Day 54. First Weeks.

Status: Lord of the Rings, pg94/1077.

I don’t think I’m really taking this reading challenge seriously enough. I mean, I have absolutely stagnated in the last couple of days, which really breaks my heart. I will do this, damn it. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that despite all this determination, it may no longer be that realistic.

I’ve hit the first week of university, and forgot again how much work really does go into study. I have to think up two research topics for my courses and write the equivalent of an honours project in a month. Oh God. I can feel the heart attack coming along already. I already harbour fantasies of drowning my lecturer due to her unbelievable disinterest in science, which has huge repercussions when you are teaching Law and Medicine. I understand that the average law student doesn’t know the difference between Gattaca and the real world, but unfortunately for her, I’m no normal law student, and will strangle her if she talks about the supposed “intelligence gene”. I know that there are few geneticists out there, but I can assure you that there is no such thing as a single intelligence gene that can be turned on and off. It is so rarely that simple.

In other news, I may have accidentally sort of on purpose volunteered to produce a musical. I am still working two days a week, which is a day more than I probably should be, I still want to be playing frisbee and make it to the gym three times a week, and I’m still playing my weekly D&D games.

…. ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu…

-breathes- it’ll be ok. I’m sure.

But sorry for today’s uninformed rant. As it is indeed Saturday, I spent it playing the aforementioned D&D. Tomorrow will be some speed study and coming up with some kind of essay question for my Law and Med class before continuing to pack up my room to help the boyfriend move in, until I collapse on the couch in exhaustion. But don’t worry, in between I will post parts of Shin’s journal, catch up on the two book reviews I have yet to complete, and try to finish the two side books I’m reading as well as seriously crack into LoTR. I will not be defeated by this book again. Third time’s the charm.

In the meantime, stay positive. And keep up the good work.

I’m just going to leave this here, because….

Day 52. Language

Status: Lord of the Rings: pg94/1077

It’s amazing how words can influence our lives so much. Placed in the right way at the right time, they can inspire people to do great things. They can make people laugh, cry, or draw them to a time in their life that they will never forget. They get inside us, run fast through the blood. Because of them we can communicate with others, we can share, and share our lives with other people who make it even better.

I found this today.

Don’t you wish you could go back and tell your five, ten, fifteen year old self that it all gets better? And I was one of the lucky ones – one day I was able to look in the mirror and smile at what I saw. Despite what everyone else said about me, despite the constant images from magazines about what should be beautiful. I feel for the underdog, because I want to turn to them and say “I know what you’re going through. I was like you once. But keep going. One day, someone or something will change your life so significantly that you will also be able to look in the mirror and think ‘I am incredible.’”

Good luck to all of you.

Day 51. Advice on Dialogue

Status: Lord of the Rings: pg78/1077.

I’ve been proofing a friend’s work, and unfortunately, dialogue is not his strength. And that’s ok. We all have our weaknesses. Of course, it’s important to know what they are and improve where possible. I’m lucky to have dialogue as a strength because not many people do. It is freaken hard to write a conversation and make it real and compelling at the same time. After all, in your day-to-day dealings with life, how many conversations do you have that are in any way compelling? “What did you do today? I went to the supermarket. Awesome, what did you get?” That’s reality.

But I thought I’d share in my wisdom – it’s all well and good for people to give step-by-step instructions on how to write rudimentary dialogue, but they never tell you their personal secrets to success. Selfish bastards. But I’m better than that. So here you are, my top tricks to writing some kick-ass conversations that really suck the reader in. (in no particular order)

1. Make sure that you know your character inside and out. The smallest change to his or her motives or aspirations could greatly change how something is said, or whether something could be said. You need to really step into the shoes of your character and know what they would or wouldn’t say.

2. Men sound different to women. They freaken do. Sometimes in the simplest ways. Men are usually more to-the-point, women are often more descriptive. Women will notice things that men wouldn’t, men would say things a woman wouldn’t. Vice versa. Or, at least, each gender would put things differently. Of course there are exceptions to this – it’s not a steadfast rule at all, but, at least to me, it stands out like a horrible cliche when a character reads like they’re THE WRONG SEX. It’s cringe worthy writing.

3. Don’t make token characters. Is that character really necessary to carry on the book, or is he just token? Token characters are usually very two-dimensional and so anything they have to say is also two-dimensional. Toss em and pick someone else to keep the ball rolling.

