How does Music Relate to your Writing?

So, I know one of New Year’s Resolutions was to not miss important deadlines, but I actually have a good excuse this time. About a week ago I found myself with a tiny bit of a concussion. I wish I could say I got the concussion in a badass way, like snowboarding down a cliff or falling off a rollercoaster, but unfortunately that is not the case. Instead I had a door “accidentally” slammed into my face. I put “accidentally” in quotation marks because I have the sneaking suspicion that it was not an accident. That guy was out to get me.

While getting the concussion was fun and all, it did make it hard to concentrate, (having to read The Great Gatsby was as rough as the other side of a sponge) and writing was all but impossible. Hell, it took me five hours just to write that last sentence alone. (Kidding!) But I’m getting better now, so that’s good.

Now, onto the prompt:

Prompt: “How does music relate to your writing?”

This is a tricky question, because half the time I prefer to write in silence, and when I do write with music on, it’s always movie soundtracks. I never listen to songs with lyrics while writing, because gosh darnit, it’s distracting. Take The Hanging Tree, for example:

Did you find that song hauntingly beautiful? Did a single, mockingjay-shaped tear fall artfully down your cheek whilst listening? If not, you are a terrible person with an even more terrible taste in music. You should be ashamed.

While I love this song and everything about it, I don’t listen to it while writing because I know I won’t get anything done. I’ll just start humming along and typing the lyrics as I go. (are you? are you? coming to tree…) Which is why I only listen to the song while doing other, less important things. Like homework.

I also make it a point to listen to a song that coincides with the mood I’m trying to purvey. Because if I’m listening to sad music, the scene will seem sadder to me, even if it isn’t. Sad songs include: Hans Zimmer’s Time, Hans Zimmer’s Watch the World Burn, and Max Richter’s Those Left Behind. 

When I’m writing an action scene, I have action-y music playing in the background, like Inception’s “Mind Heist.” or the Bourne Supremacy’s “Berlin Foot Chase.” Or Murray Gold’s “The Majestic Tale (of a Madman in a Box)” which is without a doubt the best soundtrack the show’s ever had. In fact, I think went a month where all I listened to were the different “I am the Doctor” melodies, right here.

Only when I’m writing romantic/happy scenes do I include songs with lyrics in them. This is because I rarely write happy scenes and my romantic scenes are always awful. In fact, here’s an actual transcript of a scene I wrote the other day.

“Sup girl,” said Devin Devinsky, who looked like a total badass in his leather jacket and fancy sunglasses. He was on a motorcycle. “Wanna go for a ride?”

Lisa felt a flutter in her chest. Was this love?

Not my best piece of writing, I’ll admit. Anywho, the romantic songs I generally listen to are “I Got you Babe,” by Etta Jones, and Dreaming of You by the Coral, the latter of which was played during the sexiest scene of Scrubs ever. 

And then there are the soundtracks that are just plain epic; that purvey so many different emotions that I can’t simply categorize it as “sad” or “happy” or “action-y” (that’s a word). For example, there’s the soundtrack Cornfield Chase and Day One, which both make me feel sad and hopeful at the same time. Like we’re all going to die due to some catastrophic event, but it’s all going to be okay somehow. Then there’s Hans Zimmer’s “I’m Not a Hero,” which I will insert here simply due to the fact that I really want you all to listen to it, especially that last minute. 

I have no idea how to describe that last twenty seconds, except with lots of exclamations points, so here I go: 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, that whole thing at the end (I wish I knew what it was called or how to describe it), gets me so pumped up. I want to run right now. I want to punch someone in the face (in a cool, badass way). I want to fly around Gotham and beat up thugs and criminals, just because of that twenty seconds of brilliance. Too bad I can’t, because, y’know, concussion. 

So, how does music relate to your writing? That is the question.

Below is a list of all the other TCWT participants:

