I recently decided to do a major revision on my early books, a decision a decade in coming, but my writing has improved drastically since then and I want all my writing to shine, not just my latest books, but part of me felt like I was desecrating something sacred, but they need attention so bad! No changes to the overall story, just smoothing out the choppiness, fleshing out characters and dialogue, and removing bald statements of the obvious, ugh! Interestingly enough, I found a nice little article on a promising author and found one of her books at the library, hoping I had found Jane Austen's heiress at last, only to find the same problem in her writing as afflicts my own!
Most of my trouble with Jane Austen-wanna-bes is that most are little more than trashy romance novels wearing an Austen cover, though I would love to hear Miss Austen's comments on her so-called successors! The book I read was neat, clean, and okay. I wish I could call it great or even good, but it had no sparkle, no depth, no lure to draw me deep and skip two nights of sleep to find out what happens; the characters were shallow and uninteresting, there was a lot of promise but we only skimmed the surface and hastened on to the next plot point without pausing to experience the moment we were in, to explore the nuance and depth of personality and experience and what happens when they collide. It felt like a chick flick on paper sans the trashy romance. But there is promise, there are ideas there, that if developed and deepened, with a little practice, could yield wonderful fruit. I can say the same about my early books. It is young author syndrome. And the cure is time and experience, both on an authorial and a personal level.
Write, write, and write some more. Don't forget to read and read and read again. And grow, especially as a person, your characters can't have more depth than the one who writes them, so deepen and expand your own character and thereby your fictional ones too! I couldn't write like I write now back then because I was a shallow, two dimensional figure myself, only in discovering myself, the deepest corners of my haunted soul, could I become both the person and writer I should be. Now, as a better, deeper person and writer, I'm going to attempt to go back and add depth and wit and whimsy to my original works. I can't wait to see what this particular author develops into, there is a lot of promise there, but it is merely hinted at in the book I read, but the seeds of greatness are there!
I think that is why modern people content themselves with trashy romance novels: there is no need for plot, character, or any talent at writing whatsoever, like our modern culture, we live for the moment, the now, for me, for the cheap thrill and shallow relationship. But this young lady is not settling for that, and it will be exciting to see her continuing development!
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Foolishness?
Do you ever think you are living in an episode of the Twilight Zone or an article from the Onion or the Babylon Bee? More and more I get that feeling! The first hunch happened when I was in college, a certain pro-wrestler was elected governor of my home state, sort of a prequel to a certain guy being elected President. But more than the political aspects of it, socially and culturally I found myself in a place that didn't seem to have the same reality as I had experienced elsewhere, and since then, it has only gotten worse, then it was confined to academia, now it is the very parlance of the media, politics, music, books, art, and trendy culture and even the social sciences. And if you don't happen to celebrate, celebrate mind you not just tolerate, all the trendy aspects of this brave new world, well you are worse than a Nazi.
But then I read in a certain dusty old book, a true relic left over from unenlightened times, when they didn't even have google or social media, poor benighted fools!, that, 'it is the foolish things that will overcome the world.' Interesting! But then the ancient church was accused by the Romans of being cannibalistic atheists, so why should I be surprised? Apparently it isn't just me or modern sensibilities, the same nonsense has been driving the world crazy since Eden fell. Wasn't Paul accused of being driven mad by his great learning? Didn't a dozen unlearned fishermen 'turn the world upside down?' Wasn't there a riot in Ephesus even though the majority didn't know what they were protesting? It is no different now. It isn't that the world is being turned upside down so much as parts of it are being turned right side up, in its current state it is upside down, that old book is the key to setting it aright: turning darkness to light, bringing life out of death, joy out of sorrow, hope from despair. Maybe it is time to look anew at those foolish words from ancient days, the modern media, politicos, and internet gurus certainly don't have any sensible answers and they've had two millennia to come up with an answer to 'life, the universe, and everything,' and even 42 makes far more sense than some of the drivel they've come up with!
