You read that right, I’ve been working on a new novel these days! 🙂
I don’t want to give too much away, but I must say that I am very excited about it. I’ve been enjoying it very much, and I’m happy to report that in just 1 week I’ve managed to write over 21,000 words!!!
OK, so what I wanted to pop back on here to say was – I may have been wrong about that whole ‘don’t outline’ stuff thing. Outlining is great! Specifically, writing up the synopsis for your entire book very first thing.
This is something that I haven’t done in the past, and this time around – it has been very helpful! Least of reasons being that literary agents and publishers want a synopsis, and if you’ve never written one for your book then things get very stick very quickly.
I’ll get more into things once I’ve organized things a bit more, but I just wanted to give all of y’all’s an update! 🙂
So, you probably noticed that I haven’t been posting for awhile now.
Well, there’s a good reason for that.
I’ve been moving!!!
I’m still not fully moved yet, as a matter of fact I’m still in the thick of it, but I’ve missed blogging so much and I was all sad like, “Aaaaw, remember at the old place where I used to blog?” and then I remembered, “Wait a minute…. that’s the whole reason why I’m striving to be a writer! So that I can still write and do the things I’ve always done no matter where I am in the world, life, or universe.”
So, that’s why I’m here today. 😀
I will be back, blogging more, talking about books, writing, TV shows and more (btw, if you’re wondering how my “read 1 book a week” new years resolution is going… 😬 it’s not.🙃 But, I have books, and I will get back to reading! Back to reading and writing!!
Before I go, I will leave you with my current obsessions…
1.
Anything Doctor Strange related at the moment.
2.
Young Lady and Gentleman (a superb k-drama that is basically a family friendly version of Jane Eyre!).
Just finished, on 1/7/2022, book #2 for the “read 1 book a week” new years challenge.
The book was Perelandra by CS Lewis.
Wow.
All I can say is wow!
It has been a long time since a book, movie, or show has scared me so much to the point of not being able to fall asleep, but this one did it.
It follows the further adventures of our leading man Ransom, a middle-aged British scholar, who this time around rather then being kidnapped by morally depraved humans and taken to Mars, is spirited away by celestial eldila (what we would most probably call angels) and sent to Venus. The newborn planet of floating islands and innocent new creations has been invaded by another creature, a creature that Ransom has been sent to stop – the devil himself.
Once again, I don’t know if that’s a good enough summary of the book – but I can promise you, that that is the starting off point of it.
What was most frightening was how familiar the words of the devil sounded. From modern tv shows, books, education, social media, the news, academic circles, etc, etc… it was all too familiar.
What I liked was how Ransom has never been put out there as a saintly character or like some kind of superhero, he has always just been a middle aged, academic, Christian Englishman. He is very much a real person. The thoughts and feelings he has throughout the book (throughout both of the books in fact) are ones that I think would be familiar to almost everyone today.
And he had to fight the devil.
He was the one that had been sent, it could’ve just as easily been someone, anyone else, but it was him. So, he had to stand up and fight.
I have heard it said, and I believe it, that Ransom was based off of CS Lewis’s dear friend JRR Tolkien. What I love about that is that it is very clear in reading both Tolkien and Lewis, one a Catholic and the other a born again Christian respectively, that they are in the constant habit of having very intense deep discussions. I love how you can see a similarity of themes, ideas, characters and topics in both of their writings. (btw if my writing style is a little different, that is the direct response of having just spent the last few hours immersed in Lewis’s own writing style, hahaha!🤣)
I don’t really know how to put my thoughts into words… maybe I should wait a day or two to write a proper review, but I wanted to get something down now while the experience was fresh in my mind.
I have also heard it said that one of CS Lewis’s early academic essays that deals with the topic of space travel deals with the question that, and I’m paraphrasing here, “what if the alien life we discover, is a race that has never sinned? What then? We would have to be very careful to make sure that our race did not cause another to Fall.” Again, that’s all paraphrase, I haven’t read that essay myself, (not yet anyways!), but that is the question that is most definitely raised in Perelandra.
