We Need To Talk About Divergent: Part 1

I have this problem where I like to read books that are currently popular with the YA audience, because, y'know, as a writer I like to keep up with where the market's at. Currently the YA market orbits around things labelled Dystopian, thanks to that thing called The Hunger Games.

Remember that (painfully recent) time when you'd walk into a bookstore and look in the YA section and EVERY SINGLE BOOK looked like Twilight? Thankfully we're finally moving past that stage and now every book looks like The Hunger Games. For example, this image here on the right is the cover of Divergent, the debut novel of Veronica Roth. Note the pretentious Oh-Look-At-Me-I'm-The-New-Hunger-Games cover design. Not really the author's fault, of course. Got to love publishers/marketers and their irritating love of making every book look the same. Ugh.

I was really, truly hoping that this book would be great because I was so disappointed with the ending of THG. Surely there's some gem of a Dystopian book out there that I could really love? I know, I'm picky, but I am capable of loving YA books (Saving Francesca, The Fault In Our Stars, Tamar, Holes, etc), so it was entirely possible that I could love this one.

It wasn't long before I was let down.

When I started thinking about how to write a coherent review on this book, I couldn't think where to start. So I've decided instead to write a blow-by-blow account of my reading experience, which means I'll be saving people like Keira the trouble of having to read the book (trust me!). Anyway, just so you're not struggling to decipher the basic story line in my rant, here is the back-cover-blurb to get you started:

In sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior’s world, society is divided into five factions – Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent) – each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue, in the attempt to form a “perfect society.” At the age of sixteen, teens must choose the faction to which they will devote their lives.

On her Choosing Day, Beatrice renames herself Tris, rejects her family’s group, and chooses another faction. After surviving a brutal initiation, Tris finds romance with a super-hot boy, but also discovers unrest and growing conflict in their seemingly “perfect society.” To survive and save those they love, they must use their strengths to uncover the truths about their identities, their families, and the order of their society itself.

Yeah, quite obviously that's not the ACTUAL blurb that's on the back cover, but I stumbled across it on this blog and liked it a lot better than the original. And now, without further ado, We Talk About Divergent.

Back Cover
At this point I'm already not a fan of the society-divided-by-virtues concept. But hey, I'll try not to judge now and just give it a go. Maybe if Roth gets detailed with the world building it'll be really cool. 

Page 1
All righty, so the main character (Beatrice) and her family are part of the Abnegation faction. This is about being selfless, apparently. Realistically I can't imagine that one whole fifth of this future Chicago would identify Selflessness as the main characteristic that they're going to live by. I probably wouldn't, to be honest. But I'll just roll with it for now. Maybe they're actually a really tiny faction.

On with the prose: "I sneak a look at my reflection when she isn't paying attention..." Oh dear. By page one Beatrice is looking at herself in the mirror. Surely she's not going to - nope, there she goes, she's describing herself. "I see a narrow face, wide, round eyes, and a long, thin nose..." Wow, that was  such a necessary description of the character - I feel so informed. Thanks, author! I'd really prefer to be introduced to the character by their actions and personality, seeing as this is first-person and all, but you know....

Page 3
Introduction of Beatrice's brother, Caleb. Again with an unnecessary character description of his facial features. And also this horrendous sentence: "He also inherited my mother's talent for selflessness." I get that Abnegation holds selflessness in high regard, but last time I checked, it wasn't a talent. More of a virtue. Where is her editor?

Page 4
Apparently everyone in Abnegation wears grey robes, like the Weasley kids at Hogwarts. Weird.

Page 6
Okay, so I'm only at the end of the first chapter, but already I need to stop and think about this concept again. So far in the story we've only been told that this is what the future looks like, but there have been now clues as to how it got this way. Also, society is still functioning fairly well, after all the main characters live in houses and ride the bus and go to school. Either way I can't understand why dividing the society into factions based on virtues is a good idea. How come there are only five? Why do people agree to defining themselves with only one virtue? There are a million other dividers that society already separates itself by - race, culture, financial status, etc. Have these completely disappeared? If so, how did that happen? And also, where is the rest of the world? Is it gone? Is it also divided into little factions like this future Chicago? Are they the same factions? Are they different? Where is the Chicago government? Or has the government been destroyed by someone else? Apparently a lot of the city has been rebuilt, but there is no explanation for why or what happened to it. And there's this building that "was once called the Sears tower, but we call it The Hub". WHY? WHAT IS THIS BUILDING? If I don't get answers to any of these questions soon I'm going to pretty annoyed. 


Page 7
Beatrice has a class at school called "Faction History" and she goes into it. Funny, why didn't she take us with her? That sort of information WOULD BE USEFUL TO THE READER, VERONICA. At this point, I actually wouldn't mind a little Info Dump. So far all I know is that the Erudites (intelligent ones) hate Abnegation, and Dauntless are weird tattooed folk who jump off moving trains. 


Page 18
Beatrice has to do this weird aptitude test for the Choosing Ceremony, to help determine which faction she's actually supposed to be in. It all happens in her head after she takes this drug. An imaginary dog attacks her and some strange guy yells at her, asking if she knows this murderer. I still have no idea how these things help determine the kind of person she is.


Page 23
So, either the test failed or she failed the test - I'm not sure which - because she's now DIVERGENT (whoa, title drop!), meaning she actually fits into three factions and she can decide which one to go into. Oh, and being divergent is REALLY RARE AND REALLY DANGEROUS, but we haven't been told why yet. It is probably Foreshadowing An Epic Climax. We hope. 


Aaaaaaand those are my thoughts on the first 3 chapters. And I will come back later and write more about the crazy experience. Here's to hoping this book gets better! :D

Author Spotlight: Melina Marchetta

Pre-ordered a French Cinema book about two weeks ago. Don't really have any idea how long it's going to take to get here, because the book in still in publishing stages. Book depository told me that it would be published by now, but that appears to be a lie, so I'm tossing up asking for my money back. But I really want the book. So shall see what happens. I started film school on Monday, I'll talk more about that later, but the point is several French directors/films have so far been mentioned by various people so that will be helpful for when I get around to this French Cinema plan that I keep talking about. Anyhoo! No point moping about not blogging about that topic, so I'll blog about something else right now!

I will try and do some regular posts on various authors/books that I love/hate (I say hate because who doesn't love a good rant? Stay tuned for Veronica Roth's Divergent, people. I'm only 50 pages in and I just know a rant is coming on). I also have two or three films in mind that I want to screencap, so hopefully I'll do another Screencap Saturday soon.

My reading lately has mostly consisted of Melina Marchetta material. I received Saving Francesa as a requested gift last Christmas and read it for the first time a couple of months ago. It is now on my (depressingly short) mental list of 'most-loved YA books'. I have since read two other Marchetta books and am currently consuming a fourth. So let's blog about why this writer-lady is so brilliant, in order of book-publication-date, even though I didn't read her books in that order.

First up, Melina Marchetta writes Looking for Alibrandi, not to be confused with John Green's similarly-titled novel, Looking for Alaska. Published in 1992, Alibrandi is Marchetta's debut novel. Here's a quick blurb from Penguin:


 Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen and in her final year at a wealthy girls' school. This is the year she meets her father, the year she falls in love, the year she searches for Alibrandi and finds the real truth about her family – and the identity she has been searching for.