• 6^th – http://jasperlindell.blogspot.com/ and http://vergeofexisting.wordpress.com/
• 7^th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/
• 8^th – http://www.juliathewritergirl.com/
• 9^th – http://www.freeasagirlwithwings.wordpress.com/
• 10^th – https://ramblingsofaravis.wordpress.com/
• 11^th – http://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/ andhttp://www.pamelanicolewrites.com/
• 12^th – http://randommorbidinsanity.blogspot.com/
• 13^th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/ andhttp://whileishouldbedoingprecal.weebly.com/
• 14^th – http://kirabudge.weebly.com/
• 15^th – http://lillianmwoodall.wordpress.com/ andhttp://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/
• 16^th – http://theedfiles.blogspot.com/ andhttp://fantasiesofapockethuman.blogspot.com/
• 17^th – http://irisbloomsblog.wordpress.com/ andhttp://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/
• 18^th – http://semilegacy.blogspot.com/ and http://from-stacy.blogspot.com/
• 19^th – http://horsfeathersblog.wordpress.com/
• 20^th – https://clockworkdesires.wordpress.com/
• 21^st – https://stayandwatchthestars.wordpress.com/ andhttp://arielkalati.blogspot.com/
• 22^nd – http://loonyliterate.com/ andhttps://www.mirrormadeofwords.wordpress.com/
• 23^rd – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/
• 24^th – http://themagicviolinist.blogspot.com/ andhttp://allisonthewriter.wordpress.com/
• 25^th – http://missalexandrinabrant.wordpress.com/
• 26^th – http://awritersfaith.blogspot.com/ andhttp://thelonglifeofalifelongfangirl.wordpress.com/
• 27^th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/ andhttps://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/
• 28^th – https://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll announce the topic for next month’s chain.)

What Characters Are You Most Like? (TCWT Blog Chain)

Sorry for the late post. I was totally going to finish it on time, but my family unexpectedly took me to visit my cousins’ house up in the untamed north (New Hampshire) where I wasn’t able to use the internet for a while. Well, I probably could have asked to used the computer or something, but I was too busy playing Kan Jam and rediscovering my passion for Guitar Hero to try. Besides, I’d been thinking over the prompt for weeks at that point and I still couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

This is a horrible excuse, I know. I will make it up to you somehow, by writing a post that’ll blow you away, what with my mad linguistic skills and nice hair and all.

This month’s prompt, as you should’ve been able to tell from the title, is:

“What characters are you most like?”

This is the type of prompt that requires you to be brutally honest with yourself, and to list your flaws and weaknesses and share them openly with the internet. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up picking characters that you aren’t actually like, but you wish you were, and people will roll your eyes at your selection and say “Ha. As if!”

For example, I came dangerously close to picking Omar Little from The Wire.

For those who aren’t familiar with Omar, he is basically Robin Hood. A gay black American Robin Hood who’s been roaming around the streets of West Baltimore robbing drug dealers for the last decade or so. He’s not afraid to shoot anyone who messes with him, but he never harms innocents, he never swears, and he’s the type of guy to show up in court wear a snazzy track suit with a tie. Even homophobic racists love Omar, he’s simply that cool.

Unfortunately, I am not like Omar. We don’t have a whole lot in common. When I walk down a street, I don’t hear shouts of “Matthew’s coming! Yo Matthew’s coming!” as everyone runs away. I don’t have a shotgun, and I’ve never pretended to be an eighty year old man in a wheelchair just to put a few drug dealers off guard. I would like to pretend I’m as badass* as Omar, but that is not the case and will probably never be. Now excuse me while I cry for the next hour or so.

Now would also be good time to admit that I am not Batman, nor am I anything like Sherlock Holmes, Han Solo, that guy from those Old Spice commercials, Finnick Odair, The Doctor, Albus Dumbledore, Atticus Finch, Jack Sparrow**, Jack Shephard, Jack Bauer, Jack Reacher, Jack Dawson or Jack Skellington. (There are a lot of Jacks.) I’m really more of a Quentin Jacobson type of guy.

Quentin’s a slightly nerdy teenager who obsesses over and idolizes a girl he barely talks to anymore. Okay, maybe that’s not the most flattering description of him, (you all probably think he’s a creepy stalker, and therefore you’ll think I’m a creepy stalker, and that’s not good), so I should also add that he’s reasonably well adjusted, has a great sense of empathy and is willing to pull some pretty groovy stunts, once his crush Margo manages to unleash his bold, more mischievous side.

I saw myself in him a lot, both the good and the bad. I understood why he’d like Margo as much as he did, and why in the beginning he went through such lengths to impress her and in the end we went through such lengths to find her and figure out who she really was. For the most part, I would have done the exact same things he did throughout the novel, and yes, that includes spending the night in an abandoned, asbestos-filled building reading Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

I think I need help.

There’s also Stuttering Bill (real name: Bill Denbrough) from Stephen King’s It, who is really just all types of awesome, a word I don’t use that often, you know. All the main characters were fantastic and well written, and I felt like I’d known each and every one of them my entire life. (Note: that’s impressive.) But Bill was the one I could relate to the most. I never had a stutter, as far as I can recall, but I did have some serious speech problems as a kid and still do, though not nearly as bad. I’ve gotta say, King nailed the whole experience down, from the bullying he went through to the frustration he felt each day, not being able to complete a full sentence without screwing it up. Yet despite this, he still manages to stick up for himself and his friends in times of struggle, and he even becomes the unofficial leader of his little gang of outcasts to which all the main characters belonged.

