

So, today, I am planning on just relaxing, because I have to be distracted by real life starting tomorrow. *rolls eyes* Geez. Pesky little things like school are not inducive to my writing... Well, except for the fact that I liked many of the books we've read in English class the past two years, and my idea for last year's NaNoWriMo came from the title of a textbook... *coughs* But that's negligible. Outliers (well, outlying circumstances) if we were talking math, right? Which I'm not taking this year. *grins*

And I have three free periods which I can use to write. Or... do homework... But that's for people who actually care about school. I'll just slap something together the morning of or the night before, as I always do.

So, no clue who this "Colette" is. Writer at the turn of the century, and a bit past. Didn't die until after both my parents were born. Umm... Yeah.

(I slept horribly last night. So hot... Argh... And I really like Oblivion Dust. My sister left me some of her [mostly complete] discographies, such as Penicillin, Aikawa Nanase, and Oblivion Dust.)

"Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer." - Ray Bradbury

As much as I'd like to be a genius, I am not. (Where was I when the brains were handed out? I do not know. Maybe I can blame it on the Vorlons.)

I need to keep this in mind. I need to work hard. I need to write, rewrite, edit, polish, submit, get rejected, submit, redo, until I am an old, crippled woman, on her last breath, and I can look at my life and say, "By gosh, darn it, I gave it all I had." Will I be in a luxerious chamber or on the streets when that happens, though? Or somewhere in between? While option number one is the most appealing, I guess I can go for number three.

Alright, so I get depressed easily when I hear "Oh, Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon after graduating high school at 15." Or "This book has two authors, one 17, the other 40, but they are both the same man." (In reference to The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett, which he reworked and republished.) I'm at that age now, and what do I have to show for it? One novel I'm unwilling to look at, and a handful of short stories that I've written over the past couple of years.

Okay, so I'm not a genius. We've asserted that already. So I may not, for all I know, be published in me teens (my years are fast waning.) I may not even be published in my early twenties. But I'll never know what I can or can't do until I work hard and try.

I'd like to think my job instills in me a desire to work hard, but it mostly encourages me to be lazy when I can. But when it comes to writing, which I am going to make my life (I figure positive assertions sound the best,) I need to work hard.

You ever participate in NaNoWriMo, you hear over and over again that you just need to get the words out. We read "Shitty First Drafts" (the author escapes me) last year in school, and I knew all it said already. Get the words and thoughts down, rework later. It's work, and it's trouble, and it's not fun (the editing bit, I mean. For me.) But it's necessary for the average Janes among us. Well, I suppose even geniuses need to do it, too. It's just... they make it seem so easy.

And in the end, maybe they aren't geniuses. Maybe they just had the drive to work harder than me at a younger age.

But that doesn't really make me feel any better.

Ah, well. Time to put the nose to the grindmill. (Well, maybe time for bed, rather...)

I've only read one Ray Bradbury story (The Sound of Thunder), though I'm familiar with several more, because I read a book that had several of his stories adapted into comics. I also have a Ray Bradbury book borrowed from my sister, and a book with short stories by different authors dedicated to Ray Bradbury.

"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done." - Stephen Wright (Steven Wright, comedian? Is ph on the site I got this from... *shrugs* No clue who he is anyway.)

That's about how much I feel I have accomplished often.

...................................................................

I think the bigger question here is why am I typng up thoughts on writing on livejournal and NOT WRITING?

..................................................................

If I ever find the answer to that, I may tell you.

"We quickly flit out of the way as Clark is bitch-slapped repeatedly by the super-strong fish's tail until he falls backward into the pond." - Smallville fanfiction, "Black Pond," by Viridian5 (It's a really funny piece)

This has been my status on gmail chat for quite some time, mostly because I am highly amused by it. It's part of a story I read online sometime last week, involving one Clark Kent and one Lex Luthor - using Smallville canon - and, no surprise, it is fan generated. Specifically, it was a nice, funny, little Clex piece that was quite amusing.

Now, as much as I enjoy something original, reading fanfiction (good fanfiction) always hits a spot with me. I believe this to be due to visiting familiar characters and worlds. But this still has a limit. I will not touch a Howl's Moving Castle story, nor any other Diana Wynne Jones book-based work. Because those are things I feel you can't tamper with, and there are other things. Well, okay, other people can tamper all they want, but I don't want to influence my feelings of the original work with fan created work (although you can't escape HMC fanart, what with the movie existing and all that. But this isn't about art. This is about fics.)