But then I read in a certain dusty old book, a true relic left over from unenlightened times, when they didn't even have google or social media, poor benighted fools!, that, 'it is the foolish things that will overcome the world.' Interesting! But then the ancient church was accused by the Romans of being cannibalistic atheists, so why should I be surprised? Apparently it isn't just me or modern sensibilities, the same nonsense has been driving the world crazy since Eden fell. Wasn't Paul accused of being driven mad by his great learning? Didn't a dozen unlearned fishermen 'turn the world upside down?' Wasn't there a riot in Ephesus even though the majority didn't know what they were protesting? It is no different now. It isn't that the world is being turned upside down so much as parts of it are being turned right side up, in its current state it is upside down, that old book is the key to setting it aright: turning darkness to light, bringing life out of death, joy out of sorrow, hope from despair. Maybe it is time to look anew at those foolish words from ancient days, the modern media, politicos, and internet gurus certainly don't have any sensible answers and they've had two millennia to come up with an answer to 'life, the universe, and everything,' and even 42 makes far more sense than some of the drivel they've come up with!
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Late to the party!
I finally read one of the best selling and most iconic books in American history, albeit it was published in 1880, but what is a hundred years between friends? I saw a really bad Canadian movie of 'Ben-Hur' last year and recently we listened to the Focus on the Family audio drama, but I had never read the book, along with all the other snippets and cultural references that were still present in my own girlhood: an episode call 'Ben-Hog' in the animated Garfield series of the late 1980s, Anne of Green Gables getting in trouble for reading it during geometry... I think I have even seen the classic movie, but I have never read the book!
Overall I found it an excellent read, the author's attention to detail is exquisite and is the next best thing to a trip to the Holy Land. It kept me interested, characters, plot, language, pacing, even though I vaguely knew the plot, were all very well done. The only thing that really annoyed me was the author's insistence on placing Christ's birth on December 25th and making Jesus and His mother's physical appearance identical to all those romanticized, Caucasian Jesus pictures, where He looks like a well groomed hippy! For a guy who did so much research and paid such attention to every other detail, it was a little irksome, if he hadn't bothered with such painstaking detail elsewhere, I would have let it pass, but it is obvious he's only trying to avoid angering his readers by enlightening them to the real facts of the matter that Jesus most likely did not have blue eyes and that we don't really know the exact day of His birth, though it is likely around lambing time.
Jesus wasn't physically pretty, Isaiah tells us that, 'He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him,' in the 53rd Chapter predicting the Messiah and His suffering for humanity's sin. So boy band Jesus is a figment of our imaginings. I understand why he wrote that way, but it clashes with the rest of the novel, which is otherwise so precise in every minute detail, which is ironic as a major theme of the book is people realizing that the Messiah did not come as a physical King or a military conqueror to overthrow the Romans, but rather to save the souls of men. While the author wanted to open the eyes of his characters to the true nature of the Son of God, he was willing to allow his readers to persist in their cultural naiveté as to the birth date and physical appearance of their Savior, not that those are major issues, but it is amusingly ironic!
I also find it interesting the vast differences in the movies and audio dramas and other spin offs from the original. Many of them miss the entire point of the book, and it is not the chariot race. Just for that you should read the book, and even if you've seen all the movies, etc., you might be rather surprised by the plot! Overall, it is a very good read, especially if you are curious about the subtitle, which most of the spin-offs seem to forget, 'A tale of the Christ.' Enjoy!
Overall I found it an excellent read, the author's attention to detail is exquisite and is the next best thing to a trip to the Holy Land. It kept me interested, characters, plot, language, pacing, even though I vaguely knew the plot, were all very well done. The only thing that really annoyed me was the author's insistence on placing Christ's birth on December 25th and making Jesus and His mother's physical appearance identical to all those romanticized, Caucasian Jesus pictures, where He looks like a well groomed hippy! For a guy who did so much research and paid such attention to every other detail, it was a little irksome, if he hadn't bothered with such painstaking detail elsewhere, I would have let it pass, but it is obvious he's only trying to avoid angering his readers by enlightening them to the real facts of the matter that Jesus most likely did not have blue eyes and that we don't really know the exact day of His birth, though it is likely around lambing time.
