Yep. I saw another blog that had the same name, so I changed mine because I'm weird like that. This name is temporary, until I can think of a new one.
In other news.
Editing's been going well. I had no idea what I was doing the first day, but I think I'm getting better at it. I've got a growing nest of post-its on the attic wall next to where I work, and my manuscript is still up there. I'll post a picture in a few days.
I have addressed the one main plothole I wanted to close up - I need to write the requisite scenes, but I've at least fitted it in, as well as creating a place to work in solutions to other problems.
In other other news... well, I really don't have enough of a life to post any other news. I'll keep you posted though.
kthxbai
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Vacation
I get next week off from school. Guess what I'll be doing.
I'll be shut up in my room, with a red ultra fine point sharpie, a clipboard, and a 100-and-change page long manuscript. Everyone cross your fingers that I don't die from ink fumes.
Editing, I've heard, can be very rewarding, and I'm looking forward to that. I've already identified a few big plot holes to take care of, and more or less every character and scene can be improved upon or else removed. I've also heard that it can be very tiring, and that plus the bout of minor quasi-sickness I had a few days back has prompted me to start regulating an actual sleep schedule.
After I do the editing, I'll spend all my free time feeding the edits into the computer copy and writing the new and improved epilogue. (I scrapped the old one. It was awful. Just awful.)
My editing checklist, as of now, is as follows:
~Fix the plothole involving Legion collecting "hellbound" souls even though all souls should be going to Limbo
~Develop Tobias's relationship with his stepfather, and possibly institute Samael as a substitute father figure
~Take out some of the mushy scenes. There are just too many.
~Get rid of some of the needless battles
~Improve the palace in Limbo, greatly
No one gets to read my manuscript until I've edited it at least once.
I'll be shut up in my room, with a red ultra fine point sharpie, a clipboard, and a 100-and-change page long manuscript. Everyone cross your fingers that I don't die from ink fumes.
Editing, I've heard, can be very rewarding, and I'm looking forward to that. I've already identified a few big plot holes to take care of, and more or less every character and scene can be improved upon or else removed. I've also heard that it can be very tiring, and that plus the bout of minor quasi-sickness I had a few days back has prompted me to start regulating an actual sleep schedule.
After I do the editing, I'll spend all my free time feeding the edits into the computer copy and writing the new and improved epilogue. (I scrapped the old one. It was awful. Just awful.)
My editing checklist, as of now, is as follows:
~Fix the plothole involving Legion collecting "hellbound" souls even though all souls should be going to Limbo
~Develop Tobias's relationship with his stepfather, and possibly institute Samael as a substitute father figure
~Take out some of the mushy scenes. There are just too many.
~Get rid of some of the needless battles
~Improve the palace in Limbo, greatly
No one gets to read my manuscript until I've edited it at least once.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Twilight, Twihards, and the Harry Potter phenomenon
It ticks me off when people compare Twilight mania with the Harry Potter phenomenon.
Harry Potter was/is popular because it is well written, has an engaging story, and appeals to teenage dilemmas of feeling left out and the difficulties of being thrust into the new environment of middle school and high school, while at the same time teaching kids how to be good people. Drawbacks: lots of people die.
Twilight is, bluntly, a cheap appeal to the adolescent fantasies of every teenage girl on the planet (notwithstanding the poorer countries in which most fantasies involve adequate food and water and not being generally war-ravaged - but that is not my subject of the day). Though I haven't actually read the series, I've read a lot about it, and from what I can gather, personality-less Bella Swan falls for a "vampire" (in the loosest sense of the word - he drinks blood, lives forever, and has yellow eyes, and no other vampirish qualities) named Edward Cullen, who falls for her. Unfortunately, intimacy means that Edward the Sparkly Mosquito Man (yes, he sparkles. I am not making this up.) will subconsciously bite her and vampire-ize her. Which can't happen because she'd be ostracized from her family, psychological trauma, etc. For the sake of her relationship with Edward, Bella eventually ostracizes all of her friends. Several anecdotes that interested me, including this one: once Bella establishes her "relationship" with Sparkly Mosquito, she refuses a can of pepper spray from her father, saying something to the effect of: "I don't need it, my sparkly vampire man will protect me." And, from what I can gather, she had already been almost raped earlier in the book. Can we say dependence? Misogyny? Idiocy? The list goes on.
Some more particularly disturbing bits:
~Edward watches her sleep. Apparently, extendedly. Need I say more?
~Edward is 107. One hundred and freaking seven. And Bella is about 14. That is about the mathematical equivalent of a 25 year old together with a toddler. Eew.
~It kills the vampire mythos. At least Cirque du Freak failed to make use of more or less every bit of vampire mythology tastefully.
~Bella rejects her friends in favor of her boyfriend, who apparently is only physically attracted to her. Children, that's called glorification of abusive relationships.