Sure, I never had a younger brother who died shortly after getting his arm bit off by a clown (that happened like, five pages in, so it’s barely a spoiler), but that doesn’t mean I can’t relate to him in just about every other way. He also loved to write as a kid, and even ended up a successful author as an adult, which is exactly what’s going to happen to me. *fingers crossed.*

He’s also described as being very handsome countless times throughout the novel, which is yet another thing we have in common. We might as well be twins.

So in conclusion, I am not Omar. Instead I’d consider myself a less obsessive Quentin, or a less stuttery Bill, or perhaps I’m Hawkeye. I would make an amazing Hawkeye.

 ****

August 2014 blog chain prompt/schedule:

5th – http:// semilegacy.blogspot.com/

6th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

7th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

8th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

9th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

10th – http://irisbloomsblog.wordpress.com/

11th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

12th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

13th – http://uniquelyanonymous.wordpress.com/

14th – http://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

15th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

16th – http://nutfreenerd.wordpress.com/

17th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

18th – http://writers-place-for-you.blogspot.de/

19th – http://roomble.wordpress.com/

20th – https://taratherese.wordpress.com/

21st – http://thependanttrilogy.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://freeasagirlwithwings.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

24th – http://theweirdystation.wordpress.com/

25th – http://teenageink.wordpress.com/

26th – http://www.adventuringthroughpages.wordpress.com/

27th – http://randommorbidinsanity.blogspot.com/

28th – http://missalexandrinabrant.wordpress.com/

29th – http://dynamicramblings.wordpress.com/

and http://thelonglifeofalifelongfangirl.wordpress.com/

30th – http://fantasiesofapockethuman.blogspot.com/

and http://www.turtlesinmysoup.blogspot.com/

31st – http://theedfiles.blogspot.com/

and https://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll announce the topic for next month’s chain)

*It occurred to me that by praising Omar and calling him a badass, I’ve probably completely missed the point. *shrugs* Oh well.

**Captain Jack Sparrow. Sorry.

Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Writing (TCWT)

I always had a thing for reading and writing. At four years old I was wolfing down Dr. Seuss books like it was nobody’s business, and by first grade I could finish any one of those Captain Underpants novels in less than a day. No big deal. Inspired by George Beard and Harold Hutchins, I started writing my own mostly plagiarized comic books, which kick-started my ongoing writing career.

I’ve since retired from the comic book business, but I have yet to stop writing stories. Most of them have been science fiction, and centered around a main character (always around my age) with similar characteristics. Basically me, except perfect in every way, and everyone who opposed me was just evil, an idiot, or both. Which brings me to this month’s TCWT blog chain:

What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started writing?

There are so many things to choose from, so I’m going to cheat and mention several of them. First off, I would’ve loved it if someone had let me in on this particular nugget: characters with flaws are infinitely more interesting than those without them.. Also, books where the main character is almost exactly like the author will never sell well, unless you’re John Green. For years I was writing characters who were idealized versions of myself, and surrounded them with characters who were just shallow versions of my real friends. And the villains were always real people I didn’t like, like my annoying older brother, who was always one-dimensionally evil and/or stupid.

(In my defense, my brother did (and still does) often act in a cartoonishly evil/stupid way. But that doesn’t mean he’d make a great character.)

Another helpful tidbit would’ve been: Your parents’ opinions are almost always useless. This may not apply for those of you who have parents with writing experience, or genuinely criticize your work instead of just “This is amazing! I’m going to put this on the fridge so I can read it every day,” but in my case (and most others) your parents probably laughed at your writing as a little kid; they just complemented it because they didn’t want to discourage you.

Of course, I don’t blame my parents for doing that. If I had shown my dad one of my stories as a little kid, and he replied with, “Don’t quit your day job, kiddo. This story sucks,” there’s a good chance I would’ve been discouraged from writing altogether, and this blog wouldn’t even exist.

Of course, the downside to this is that it gave me unrealistic expectations. I actually thought my work from five years ago actually had a chance of being published. (Heh heh.) And worst of all, I didn’t improve as much as I could have because I wasn’t aware of all the huge flaws in my writing, mostly because no one pointed them out. Which brings me to my next point.