Jesus wasn't physically pretty, Isaiah tells us that, 'He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him,' in the 53rd Chapter predicting the Messiah and His suffering for humanity's sin. So boy band Jesus is a figment of our imaginings. I understand why he wrote that way, but it clashes with the rest of the novel, which is otherwise so precise in every minute detail, which is ironic as a major theme of the book is people realizing that the Messiah did not come as a physical King or a military conqueror to overthrow the Romans, but rather to save the souls of men. While the author wanted to open the eyes of his characters to the true nature of the Son of God, he was willing to allow his readers to persist in their cultural naiveté as to the birth date and physical appearance of their Savior, not that those are major issues, but it is amusingly ironic!
I also find it interesting the vast differences in the movies and audio dramas and other spin offs from the original. Many of them miss the entire point of the book, and it is not the chariot race. Just for that you should read the book, and even if you've seen all the movies, etc., you might be rather surprised by the plot! Overall, it is a very good read, especially if you are curious about the subtitle, which most of the spin-offs seem to forget, 'A tale of the Christ.' Enjoy!
Thursday, April 23, 2020
The Great Bread Machine Revival?
People, we are seeing a movement like we haven't since the nineties! It is full on revival! It's another Great Awakening and no, I'm not talking 1890s...bread machines are back in demand! That wasn't what you thought I was talking about, was it (though maybe the title gave it away). Is this news, probably not, I'm only aware of it because my bread machine decided to have mental issues yesterday and my husband's answer was to go price shopping online, only to discover the things are sold out everywhere. Happily my own unit came out of its stupor and seems to be working again, but I was still intrigued by the temporary shortage of something so obscure as a bread machine.
When all this started I noted that bread was completely sold out in our store for a week or two, but as I haven't bought bread in over a decade, it wasn't more than an idle curiosity, though I also noted that the flour was all gone and so was the yeast. Apparently people were going to try making their own and this bread machine shortage shows how widespread that idea is. I find it wonderful that this pandemic has produced such unexpected and wholesome fruits. A couple months ago, bread making was a lost art, only practiced by foodies with an interest in that sort of thing or by necessity for those with dietary issues, but most people in general, had no clue about the process. Necessity has forced us to look back to the wisdom of the past, to wonder how our forebears survived in a world without Google and Wonder Bread. And what will be the result? Has a whole new generation of bread makers come of age? Long after this crisis passes, will they still have their sleeves rolled up and covered in flour, recapturing the joy of turning water and flour into a true culinary miracle?
What other 'ancient wisdom,' will we rediscover out of doubt, fear, necessity, or boredom? What about the answers to the great questions of life? Why are we here? Where did we come from and where are we going? Why is there evil, pain, and suffering in the world? Perhaps it is time to rediscover the faith with answers to those tough questions, have you discovered the Bread of Life? Even if you can't get your hands on a bread machine, the 'Bread that comes down from Heaven' is available anytime, anywhere, to everyone!
When all this started I noted that bread was completely sold out in our store for a week or two, but as I haven't bought bread in over a decade, it wasn't more than an idle curiosity, though I also noted that the flour was all gone and so was the yeast. Apparently people were going to try making their own and this bread machine shortage shows how widespread that idea is. I find it wonderful that this pandemic has produced such unexpected and wholesome fruits. A couple months ago, bread making was a lost art, only practiced by foodies with an interest in that sort of thing or by necessity for those with dietary issues, but most people in general, had no clue about the process. Necessity has forced us to look back to the wisdom of the past, to wonder how our forebears survived in a world without Google and Wonder Bread. And what will be the result? Has a whole new generation of bread makers come of age? Long after this crisis passes, will they still have their sleeves rolled up and covered in flour, recapturing the joy of turning water and flour into a true culinary miracle?
What other 'ancient wisdom,' will we rediscover out of doubt, fear, necessity, or boredom? What about the answers to the great questions of life? Why are we here? Where did we come from and where are we going? Why is there evil, pain, and suffering in the world? Perhaps it is time to rediscover the faith with answers to those tough questions, have you discovered the Bread of Life? Even if you can't get your hands on a bread machine, the 'Bread that comes down from Heaven' is available anytime, anywhere, to everyone!
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
This is your life?