The whole phenomenon of fanfiction is rather interesting, actually. It interests me so much that I actually indulged myself in a pricey risk as I ordered a book (published 1992) on fans and fan communities more in general (it does include discussion on fan generated work, I'm certain, though. Admittedly, this came about because I was reading up on the history of Kirk/Spock slash, honestly, which is where the term came from I hear.)The book was a whopping $34. In PAPERBACK, no less. But, I have yet to receive it. Hasn't even been shipped out yet. It could be a complete waste of money. I'm hoping not, but we'll just have to see. If it is, oh well, too bad.

Now, I must admit to writing fanfiction myself. Escaflowne, Rurouni Kenshin, DNAngel... I wrote those years ago. Now, I do mostly Prince of Tennis stuff and dabble in a few other fandoms (I did Ethan Frome once, even. But that was a special request. I did not write it out of any love for Ethan Frome.) Therefore, you can firmly place me in the category of fanfiction author. So I have somewhat of an interest in all this fandom business, especially concerning fan texts.

Whether the purchase proves to be good or bad, it's something to think about at least. And, well, just having the book for Tasha Yar and Data dressed as knights, with Dr. Crusher as a queen-type lady and Capt. Picard as a king on the cover is enough. :) Heheh.

........ Honestly, I'm horribly embarrassed that I write fanfiction. I don't see why I should be. Plenty of people write it. Even published authors have written it (well, at least one that I know of, prior to being published. *coughs*Shoebox*coughs* And, although it may be a little unfair to say this, I'm sure the cult following of that fanfic certainly helped some with the sales of the original novel...) But still... There's this... stigma I guess I can't get over. I rationalize, saying it's good for practice anyway, and it's not as if I ever post anything. See... On the one hand, we seem to have perpetual amateurs, borrowing others' ideas, and on the other, we have professionals, borrowing others' ideas much more subtly. And for some reason, that's all the difference in the world to me.

I guess because I borrow whole characters and concepts, I begin to realize just how much in original writing characters and concepts are borrowed from other sources, and I despair over that. I am stuck with the entire complete originality sentiment that is ingrained in the minds of American elementary school students everywhere, when in fact, there is very little to be original about. You try something "new," it's been done in something already in some form or another. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. But I can't grasp that, not quite, and so I despair, and go back to writing fanfiction where no one really cares that it's all been done before, because much of fanfiction isn't very good anyway.

But having that attitude can also undermine the actual creativeness of fanfiction. In fact, you can even see fanfiction as doing what many copyrighted material does. For instance, take comics and long television shows. They're serials, and they have many, many different writers over the course of the series. I mean, histories even change over the course of the series. I mean, look at Lex Luthor. He has several different pasts, and it completely depends on what era of Superman you look at to see where his motivations come from. So, if people write fanfiction where Lex Luthor and Clark Kent go fishing and find a Kryptonite-mutated fish that falls in love with Lex... Hey, why not? It's not hurting anyone. If anything, such works pay homage to the original source, as people like it enough to use its characters and concepts, and generates more interest in the series as well. Free publicity.

So what's my deal?

I don't know. I'll attribute it to elementary school brainwashing for now, but the real reason? *shakes head*

It only becomes sad when someone tells you "I want to write a book so I can read slash fanfiction of it online." Then you know the shadow has become the object. But what happens to the object then?


(In the meanwhile, I have a new obsession. And guess what? While waiting for more, I'm totally going to be daydreaming about it. Might even make some fics, who knows.)

"Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information." - Orson Scott Card

Can "the most essential information" not include characters' names? Which I didn't have in my last short story? It was all "my brother" and "my mother" and "I." Though I DID come up with names after I wrote the stupid thing. Tony and Ross, I think? Erm... Yeah. The mother I never gave a name to, though. Not really any point, I guess.

How long was that story? 4959 words, for the first draft. 4939 words for the edited version I tried doing, but I never finished. I don't know if I ever will. We'll have to see, I guess. (I say that a lot. Huh.)

