Can We Save Writing and Reading?

If not, then we should at least form our own little underground book bootlegging club once the written word has been banned for good.

You would be surprised by how many people out there think that books should no longer exist--educated people, I might add. I'm not talking about just printed books either, but e-books too. I once had an acquaintance of mine say that books were the lowest form of entertainment next to television. His choices for the top two?

1. Video games
2. The Internet

I must agree with him, because we all know how smart and stimulating people on the Internet are. If there was a sarcasm font I would be using it in bold right now.

It absolutely baffles me to see people all around me claiming to be intellectuals and stating that books are beneath intelligent people.

I hate to break it to you geniuses, but you have the same opinion as Kanye West. That's right. In my mind, you are a clone of the epitome of ignorance and intolerance that is Mr. West, regardless of how many degrees you have.

Any avid reader knows that real life (if there is such a thing) would be nothing without the stories that shape it. Think about it.

How differently would you perceive things--how many events in your life would have been affected---had you never read Harry Potter? Or Animal Farm? What about Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World?

I don't think that Bradbury's world of book censorship will come to pass like we expect it to. Maybe people will just stop reading books because there aren't any pictures that move, and start watching movies that are mostly pretty lights and fireworks with no plots because there is nothing more dangerous than the opportunity to think. If human  beings think, they come to two terrible and frightening realizations: they have the ability to create things and they can't always control what they create. Whether it be a paranoia turned reality or an entire world springing to life in the wake of a moving cursor, we fear what we create because it come from us and yet is not of us. It's bigger and greater.

Writers do not conquer this fear. We merely learn to embrace it and thrive on it.

Image via Wikipedia

I would let Kanye finish, but for the sake of future generations I have decided to drown him out with  Florence and the Machine.

Halloween 'Be Approachin'

Image via Wikipedia Today I finally began regularly working on my novel every day, bringing my goal of at least 1,000 words each day back into the forefront. I've been thinking about doing something weird with the story: cutting out an entire character.

Well, not entirely cutting out said character, but rather cutting them out for the majority of the plot of the first book in my series. I had originally planned to have my main character and this other character, who is her foil in every sense of the term, undertaking the journey of the first novel together. Now that I look at the purpose of the story a lot closer, I think it just might be more useful to have her make that journey solo.

Plus, if I did that, I could cut out the scenes where my main character and this character become better acquainted.

Or, you know, I could just shove them together as still 'sort of enemies' and see what happens from there. That adds drama, for sure.

Part of being a writer is struggling with decisions just like this one. You have several different ways that you want the story to go, but  you just can't let go of any of them to use just one of them. It is in situations like this that I propose a compromise of some sort, or a merging of the plots together so the good parts of all of them sort of happen. Usually, when you do that, one of them shines as the strongest and best one to take center stage, anyway. There's just something about seeing all the story directions in action that helps you figure out which one really was the "one."

Now that the first and most rambly part of the post is over, I'd like to bring to your attention this author and his books.

They are for children, and yet they are amazing. Any true horror fan would love his work; trust me, I'm a horror nut, and after reading the first one after dark, I wasn't able to get to sleep until I forced myself there.

Because, you know what? It always seems like my bedroom door does that violent shaking thing where it sounds like someone is trying to get in RIGHT when I've scared myself silly with ghost stories all day.

After the first anthology of scary stories, O. Penn-Coughin's stories only get better and scarier. Not to mention, of course, that if you read it on kindle you can only view one page at a time, making those scary illustrations seem to actually jump out at you at the end of every story. Trust me, they're a lot of fun.

I've only just started with Kissed By a Clown, and so far I wouldn't recommend that those of you out there with elementary school aged children let them get their hands on it.

But you and your older children?

Go nuts. Knock yourselves out. It seriously rocks so far. 

Three guesses as to what this post is going to be about.

ThImage by brody4 via FlickrI'm sincerely sorry that I can't shut up about this novel. It's just really coming together, and quite frankly, I'm overjoyed. Nothing has ever come together like this for me. Usually it starts as an idea and stays as an idea because I'm more than afraid to plan it out and actually DO it. Fear of screwing up? Oh yes. I should think so.

This time, however, I told myself that such a thing simply would not fly. I buckled down and actually started outlining the thing, and didn't make myself too scared to plan out the story from start all the way to finish.

The only problem is that now I'm terrified of actually writing it.

On a related matter, I decided to bump the age of my main character from fourteen down to thirteen. While she's supposed to seem young and naive for her age, I was writing my scenes and realized that she just might be a bit too young and naive to be fourteen.

Is she too immature to be thirteen?

Incredibly. But not so much that it makes it look like I such at characterization. I've just got to say that I'm glad I made the change before I actually started on the manuscript. Does anyone out there know how annoying it is to go back and change things about a character (such as name or age) and then go change all of the references made TO that thing you changed? And all of the plot points it influenced?

Ugh. That's another reason to make sure you've got it straight before you start writing. Believe me, the more sure you are about exactly what is going to happen and when, the easier the actual writing will be.