I keep reading L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle and thinking it is my own autobiography, save a few minor details. Have you ever found a book like that? One you read and wondered how it was your own life had been captured by a stranger, especially one who wrote a hundred years ago? That's the power of story, my friend, no matter in what genre you are dabbling: film, books, video games, comics, music and art...all of it should tell a story, at least any of it worth bothering about! Story is the language of the soul, no matter the medium! Wondering what to do during these strange weeks at home or how to help others or change the world for the better? Why not engage with story? Read to your children, watch a good movie with your spouse, write that novel you've been incubating, take a virtual tour of an art museum or listen to the Requiem or the Messiah in their entirety or break out your own forgotten paints and add some color to the world!
Take this time to add beauty and meaning and wonder to the world, put something beautiful in! Modern forms of art, music, literature, and poetry revel in destroying all the rules, all the meaning, the entire point of any of it. Art and story must have meaning or they are meaningless, just like our lives! So if you find yourself in a lonely, colorless existence at the moment, all this enforced time at home has revealed the utter bankruptcy of your soul, you aren't alone nor are you hopeless! Begin today, add color and meaning and purpose to your drab little life! Read great books and good poetry, watch wonderful movies, have real conversations about deep things, study great art and music, develop your own latent skills in whatever discipline and add to the vast human repertoire.
But remember it is all still meaningless if there is no Meaning behind everything. If we are the result of some cosmic sneeze, with no eternal destiny or meaning, then go ahead and watch and listen to drivel as meaningless as our reality, until the coldness and loneliness and pointlessness freezes your heart and mind as cold as the regions between the stars, for that is our ultimate destiny: cold, dark oblivion, if Nothing is Everything. Otherwise, take that thirst for Something and look under the metaphorical rocks and logs of reality until you find it, sell all that you have for this Pearl of Great Price, this Treasure buried in a Field. That very thirst is a sign you are alive, that life has meaning, and that the point of life is to find that Meaning. A mere chemical abstraction shouldn't feel empty, lonely, pointless, but a living, breathing, quivering, wondering soul certainly can! Enjoy story in all its variations and remember the Great Author to whom they point!
Take this time to add beauty and meaning and wonder to the world, put something beautiful in! Modern forms of art, music, literature, and poetry revel in destroying all the rules, all the meaning, the entire point of any of it. Art and story must have meaning or they are meaningless, just like our lives! So if you find yourself in a lonely, colorless existence at the moment, all this enforced time at home has revealed the utter bankruptcy of your soul, you aren't alone nor are you hopeless! Begin today, add color and meaning and purpose to your drab little life! Read great books and good poetry, watch wonderful movies, have real conversations about deep things, study great art and music, develop your own latent skills in whatever discipline and add to the vast human repertoire.
But remember it is all still meaningless if there is no Meaning behind everything. If we are the result of some cosmic sneeze, with no eternal destiny or meaning, then go ahead and watch and listen to drivel as meaningless as our reality, until the coldness and loneliness and pointlessness freezes your heart and mind as cold as the regions between the stars, for that is our ultimate destiny: cold, dark oblivion, if Nothing is Everything. Otherwise, take that thirst for Something and look under the metaphorical rocks and logs of reality until you find it, sell all that you have for this Pearl of Great Price, this Treasure buried in a Field. That very thirst is a sign you are alive, that life has meaning, and that the point of life is to find that Meaning. A mere chemical abstraction shouldn't feel empty, lonely, pointless, but a living, breathing, quivering, wondering soul certainly can! Enjoy story in all its variations and remember the Great Author to whom they point!
Friday, March 13, 2020
Lest ye die?
I'm totally puzzled about the strange insanity that has gripped the country. People are actually driving 3 hours to our itty bitty hole in the wall town to buy toilet paper as all the urban centers are sold out, but this is a respiratory virus, why do you need scads of toilet paper? True, dogs and calves get diarrhea from a corona virus, but as far as I know each is species specific and of no relation to the current human strain. Why aren't we then worried about weird cancer like growths then as happens to the unfortunate feline sufferer? Anyway, life in general is canceled until further notice for something that is far from having the ramifications of a war or the plague. Should we use common sense and take reasonable precautions, yes! Should we destroy the economy and all social intercourse, no! But why are people going bananas? I just don't get it.