And let us not forget that the MaGiCaL Edward Cullen was more or less hand-carved from Miracle Fantasy Man wood by the series' author, Stephanie Meyer, to make readers fall in love with him. Edward is handcrafted to literally be the perfect man, and so endless Twilight readers (who, and I am not joking here, seriously call themselves "Twihards") will fall in love with Sparkle Man and, on the off-chance that they do develop a relationship with a guy, will forever compare him to Edward Cullen, and - big surprise - no one, and I mean no one, will ever measure up. I think this counts as severe psychological damage.
I've heard net rumors about acts of violence by Twihards towards people who admit that they don't think that the Twilight series is completely wonderful in any way, which is why I'm glad that this blog post isn't traceable to my address. I'm not going to formally confirm this, but it doesn't strike me as totally unrealistic. As I said, the character of Edward Cullen is literally built to be fallen in love with, and built to be absolutely perfect in every way - disregarding the whole disturbed pedophile stalker thing.
Frankly, I'm astonished that no one has compared attacks on the Twilight series to the "Harry Potter glorifies satanism" ridiculousness. On the off chance that (a) they have, or (b) some actually intelligent Twihard (pfft) finds this and makes that argument, I'm debunking it ahead of time. In the entire seven books and countless chapters of Harry Potter, Satan is not mentioned once, and Hell only in the context of swear words. Magic is its own thing, disparate from devil worship, in the Potter universe; very religious types (to put it tastefully) simply saw the word "witchcraft" and went crazy. In Twilight, there is a provable overtone of misogyny and sexism throughout the books. The only way it could be sadder is if the author was a wom... wait... never mind.
Harry Potter was/is popular because it is well written, has an engaging story, and appeals to teenage dilemmas of feeling left out and the difficulties of being thrust into the new environment of middle school and high school, while at the same time teaching kids how to be good people. Drawbacks: lots of people die.
Twilight is, bluntly, a cheap appeal to the adolescent fantasies of every teenage girl on the planet (notwithstanding the poorer countries in which most fantasies involve adequate food and water and not being generally war-ravaged - but that is not my subject of the day). Though I haven't actually read the series, I've read a lot about it, and from what I can gather, personality-less Bella Swan falls for a "vampire" (in the loosest sense of the word - he drinks blood, lives forever, and has yellow eyes, and no other vampirish qualities) named Edward Cullen, who falls for her. Unfortunately, intimacy means that Edward the Sparkly Mosquito Man (yes, he sparkles. I am not making this up.) will subconsciously bite her and vampire-ize her. Which can't happen because she'd be ostracized from her family, psychological trauma, etc. For the sake of her relationship with Edward, Bella eventually ostracizes all of her friends. Several anecdotes that interested me, including this one: once Bella establishes her "relationship" with Sparkly Mosquito, she refuses a can of pepper spray from her father, saying something to the effect of: "I don't need it, my sparkly vampire man will protect me." And, from what I can gather, she had already been almost raped earlier in the book. Can we say dependence? Misogyny? Idiocy? The list goes on.
Some more particularly disturbing bits:
~Edward watches her sleep. Apparently, extendedly. Need I say more?
~Edward is 107. One hundred and freaking seven. And Bella is about 14. That is about the mathematical equivalent of a 25 year old together with a toddler. Eew.
~It kills the vampire mythos. At least Cirque du Freak failed to make use of more or less every bit of vampire mythology tastefully.
~Bella rejects her friends in favor of her boyfriend, who apparently is only physically attracted to her. Children, that's called glorification of abusive relationships.
And let us not forget that the MaGiCaL Edward Cullen was more or less hand-carved from Miracle Fantasy Man wood by the series' author, Stephanie Meyer, to make readers fall in love with him. Edward is handcrafted to literally be the perfect man, and so endless Twilight readers (who, and I am not joking here, seriously call themselves "Twihards") will fall in love with Sparkle Man and, on the off-chance that they do develop a relationship with a guy, will forever compare him to Edward Cullen, and - big surprise - no one, and I mean no one, will ever measure up. I think this counts as severe psychological damage.
I've heard net rumors about acts of violence by Twihards towards people who admit that they don't think that the Twilight series is completely wonderful in any way, which is why I'm glad that this blog post isn't traceable to my address. I'm not going to formally confirm this, but it doesn't strike me as totally unrealistic. As I said, the character of Edward Cullen is literally built to be fallen in love with, and built to be absolutely perfect in every way - disregarding the whole disturbed pedophile stalker thing.
Frankly, I'm astonished that no one has compared attacks on the Twilight series to the "Harry Potter glorifies satanism" ridiculousness. On the off chance that (a) they have, or (b) some actually intelligent Twihard (pfft) finds this and makes that argument, I'm debunking it ahead of time. In the entire seven books and countless chapters of Harry Potter, Satan is not mentioned once, and Hell only in the context of swear words. Magic is its own thing, disparate from devil worship, in the Potter universe; very religious types (to put it tastefully) simply saw the word "witchcraft" and went crazy. In Twilight, there is a provable overtone of misogyny and sexism throughout the books. The only way it could be sadder is if the author was a wom... wait... never mind.
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