Get people who aren’t your friends or family to read your writing. I wish I had known about beta readers. If you have a blog, you should post a few short stories or something, where people can criticize it for free. People on the internet are not exactly known for being too polite, after all, and they can be extremely helpful when it comes to critiquing your work, especially on WordPress. For my More Than I Can Chew interactive blog story, I have the delightful Plotwhisperer who isn’t afraid to say what she does and doesn’t like about each chapter, and it helps. A lot.

But the main thing I wish I knew from the very beginning is: Don’t censor yourself. Don’t stray from certain topics or themes just because you’re afraid you’ll offend someone. Write about what’s important to you and don’t hold back.* You don’t see this advice being used often on this blog, (it’s a humor/book blog. Topics like gun control and abortion would just be off-topic), but when I do write about potentially controversial subjects, they work out much better than I could possibly anticipate. I was Freshly Pressed from a post titled, “How to be a Young Writer Without Making Me Want to Punch You in the Face,” and I almost didn’t publish it because I was afraid it would upset some people. And it did upset some people. A few people politely disagreed with it, others impolitely disagreed with it, and one guy wrote an angry rant calling me an “arrogant fuck who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and continued to insult my blog and teen writers in general.

I can still remember large portions of that comment (he was a mean one, that guy), but I also remember the hundreds of other amazing comments from adults and teens alike. A bunch of teenagers were inspired by it, many adults were impressed and a high school English teacher even said she was going to show this article to all her students. For every angry commenter, they were fifty other nice and supportive ones. So I laughed to myself as I deleted that asshole’s comment and moved on with my life.

When you reach a wider audience, you’re bound to get a few mean critics, but if you’re afraid to speak your mind, you’ll never reach that audience to begin with.

Someone should quote me on that last sentence. That was deep.

*Of course, there’s a difference between speaking your mind and being a jerk. If you’re being racist/sexist/homophobic/prejudiced towards any group, don’t be surprised when you are either ignored or receive angry feedback. And I won’t feel bad for you.

(Sorry there’s no photo. I had to resort to using my phone to write the post, and I’m not sure how to add pictures.)

Check out the other participants here:

5th – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

6th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

7th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

9th – http://lillianmwoodall.wordpress.com/

10th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

11th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

12th – http://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

13th – http://theweirdystation.blogspot.com/

14th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

15th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

16th – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

17th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

18th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

19th – http://thelonglifeofalifelongfangirl.wordpress.com/

20th – https://butterfliesoftheimagination.wordpress.com/

21st – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://roomble.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://thependanttrilogy.wordpress.com/

24th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – The topic for August’s blog chain will be announced.

The Book is Not Always Better

(Just kidding, it is.)

For the TCWT blog chain, the prompt is:

 “What are your thoughts on book-to-movie adaptions? Would you one day want your book made into a movie, or probably not?”

I like this topic, because it’s very broad and I can go in almost any direction I want, providing it’s not to the right. There’s a giant needle sticking out of the wall on my right side, and I’m trying to avoid it. Anywho…

Life is rough for book-to-movie adaptations. Not only must they be able to stand on their own two feet as a movie—a completely different type of entertainment than a book— but they also have to put up with all the die-hard book purists that throw a fit over every minor change.

(Note: I am occasionally one of those diehard book purists. Example: The Shining.)

I think we need to stop being so hard on these, poor, misunderstood movies. Directing an adaptation is like being forced to walk on a tightrope above Niagara Falls*, except on one side of the rope, there’s a bunch of crazy book-readers shouting “YOU’VE RUINED THE WHOLE SERIES!” and on the other side there’s a bunch of snobby movie critics saying things like, “I feel like this movie caters way too much to the fans of the book, to the point where it doesn’t stand on its own as a movie. Also, not enough symbolism, and the juxtaposition between motifs was a bit clumsily done. 2/5 stars.” And if the book in question is a young adult novel, then the critics will undoubtedly compare it to Twilight or Harry Potter, no matter what it’s about.

It’s a lot like basing a movie off a cartoon from the nineties, except with those you have people complaining “YOU’VE RUINED MY CHILDHOOD!” because as it turns out, it’s possible to destroy someone’s entire childhood simply by making a bad movie based off a show they used to like. Who knew?

I think people need to remember that a movie is completely different from a novel, and that some things that would work well in a book would look terrible in a movie. For example, Daenerys Targaryen is only thirteen when the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire started. Things would not have gone well if the producers behind Game of Thrones hired a girl who was actually thirteen to play her.

With many adaptations though, it can be frustrating, because some books have so much potential to be great, but the people producing it are clearly out to get you, and are intentionally making it terrible just to piss you off, so it seems. Why can’t they let me write the scripts for all the adaptations I’m interested in? It’s so unfair.