Ransom, is essentially dropped into a new Garden of Eden, on the planet Venus, where he meets a new Eve, and then our old devil, in the body of one the men that had kidnapped him in the previous novel, arrives to try to make her Fall.
…
1/10/2021 – I took a few days to try to collect my thoughts a bit more coherently, and still all I can say is YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! It is so good!!
10 out of 10, 5 out of 5, this book is everything!
Now… what should I read next?
Subscribe below to follow along in this book reading journey of mine!
While I was mindlessly browsing the internet the other day, I came across a person’s New Years Resolution that I liked, and it was, “To read 1 book a week.”
At first I was like, “52 books? That’s not a whole lot!”, but realistically it is! Let’s face it – ever since I “grew up”, I really haven’t “had the time” to read. So, my annual book count is definitely, definitely waaaay down there.
So, I’ve decided I’m going to do this one. 😀
I’m going to (do my best) read at least one book per week (realistically sometimes it might be less, sometimes it might be more).
I am happy to say that I’ve already started 😀 and I can check book #1 off my list. The first book of the year has been:
Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis.
Out of the Silent Planet follows the adventures of Dr. Ransom, a philologist, who is kidnapped and taken to an alien planet. Escape from his captors leads to the discovery of new languages, species, and insights into the role of man in the cosmos. (I don’t know if that’s a good way to summarize it haha, but it’s what I’ve got!)
CS Lewis is such a masterful writer that sometimes I feel at a loss to recount what I’ve just read. But, I’m going to try my best here. 😀
Here’s what I liked:
1: evidence of same ideas.
If you’ve read any of CS Lewis before, or any clump of books by the same author before, then you’ll know what I’m talking about here.
Out of the Silent Planet was written well before the Chronicles of Narnia. OotSP was published in 1938, and the first Narnia book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 1950. What is so cool about having read the Narnia books as a child and then going and reading OotSP as an adult now, is that you can see similar themes, concepts, ideas, and scenes at their early stages. OotSP is a bit harder to read because it is written for adults and not for children, but it’s also a bit harder to follow (I believe) because CS Lewis himself is still refining his ideas, still honing his craft, still working on the best way to concisely get the message across.
As I writer, I am so encouraged by the authors like CS Lewis, Agatha Christie, William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien – because they stick to their stories. For some reason there’s this feeling as a young writer, and maybe I’m the only one that’s ever felt this way, but there’s this feeling that your “next story” needs to be ENTIRELY different from your last one. And while CS Lewis wrote a multitude of fiction and non fiction and cannot be accused of being repetitive, he and all of his books have the same heart.
2: space done differently
Outer Space in Mr. Lewis’s book is unlike any other rendition/representation of space that I’ve ever come across. Space is not a cold empty void, it is a bright warm living heaven. After the initial fright of having been drugged, kidnapped, and waking up in a spaceship hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth Ransom spends a lot of time marveling and basking in the beauty and glory of heaven.
3: God, creation, and the devil.
Towards the end of the book, after Ransom has been on the alien planet living amongst the aliens for some months, Ransom meets the ruler of the planet Oyarsa, and from him (as well as from the aliens he’s been spending so much time with) Ransom learns a bit about their planet, how it was created, how there was one creator of all the planets and creatures including men and Earth, and how their is a Bent One chained to the Earth that has been at continual war with the Creator.
I won’t go into too much more of this part, because it was truly the most fascinating and my favorite part of the whole book, so I really don’t want to spoil it for any of y’all’s! It was really good!
It reminded me of Tolkien’s creation story in the Silmarillion, with evil Melkor and all of that jazz.
4: fun writer banter
At the end, there is a post-script chapter between the Author, Lewis, and his friend “Ransom”. It is revealed that the events of the book are true, but that they have been packaged up as fiction so that it will be more widely distributed.
There’s a line where Ransom is complaining to the writer, Lewis, about why does the “reader” need to know this part, and when he says “reader” he adds in brackets “you seem to know a devil of a lot about them!”. 🤣
In conclusion, it was a good book! It was small, it was spacey sci-fiy, it was thought provoking, it was of course well written, it was fantastical, and it was the first in a trilogy. I’ve read the third one That Hideous Strength before, but that was years ago and I can hardly remember it now.