4. Research. With a capital R. May favourite ‘what not to do’ example is the sci-fi writer George R.R. Martin. There is no way this man can be a father, and I know this because of the character, Catelyn Stark. In fact, I have found a number of forums talking about how terrible his writing is regarding his female characters, with many going so far as to suggest that he “hates” women. I’m not going to cross into that territory today, but I will say that Catelyn Stark Is. Just. WRONG. No mother would ever abandon her young children to go off and help the eldest fight in war when she has nothing to contribute. No mother would leave a child under five to stand in a war. I also feel that it was a bit of a cop out for women to be as oppressed as they would be in medieval Europe. It aint friggen Europe. He just doesn’t understand the female mind well enough, and it was a Rookie mistake.

Don’t make that mistake. Be better than George R. R. Martin.

5. Act. Try reading the dialogue aloud. Does it flow off the tongue the way you intended? Everything sounds different once it gets off the page. This is a little trick I picked up when writing plays, and I find it transcribes nicely over to novels and other prose.

Hope this fills you with inspiration to crack back into the novel that sits in your documents folder and collects virtual dust.

And make sure you write something as wonderful as this:

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Shin’s Quest Log. Day 1.

Day 1.

Woke up yesterday with landlord banging on door demanding rent. Snuck out the window and headed for the Adventurer’s Guild. Found out you could get 100 gp for a cat, so I signed up.

Found a few coin in the pocket and grabbed a wine or two. Thought maybe I’d just circle the city, calling for the damned thing until I picked up its scent. Ran into another bloke doing the same thing. Offered to go halves in the gold if we split up and looked together. The git was useless – found him back at the Adventurer’s Guild covered in scratches with a bruised face. Something about falling off a building. You can’t trust no one these days. Speaking of , freaken Cook took off without a second word and spent the whole day working! The tight-ass didn’t even fork out for a round. Some mate.

Eventually gave up on the cat and went back to the market. There was a shady bloke in a stall surrounded in animals. Thought if I’d buy the hawk I could set it on the cat. Decided not to in the end as I began wondering if it was actually trained. 30 gp down the freaken tubes.

So I went back into the bar, my feet sore from walking around a city half the day calling for a lousy cat, a hawk under my arm, and my purse far too light, and found bloody Cook sitting there all smug coz he’d just made 6 gp. Wanker. He asked about the hawk. I shrugged. At least the bugger was nice enough to cut me a bit of rope. Offered a gp to a shady lookin’ half-elf if she could tie it to the hawk’s leg so it won’t fly off. See, that Mage’s Academy wasn’t a complete waste of time. Said her name’s Arelma. and she’s doing some big quest up on the board. I remembered I’d actually taken a tag for that one too – something about bandits and stuff… pay must’ve been ok. Don’t forget: memorise Magic Missile spell in the morning.

Fed the hawk a bit of mouse and he nipped my finger a bit. Decided to call him Rascal.

There was also a dwarf at the bar. Thought he was a bit of a prick at first, but turns out he’s alright. I think he’s just a little repressed – can’t be easy being gay and a dwarf. Don’t think he realised that Allan had a family back home. A mage came in with a chicken. Pretty sure Rascal fell in love. Either that or it was indigestion from the mouse.

Finally a cleric came in absolutely fucked up. Turns out he’d found the cat and it almost killed him. Apparently he didn’t have any easy way to get it back to the little ol’ lady’s place. I’d’ve just Missiled the damn thing and given it back. Pretty sure there was nothing in the contract about it being ‘alive’.

I’ll need to step it up a notch tomorrow – can’t rely on Cook to buy me any freaken booze. Wonder if I let Allan cop a feel he’d fill me up a wineskin. Family don’t mean shit on the road.

Suns coming up. I’ll head over to the rendezvous and find some hair-of-the-dog before I take a quick nap. Can’t start my first day is a proper Adventurererer hung-over.

Day 49. Cat Chases and Rat Races

Status: Lord of the Rings: 78/1077.

It’s been a busy few weeks. University takes more prep work than I remembered.

Enough excuses.

Last weekend I had my very first ever Dungeons and Dragons session. It wasn’t something I was dragged, tricked, or begged into, but rather I felt that if I was to continue being such a terrible stereotype of a nerd, I really ought to do so with full commitment. D&D is something I have always been curious about, having never role-played before and having to pass it off with a shrug as being something below me when secretly I was just waiting for the opportunity to become a part of a game. Turns out, amongst my friends, I wasn’t the only one.

So we started a brand new game, a bunch of nerds who have never played before alongside an inexperienced DM. I had never expected something so entertaining.

As a result, a blog has been started by our glorious god called Land Under the Bridge. If all our days were as insane as the first, it will make for an entertaining read.