Upon picking the book up from the library and settling down to start it, I expected the story to be somewhat dated; it would be about ten years before Marchetta published her second novel, Saving Francesa. But what makes Marchetta such a great writer is that aside from some unavoidable fashion and technology references, the story in general stands the test of time. Marchetta's characters, including protagonist Josephine Alibrandi, are relatable to their target audience (roughly aged 12-16), and Marchetta's early writing style, albiet slightly clunkier on these pages than in her later books, is pleasantly varied and easy to read.

Marchetta's writing style only gets better - which is expected, seeing as she had so much time to practice. It wasn't until 2003 that Saving Francesa hit the book stores and graced everyone with its much-needed presence. The story is about a sixteen-year-old girl trying to save her social life (whilst attending a "co-ed" school that only recently opened its doors to year 11 and 12 girls), her family (now that her usually spirited mother Mia is suddenly suffering from a heavy depression), and hardest of all, herself.

The beauty of Francesca comes from the titular character's raw honesty and relatability, even though as the narrator she doesn't quite realise how honest she is. It is easy for almost any teenage girl to identify with her - from her annoyance at not being allowed to watch Buffy at her aunt's house, to her desperation to be part of a group despite how obviously awful the girls in that clique can be to her. We've all been there at one point in our lives; I can't even count how many times I nodded my head and thought 'yes, I know exactly how you feel' when reading Francesca's emotionally-complex narrative.

My favorite detail in the novel was Francesca's tendency to call people by their full names, or by their first names, in the case of her mother. She refers to the girls in her class as "Justine Kalinsky", "Siobhan Sullivan", and "Tara Finke", distancing herself from them while she deals with her tense family life on her own. Until at one point about halfway through the novel, this happens:

     I ring up Michaela from Stella's and ask her if she'd like to do something. I try to remember what made our relationship work in the past. Was it because she had a sense of humor and treated me well? And if it was because of that, why did I feel so grateful that people treated me well? 
     But Michaela can't do anything tonight. She's having a sleepover at Natalia's. I want to invite myself over, but I keep on thinking she'll invite me instead. 
     But she doesn't. 
     So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, 'It's Francesca Spinelli', and she says, 'Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?', and I say, 'I feel like shit,' and I don't know how it happened, but by eight o'clock that night, I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. 
     And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life. 


It's from this point onwards that Francesca ceases the full name use. It's also at this point that she accepts what she's been subconsciously trying to deny - these girls that she's been trying to distance herself from, they're her real friends. They're the ones who care. And that moment, when she realises ... that's what makes this book so beautiful.

Marchetta's third novel is On the Jellicoe Road (2006). Here's your basic back-cover-blurb to get you up to speed:

"Taylor Markham is not a popular choice. She is erratic, has no people skills and never turns up to meetings. Not to mention the incident when she ran off in search of her mother and only got halfway there. But she's lived at Jellicoe School most of her life and as leader of the boarders that's her greatest asset. Especially now the cadets, led by the infamous Jonah Griggs, have arrived. The territory wars between the boarders, townies and cadets are about to recommence.

"But Taylor has other things on her mind: a prayer tree, the hermit who whispered in her ear, and a vaguely familiar drawing in the local police station. Taylor wants to understand the mystery of her own past. But Hannah, the woman who found her, has suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing but an unfinished manuscript about five kids whose lives entwined twenty years ago on the Jellicoe Road."

The first chapter or two of this novel is, to be honest, shockingly clunky. It took me a while to work out what was actually going on - who Taylor was, how old she was, what her relation to the characters around her was and also what the slightly confusing italicised story-within-the-story chapters were. But then I got there. Taylor is a pretty selfish person to begin with, but to Marchetta's credit instead of annoying the heck out of the reader by trying to force us to like this character anyway, she lets us side with Taylor's friends for a little while, who frequently point out her faults, while Marchetta carefully reveals the rest of Taylor's character layer by layer, and I began to like her a lot more as the story went on. In the end it was probably the characters that drove me to finish the book, because I liked the different relationships and the way they all interacted with one another. I'm pretty fascinated with the way people relate and connect with other people, and I enjoyed that aspect of the book.

The major problem with this novel, aside from the clunky beginning, was the failure to establish exactly WHAT kind of world we were living in. I couldn't get a handle on whether the story was supposed to be completely "real life" or if there were moments when we were submerged in the overactive imagination of the main characters. If the former, it wasn't very believable in places - the lack of adult supervision for these secluded-boarding-school students was a little worrying at times, particularly when the teenage characters got into fights. Taylor's friend Ben is hurt pretty badly in one scene, and I didn't find it at all believable that there were no teachers around to break things up or sort things out after the ordeal, so the only explanation I could come up with for this was that Taylor (as the 1st person narrator) had exaggerated the incident and Ben was really as hurt as she'd made him out to be. I get annoyed when my narrator is unreliable so neither option was working for me anyway.

Despite all the issues I had with it, I found Jellicoe crazily addictive. One night during my reading I was less than two thirds of the way through the book and was suddenly overcome with a desperate desire to KNOW THE ENDING RIGHT NOW. Not one to peek or skim ahead, I stayed up til 1:30 in the morning finishing the silly thing. And I liked it. If you've enjoyed Marchetta's other books, I'd say give this one a go, but don't make it the first one you read.

At this point, Marchetta changes genres and delves into the world of Fantasy with Finnikin of the Rock.  I have about fifty pages left of this one, so if I loathe the ending I may have to come back and update this post. It's always risky talking about a book you haven't finished, especially if you're telling people you like it before you've read the ending (*cough*hungergamesseries*cough*).

I could get you a plot blurb for Finnikin, but I'm such a hater of "ye 'old cliched Fantasy blurb" that I'm going to skip that and just tell you about it myself.

Basically, Finnkin is this young man who spends pretty much the entire book Walking the Earth with a typical mentor character Sir Topher. They end up travelling a girl named Evanjalin (another thing I hate about high Fantasy - authors screwing around with typical spelling for something more "exotic". Can't she just be called Evangeline? I mean really, Marlina.), who claims that the long-lost-king is alive and she can lead them to him. Which basically means that the first few chapters are LOADED with Infodumps about said long-lost-king and his connection to the land and to Finnikin and all that jazz.

Seeing as she spent so much time on world-building I could tell Marchetta was enjoying the genre change. She particularly enjoyed the freedom that she had to torture her characters in ways that you can't really do in a 'real-world' story. By the time I was halfway through the book, the lead characters either endured or were revealed to have endured between them: punch-ups, sword-fights, strangling, ambushes, branding, thievery, defensive killing, numerous battle wounds, and attempted rape (probably loads of other things too that I've forgotten about). Oh, and let's not forget all the name-calling, of course. We are in a Fantasy novel, after all!

Once again there was something about the characters and the writing style that gripped me, and I found myself taking the book to work and devouring a few pages on my break. I was thinking about it A LOT, which is a big deal for me when I'm reading a book. I kept wondering what was going to happen next.

Now, if you're planning on reading the book, here's the part I can't help but mention, but beware, VAGUE SPOILERS AHEAD (I say vague because I'm only really giving stuff away if you're a cluey kind of reader. I'm not so cluey).

I was pretty ok with all the happenings of this story until I got within the last third of the book. Remember, I still haven't finished it yet, so I may have to update if my opinion on the ending changes.... But CURRENTLY I am pretty annoyed. You know that moment when something predictable shows up on the horizon of the novel, and you're like "nah, I trust this author. She'll do something different. There'll be a different twist that's not so predictable"...