I have this... plan. It was MEANT for this summer, but I was lazy and didn't do it. What is it? To write a short story weekly. I'm actually on a deadline here, so I really need to start ASAP. First week of December is the latest I can go (and that includes editing said stories.) And considering November is a down time for me in short story writing (NaNoWriMo), I only really have 8 weeks, which equals 8 stories. Plus another two, plus one more if I decide to include that one... (And I MAY enlist help for editing!) This is a very special project. *glances around* I'm sure she wouldn't snoop, so... This is a present for my mom. (Okay, okay, SHUT UP about the cheesiness of it all!) Self-published book of my short stories. The plus two are ones I wrote for school (and will be appropriately labeled as such, so the distinct difference in quality is explained) and the plus one is my brother story. But I don't think I'll add that one, because... That's a little more awkward for me. "Here, mom, some short stories your daughter wrote? What? Oh, yes, that one is about incestuous brothers. Yup." ......... Awkward. And that is the almost 5000 word one I just mentioned.

I suppose I'll be a little more adept at writing short stories, and having them ACTUALLY be short, as Mr. Orson Scott Card says (as well as many others) they should be, after this. Hopefully. As long as I stick to my work. And you can bully me about it. 9 to 11 stories sounds sufficient, right? Not bad at all, I'd say.

I actually have three other stories that are finished, but I don't think I want to put them in. One is a really odd, somewhat convoluted, tale about a house, another is just about a few kisses, which is cheesy as hell, and the third... Actually, I could use the third. With a little bit of reworking...

Looking at the quotation again, I believe the best method, according to Card, is to dive right into the story. Pretend that the reader knows the world, knows the people, knows everything. This doesn't mean it's without details and characterization and such. It just means that those present happen to be "the most essential information." I HAVE read some spectacular longish short stories, however. So, if the author is good, I don't think that length really is an issue. Maybe I'll experiment. Have a few longer ones, have a few shorter ones... That makes this more of a practice test than anything, doesn't it?

Well, we'll see how it goes. (I really DO say that a lot. I'm really a laissez-faire type of person, aren't I?)

As for Orson Scott Card... I haven't read any of his short stories. I read Ender's Game and I enjoyed it, although I couldn't stand how Ender turned out at the end. I hear Ender's Shadow is really good, however? *raises eyebrow* I don't know if I'll ever get to reading it, but hey.


(You know, it's really sad when you read one manga volume that isn't billed as BL [though it IS billed as sexy] and it turns out to be hotter than the four volumes of another series that is billed as BL. *sighs* Oh, only two kisses, one not even shown, and the other not actually a kiss.... What kind of romance is THAT?! The trying-to-be-subtle one, I guess. Honestly, I was more interested in the possible budding romance between one minorish character and an extremely minor character... Actually, I had a bit of similar bad luck with a book I read recently. The characters in love were SO hesitant about their affections, and when they finally started acting on them, they were still too restrained and acted like lost, confused, love-sick puppies, and they couldn't hold my interest for long.. Though they had been that before admitting to the emotions anyway...)

"It is personalities not principles that move the age." - Oscar Wilde

So, I'm sitting in bed the other night, scribbling away in my journal. I'm trying to figure out the desires and motivations of Narcissus and why he acts the way he does. I want this book to be about the people in it, not send messages or provide explanations for certain phenomena.

Creating interesting and believable characters isn't one of the easiest points for me. If you know me at all, you know that I tend to borrow characters often in a form of practice writing, I guess you can say... But if you don't have interesting and believable characters, what's the point of reading a book? It becomes frustrating that you can't stand the characters. Reading for plot leaves something very much lacking.

I think that's one reason I love Prince of Tennis so much. It's a silly show. Middle schoolers pulling off these martial arts-esque tennis techniques? .... I think I'll pass. Having one the characters be somewhat sadistic, another a science-geek, and another a menacing guy who actually is really sweet when it comes to animals? That's a little more interesting. And that's just for some of the main characters. You can't help but fall in love with their rivals, too. Narcissistic rich boy that everyone follows, dying legendary captain that has a team worrying about him, a punk who smokes in MIDDLE SCHOOL who hates tennis, yet is too good at it and plays it out of boredom? Now here are PEOPLE.

It's that way with the things I like best. The characters are intriguing. Londo seeming to be only a pompous, loud ambassador, but caring immensely for his people and having dark secrets and ambitions gone awry... Sophie, confident in that she'll never be anyone ever, and if she appears as an old woman, she might as well be able to act like one... Rincewind, preferring to NOT slow down, thank you very much, large sir with a very big knife, and why does this is always happen to HIM when the world could have been a very nice, boring, logical one... The Malfoys, menacing bullies that get in way over their heads and become rather pathetic by the end... They're all people, with real wants and desires, with real fears. When watching or reading, you want to see what happens to them whether they are main characters or not.