I also plan on beginning a blog on behalf of my character, Shin, and her pet hawk Rascal. It’s going to be more entertaining than it sounds, stay tuned.

Unfortunately, this is what was suck in my head THE ENTIRE GAME.

Day 42. Living in Middle Earth

Status: Lord of the Rings: pg64/1076

I have a confession to make…

I’ve never read Lord of the Rings.

I’m one of the biggest literary nerds you’ll find but I have never managed to find the time to read the entirety of Lord of the Rings. I haven’t even successfully finished the Fellowship of the Ring. I read The Hobbit when I was about eight, but it took me until I was 18 to pick up the tattered, falling apart, family copy on the bookshelf and begin the magnum opus that is the primary tourism for my country. Even then I was unable to continue it. But now, this time, I will not fail.

Sometimes I wonder, if Lord of the Rings had been created by another visionary other than Peter Jackson, if New Zealand would still be Middle Earth. It’s hard to gauge how outsiders really feel about our country – all we hear is how spectacular the landscape is from tourism agencies, but, as someone who has not traveled very far or wide, it’s difficult to make any comparison. Surely there are grander mountains than ours? More pristine rivers, vaster rainforests, stranger creatures. But driving to work today, I realised that perhaps all the praise we receive is actually merited.

Picture if you will: driving from Christchurch city, through suburbia, past the little semi-country townships and reaching what I like to call faux country – places that are filled with small sections of 10 acre blocks and small sheep and horse farms that have no real substance. I work on something like this – an agriculture research station just outside of what once was considered to be a small rural town called Lincoln. This trip takes me 30 minutes. So within 30 minutes I had left the centre of town and was driving past fields. This time of year, everything it pretty freaken yellow, at this time of day the sun is low in the sky. Today mist had collected over the tops of the corn and had faded out the port hills to my left. I could see the tops of them dipping and diving from view, as well as the bright sun blazing through the low cloud.

On the other side were the mountains, clear as crystal, covered in a fresh dumping of snow, pressed up against a backdrop of brilliant blue sky.

That’s the view I have driving to work. Can you imagine what it’s like when I take an extra hour from home? Suddenly I’ll be heading for the Lewis Pass, or standing on the top of the Banks Peninsula Hills looking down over a sparkling sea on one side, or perhaps the lights of Christchurch City below me at night. If I drive south it would only take me another hour again to reach the desolation that is the MacKenzie County – a basin of glacier deposit, or if I go up I’ll hit national parks full of thick rainforest.

Lord of the Rings did stop New Zealanders taking their country for granted. The entire world turned to us and said “your country is incredible. You are so lucky.” And all we could do is say “Thank you. It is.”

And if you ever find yourself alone, walking through any of the snow capped mountains in our fair country, play this. I feel it will set the mood as the sun rises over the tip.

Day 41. My Drive is bigger than yours

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling 

Two knocked down. Haven’t completely decided on which I should read next – I am tempted by Anna Karenina as the movie is currently out in theatres. Otherwise, I do have Memoirs of A Geisha – another favourite of mine, staring at me from my bookshelf. We shall see.

Anyway, quick story time. Yesterday I bought a harddrive to aid my dying computer. It’s just a 2TB desk harddrive that was on special at the time. I went in to buy it, dressed in a summer dress and casual makeup, yet apparently something about me screamed gamer geek. A purchase that should have taken me five minutes to make resulted in half an hour as I ended up in a conversation, first with the guy selling me the harddrive on the shop floor, about indie video games and the steam box, then over to the guy at the desk who started bragging about the video game library that his flat has accumulated.

Oh God. Then I went into EB Games, taking a look at the prices for the new God of War due out soon and ended up in a conversation with a guy there about how big his video game library is. Jesus, we’re worse than petrol heads. Over compensating much?

Stay tuned for some reviews. The next week or so will be full of university preparation, so please bear with me.

Day 39. Why Suckerpunch was the most misunderstood film of 2011

Status: Love in the time of Cholera: pg390/424, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: pg236/251.

I went to see SuckerPunch at the movies theatre on the midnight screening, well before my impression could be skewed by the large, opinionated magazines that determine the success of any blockbuster. Therefore, I was able to come out and say, without any bias, that I, actually, really enjoyed it.

Which is why I was horrified when all the main magazines came back and slammed it into the ground. What on earth had I missed? They talked of blatant female objectification and the obsession of fourteen year old boys. But I couldn’t help but feel they missed the bigger picture.

To me, what I caught from it on my initial impression was that the women were not objectified, but empowered. I saw it as a film about women over coming such objectification and male dominance. About Sweet-Pea and her struggle with her own mind. However, I never realised how far it went down the rabbit hole.