And then before you're ready, the unfortunate King Incognito trope, coupled with its typical partner in crime Not Quite Dead comes crashing down upon the story in all its glorious clichedness. AND to make matters worse, the ever-hated (by me, anyway) LAST-MINUTE PERMANENT NAME CHANGE of one of the characters throws itself in for good measure, and as usual, the new name sucks compared to the original name (Shasta/Cor, anyone? UGH.). I searched for about half an hour for a name-change trope that suited this, but I couldn't find one, surprisingly. If you locate it, let me know please!

Anyways. I'm not a big fan of High Fantasy because of all the tropes and cliches that are always around, but I still enjoy Marchetta's writing. Why? I honestly can't answer that for sure. But there's something about her writing that grips me, and I only hope that one day my own writing has that little piece of special magic that keeps the reader reading.

Realism VS. Relatability

Disclaimer: The Spiderman/Batman character examples that are to follow have nothing to do with the original comic book characters ... well, they might, but I wouldn't know because I haven't read them. So the point is, if you're a Spiderman/Batman of comic book origin lover, please don't argue with me, I admit I am uneducated in ways other than the big blockbuster movies. No offence is intended. 


The age-old Spiderman VS. Batman argument comes up a lot in our house. This blog post isn't necessarily an argument - that is to say, I'm not trying to diss Batman. The argument here is Realism VS. Relatability, and my superheroes are the vehicle. 


Before we get into this, my computer tells me that relatability is not a word. The online merriam-webster dictionary tells me otherwise (but who knows how reliable that is). I can't think of any alternative word that means what I'm assuming we all know relatability means, so I'm going to roll with it anyway. I'm a writer! I can make things up! And I say if it wasn't a word, it is now!


On with the show. So what is the difference between realism and relatability? Why does it matter? 


As a writer and a reader, I enjoy both of these things in a novel. I like finding ways to relate to the characters, the situations, the emotions in a story. I also appreciate the effort an author puts in to make their story world and the way their characters act and react realistic. However, in most stories there is a point where, for the sake of the epic tale you are weaving, an element of your realism must be left behind. This is where Suspension of Disbelief, aided by relatability, comes to the rescue. 


Suspension of disbelief basically means, 'I'll accept your skewed reality because I'm enjoying the story'. It's that moment in the story where - what the? - Harry Potter is a wizard. Mole does spring cleaning. Christian wins Satine's heart with a love medley of pop songs while the moon sings and fireworks appear out of nowhere. John McClane miraculously survives, again. This is the moment where the writer must let go of the story's safety harness. It's time to freefall, and the reader/watcher is the parachute. Are they going to stick with the story?


In the examples I've used, I would safely assume that the answer is yes.  But why is that? Why do we love this stuff? Why aren't we yelling at the book/TV screen in confusion? This stuff can't happen! It's preposterous! Magic doesn't exist. Animals don't talk. The moon doesn't sing! And if this were real, he would have died back there. So why do we stick with the story? 


Simply, it's because we enjoy imagining things that couldn't really happen. But to be more specific, we enjoy it because despite the lack of realism, there is still an element of relatability that is realistic to us. Harry Potter thought he was an Average Joe like the rest of us. Mole's OCD reminds you of someone you know. The love Christian has for Satine is real to us. And John McClane ... well, we'd be disappointed if he died when he should have ... so we're rooting for him against the odds! 


What does this have to do with Spiderman and Batman, you ask? Well, these two heroes are what sparked the idea for this post. My brother Justin tells me that the great thing about Batman is that because he doesn't have proper super powers, it's his awesome technology that makes him a superhero. It's cool and realistic and whatnot because it could potentially happen. I agree with him on this, but my problem with Batman is that as a 19-year-old Australian girl who is disappointed about missing out on $100+ pay because she's home sick instead of working her 6-hour shift at a local cafe, I find Gotham city billionaire Bruce Wayne a leetle difficult to relate to. (Although right now, I probably sound a touch like Batman ... where are those lozenges?)


Spiderman, on the other hand? Photography-loving, nerdy teenager who, after getting his powers, spends his evenings scribbling away with textas designing a superhero costume? This works a little better for me.


The big point here is, who do you want your story to relate to? There's obviously a difference between the relatability of Spiderman and Batman (which includes the emotional states of the characters, their interactions with other characters, and the inner journey they take throughout their stories, but I won't go into all that detail). This isn't to say that I don't like Batman. I like the Batman films and there is much to love and appreciate. But as a big believer in the ability and need to emotionally invest in a character, I don't really have any emotional attachment to Batman (like, if he dies at the end of his upcoming film ... well, nice knowing you Batman.)


How much have you considered realism and relatability in your story? Have you found a balance? Are you reaching out to your target audience? 


In my own novel I have a lot of different things to consider. I'm already relying heavily on the reader's suspension of disbelief because by the fourth paragraph of the first page, one of the characters is revealed to be a shapeshifter. A big portion of realism has already flown out the window at this stage. And now it's up to me to keep my reader hooked. Sure, the fact that something totally out of the norm has just happened is enough to keep any reader going for several more pages, but in order to get them to Chapter Two, I need some relatable material. My shapeshifter is about 60 years old, rather gruff, lives in a rundown terrace house and probably hasn't showered for a week. He's not really relatable to my YA audience (roughly aged 15), so I bring in a younger character who, despite her air of confidence, is secretly a little scared of this guy. Now we have relatability. And we also have intrigue. What's she doing at this guy's house? What will happen there? 


My hopes are that these elements combined will lead to my reader turning the page and continuing to unravel the story. If I'm a good enough writer, I just might be right. 


If there are any writers out there reading this (a big squishy hug hello if you've come via NaNoWriMo), I hope this post is of some use to you. Happy writing!

An Introduction to French Cinema: It's Hard to Get Aquainted

So, I'm yet to start this series because I'm yet to find a decent guide to help me along. My plan of attack is to watch some things in a historically chronological order, whilst also watching some contemporary stuff at the same time.

Problem is, I've not idea where to begin. There's an awesome-looking book on Book Depository called Studying French Cinema, but it's still three weeks away from release. So I'll have to wait on that one. I've looked at a couple of others such as French Cinema by Charles Drazin, but one review I read said that he sort of gives up on giving films made after 1959 (ie, after Luc Godard's Breathless) the attention they deserve. So that sort of doesn't work for me, because I'd like a book that thoroughly covers both old and new history. Especially new, because the broad Film History book I have right now has a decent amount of French film beginnings ... but it's pretty hefty reading and I'm only up to 1912 or something, so mentions of accessible French titles has so far been scarce.

I went into Newtown today in hopes that some of the bookshops that import from overseas would have something I could purchase, but in four shops I only found one second-hand book, and it was about comparing French films with their American remakes and studying the influence that the French film industry has on America. So that was no good.

It frustrates me how difficult it is to get books about the history of other countries here. Like, as if I want to read about Australian history (film or otherwise)! Who does that? It's no wonder bookshops here are failing and people are buying more things online. I can't find anything I want in an actual shop. Trying to find research material for Eloquence was (and still is) a bit of a nightmare; when looking for specific British history one can find only broad world history books or general overviews of the history of Britain, which isn't helpful because that means I'm buying a book for $30 and only getting like $5 of relevant reading material. So again, most of my books on the 19th-century have arrived in the mailbox from the UK. Obviously, when I go there I will be taking an empty suitcase and buying books.