It is this that I must strive for. I want my audience to care about the characters. I want them to be complex, just like people are. Everyone has their good points and their bad points. Some of these points are just stronger than the others, making "good guys" and "bad guys," so to speak. The world comes in shades of gray, not black and white. Open Photoshop sometimes and grayscale a complex image. There will be very little solid black and solid white, I'm sure. Unless you're the type to manipulate. Which adds another dimension to your character.

As practice, I try to make up characters for the people I see at work. Not my coworkers, but the customers. It helps pass the time, I guess, though I can't always keep it up, because i get distracted by the actual job, but... I may just try one of these days to go "people-watching." Anyone ever done it?

So, admittedly, I've never read one of Oscar Wilde's stories. I have seen the animated version of The Canterville Ghost numerous times, but I guess you can't really count that. Then, other than I ran across the movie "Wilde" once dubbed in Spanish with Chinese subtitles and a Torchwood macro someone created after the Proust joke in Dead Man Walking and knowing basically what the Picture of Dorian Gray is about, I have really nothing to say about Oscar Wilde.

(On a side note, Happy Birthday, James Marsters! It's also the guy-who-played-Caspian-in-the-new-Narnia-movie's b-day, Ben Barnes. But that's only cause I recognized his picture, not his name.)

"I can't believe how much I use my spell check." - Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

It's terrible, yet true. I could not win a spelling competition to save my life. (My cat is sniffing my arm rather intensely, which is disturbing...) Well, no one said you had to be able to spell to be able to write. My oldest sister was always the spelling bee champ.

It's frustrating though, opening Word all the time to check the spelling of a word while I'm talking to someone online. That, I suppose, is more just my vanity than anything, though. Makes me feel stupid in front of my friends, but they probably don't really care. So I guess I shouldn't bother.

But, really, spell check still has its flaws. For example, a word may be spelled correctly, but it's the wrong word. Also, for some reason, it doesn't accept some words as real. Here's something that surprised me: Lex Luthor, in my Word program, is not recognized. Neither name. As I typed away last night about Clark and Lex, Lex's name was underlined in red. I tried Luthor; same thing happened. Superman was fine, though. So was Batman. I tried Brainiac for the hack of it, and that was challenged as well, but I expected that. But Lex Luthor? Superman's arch-nemesis? Come on! Then it was completely sexist, I thought, that it wouldn't accept Catwoman, either. Hello! Major love interest of Batman isn't accepted either? So, I suppose, Microsoft Word spell check is above criminals. Bah! The LJ spell check accepts Lex, but doesn't accept Lex's. Luthor's a no-go, too. Same with Catwoman. What is this? *shakes head* Awful.

Catching a typo in a book can be jolting. I've read that the modern author has to be very careful with the manuscript, because if it is accepted, there wil most likely be little time given to actually going over the manuscript. This article said that is was because publishers publish so much nowadays, they can't devote the time they used to be able to. Well, more publishing is good, I suppose, but now writers just have to take more care of the submitted manuscript.

I respect Lois Lane. She's a career woman, and can hold her own much of the time, even if Superman does need to rescue her more often than not. Hey, at least she's doing her job, brave to face the dangers, even if she is scared. Lois & Clark is such fun. It's cheesy often, and extremely bizarre at times, but it's FUN. I think that's very important. It's easier to watch than Smallville because of it. Smallville is all modern, what with its pop music and its mutant of the week and its affairs and murder attempts and teenage angst and confusion. Oh, the fact that Jor-El wants Kal-El to rule the earth... Don't even get me started on that. And that Lana's some descendant of a witch or whatever? I stopped watching around then. The dream episode, actually. Lex's dream. But, I'm attempting it again. Maybe I'll be more receptive the second time around.

On a side note, Smallville isn't accepted either. Ditto with the first part of Kal-El and Jor-El each. What about Gotham City? That's fine. So is Metropolis. Ah, well. I'm not the one making the dictionaries for these things. Nightwing? No. Superboy? No. Supergirl? NO. Bah.

