Just stumbled across this pretty awesome website: The Script Lab
You’ll find plot breakdowns of over 150 films. I think it’s a great way to learn. Enjoy.
Rant: Poetry is hard. Argh.
March 22nd, 2013 § 4 comments § permalink
I haven’t posted in a long time.
Not that it matters. I don’t have any readers anyway. (YET!)
This seems like a good moment to get back into blogging regularly again. I want to let off some steam – blogs are useful for that, if I remember correctly.
I’m having a hard time putting together five poems for my Writing Poetry class. I have five ideas. 3 and a half of which I’ve sort of executed (the other half of the fourth is what I’m currently struggling with).
The Ode Less Traveled is a brilliant book – but it still takes sweat and blood to improve your poetry.
Poetry is HARD. It never quite occurred to me just how hard it is to write a very good poem – that is in some of the traditional forms. I’ve been doing some iambic pentameter exercises from The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
I won’t give up though. I’ve given lots of sweat already. If it also takes tears and blood, so be it! I’m ready to make that sacrifice 
Perhaps I shall share the result of this labour in a few days.
Psychogeography | Explore where you live
July 20th, 2012 § 5 comments § permalink
Before moving to London to study, I lived in Nice. That beautiful Mediterranean city, sprawled nonchalantly across the Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels). A jumble of white buildings and red roofs in daylight, the thinnest veil of haze rendering its appearance mystical and magical. Like a fairytale city spotted from afar that vanishes if you get too close. At night, the azure ocean turns black, and Nice sits atop this breathing behemoth like a delicate crown, its lights shimmering like jewels and crystals.
It’s hard to believe that just a year ago all I could see was how small and sleepy it was. How bored I was here. All its beauty was hidden from my eyes by the ingenious filters of my mind. After about 6 years living in Nice, I had become blind.
I’m back home for summer now and last weekend I had a sudden urge to go outside and to explore Nice. To look at it like a tourist would. To enjoy it, not to merely live in it. To be surprised, rather than to pass through it without glancing left or right. Surely, this must have been inspired by quite a few classes on psychogeography we had last term.
So I became the urban-explorer. Equipped with my iPhone camera (you can follow me on instagram @thenanana), a rented bike, a towl and bathing suit, I left the cool home and went out into the heat. I joined the throngs of tourists. The Russians walked about flaunting luxury brands, the men with unbuttoned white shirts from which a curly mess of grizzly hair spilled forth, the women strutting about like peacocks on stiletto heels. The Asians kept to the shadows of the old town, their pretty umbrellas in blue, pink and white bobbing above them, protecting them from the oh-so-terrible sunlight. Most of the people at the beach were French, Italians and Arabs, perhaps more accustomed to the stony beach and the tug of the waves than tourists.
I swam in the cool sea. Oh, it’s so refreshing. You have no idea. I took pictures of the same stuff as all the other tourists. I ate ice cream at Fennochio’s, where they offer a choice of 100 flavours. I looked up, down, left, right, spotting things I had never seen before, re-appreciating familiar views and recognizing their original beauty.
And while I walked I thought about what kind of stories the city might have to tell. What stories were hidden in the alleys of the veille ville, in those narrow gorges, where neighbours in opposite buildings could reach out of their windows and hold hands. I wonder.
If you’re looking for some good examples of psychogeography, check out these:
On Brick Lane
Final Book Cover. And it’s done…
June 7th, 2012 § 3 comments § permalink
Adamin: Rise of the Dark Front Cover
So Minyi finallllllly finished the cover, and I really like it. (You can see more of her artwork here.)
Adamin, Rise of the Dark has been uploaded onto Smashwords.com (where it’s already available for sale), and it’s waiting for approval so that it can be distributed to the iBookstore, Barnes and Noble, etc.
I’ll be uploading it soon to Amazon.com directly, as Smashwords doesn’t yet distribute to Amazon.
It took me about 9 hours of uninterrupted, concentrated work » Read the rest of this entry «
Workout with Bret Easton Ellis?
June 5th, 2012 § 4 comments § permalink
Just came across The Canyons, a contemporary thriller written by Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho) and directed by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver).
The project is up at kickstarter and if you’re willing to help fund it (4 days remaining as of today), they’re offering some interesting rewards.
While $25 will only get you the DVD as well as two printed posters of the movie, for $499 or more you can have a 20 minute Skype session with Bret or Paul (10 out of 10 places still available on that one).
But why Skype with Bret when for $3000 or more you can train with him and his celebrity coach for a whole week – every workout being 3 hours? Access to supplements included!
Best reward? 5 people took the 5 places available and put down $5000 to have Bret read their novel and post his review on an international blog or website. Wow.
If your book is good, that’s $5000 well-spent in marketing. I assume he might tweet about it, as well, to his 288k followers…
Grasping for Time
June 4th, 2012 § 2 comments § permalink
The days just fly by! I’ve been looking around on Duotrope.com recently, submitting a couple of short stories and flash fics to e-zines. It’s so time-consuming, I wonder if it’s even worth it.