As for film sections themselves, most of the space is taken up by Hollywood (obviously) with a few dodgy-looking titles about Australian film or about one specific person like Martin Scorcese (who is awesome, but in this case irrelevant).

So, this series will continue with content that is ACTUALLY ABOUT A MOVIE ... later on. Once I work out what the heck I'm doing. Meanwhile, I'm going to watch Public Enemies and pretend I'm cultured because Marion Cotillard is in the movie. Hehe.

P.S When I was in Newtown today there was a big crew of 30+ people shooting some kind of short film or a show. I stood around like a lost idiot and watched them for a bit, but they were all busy and I couldn't really ask them what was going on. I imagined they were from Sydney Film School, even though I knew they couldn't be because the crew was too big and very professional. Moral of this story: I'm excited for film school to start. One more month!

French Cinema

I know, I know. I need to start blogging regularly again! I've been dying to but I've been kinda lacking on the content front. So now, I have a topic. Thus I am blogging now to remind myself of said topic so that I  remember to research it and write about it. 


French Cinema. 


Currently, my experience of French Cinema extends only as far as French actresses in Hollywood films (Marion Cotillard, Mélanie Laurent), Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) by George Méliès,  À bout de souffle (Breathless) by Jean Luc-Godard, and The Artist, by Michel Hazanavicius.


All of this experiences have been rather incredible, actually. So I have come to the conclusion that the French know what they're doing when it comes to film (well, I ought to know that, seeing as France is home to only the most prestigious film festival on the planet). Therefore, I have decided to begin a blog series which shall be entitled An Introduction To French Cinema. So while I learn about all this amazing stuff, you can learn too!


One reason I'm choosing France over any other place in the world to begin my foreign film exploration is because France is probably the most important to the film industry. The film industry was basically born in France and the cinematograph was invented there, so quite obviously there's a lot of history to explore. I bought this book called Film History: An Introduction, and it's quite amazing and I plan to read it cover-to-cover, no matter how long that takes. It's got loads in there about French cinema among other industries, of course. 


Anyways! By publishing this post I have now committed to this project ... I'm not really sure exactly what I'm doing, so I guess it'll be a nice little adventure. Wish me luck :) 

"It's a television show!"

Disclaimer: Spoiler alert. But if you've read the book, there's not too much to worry about, I guess. 

Howdy, folks. Previously I blogged about the incredible trailer that was The Hunger Games. For those of you who remember that blog post, it was me gushing about how brilliant the trailer was, even though I didn't much care for the book. Admittedly, my opinion on The Hunger Games series has altered somewhat. On reading the first book a second time I found more to appreciate about it. I still don't love everything about it, but it's become one of my more favorable YA novels of recent years.

So, the movie. The amazing EMPIRE gave me free tickets to a preview screening of the film after I entered their little 25-words-or-less competition. Yay me! Thanks EMPIRE. You're awesome.

Justin and I rocked up at Event Cinemas last night and stood in line excitedly with a rather mixed-bag of other ticket-winners. Unlike the crowd for the sneak peak of The Amazing Spiderman that I was also in, this sprawling line outside the theatre was filled with your average two-best-friends and girls-who-give-free-tickets-to-boyfriends, I was surprised to also find myself standing between old-people-who-probably-don't-know-what-they're-about-to-watch-like-how-did-you-even-find-empire's-website, and woman-who-brought-her-completely-ignorant-work-colleague-along. Interesting.

Anyway! Sorry, I like to ramble. Let's get on with the show.

As also stated in my previous THG-related blog post, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps the movie could be better than the book. In some visual ways, yes, I'll say it was. The film enabled us to see things only briefly mentioned and left to our imaginations in the books, so that was a plus. What director Gary Ross left out, visually, was a major disappointment.

I'll start with the beginning shots. Thankfully, this is where I was most disappointed with the movie, so this review (sort of) (somewhat) goes up from here. We're first introduced to District 12. I would describe what we saw here, but heck, I don't even know how to describe what I saw. Gary Ross, you really wasted this part of the movie.

Being a cinematography lover (DoP is my dream job, don'tcha know), I was admittedly shocked at Ross' choice of camera technique for conveying District 12. He chose to show us parts of this impoverished town in close-up shaky-hand-held shots. Like, ridiculously shaky. Like OMG-we-forgot-the-tripod-but-I-had-so-much-coffee-this-morning-who-even-cares! kind of shaky. Stop moving the camera around, guys, I can't see a thing. So yeah, I don't really I know what I was looking at. I think District 12 is a place full of boring poor people who play in the dirt? It's a good thing I read the book, then. To quote Stephanie Zacharek for Movieline, who I totally agree with: "You wonder, particularly in the District 12 scenes, why [Ross] didn't just screw the camera into the damned tripod: the stillness would have been classical and elegant and better suited to the emotional tone and texture of this part of the story". You said it, Stephanie. I don't know what he was thinking.

The camera also rushes through The Reaping, when all the kids file in to get their names drawn out of a glass bowl, two of them to be taken away to compete in The Games. By this point I understood some of his reasoning behind the shaky camera - the moments when Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss is trying to keep her composure while looking for her panicky little sister made perfect sense - but as for the rest of the movement in these early scenes, I was at a loss for why the camera was trying to force a urgency into my mindset. I was expecting an eerie stillness, like the stony faces of the children waiting, a subtle sign of their rebellion. So yes, I was disappointed that the camera was telling me what to perceive. In my personal opinion, I like the camera's framework to be invisible wherever possible, and I didn't consider these scenes to be an exception.

So, moving on. After Katniss takes her sister's place in an emotional farewell (yes, I cried a bit, okay?), we are swept with her and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) into another world, one full of color and weird people and stuff. I liked the portrayal of The Capitol, probably because I found that part the hardest to picture when reading the book, but I still felt there was something missing. If you've seen any of the promotional posters for the film, particularly the ones of Elizabeth Banks' Effie Trinket advertising makeup products or something, those alone gave more insight into The Capitol's materialistic mindset, and I felt that any real "heart" of any people in the movie, save Katniss and Peeta, was missing.

That being said, when all the tributes are presented on their chariots to thrill the obsessed audience ... well, that was pretty epic. Good soundtrack. CGI was a touch lame, but whatever.

I enjoyed some of the scenes in the arena better on screen than I did on page, like the tracker-jackers and the wall of fire. Action scenes like that don't always sounds as good on paper, so I was glad to get a visual (so having said that, I'll politely ignore the lack of variety in the actual scenery. I swear Katniss passed that same tree and mossy rock twenty times).

All righty, that's about all I have to say on the visuals. Let's get down to the nitty gritty - the acting.

Personal favorite is Stanley Tucci's Caesar Flickerman, the host of The Hunger Games' television show, and the commentator overseeing the action in the arena. I'm a huge fan of Stanley, and was thrilled to see his name on the cast list when the film was first announced. He really was perfect in this role and I was glad to see he got plenty of screen time. Sadly, for other greats like Woody Harrelson (playing Peeta and Katniss' mentor Haymitch), the script diminished his role to a lot of sitting and standing in the background.

Lenny Kravitz as Cinna also seemed pretty good, but again he didn't have much to do on screen. Hopefully we'll see a little more of him in the second film...

Something the filmmakers did do well was the casting of the other tributes, particularly the Careers of districts 1 and 2. Although a lot of their screen time was nothing more than looking tough and sneering behind Katniss' back, they did it well. Definitely all cast for the smug looks they could pull off, but that is of course, exactly what we wanted from them. One of the better (brief) action scenes is the girl-fight between Katniss and Clove, the girl from District 2, which ends with the massive hulking dude from District 11 smashing Clove's head into the cornucopia and knocking her dead. Sweet. Also freaky. But good action nonetheless.