That being said, if some sketchy looking guy with a sketchy looking suit and tie came up to me and asked my permission to make a movie off of my novel, I’d probably say yes, because a movie is basically just one big advertisement for your book. If a trailer looks good, all the book-snobs watching it will think to themselves, “Quick, I need to read the book before this comes out. This way I could complain about how disappointing the movie is.”

Even better would be a book-to-TV adaptation, like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. Speaking of which, HBO really needs to write a mini-series for The Stand, by Stephen King. Just saying, I think it’d work out well.

Sorry if this post is a bit scattered.

Now click on the links below for the rest of the blog chain!

5th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

6th – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

7th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

8th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

9th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

10th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/

11th – http://charleyrobson.blogspot.com/

12th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

13th – http://theweirdystation.blogspot.com/

14th – http://fairyskeletons.blogspot.com/

15th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

16th – http://novelexemplar.wordpress.com/

17th – http://magicandwriting.wordpress.com/

18th – http://mirrormadeofwords.com/

19th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

20th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

21st – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

22nd – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://aaronandtamarabooks.blogspot.com/

24th – http://www.butterfliesoftheimagination.weebly.com/

25th – http://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

26th – http://turtlesinmysoup.blogspot.com/

27th – http://missalexandrinabrant.wordpress.com/

28th – https://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – The topic for July’s blog chain will be announced.

*I saw a guy do this once. It was amazing.

Seven Kinds of Published Books I’d Like to See More Of

The TCWT blog chain is back, everyone. I’d shout out “Finally!” but I’m afraid that may come off as rude. Anyway, this month’s prompt is:

What kind of published books would you like to see more of?

1) First, just to beat everyone else to it: books with diversity! Not everyone is a straight white abled guy with nice hair, after all. I’d like to narrow down this request a little more by adding that if you do include all different types of people in your story (which you should), they have to actually have a personality and an effect on the plot, and they shouldn’t be defined just by their sexuality/race/disability/etc, which a lot of TV shows tend to do. *cough cough can’t think of any examples cough*

Also, if there’s going to be a main white character and s/he’s put in a position where there’s a lot of sun involved, the character will probably get sunburn. People with light skin get sunburned (sunburnt?) much more frequently than people with darker skin, to the point where one of my friends said to me “Hey can I borrow some of your sun tan lotion—OH WAIT I DON’T NEED ANY!” at the beach last summer, which was kind of an obnoxious thing to do. Yet if I were to base my knowledge of life on the books I’ve read, I’d have come to the conclusion that sunburn is nonexistent.

Basically, sunburn is very common, and it sucks. I’d argue that it’s perhaps the worst thing in the history of ever, with the exception of stolen remotes and spilled milk. Just thinking about it makes me wince. So if you’re going to ignore everyone but white people, you better at least give them sunburn.

2) I’d also love to see more standalone novels, especially in the young adult section. Oh wait, no I don’t. Series and trilogies are popular for a reason, people.  And I for one find it sad when I realize I only have a single book to spend with characters like Rudy Steiner or Margo Roth Spiegelman. With some characters, one book just isn’t enough.

People complain about having to wait for each book in a series, but honestly, I enjoy it, providing each book in the series could stand on it’s own feet, and the time between each installment is a reasonable amount. The anticipation, in many cases, is the best part.*

3) I’d prefer a couple dragons sprinkled into the young adult genre, if everyone else is okay with that. If not, then too bad— this is my list.

4) More morally ambiguous characters. A lot of authors seem to shy away from writing these, despite the fact that these types of characters are perhaps the most interesting. That’s what separates A Song of Ice and Fire from all the other fantasy series I’ve read and I assume that’s what made it so famous to begin with.

5) Also, I’d like more A Song of Ice and Fire novels, so hurry up, George. (Just kidding, take your time.)

6) I’m not a huge fan of love triangles, but I must say, if you’re going to have a romantic subplot, why stop at a triangle all the time? Where’s the love octagons, or the love tetrahedrons? I guess it’s up to me to write one of those.

7) More straight up humor novels, like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. We need more of those. Then again, there probably is a lot of those, and I’m just not looking in the right places.

*Ha, not really. Actually reading the book is the best part.