I am definitely looking forward to reading the next two, Peralandra and That Hideous Strength, and in continuing this one book a week thingy! I will post about the books I read once I finish them, so the posting schedule might end up a little wonky, but I hope that you’ll enjoy them.
I hope that you’ll join me in reading this year!😁 Even if we’re not reading the same things.😆
If you’ve read Out of the Silent Planet before, or if you’re going to, or if you have any book recommendations for me – then please let me know down in the comments below! 😀
Technically the month leading up to Christmas is advent and only after Christmas has the Christmas season officially begun, so that means – MORE MUSIC! 😀
#1: Merry Chreasmaugh by Tobuscus
#2: Time to Fall in Love by Lindsey Stirling
#3: Stuck in Love by Kim Kyung Hee (from Goblin)
#4: Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson
#5: Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney
As you may have noticed, there’s none of the traditional Christmas Carols on any of these lists – but that’s not because I don’t love those! I just love singing those live at church and with my family. That’s why these lists are full of my favorite secular songs (unless there is a recorded version of a particular church carol that is good!)
Some of my favorite Classic Christmas Carols are:
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem Silent Night What Child is This God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Hark the Herald Angels Sing
I hope that your Christmas Day was filled with Jesus, family, love and happiness! ❤
I can’t tell you how excited I am for this movie!! I mean, I could, and I guess I should try, seeing as this is a blog and the whole point of it is for me to tell you things…
I AM SO EXCITED!!
Seeing as this movie promises (and I really, really, really hope it delivers!) to give us all 3 Spidermans’ (Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, AND Tom Holland!!) I thought it would be a fun idea to rank all of their Spiderman films from least favorite to favorite of mine.
Now, fair warning, I’ve never seen any of the Andrew Garfield movies.😳 I know, I know, treason!! But, it’s because I loved Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman so much, that I couldn’t watch them! So, that means then that, I’m sorry but Andrew Garfield’s movies are going to be ranked last.
Also, I’m not going to include any of the Marvel movies that are not titled Spiderman… So, Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame are right out!
Ranking out of 7 movies (because No Way Home doesn’t count yet!!), we have in 7th place
#7: The Amazing Spider-Man 2
It’s last because I haven’t seen it😆, and it’s a sequel and sequels are historically bad🤐, and I heard that Gwen Stacy dies – so that’s sad! 😦
#6: The Amazing Spider-Man
Again, because I haven’t seen it, but it’s higher for me than the 2nd one because I love origin stories and pilots. I love em!!
#5: Spider-Man: Far From Home
This one is last in the realm of Spidey films I’ve seen because it was a bit too chaotic. Normally, I love all of that Inception-style craziness, but this one just didn’t quite do it for me, especially after all of the drama of Endgame. Plus, I hated the way that Mysterio, Jake Gyllenhaal, tried to replace Tony Stark in Peter’s life by manipulating him!!😡 But, I still really, really liked it!😁
#4: Spider-Man 3
A much as the Bully Maguire memes have revived this film – it is truly awful! 🤣 It ranks lower than the other 2 for me too because of the fact that Peter Parker never said the words “I’m sorry.” in this film. He’d actually made a lot of mistakes, and he never apologized! Not to MJ, not to Harry, not to anybody – I think he says something at some point to the effect of “I shouldn’t have…” or “I made a mistake…” but that’s not an apology! Those simple words “I’m sorry.” are so powerful, and they got that in Black Widow, when they had Natasha at the end apologizing to Antonia (aka the Taskmaster), just repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” to her. I won’t explain the scene more, in case anyone here hasn’t seen it yet.
#3: Spider-Man
The original Tobey Maguire origin story Spiderman. Coming in at 3rd, because we can’t have a tie for first place, ok, c’mon!