Josh Hutcherson delivers as Peeta, especially during his early scenes before the Games. I loved how much drive there was behind his character. Favorite Peeta moment was probably him waving to the Capitol citizens as the train arrives in the city, and Haymitch says "See, he knows what he's doing."

As for the impossibly young tribute Rue (Amandla Stenberg)... she was far too out of place in the arena. Now, I know that sounds weird when I say it, because she's only twelve and is supposed to be out of place, but the problem lies in the visual representation of her character. She's too clean, too casual, looks too much like she's supposed to be on the Disney Channel or some adventure movie for eight-year-olds. There was no wide-eyed vulnerability, no desperation, no sense of a girl forced to grow up too fast, just a girl.

It's Jennifer Lawrence that manages to carry Rue's character into the emotionally-invested zone. Katniss' reaction to Rue's death is perfect. She looks at her in the same way she does her young sister Prim (Willow Shields). The set up of this scene is perfect because you're purposefully reminded of Prim, and when Katniss whispers "I'm sorry" with as much emotion as you can squeeze into two words, I was tearing up. Then she garnishes Rue's body with flowers, and the scene is intercut with shots of District 11 swelling into an angry mob. If you're not crying by the time Katniss is crying, well ... either you're a hard-hearted blockhead or I'm a marshmallow. I know, I know, give me a good actor crying on screen and I'm an emotional wreck!

The point is, I knew this movie was going to be good as soon as I heard Jennifer Lawrence was playing Katniss (if you haven't seen her in Winter's Bone, what are you waiting for??), and she carries this film to make it a winner. She's just so watchable. She takes in everything around her and makes herself part of the set, part of the story. The bit where she wins me over (theoretically, that is - she'd won me over before she even started shooting) is her interview with Caesar Flickerman.

In the scene Katniss is wearing a dress with a hem that bursts into flame when she spins around, designed by her stylist Cinna. After she shows it off for the audience, she finally relaxes and we get her first ever genuine smile of the movie. What's great about Lawrence is that she's a totally different person when she's smiling. She has the ability to mask her emotions (something any great actor should be able to do), so when Katniss finally puts her shields down and lets the Capitol audience in, the real audience watching the movie is also drawn in to the character. Caesar Flickerman ends the interview by asking Katniss what she said to her sister after she volunteered to take her place. 'I told her I would try to win for her', says Katniss, and just as it's intended to be, that's the moment where we see the real Katniss Everdeen. If it weren't for Jennifer Lawrence's strong performance, this film would probably have nothing going for it but Stanley Tucci wearing a blue wig and laughing for some unexplainable reason.

Blah.

January's nearly over so I thought I'd better make a post. Have nothing to write about though so this will just be a brief spewing of my thoughts. It's really hot right now. The tennis ended last night and it was amazing and Novak won and I was so happy but now I'm bummed it's over. Next year! Haha.

I need a job. Don't have one yet. Will get one eventually.

Trying to read the third and last Hunger Games book. Sort of left it too long and forgot where the second one ended so I'm a bit confused. It's good though so I'm sure my brain will catch up. I'm stupidly pumped for the movie coming out in March. I hate how loads of weirdos are comparing it to that unspeakable vampire franchise. It's nothing like that. Katniss would only have to look at Bella and she would be dead. Also, Katniss is Jennifer Lawernce, and Bella is Kristen Stewart. Only takes a nanosecond to work out which one of them is more kick-ass. Anyway, aside from the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo teaser, The Hunger Games had the best trailer I watched all last year. It was so well put together. Perfect set up and build up without giving too much of the plot away. I'm so excited! I also found out that Elizabeth Banks is playing Effie Trinket. And when I realised who Elizabeth Banks was I was like WHAT. Weird. Weird choice. But I'll take that....

Justin is having a murder mystery party thing and I'm writing the story. Didn't realise it would be so insanely complex. I have to write fifteen characters. All of which have to be pretty rounded. I think I'm stretching myself in quick character development by doing it though so it's all good. Sort of annoying that I have to put my actual novel on the back-burner for a day or two while I get a good portion of this out of the way, but it is fun.

Speaking of my actual novel, completely and utterly stuck on chapter four. I think I'lll skip it and come back later, even though I hate doing that. I feel like it's going to be a good point of development for Jordan's character so I really don't want to skip ahead, but trying to write it is just not working at all. Not sure why. I know it's a difficult couple of scene but I didn't think it would be this hard! Never fear, I will either jump over it or force through it in order to continue writing asap. The end of the hard slog is in sight!

Laptop battery dying. Brain melting in the heat. Need to find water.

Thus ends my brain-spew.

Stuff. And Movies.

So, as is typical of me, my blogging has failed again. It's pretty lame that I haven't blogged since I watched The Tree of Life.... So a quick update!

I had an awesome Christmas, and made t-shirts for my family.

I went to Carols in the Domain with some amazing people.

Celebrated NYE with the same amazing people.

And went on a camping weekend with - yeah - those same amazing people. Because they're amazing. And we cooked dinner all by ourselves and were cool.

Anyway! Back to the present. I got on here to blog because I've been reading this gigantic book that I got out of the library called Film History: An Introduction. It's incredibly interesting. I'm reading all about how film became a new medium and expanded into an art form, a method of entertainment, and new way to tell stories. I've decided that as I read through the book I'm going to watch the films from 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die that corresponde with the various chapters.

In the first chapter, the main two films mentioned are Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902), and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903). It's crazy that they started making such elaborate films that early! Full sets and costumes, stop-motion and special effects. If you are interested in movies but have never seen Le Voyage Dans La Lune by George Méliès, you need to jump on the internet and view it on Youtube right now. It only goes for about 11 minutes, so you have. It really is an astounding piece of work for its time. I'm yet to watch Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I plan on doing that today. They use cool techniques like exposing the film twice to add in extra effects. 


And yeah. Hopefully I'll blog again soon but I don't want to make any promises unless I fail, ha. But I'll be back at some point. 


Oh yeah, and I got a twitter. So if you come on here and I haven't updated the actual blog, you can view my obnoxious tweets (I hate that word) in the sidebar about the Australian Open and the Oscars. Won't that be fun? I'm a loser, I know. 

I've never felt this way before....

So, the trailer for The Hunger Games was released today or yesterday, or something. Kristy posted it on facebook this morning and I've watched it three times now. 'One of those goosebump trailers' as Justin called it - the kind of trailer that has big swells of music between the different mood changes that gets you all excited. I was totally excited watching this trailer, and not just because they cast Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, heh. Here it is:

Yeah, you get where I'm coming from with the whole goosebumps thing? It's a good trailer.

The problem is, I didn't like the book.

Now, before any of you Hunger Games fans freak out ... well ... nah, whatever. You can freak out. I'm about to explain the problem that I found with the book, and I don't really have anything to tone it down with, or a "however" or an "on the other hand" to conclude with, so if you feel insulted by the above statement feel free to look away now. I would hope that you're more curious than that.

Anyway, I purchased a copy of the book in 2010, because I was in America at the time and ever window and shelf in Barnes & Noble was covered in Mockingjay, the conclusion to the trilogy. So I thought, what the hey, I'll see what all the hype is about. I'm pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to  fandoms (see this post). The copy at B & N was about $23.97 or something ridiculous, so I went to Walmart and got a cheap paperback version for $6.90. Much better. I read it over a few days on the back porch at my Grandpa's house, but after the first few chapters it hadn't really grabbed me. Reading material was scarce however, so I kept going to the end.