Take a look at all the other blog chain participants below:

May 5th – http://sammitalk.wordpress.com/

May 6th – http://www.nerdgirlinc.blogspot.com/

May 7th – http://nasrielsfanfics.wordpress.com/

May 8th – http://erinkenobi2893.wordpress.com/

May 9th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

May 10th – http://randomofalife.blogspot.com/

May 11th – http://maralaurey.wordpress.com/

May 12th – http://www.fidaislaih.blogspot.com/

May 13th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

May 14th – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

May 15th – http://insideliamsbrain.wordpress.com/

May 16th – http://taratherese.wordpress.com/

May 17th – http://miriamjoywrites.com/

May 18th – http://oliviarivers.wordpress.com/

May 19th – http://afoodyportfolio.wordpress.com/

May 20th – http://magicandwriting.wordpress.com/

May 21st – http://unikkelyfe.wordpress.com/

May 22nd – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

May 23rd – http://eighthundredninety.blogspot.com/

May 24th – http://www.oyeahwrite.wordpress.com/

May 25th – http://avonsbabbles.wordpress.com/

May 26th – TheUnsimpleMind – link to come

May 27th – http://thependanttrilogy.wordpress.com/

May 28th – http://www.lilyjenness.blogspot.com/

May 29th – http://sunsandstarsanddreams.wordpress.com/

May 30th – https://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ – We’ll announce the topic for June’s blog chain!

Confessions

• I always vote once on the More Than I Can Chew polls. I can’t help it.
• A few posts ago, I lied about being Sherlock Holmes. Seriously, I’m not him.
• Whenever I see someone reading a book in public, or simply carrying it, I always try to find out the title without being too obvious. If the book is a favorite of mine, I’ll immediately start to like the person more.
• I’m addicted to cough drops. I’ve had about five today and I don’t even have a cold. Should I see help? Nah, I can stop anytime I want. Not that I’d want to…
• I’m secretly attracted to cheese.
• I’m not interested in reading Divergent, unlike everyone else in the galaxy. Sure, I read the first two chapters, but I wasn’t really intrigued enough to keep going, (though I’m sure I’ll end up reading the whole series because, y’know, peer pressure). My main reason is that the whole premise just seems stupid. A society where people are divided by their personalities, of which you could only pick one despite the fact that people are naturally much more complex than that? With books like The Hunger Games and The Giver, you can at least see the reasoning behind the society’s structure. But here, it’s like whoever came up with this new system was asking for a revolution. (Although it would be awesome if that was revealed to be the case.)
• I’m lying about at least one of these confessions.
• I secretly wish I could host the TCWT blog chain for a month, even though, at the moment, I can’t come up with a decent prompt.
• I take way too much pride at the fact that if you google “TCWT,” my blog is the fourth link to show up.
• I’ve been working on a “Fifteen Rants in Less than 1,000 Words” sequel for months now and I’m not even close to done. The problem is, I keep coming up with rants inside my own head while I’m mowing the lawn or taking the test. Situations where I can’t write them down, and then I forget them ten minutes later. It’s a little frustrating when the only thing I can remember about an idea was that it was really good.
• This post was written because I couldn’t think of anything else. That doesn’t make it any less amazing, however.
• Here’s a picture of a cat.

The Worst Fictional Worlds to Live in

The blog chain is back! And Miriam Joy couldn’t have picked a better prompt:

Which fictional world would you most like to be a part of, and what role do you think you would fulfill within it?

Excuse me while I think back to all my favorite fantasy/sci-fi novels and think of the ones with the best settings. There’s Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire (only just finished the first book), and The Dark Tower series.

If I could be in the completely real fictional world of Harry Potter, I’d probably be unemployed and living on the streets. It’s a sad truth: the wizard economy would never work in real life. Why would anyone hire a fellow witch/wizard when they could get a house elf to do the work for free? Or they could just flick their wand around and whatever they need doing will be done. Magic has unfortunately made 90% of the wizarding population useless.

And I know what you’re thinking: “Matt, why can’t you just wave your wand around and make food and money appear out of thin air?” Well first off, I can’t magically make those items, according to the Five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law. And besides, I’m a forgetful person. I would have lost my wand within a week of buying it.

So it looks like I’ll have to pass on Harry Potter’s world.

Then there’s middle earth, which I’ll also have to pass on. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m secretly afraid of elves. (Although luckily they all seem to be leaving soon.) The same could be said of Alagaësia.

I’d be okay with living in Westeros (I’d be a stable boy, because stable boys are cool), if it weren’t for the fact that everyone in this world seems to be some sort of scheming psychopath. Anyone with a conscience ends up dead.

There’s also the problem of the uneven seasons. Not only is this annoying, but it causes a bunch of problems the books have (so far) failed to address. First of all, how exactly do plants grow without a proper seasonal cycle? Where is all this food coming from? And how do they even measure the years?

And don’t even get me started on Panem.