And I feel like I know nothing about these magazines. Which are the biggest/oldest/best-established? Which pay the most? Which have the most readers? It’s completely unexplored territory for me.
As most of them don’t even pay, I’m wondering to what degree this is useful for my writing career. Even if I get published by one, my name will be a flash in the pan, seen, read, forgotten.
Unless my writing is so good that I’ll be seen, read, remembered.
I just can’t imagine that any of those magazines have a big readership. I’ve never even met anybody who reads e-zines.
June is hopefully going to be an exciting month, as I’m going to be submitting to magazines, to contests, and I’ll finally publish volume I of my fantasy novel. In preperation for this I’ve been reading more and more about marketing, which, I suppose will turn out to be a time-consuming monster if I go about it seriously.
At least once I’m through the whole process I’ll have gained some valuable experience to share and blog about.
I’m also thinking of going through some creative writing books during summer and perhaps sharing the experience with y’all …. hmmm.
Just because it’s pretty, I leave you with a beautiful video:
The Ghazal
June 4th, 2012 § 2 comments § permalink
I’m giving myself short ‘writing prompts’ to challenge myself and my muse.
They will be really short, so it’d be great if you could join in occasionally. As my first entry on this blog, is my second try at writing a Ghazal.
The first try was terrible. Let’s hope this one is better.
The Ghazal of a Mother and Son
Blood and flesh, the same in both of them,
Seeds of good and evil planted in them.
One grows, one rots, their stories entwined
One falls, one stops, held through love between them.
A haven of peace in a fragile palm,
Used by only one, not both of them.
No Rose for blood poured into dirt,
A fissure in the heart of both of them.
As cold rocks their fused souls threaten to crack,
But the Lion’s and Her forgiveness, saves them.
What is a Ghazal?
“The ghazal is composed of a minimum of five couplets—and typically no more than fifteen—that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous. Each line of the poem must be of the same length, though meter is not imposed in English. The first couplet introduces a scheme, made up of a rhyme followed by a refrain. Subsequent couplets pick up the same scheme in the second line only, repeating the refrain and rhyming the second line with both lines of the first stanza. The final couplet usually includes the poet’s signature, referring to the author in the first or third person, and frequently including the poet’s own name or a derivation of its meaning.”
Definition stolen from poets.org
Here’s a youtube video of a Ghazal performed in Urdu and translated to English.
How to Shock Readers
June 1st, 2012 § 6 comments § permalink
This post isn’t really about how to shock readers.
Shocked?
We discussed a disgusting book in class some months ago. The Room by Hubert Selby Jr, which describes the vilest fantasies of a convicted criminal as he sits in his cell. It uses profanity, pornographic and sadistic imagery to shock and make readers feel uncomfortable.
I don’t see any merit in such a piece of work.
Why?
Because it’s easy to do. Write down the absolutely worst and most sickening scenarios you can come up with. Present it to readers and make them wonder WTF is going on in your mind.
That’s not hard to do. You don’t have to worry about building tension, creating atmosphere. You don’t have to worry much about word-choice, either. Just use the worst fucking words you can think of. I’m not against grit and violence in novels, but The Room is an example of a book that seems to consist of the most primative and basic violence. No style.
Selby shocks readers not because characters do the unexpected. He shocks readers because he describes digusting fantasies in detail.
Is that art? Nowadays, people tend to be very democratic and insist every single personal expression may be a piece of art. I don’t think so.
Consider this quote:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
― Isaac Asimov
Kapow!
May 29th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink
Check out Kapow! … this beautiful, cool book by Adam Thirlwell!
“Exploding with unfolding pages and multiple directions, Kapow! is a new book by British writer Adam Thirlwell. Set in the thick of the Arab Spring, it is guided by the high-speed monologue of an unnamed narrator – over-doped, over-caffeinated, overweight – trying to make sense of this history in real time. A clever, funny, and bitingly critical cultural commentary, it uses spinning digressions to tell the stories of a group of interconnected characters in London and Egypt, each transformed by the idea of revolution. Kapow! asks readers to open and unfold pages, to follow text leaking in and out of paragraphs, while progressively becoming part of and lost within the narrator’s giddy digressions. A beautifully crafted object told in Thirlwell’s uniquely acrobatic voice, this is a visually immersive storytelling experience like no other. ”
Anthology / Contest
May 27th, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink
Over at the sffworld.com forums , Nila started a great project:
“The End” will be a short story apocalyptic anthology featuring speculative fiction written by the forum members of SFFWorld.com.
To get a chance to be published in this anthology along with published authors Hugh Howey (who just sold the movie rights of Wool to Ridley Scott) and Tristis Ward, all you have to do is enter the three contests that will be held throughout the year. The first one ends on June 15th. Check the link to the forums above for more info!
I’m definitely in!