#2: Spider-Man: Homecoming
I loooooved this movie! This was the film that really cemented Tom Holland as Peter Parker for me. I’ve said it before, but Tobey Maguire was my favorite Spiderman, so I was very reluctant to accept any newcomer to the role, and indeed if he hadn’t had his debut in Civil War (I’m Team Thor btw!), then I probably would’ve skipped his origin film. But, he knocked it out the park in Civil War and ran all the way home with Homecoming! 👏👏
So, that means that, coming in first place it’s, that’s right, you guessed it…
#1: Spider-Man 2
This one was the first superhero movie that I ever saw! That’s why it gets first place, because it was this movie that got me into superhero films in the first place. This one, then Batman Begins, then Iron Man sealed the deal. It defied sequel expectations by being better than it’s predecessor. Doc Oc, that stopping the train scene, Willem Dafoe driving James Franco to madness, *chef’s kiss*!
And, that’s it!
I CANNOT WAIT to see No Way Home (I’ve already got tickets!) and I hope that it is good enough to de-throne the king of this list. If Tobey & Andrew (and Charlie Cox!) are truly in it, then I think it just might! 😀
But, I’m not meaning it in any kind of weird, possessive, bad kind of way.
I mean it in the – if you love young adult books, and you want to write young adult books – then read a lot of young adult books, and watch a lot of young adult movies and tv shows.
If you love Sci-Fi – then read and watch a ton of Sci-Fi! If you want to write children’s books, then read a lot of children’s books, if you want to write a cookbook, then study as many different cookbooks as you can (and also, you know, cook and bake and stuff!).
If you love movies, and you want to write screenplays – then watch a bunch of movies, critically. Study them, pay attention to the angles and the lighting and the placement of objects and the dialogue, etc. etc. While also, reading scripts, studying scripts, familiarizing yourself with the format, etc.
Writing is just like anything, and everything else, it gets better with practice and study.
Basically, figure out your genre, your type, your niche that you want to write – and then consume as much of that genre, type, niche as you can. The more you read mystery, the better you’ll get at writing mystery. The more you watch action movies, the better you’ll be at writing action movies. The more you bake, the better you’ll be at baking.
But, the biggest part of this advice is, the first time you’re reading or watching something – just enjoy it! Enjoy it that first time, don’t pay attention to the commas, or the allegory, or the whatever other big literary word you can think of, just enjoy it.
Enjoy it and DO pay attention to the way it makes you feel, remember the moments it made you laugh or cry, remember the times it blindsided you with a twist. Then, the second, third, and fifteenth time you read/watch it you’ll notice HOW they made you feel/think those things without even having to try.
Oh also, a note about picking a genre, type, or niche – don’t stress about that part. I know, me personally I write what I love, but then when I try to define it I get bogged down in the “aaagh, it’s too many things! It’s horror, it’s fantasy, it’s romance, it’s comedy, it’s ya, it’s sci-fi, it’s contemporary, aaaagh I don’t know!!” So, yeah, don’t get stressed about that part.
Just read/watch what you love, enjoy it, read/watch it again, study it, write it, and before you know it – boom! You’ll have a book/script written!
I hope this was coherent!😆 If it wasn’t, I apologize!
I need to practice “Elevator Pitches”, so, I figured, what better way to do that than by crafting some for one of the worlds most popular series’ of our time.
These are probably going to end up being more of “explain a plot badly” lines, but it’ll be fun! 😆
Let’s go!
Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
An 11 year old boy discovers that he is the Chosen One with magical powers.
Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
A giant snake attacks students via the plumbing.
Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban
Escaped convict turns out to be your godfather, while your friends rat turns out to be a murderer.
Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
A deadly competition has an unexpected result (hint – someone UN-dies!).
Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Authoritarian education is torture.
Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Raging hormones, hidden memories, and stolen goods culminate in the death of one of our own.
Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
It’s a race to collect them all before the final battle at home.
Well, what do you think?
Are any of them proper elevator pitches? Or are they all just ‘describing the plot poorly’? 😆
Let me know your favorite Harry Potter film and book, and if they’re different, let me know why! 😀
A Writers View 