The problem I had with the book was partly the writing style, but to be more specific, Katniss' voice and her emotional detachment to things. I'm gonna pull a Dana here and quote directly from the book to give you some examples of what I mean:

We [Katniss and Peeta] turn back to face the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays. Oh well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Maybe someone else will kill him before I do. (pg. 33)

The boy from District 1 dies before he can pull out the spear. My arrow drives deeply into the center of his neck. He falls to his knees and halves the brief remainder of his life by yanking out the arrow and drowning in his own blood. (pg. 233)

She's rather factual, isn't she? Sure, I get that they have to kill each other to survive. Yes, Katniss will just have to get over the idea of killing people to save her own life and not worry about who is dead. But that's just the problem! There seems to be no shock for her about the brutality of these games. She doesn't get used to it - she already is. I understand that she would have seen the games beforehand, so she knows what to expect, but I as the reader have not. I wanted to be able to grow with Katniss as the story progressed, not catch up to her. A reader should either be ahead or on par with their narrator, and on for the emotional part of the story, I felt like I was being left behind. 

Not to mention there's a weird/lame fake-romance storyline that develops in the second half of the book. Not sure what I thought of that. 

I enjoyed the concept of this novel (even though the whole dystopian thing wasn't much explained), but  found it hard to connect with the characters. 

NOW - here's the clincher. The reason why I started this post in the first place. We have a movie coming out. And unless a movie is really, really bad, if you like stories, you're more than likely to get emotionally involved with one. Movies can quite often be much better at emotionally involving the viewer than a book can, simply because it's visual (and there's epic background music). A film is able to capture more of your senses than a book can. Don't take me wrong, I love books. That's why I'm feeling a bit weird about this.... 

I've never felt this way before.... 

Is it possible that I could enjoy the movie more than I enjoyed the book? 

Is it even possible for a movie to be better than a book? 

March 23rd, folks. March 23rd will reveal all. Stay tuned. 

ARLKSJDKLASNBIAMEXCITEDFORMYWRITING.

Flipping holidays can't come soon enough! Holiday time means writing time (and friend time, but that's not what this post is about...).

Having one of those moments where the story idea in my brain is positively bursting with AWESOME and I just want to write it. As you've probably heard I'm revisiting my superpowers story, and revamping the characters that have been with me since 2008. It still shocks me that they've been around that long. Finally, I think I've figured out what their story is supposed to be. And who doesn't belong in the story. Many a character has been scrapped. Also many have died. But that's a different novel, to be written one day when I'm famous and my readers are begging for the backstory....

Totally pumped for the epicness that will be this book! I'm using NaNoWriMo to bust out 50k for it, which is kind of cheating since I've already started the story, but seeing as NaNoWriMo is made for personal gain, I guess I can use it for the best benefits possible. Right? Heh. We're all NaNo rebels sometime or other (or every time if you're me...).

I was talking to Keira yesterday about the authory things that I wish I could do but don't yet have the skill. Number One is better foreshadowing. I wish I could master foreshadowing for a huge series like Harry Potter. JK Rowling is a genius. Don't believe me? Go read The Prisoner of Azkaban again.

The second thing is pushing my characters one step further in the way of er ... torture. I don't know how else to put it. Basically, when you write a story your character has to get past many bad obstacles, and each time they escalate, pushing the character to their limits. I can never seem to get my characters to the step that breaks them, or nearly breaks them, depending on your character. A perfect example of this is Amy in The Doctor's Wife. While she and Rory are lost inside the TARDIS (I still don't know if I'm supposed to capitalise all the letters or not!), Rory gets shut behind and door and Amy finds him only seconds later, or so she thinks. Turns out for him it's been hours. That's step one. Step two is when she's tricked into thinking Rory has waited his whole lifetime for her, and to her horror she finds an old Rory still sitting behind the door. Now, if I had written this episode, that's as far as I would have taken it. The genius bit comes in step three, the moment that breaks Amy. The moment that pushes her over the edge, and gives us a real insight to her character, and makes us care. Because we knew that the old Rory was just a fake one put there by the badguy, so now that the scene is over we don't care anymore. The writers need to scare us. To make us feel what Amy feels. So when Amy next turns the corner she sees DIE AMY DIE graffitied all over the walls and the dead skeleton of her husband Rory, and she just breaks down. Now don't lie, your stomach twisted when you watched that didn't it? You felt it that time. Now the writers have got you to care. And when the real Rory comes around the corner, perfectly fine, confirming that what Amy saw was just a hallucination, the relief that you feel is the WIN for the writer. Yeah that's right, they've got you to love their characters. And THAT is what I want to master. Not everyone realises how important step three is in pushing your character to the limits. It's the final hurdle. Right when you think everything is going okay, something ten times worse gets in the way and you groan at the TV or shake your book in frustration because you just want the character to get through and be all right! You care now. I want to make my readers care like that.

Anyways, the post just sort of became a rant and ended up twice as long as I thought it would. So I'm going to go now. Off to continue this stupid plastering. Have a lovely Sunday!

P.S Had a ridiculously long conversation with Keira last night about names. We came to the realisation that Karen Gillan is a really, really terrible name (especially when you add that her middle name is Sheila! What is wrong with her parents?) and that Amelia Pond is a beautiful, wonderful, roll-off-the-tongue name. I love writers and how much thought they put in to names. :)

"I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their pefect readers." - Dawsey Adams, to Juliet Ashton

I was going to write a review about how much I enjoyed this darling book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but I think what I wrote to Jessie (and the comments that followed) about the book sums it up:

If there is any book in the world that will leave you with an overwhelming desire to tell others to read it, it's this one.

"I will turn over half a library to make one book." ~Samuel Johnson

So I was really excited that I'd figured out all the kinks in the murder scenario ... but I've run into a problem. My antagonist has to poison the King's bodyguard cougars before he/she can kill the King, and I wanted the poison to work within five or six hours at the most. I was going with methanol, initially, because it was looking great to possibly have one of the cougars survive the poisoning, and then be permanently blind, thus limiting their ability to be a witness (gosh, I sound like a lunatic. I promise that I would never poison anything living in real life, really), and then there would have been more layers to my story and more clues.

Unfortunately, as I continued my research on methanol, my perfect poison turned out not to be so perfect. Though it was easily accessible, fit into the time-period, and had symptoms that could fit into my plot, it apparently takes 12-36 hours for the effects of methanol poisoning to onset, and so the possibility of using it was totally out of the question. I need something that works within the schedule of the dinner party. 12-36 hours is way, way too long.

Thankfully though, when I was America I bought this book. It has a little information on poisons, so hopefully it will help me figure something out. I'm really looking forward to finally using this book - I've had it nearly a year now and haven't used it for any of my story, but it has great information on all the details of forensics including autopsies, time of death, fingerprints, bloodstains, trace evidence and firearms, all of which I will need to know about once the detective arrives. I love doing research.

RAWR.

Hello hello. I've been forcing myself to write today because I didn't want to feel like I waste the entire day... my stupid ankle has continued to create a barrier between me and the outside world, so it was home again from dawn til dusk for me today. It's okay. I finished my website assignment so I'm pretty happy :) I also wrote 1000+ words of a story, so all is good. I created a book cover for one of my stories, and I really love it and I wanted to post it on NaNoWriMo to ask for opinions, but the site has been down all day! Some lame Amazon hosting error. Ugh. Hopefully it will be back up by the morning.