I guess if I had to choose a fictional world to live in, it would be Narnia. Sure, it’s not perfect, what with its lack of antibiotics and all, but at least there’s talking animals. And there’s always the chance of me escaping into my own world (which I prefer). Hopefully, I’d end up as either a farmer, or a professional high-fiver. Either one’s fine.

Writing this post made me realize how horrible most fictional worlds are. Out of all the worlds mentioned above, I think Harry Potter’s is the safest, and I haven’t even mentioned the whole “Dark Lord Trying to Kill Everyone” thing. Even though everyone wants to live in a nice, safe, Utopian society, writers have accepted the fact that Utopias are boring. Dark, gritty worlds with high mortality rates are much more interesting.

Other Participants:

December 4th: Against the Shadows.

December 5th: Deborah Rocheleau.

December 6th: The Little Engine That Couldn’t.

December 7th: Relatively Curious.

December 8th: The Magic Violinist.

December 9th: Laughing at Live Dragons.

December 10th: This Page Intentionally Left Blank. 

December 11th: Kira Budge: Author.

December 12th: Brooke Reviews.

December 13th: Next Page Reviews.

December 14th: Susannah Ailene Martin.

December 15th: Musings From Neville’s Navel.

December 16th: Mirror Made of Words

December 17th: Woah!

December 18th: Lily’s Notes in the Margins.

December 19th: Wheat and Wine.

December 20th: Please Forget My Story.

December 21st: An MK’s Meandering Mind.

December 22nd: Miss Alexandrina 

December 23rd: Unikke Lyfe.

December 24th: Miriam Joy.

The First Book I’ve Ever Written

Today I answer the prompt from the very first TCWT blog chain, back in October 2011:

“What is the first thing you ever wrote of your own free will?”

Well, I believe my first written story was a comic book I wrote when I was five (six?) years old. Not to brag or anything, but it was the greatest thing anyone had ever written.

The comic starts off with a super long introduction to all the characters. The characters were all my best friends at the time. They all had numbers: #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6. Who was #1? Me, of course.

I should explain: we were a group of kids with super powers, appropriately titled, “The Super Power Kids.” I know. It was awesome. Each of us wore a number on their shirt so you could tell which one was who. I had the power of fire. #2 had super strength, #3 had the power to move things with his mind (I had never heard of the term telekinesis back then), #4 had super speed, #5 had the power to clone himself at will, and #6 could jump really high.

We got our powers by us all being struck by lightning at the same time. Despite its scientific inaccuracy, this might just be the greatest origin story in the History of Ever™.

Anyway, the villain of this story was my evil older brother (let’s call him Brian), who just happened to also be struck by lighting at the exact same time. Also, this lightning bolt somehow gave him all of our super powers combined.

So the seven of us went to battle. The Super Power Kids vs Brian. Each of us were polite and decided to attack him one at a time, and Brian easily knocked all of us unconscious. Well, except me, of course.

I said to him, “Hey, your shoes are untied,” and so Brian immediately looked down to check. As he let his guard down I lit him on fire and that was the end of it. The Super Power Kids had won their first battle (until the sequel, which was basically a rip-off of the Captain Underpants books).

Now that I think about it, the fact that six year old me wrote stories about setting his brother on fire is a little disturbing. In my defense, Brian was sort of a huge asshole. He once took my Harry Potter book, ripped it in half and threw it in the pool, then yelled at me to stop reading.

Also, every time I got a balloon, he would always pop it. And I used to love balloons.

Here’s a list of all the other participants in this blog chain:

October 15th — http://delorfinde.wordpress.com – A Farewell To Sanity

October 16th — http://eatsleepwriterepeat.wordpress.com – Eat, Sleep, Write, Repeat

October 17th — http://taystapeinc.wordpress.com – Tay’s Tape

October 18th — http://noveljourneys.wordpress.com/ – Novel Journeys

October 19th —- http://greatlakessocialist.wordpress.com/ – Red Herring Online

October 20th —http://kirstenwrites.wordpress.com/ – Kirsten Writes!

October 21st —http://incessantdroningofaboredwriter.wordpress.com –  The Incessant Droning of a Bored Writer

October 22nd — http://herestous.wordpress.com – Here’s To Us

October 23rd — http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com – Teens Can Write Too! (We will be announcing the topic for the next month’s chain)

TCWT Blog Chain

I’m sorry for missing the date of the blog chain. To make you forgive me I will send flowers to each off your doorsteps. When they don’t show up, assume I really did send flowers and someone just stole them before they got to you. I was sick with a cold, and when I am sick, I’m a total wimp and I’m not good for anything. I spent most of the last two days sleeping, sneezing, and watching Scrubs reruns because I couldn’t concentrate on anything involving text.