Hmm... I don't suppose there's red kryptonite around, huh? (Doesn't like kryptonite!! AH!) I... don't care about much at the moment.

"Oh, writers. They're a sensitive bunch." - Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), Babylon 5

Okay, so you know how you aren't supposed to take a critique personally? While G-Kar certainly has a problem with that, it's one I do not wish to share, yet I do. Horrible, I know. Absolutely horrible.

And, depending on whether I go through with it or not, makes next year rather uncomfortable seeming...

See, I'm going to be in forensics again, which has nothing to do with writing, but everything to do with critiques, and I'm also considering going to the Pressions workshop and seeing what that's like. Reading bits of my work to people... Yeeks. Terrifying. But, well, I need lots of opinions, I guess. I don't have to agree with them all, but I should at least hear them, shouldn't I?

Here's an admission: I asked someone to edit a story I wasn't.... quite satisfied with. And it being almost a year old, I shouldn't have bothered, probably. And she did edit it, and it was definitely meant to make it better, but I can't bring myself to make the changes. In fact, after I thanked her profusely for her work, I went and sulked in my room. How immature is that? So, maybe all writers aren't sensitive, but this one sure is. It's something I need to get over.

What I desperately need is straight criticism. If there's something good to say about the work, then fine, it can be said. But the negative comments should also ALL be said. I might not LISTEN to all of them, but they should all be said nonetheless. It's the only way I can improve. And I just have to learn how to deal with it.

So, my mantra, when facing critiques and whatnot, should be "This is not a personal attack. This is not a personal attack. This is not a personal attack." ..................... Easier said than done, we'll see how it goes.

Ahh, Babylon 5... It's a really good show. I recommend it. The people and events surrounding the space station Babylon 5 from 2258 to 2262, I believe are the years. Michael Garibaldi, played by Jerry Doyle, is in almost all of the episodes, making him the MOST reoccurring character, but he's not the main of the main characters. He's only Security Chief of Babylon 5, after all. He's not Commander like Sinclair or Ivanova or Captain like Sheridan. But he's a cool character, none the less, and very important still. Jerry Doyle's going to be at Dragon Con, which would be more exciting if I could actually GO, but... Ah, well.

Today's IMDB movie/TV Quote of the Day is from none other than Doctor Who. Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), specifically.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea is asleep and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do." - The Doctor

The only Doctor I have yet to see is Colin Baker, 6. I saw the very first episode (1), The Five Doctors (2, 3, and 5. Hartnell was dead, so 1 had a different actor and there was only Tom Baker archive footage), episodes of the fourth Doctor when I was about 6, and the Doctor Who Movie, which is a few minutes of McCoy, and then it's number 8, McGann.

I've been meaning to read classic books more, but I'm still working on my large pile of thoroughly modern works. Oh, I'll get to them SOMETIME. Just not at the moment.

I believe it's important to expose oneself to many different styles, and for all that I love of Terry Pratchett, I maybe should get away from his work for awhile. (Also, if I keep going on just him, I'll finish all of Discworld and then even his other works before I know it, and then where does that leave me? Waiting for the next!)

I'm easily influenced by writing. Some time ago, when I first got into Pratchett, I tried imitating his style a bit. And then when I read Twilight, combined with the fact that I had just stopped watching Moonlight, I decided to write a really different vampire story, one where they weren't high and fancy. That's still in the works.

So, I wouldn't be surprised that, after reading some classics, I'll be writing in a drastically different style for a little while. I suppose that all helps find what I'm most comfortable writing.

Also, I really could do with the references. Writers seem to always know the most obscure literary references. It may end up that I'll have to even read religious texts. Or, at least, about them... Because lots of fantasy is drawn from religious stories, which makes perfect sense, as they are among the older fantastical writings in the world.

I'm currently working on an Ancient Greek story. It actually is a reworked version of Narcissus. You know they found, among many other writings, a version of Narcissus that predates Ovid's version of him and Echo? It is quote similar to a version written after Ovid's, as well. Both versions are quite different than Ovid's, as they speak more of Narcissus coming of age, rather than just shunning Echo's love. And when I say "coming of age," it's rather he refused to come of age, as he refused male suitors who would have assumed a teacher role for him, and was then punished for it. I'll speak more of this in another entry, however. There's a quote I'd like to use for it.

Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!

(I need to wake up earlier. I got up at nine. But then again, I couldn't sleep last night...)