I ordered some more books online yesterday but I don't think I beat the holiday break so they won't get shipped until Tues :( oh well. I'll probably have to wait about a month for them because Book Depository is a little hopeless when it comes to postage and handling ... probably because they don't charge you for it! So I guess it's a win-lose, or something like that. I got two more books on the Victorian era to add to my growing collection, plus a novel called It's Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini. It's about a teenage boy who has depression, so he checks himself into a psych ward for a week and meets some weird but friendly people. It's sounds strange when I say it like that, I mean you're probably thinking, 'Erin, why on earth would you want to read a book like that?" but I stumbled across is online and as far as I can tell it has a happy ending, so I'm hoping it will be a nice little odd 'feel-good' sort of story. Here's hoping. The problem is, whenever I order a book online it's all I think about and all I want to read, so now when I look at all the other lovely books on my shelf that are waiting to be opened, I think, 'but I don't want to read these books right now...' Hmm. Maybe it will just take a bit of force, like my writing did today. Like I said it's probably going to be nearly a month until I see my order, so that's more than enough time to get started on something else.

By the way, I just made this poster and I'm going to print it out really big and hang it on my wall. 

Anyway. It would appear that I am now nearly out of words. So I shall leave this post here and go back to trying to force some more writing. One of the worst things I can think of is suddenly NOT being a writer anymore, and even though it's hard I never want to stop, so I must press on during the difficult days.

Tata! :)

Drinking in the words...

I have come to a conclusion that when I read more, I write more.

It makes sense, really. I absorb the beautiful words of people like P.G Wodehouse, Agatha Christie, Sara Gruen and J.K Rowling and it inspires me to make more beautiful words.

I was also reading this list, Ten Rules of Writing, and there were two that stood out to me in particular:

1. Try to spend more time writing than cruising the Net, and that includes reading chat about writing.

5. Read widely, and that means outside your genre, and as far outside your socio-economic-ethnic pool as you can get.

So I decided to make a booklist. And spend more time reading instead of being on the internet, in an effort to get me writing more. Reading and writing usually go hand in hand.

I also want to embrace this idea of 'reading anything and everything I can get my hands on', which includes things that I don't want to read. And so I jumped on Book Depository, with the goal in mind that I would order one book that I had never read, one non-fiction book about something that interests me, and one book that I wasn't really keen on reading but should read anyway if I want to be a Young Adult author. I briefly thought of adding one book of poetry to this as well, but seeing as Book Depository has free postage and therefore no handling, I would save my money and buy and nice hard backed copy from somewhere like Elizabeth's and know that it wouldn't get dinged up on the way to my doorstep.

So, the three books I ordered.

Firstly I added Never Let Me Go to my shopping cart, by Kazuo Ishiguro. You may recognize the title from the movie that's about to come out starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley. I'm keen to see the film and so I thought perhaps reading the book would be a good idea. Plus it sounds like my kind of story - sci fi without being in space. :D
Secondly was the ever-wanted-to-order Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey. I read the first chapter or two when I got it from the library, and fell in love with it, so I put it on my mental wishlist to order the moment I wasn't poor. Then I forgot about it. But now it's coming! I do so love the 19th century. I can't wait to read the rest of this book - I found some incredibly interesting little tidbits in the first couple chapters that will definitely be turning up in the pages of my own novel. Excitement.
Lastly, I had to choose a book that I should probably read but am not quite excited by the concept of it. I'm into trying to read popular teen fiction at the moment so I can 'know what's on the market'. Currently struggling through City of Bones (which, for the record, failed me on the second page with the most hideously awful sentence I have ever read in published fiction. Not counting a few sentences written by Stephenie Meyer, of course...). Thought I'd try for something perhaps a little better and order myself a nine-dollar copy of Tomorrow, When the War Began. Purposely went for the non-movie-edition-cover, of course. I have never read it and yet surprisingly did not mind the movie; although, truth be told the protagonist was one of the biggest Mary Sues of all Mary Sues, so I can't say I have much hope for her in the actual book. Nevertheless, I'm willing to give it a try.

Now off to read the rest of Chapter One of After the Funeral by Agatha Christie. Care to share what you're reading at the moment?

BOOK REVIEW: Water for Elephants

Huzzah! As the title stays, I finally have a review for you, seeing as I haven't done one since 9, The Island and and Julie and Julie. Bad! So, here I am with a beautiful, beautiful book to tell you about - Water for Elephants.

Sara Gruen is the author, and her first draft of the book was completed through NaNoWriMo, extra coolness! This historical novel is meticulously plotted and researched, with a wonderfully rich, old fashioned writing style, providing smooth sailing for the reader through its 300+ pages.

In the middle of The Depression, Ivy League student Jacob Jankowski's life is turned upside down when his parents are killed in an automobile accident. Unable to take over his father's veterinarian practice as he had always intended, Jacob starts running without knowing where he's going, and ends up on a train ... but it's not just any train. It's The Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

After reading this, I am absolutely in love with the circus. This novel captures you from page one and reaches all five sense; while you're reading it, you're in America in the 1930's, standing on the parched grass as striped canvas tents are hauled into the air, heavy with the smell of popcorn, cotton candy, grease, grain, hay and exotic animals. You'll see the vibrant flashing lights lining the midway, the sequined dresses of the performers; you'll taste the sweet victory of celebrating with alcohol smuggled all the way from Canada in the camels' compartment on the train; hear the deep voice of Uncle Al inviting the crowd to cheer for the elephant, and you'll feel the audience's thunderous response as the Rosie bows towards the stands.

It's a thrilling, romantic story and your heart is sure to be captured by Jacob and the majestic heroine, Rosie the Elephant.

"There’s some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what."

I would give anything in the world right now to have the power of teleportation for like, the next 48-72 hours. Like seriously anything.










p.s the quote above is from a book by John Green called An Abundance of Katherines. I have never read it but now I am curious. Can anyone tell me if it's worth investigation?

What is this?

I envy people who can make magic with words. I don't envy the people who use big words, or the people who write in poetic voices with frilly language; no, it's the people who can put simple words such as 'tomorrow' and 'lips' and 'excuses' and 'friends' and create a sentence that just fills the mouth and flows off the tongue in a way that makes you wonder how they did it in English.

 I think my love of imagery has taken over the writerly side of my brain. I am finding myself using pictures, or even other people's words to express myself and it seems that I more often than not lose the balance of images and text in my blog posts; I'm barely writing any fiction anymore and it hurts to say that because I feel like I've lost a part of my soul. Maybe it will come back; I don't know where it went or why it left, and maybe it's still in there and will appear again if I try to draw it out. It might be difficult and it might draw blood as well but that's why I'm writing this post right now, to try and bring the words out of myself without thinking. I'm just writing right now, not pondering what word to put next or stopping to backspace a sentence, or even checking for typos (I'll go back and fix them at the end). I'm waiting for something interesting to come into my brain that might make this blog a little more interesting for the reader ... I'm sorry if you find this boring and really, you don't have to read it, but it appears here so that I might find the part of myself that is missing. Perhaps you're helping me look if you're reading this.