This is an amazing analysis of the film, showing that I wasn’t alone. It’s well worth a watch

Day 38. Did ya miss me?

Status: Love in the Time of Cholera: pg312/424, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: pg210/251

On the home stretch for Harry Potter 2. You would think, since it has been about a week since I posted, that I would have read more. But no. Illness really does take your energy away.

Over the next week, loads and loads of exciting things are happening. I have a job interview doing pretty much what I do now. Hello, my name is O.C. and I’m a Breeding Assistant. Here to assist with all your breeding requirements. It’s a great job title, but there is another in the pipeline that I’m a little more excited for. How about, Hello my name is O.C and I’m a writer for video-games. Oh man wouldn’t that be mega cool? Currently an indie outfit called Lacuna Entertainment, who managed to raise something like 700% of a recent kickstarter campaign are currently sizing up my writing portfolio. They were pretty enthusiastic when I gave it to them, so here’s hopin’.

On a similar note, did you know that New Zealand isn’t just Middle Earth and full of Hobbits, but also the home of some quite incredible game developers? Wow we’re a talented little country. First up, we haveGrinding Gear Games that have created this amazing looking Action RPG/Dungeon Crawler called Path of Exile. If you ignore the horrible Kiwi accidents, I’ve been enjoying the art work and gigantasaurus skill tree. And when I say ‘I’ve’ been enjoying them, I mean that I’ve been watching my partner enjoy them due to my effing piece of crap laptop not being able to play anything. It’s currently free on beta so go give it a whirl.

Next up we have Cerebralfix who make some adorabible games on Android and iPhone. If you head over to their website, you can find some of their less but still awesome games there for free.

Gotta love me Indie game companies. My life wouldn’t be complete without any of you, creating timewasters like Limbo, Terraria, Minecraft or Torchlight. Don’t ever leave me.

Oh, and Flower.

I could never forget you.

Day 28 and 29. Fanfic

Status: Love in the Time of Cholera pg 198/424, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, pg81/251

Before you panic/get excited, this is not going to be a fanfic (although, I may have dabbled before, if you are interested.)  I was recently surprised to see how great a battlefield fanfiction is, with people willing to fight to the death for their views on whether it is a legitimate form of creative work, or theft. Now I want to throw in my ten cents, as is my right and obligation to do so as a blogger and professional nosey-parker.

First off, I will note that I know a little of copyright law here in New Zealand. For something to be copyright under the Copyright Act 1994 s 14, the work needs to be original. Now the issue is whether something like fanfiction can be considered original work. Well, in New Zealand and, I believe, England (although please correct me if I’m wrong, lawyers of the UK) originality is determined by the “sweat of the brow” approach which basically means that if you have done something more than the effort of producing the work – ie, used something like your own skill, judgement or creativity, then it is original work. Well then, legally this means that anyone who creates fanfiction, even though it is using the same characters and setting that someone else has invented without their permission, because they have included their own creativity in designing a plot-line for instance, it is original and therefore doesn’t infringe on copyright.

Law aside, I am certainly guilty of indulging on fanfiction sites, sifting through the piles and piles of crap to find the glittering gems of talent that struggle to keep their head up above the deluge. Because, I truly believe that there is a talent to a good fanfiction. To me, they’re a great way for solving that writer’s block. I don’t need to worry about creating new characters or settings, or even having to explain any backstory in detail – because everyone reading the fanfiction already knows it from reading the story. All the hard parts are done. I just need to concentrate on a gripping plot and charming dialogue with no pressure from any nasty internet commentators. The sites I post on are filled with lovely people keen for a good read, and appreciative that what I deliver doesn’t make them loose faith in the world.

And there is something incredibly filthy about reading Harry Potter slash fics. Not that I do. No, seriously. Honest. But my friend does…

On another law note, you still need to be careful when writing your fanfiction. Harry Potter in particular. Although you might not be breaking any copyright laws, you might be breaching trademarks. Harry Potter and many of the characters are either trademarked, or because of their fame, using them might be considered to be passing off – a whole other field of tort law. Either way, always write a disclaimer at the top of your page when writing to state that you do no claim to own any of the characters and you are not making any money from the production of the fic, just to save your ass.

In summary, don’t hate on fanfic, but be prepared to spend hours and hours and hours trolling through the internet to find a single gem that has made the entire search worth while. It helps to know your sites. Stay away from fanfiction.net and look for those that specialise. And keep an eye out for Page394, especially on grangerenchanted. See, it’s not all slash.

PS

Everyone should put this on their light switch.