Then I ran across this beautiful article. Wow! Now I get it. Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to stare death in the face. Everybody wants to have control of their entire destiny from birth through death. We want to choose, we want to do it our way. And we want to be so distracted from the concept that any interruption thereto is cause for crisis. And since we need to stare mortality in the face at the moment, let's have a panic to distract therefrom! Lent has gone viral (sorry, bad pun). So wake up Church, reexamine your lives, stand up amidst this crisis and offer calm, truth, sense, and hope for a world gone mad! The world needs Hope, not toilet paper, and we're the only people who know how to find it. So when death finally does stare you in the face, even if it isn't for many years to come, you can grin back because his is a losing hand!
Then I ran across this beautiful article. Wow! Now I get it. Nobody wants to die. Nobody wants to stare death in the face. Everybody wants to have control of their entire destiny from birth through death. We want to choose, we want to do it our way. And we want to be so distracted from the concept that any interruption thereto is cause for crisis. And since we need to stare mortality in the face at the moment, let's have a panic to distract therefrom! Lent has gone viral (sorry, bad pun). So wake up Church, reexamine your lives, stand up amidst this crisis and offer calm, truth, sense, and hope for a world gone mad! The world needs Hope, not toilet paper, and we're the only people who know how to find it. So when death finally does stare you in the face, even if it isn't for many years to come, you can grin back because his is a losing hand!
Saturday, February 29, 2020
The Jane Austen Prequels?
The miniseries Sanditon (Jane Austen's unfinished novel) seems like to meet the fate of the source material, as it finished on a rather non-Austen cliff hanger with little hope of a second season to smooth out the wrinkles, unless of course they are going for a 'Becoming Jane' feel and ending on such a wretched note because that's how real life turned out, but this is fiction and Jane Austen too, I hope someone reconsiders lest they never live down the irony! But if you are tired of modern remakes and interpretations and disasters pertaining to all things Austen, why not indulge in Fanny Burney? Yeah, I never heard of her either, but I saw a little article about her writings and thought I'd give her a try, apparent influence on Austen as she was. It was a little eerie, reading Cecilia, I felt like I saw the ghost of a hundred different characters or plots of Austen fame all through the book.
Overall it was wonderfully written, but it was insanely long and tedious at times and I even wonder if the young Austen was poking fun at Burney with her quote, 'run mad as often as you like but do not faint' for some of the antics of the characters? If you have exhausted all things Austen, and are a diehard fan, give Burney a try, but if you are a casual acquaintance, go watch the five hour mini-series of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth! In Austen you find all of Burney's exquisite satirical wit and social commentary, but refined, sharpened, precise, finished, dare I say perfected? The pupil has out shown the master! There are several characters that could be left out entirely but are given pages and pages of conversation that is neither advancing the plot or amusing, rather it is tedious, not to mention you want to slap the main characters at various moments as well. The romance minds one of either Persuasion or Mansfield Park or Jane Eyre with the long, painful, impossible, never-ending twists and turns but without characters half so interesting to walk that interminable road with.
Check out project Gutenberg for free copies of Burney's novels, they are certainly worth a try for the hardcore Austen enthusiast, but for anyone else, they might be the death of their interest in classic literature, perhaps death by classic literature?
Overall it was wonderfully written, but it was insanely long and tedious at times and I even wonder if the young Austen was poking fun at Burney with her quote, 'run mad as often as you like but do not faint' for some of the antics of the characters? If you have exhausted all things Austen, and are a diehard fan, give Burney a try, but if you are a casual acquaintance, go watch the five hour mini-series of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth! In Austen you find all of Burney's exquisite satirical wit and social commentary, but refined, sharpened, precise, finished, dare I say perfected? The pupil has out shown the master! There are several characters that could be left out entirely but are given pages and pages of conversation that is neither advancing the plot or amusing, rather it is tedious, not to mention you want to slap the main characters at various moments as well. The romance minds one of either Persuasion or Mansfield Park or Jane Eyre with the long, painful, impossible, never-ending twists and turns but without characters half so interesting to walk that interminable road with.
Check out project Gutenberg for free copies of Burney's novels, they are certainly worth a try for the hardcore Austen enthusiast, but for anyone else, they might be the death of their interest in classic literature, perhaps death by classic literature?
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