It feels quite nice, looking at the post and seeing all the words cuddled up close to each other again. It feels like taking a loaf of bread and sitting on a part bench and tossing crumbs onto the sidewalk so the pigeons gather. All these little black letters piling onto the page look so cozy and it's making me feel warm again. I'm lying on my bed in my brand new red jacket with the cat sleeping on a folded sheet beside me. The heater is off and the lights are low so this room is actually quite chilly, but when I don't think about it too much I don't notice it.

We've just returned from Rockdale plaza ... is that what it's called? The word 'plaza' just popped into my head so I'm guessing that must be correct, but I've forgotten now. We bought new suitcases for Justin and I to use for our trip. They're bigger than anything we've ever had to put belongings in, which makes them sound huge I suppose but they're aren't really. Mine is gray and Justin's is blue. More exciting than the suitcases was the jacket and shirt I got for twenty-three dollars; very happy about them. And they're very comfy too. I had to put them on the second we got in the door of course, so I'm wearing them now and looking forward to going out again so that I can wearing my read Converse with my red jacket. I find it very exciting to be able to wear the same color top and shoes together in one outfit. I don't know if anyone else finds it quite as thrilling as I do but because it actually doesn't happen as often as I'd like it brings extra happiness when it does. I'm not sure if 'happiness' is really the right word to put there; it makes me sound materialistic, like I can be satisfied by a jacket and some shoes. Not really.

Speaking of satisfying things, I've begun reading the bible from start to finish, in hopes that I can complete one read-through of the epic before I go to Year 13 in a year and half's time. It's been three days and I've read 26 chapters of Genesis so I think that's a good start. I'm writing down the questions I have as I go. Don't you think it curious that the bible never mentions what happened to the Garden of Eden? I'd certainly like to know what happened to it. When did it get destroyed? When did the angel leave the gates? What happened to the tree inside? Did it wither away and die or did God just get rid of it? Did humans destroy it?  Did someone cut it down like George Washington and the cherry tree? These are all the sorts of questions that have come into my head so far, and there are many more. I'm finally getting around to physically writing the list of 'Thing to ask God when I get to heaven." I wonder if I'll ever get answers to them.

It's a terrible thought to think how long it's been since I've written a great chunk like this straight out, without adding any pictures or any other kind of imagery to this blog. I think I like it like that. Even though I feel horrible about not writing like this in so long, it is wonderfully satisfying to be doing so now. I just hope that I do it again very soon. I swear, it's feeding my soul right now, and even though I'm on the computer staring at a screen I'm getting the feeling that after I stop writing the blog my headache will have gone away. It's lessening already.

I'm going over to Kristen's house to sleepover tonight with her and Keira. I'm looking forward to it immensely but I'm a little disappointed about missing the trivia night at my church tonight, but I think I've made a better decision about which one to go to because Kristy is leaving the country very soon and it has been ever so long since I've spent time with Kristen and Keira together.

I really need to read more. I was reading Jessie's blog the other day and she's absolutely right when she says that not reading good literature lessens writing as well. At least, I think she said something like that. My brain is a little fuzzy at this present time. But really it's been so long since I've read the whole of any good book and I'm utterly hopeless about keeping track of what I'm reading and what I want to read. I have a massive mental list of all the books I want to read ... at least, I did, but they all seem to slip out of my mind quicker than I can read them. I've been spending too much time doing homework and too much time on facebook to read anything good ... but TAFE is nearly over now and I have blocked my facebook so if I can somehow compile a list of good books to read then I might be able to start making a dent said list. I can think of a few things now, and it seems appropriate to list them so I may as well go ahead while I've got them on my mind.

Firstly, I want to read more Terry Pratchett. That's the book I'm reading at the moment - Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. I've read very little of it but what I've read I really like, so I need to keep ging with it and hopefully get my hands on a copy of his first book in the Discworld series, and begin working my way slowly through those.

I also know I need to read some Jasper Fforde. My friends have been begging my to read his work and my friends are always right when it comes to books so I really ought to stop putting it off and listen to them.

After we get back from holidays I think I'm going to do the Great Books 2 uni course so I'll need to read those books too. From memory the list is Anna Karenina, Antony and Cleopatra, Wuthering Heights, and two others that have escaped me.... I do like Shakespeare and I did start reading Wuthering Heights so those two shouldn't be too difficult to get through. Anna Karenina on the other hand....

Continuing on, I want to read:

• The Messenger by Markus Zusak
• Atonement Child by Francine Rivers
• Some P.G Wodehouse (again, another writer that I know my friends are right about when they say I should read it) 

And yeah I can't think of anymore right now ... but I need to go get ready now anyway so I guess that will have to do. That felt good. More later, hopefully. Sorry if it bored you! But if you've skimmed to the bottom of this post, I can still ask - any suggested reading? 

I ♥ My Friends

So a lot has happened since my last blog. Let me explain.

Riding the train to LiT in the summer heat.

Eating Minties.

Getting pumped for Jesus with 200 other teenagers.

Texting.

Trying to sleep in a bunk bed when it's 30 degrees outside.

Watching Ed and John smash a gingerbread house with their head.

Praying.

Reading Matthew 5-7.

Wishing I could go swimming.

Playing Battleship with Patrick. 

Eating camp chicken schnitzel and dearly missing Jackie's schnitzel.

Listening to talks on the Beautitudes.

Loving God.

Loving my friends.

Hating camp organization.

Starting on Wuthering Heights.

Singing with Becky and Mark.

Writing "If I tell you I love you, can I keep you?" on Katherine's back with a Sharpie.

Hanging out til late, late late....

Talking til even later with Kristen, and feeling so much better.

Trying to commit to prayer. 

Getting everyone to sign my shirt.

Eating meatball sandwiches.

Leaving on the bus.

 Getting home.

Taking a long, hot shower.

Watching The Big Bang Theory with Katherine, Beth and Justin.

Sleeping in the living room with the girls and wanting to throttle my cat.

Waking up and making French Toast.

Getting my ear pierced with Katherine and squeezing Beth's hand.

Taking panadol for the pain >.<

Ana coming over.

Lazer tagging in the city.

Wandering in Newtown.

Driving to Katherine's for a 'secret mission' and giving her Wagon Wheels and Big Bang. 

Watching Slumdog Millionare - Ana had not seen it before!

Going to church.

Waking Ana the next morning to say goodbye.

Heading to Sydney Uni for Latin class.

Learning how to read Roman gravestones.

Writing a couple pages of my new idea during lunch. 

Snapping pictures at lunch and thinking the uni buildings look like Hogwarts.

Catching the packed 423 to Katherine's and walking down the road in the blazing sun.

Snapping a million photos down near Cook's River.

Spraying Katherine with the bubbler.

Walking back, hot, wet and itchy.

Eating stir fry.

Watching Zoolander and IT Crowd.

Planning on leaving at 9pm, but staying til 11.

Falling asleep from Katherine stroking my hair.

Getting home and crashing.

Seeing Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D!

Going to Newcastle.

Sitting out in the heat for hours.

Planning an epic trip n the evening to the beach.

Being sorely disappointed when a cold change came and it rained.

Not going to the beach and watching the tennis and Up instead.

Playing Settlers of Catan.

Sleeping in.

Going to Drew's to watch Van Helsing and Jaws.

Playing Playstation 3.

Walking home.

Sitting down to write this blog while watching the tennis.

And that brings us to the present moment. Sorry if that bored you, but I needed to write this stuff down. I've had a pretty good holiday so far - two weeks left of it. Mum's cooking bacon. I'm seeing Kristen tomorrow. Good times still to come!