But enough rambling. The prompt for this month is:

“How have both the people in your life and your own personal experiences impacted your writing? Do you ever base characters off of people you know?”

To answer the first question: Most of the people in my life haven’t really gotten me into writing. My parents encouraged me, leading me to think I was a writing prodigy for a while there, but that was it. I don’t think I know any people in real life who hope to be writers when they get older. If I do, that means they’re like me and don’t ever talk to anyone about it. So no one I know in my non-internet life actually ever gives me advice about writing. All of the writing help I get is from this blog and my awesome commenters.

My personal experiences, however, have affected my work, and I think this is true for everyone. For instance, the second chapter of the novel I’m working on (I finished the first draft!), involves the characters getting revenge on a rival “gang” by sneaking into their houses and pulling a bunch of overly-elaborate pranks on them. For legal purposes, all I can tell you is that something similar may or may not have happened to me in real life.

There’s also a scene in the second book in which a certain character “drops” a smoothie onto a very expensive car from the second floor of a mall (the car was there for a contest of some sort) and got chased down and arrested by mall police. The same thing happened to a friend of mine, except with a lacrosse ball, and he didn’t get chased down so much as he was escorted away and his parents were called to pick him up.

In many of my stories, I take instances from real life, and change them to make them more interesting.

As for the second question, “Do you ever base characters off people you know?” The answer is yes, though rarely. I used to do it a lot when I was a little kid, (to the point where the bad guy was always my older brother, the good guys were always me and my buddies and he also went to jail at the end) but now I only base characters off people in my life on rare occasions. I only do this if I meet a person who is particularly interesting. Such as that kid in the back of one of my classes who smokes pot everyday and is supposedly in a violent gang, yet is one of the most intelligent and nicest people I’ve ever met (not to say that weed-smoking gang members can’t be nice or intelligent. Sorry if I offended anyone within those categories). That kid would make an interesting character. I want to write a story with a main character based off him, but since I don’t know much about life in a serious gang, and I’m not planning on joining one any time soon,  the story has yet to be written.

I’ve noticed a strong correlation between bad decisions and great stories/characters. For instance, someone who does drugs and joins gangs clearly did not make the best decisions in life. But he’s a pretty interesting guy. Similarly, breaking into an enemy’s house in the middle of the night just to cover their entire bedroom floor with water-filled paper cups is not a wise decision. Neither is throwing dropping a lacrosse ball at a contest car in the middle of a very crowded mall filled with security guards. Or throwing a snowball at a car that you originally thought was your older brother’s but actually turned out to be this scary guy who likes to threaten ten-year-old kids with his fists of doom. But if someone had written these stories all down (something I hope to do), I would definitely read it.

So the lesson of this post is, the more stupid choices you make in your life, the better your writing will be. Probably. Don’t take my advice on this.

…

I hope no one decides to do drugs/join a gang after reading this. That would not be a good idea. You could just join the Blogger’s Gang, which I just made up right now, instead! In order to get in, you have to either A.) Kill someone, B) Sacrifice a lamb, or C.) Write a funny comment below.

My friends and I have done some pretty stupid things.

Participants:

5th – http://alifeonmission.wordpress.com/

6th – https://thelittleenginethatcouldnt.wordpress.com/

7th – http://musingsfromnevillesnavel.wordpress.com/

8th – http://miriamjoywrites.wordpress.com/

9th – http://katiathewritergirl.blogspot.com/

10th – http://charleyrobson.blogspot.com/

11th – http://fida-islaih.blogspot.com/

12th – http://www.indianawriterblog.wordpress.com/

13th – http://charlieeatmybook.blogspot.co.uk/

14th – http://notebooksisters.blogspot.com/

15th – http://dearsaul.wordpress.com/

16th – http://bloodoverithaca.wordpress.com/

17th – http://realityisimaginary.blogspot.com/

18th – http://weirdalocity.wordpress.com/

19th – http://insatiablebeforedeath.wordpress.com/

20th – http://theloonyteenwriter.wordpress.com/

21st – http://myswordandpen.wordpress.com/

22nd – http://dreamerheadquarters.wordpress.com/

23rd – http://www.documentaryofateenagewriter.wordpress.com/

24th – http://www.brookeharrison.com/

25th – http://themagicviolinist.blogspot.com/

26th – http://teenscanwritetoo.wordpress.com/ (We’ll be announcing the topic for next month’s chain.)