Saturday 29 August 2009

No One Likes Michael

Still have my eye infection. One is all puffed up, like that guy in Angela's Ashes except not as tragic.

Recently I have found a good way to pass the time, while on holiday. I'm translating a Manwha, (or Chinese manga) using two online translators, bablefish and MDBG's Chinese-English Dictionary. MDBG is very good as it tells you the meaning of each character so that when I get a gibberish answer, which I do get, alot, I can look up the meaning and see if it fits. it's quite hard as I'm using a text from picture, program which guesses the characters from the scans of the manga. It often gets them wrong so I have to look up each character separately.

Actually even though it's quite hard and takes a long time, I'm having a blast. Like "I forgot to eat" kind of fun, really! Getting each character from the picture and then putting them into the translator, then trying to figure out what is going on, then editing the picture to put the english in. It's really fun! I'm also really getting into the story, because it takes me so long I have to really think about what the creator is trying to put across and I don't just skim read like I usually do. Every word is precious!

I'm doing this rather than looking for a scanlator because, no groups are currently doing it :( so I am left all alone, doing this manwha. Also this manwha is one of my favourites (the other being ushi no tane), you can probably tell which one i'm talking about from a previous post :S.

Oh yeah, about the header. Right now i'm writing a book about angelic beings (I think it's going well, last chapter I wrote wasn't so good, gonna edit it for about three days until i'm happy *sigh*) so i'm reading a lot of romance books with angels in. Including Sharon Shinn's books, A pocketfull of paradise by Kathleen Kale and Fallen by someone else.

I love Sharon Shinn's books, her world building is wonderful. In the last book I read Angelica, I could have sworn she was writing from real life, it seemed to real to me. If she hasn't spent time as part of a nomad commune than she is one heck of a writer! I like her angels too, though they aren't the pretty, blonde haired versions I so love (they wear leather 0_0) but they are cool. In terms of the romance I prefered, Gabriel and Rachel to Susanna and Gaaron and all in all, I prefered Archangel to Angelica. Angelica was longer but I felt it was just Archangel rewritten, she uses the same character types. Now comes the things I don't like, she's strong on her main characters but really weak on her supporting characters. There was one part in Angelica where the Eyrie (where all the angels live) gets well, sort of bombed and I was... happy... I didn't like any of the supporting characters, they felt so wooden! However this is a problem I have myself.

Me and Sharon, we have the same kind of writing style. We just sit down and write and don't plan. So often our scenes and characters are rather chaotic. This is something I am really trying to change! it was one of the reasons I gave up on QOWE after FOUR YEARS (it still upsets me). Also her characters are... very promisicious. Being not promisicious (i'm one step away from being a nun, no joking. However I am no prude, why do you think I read romance novels, if not for the hot, wet action?) I find it hard to relate.

Anyway I want you to keep track: her main hero was called: Gabriel (even Gaaron, he was basically Gabriel Aaron ((they might as well have been the same character for all I know )) it was just shortened)

Now Pocketful of Paradise. That was quite good, I enjoyed it. Ms Kale is a very good writer, she is balanced over her entire book. I never felt unlike with Sharon, that characters weren't well rounded. I liked the main character though she was a little flat, I like her son, he was cute, I liked the main character though I can't have liked him that much as I don't remember his name. The probably was, there was this nice story about people on a farm and them wham, bam, really steamy sex scene! I get more and more shocked by romances haha XD. But yeah it just felt like I walked in on my neighbours bonking, I kinda didn't want to know. Also there was a very distressing lack of wings considered he was turned into a human for a while. Curses... :(.

The last book, I should have been better but I bought it based purely on the cover! oh shallow me. I do regret it now. This book was BOOOOring! Do you ever get so bored that you head goes numb? you keep reading but your mind is just not there? this was how it was with this book. It may have been because there was just TWO characters in the whole book! two! the hero and heroine and everyone else just got like one scene! and they spend their time in an apartment and that's all they do! However I did enjoy one scene, it's where the hero realises that every woman will fall madly in love with him (and I mean madly) and he hates it, coz he doesn't love them back and stuff so it drives them crazy (psychotic crazy) and there's one part where he sinks so low as to get it on with a gutter rat, thinking even she couldn't love him but she does. This scene was really good! you didn't expect the toothless old girl to love him but she did. (BTW i would have loved this story if it had been about him and the ugly urchin)

This book also falls into the "i'm watching my neighbor" category. The hero and heroine can't have sex because then she would go ape-shit crazy in love with him, so he plays the piano and she masturbates in front of him (no kidding) then, in a scene probably inspired by pretty woman, he gets her on the piano and sticks his tongue... in... her... and I was just like 0_0...ok???
Then later, I am not kidding, they do some bondage, without the bondage. He can't touch her, coz he's afraid and all that jazz, so she just impales herself on him and he just has to lie there and take it.
And I was looking at the really sweet looking woman on the back of the book and going "You've done bondage haven't you! haven't you!" all Apu like.
It was just like, i've seen you walking around, talking, dancing, eating and now PORN. And people say Sex and the City is bad!!

Also one last thing about this book, rehab romance anyone? (type Romance covers into google and click on Longaman or whatever his name is, romance covers) both the hero and heroine are the equivilent of crack whores and for some reason, she thinks him being irrestible is a good thing. I was just like, you're gonna end up a crazy bitch like the rest of them.

Oh and also, this guy: Gabriel (but apprently not the annuciation one, I BET HE IS PISSED! imagine that though, "Gabriel you get to go and tell Mary she is pregnant with the Messiah" "who me?" "oh...no, not you, the OTHER gabriel")

Also in Angel Myth, Hui Sheng's guardian angel is Gabriel too. Everyone loves Gabriel, they really do.

Me, I like Michael. I do, I think he's cool. Michael is the leader, he's the guy who cast Lucifer into hell (I think, haven't read me paradise lost much) but he's not a hero in any of these books :(. It's always Gabriel, I wonder why. I guess he's the nicestest one and he gets the most art drawn about him.

So yeah, there you go. I'm signing off now. See ya.

Friday 21 August 2009

Guh

Sorry about the Caps in the last post, I have an eye infection and it makes me want to write everything in Caps. Not to mention I can't write and that pisses me off.

Okies Bye.

Thursday 20 August 2009

Episode 1: In which I shit all over someones hard work for no good reason

Hello, as you can probably tell I'm a snob, a terrible, literary snob, because I have never published something of my own and therefore don't know the sour bitter taste of criticism it gives me free rein to tear apart someone elses work with my bare ragged teeeth!!!

Today I shall be reviewing Hero, no not the artisy chinese film, but the WEBCOMIC, the awesome WEBCOMIC OF WONDER AND VERY MUCH LOOKING LIKE A CERTAIN JAPANESE ARTIST'S WORK THAT BEGINS WITH A. If you wish to peruse the fangirl goodness of probably will end up with a yaoi couple which is why most people read this anyway, then here it is:

http://invisiblecities.comicgenesis.com/story.html

It is written by a Malaysian artist and actually I like this comic, it's pretty, it's awesome, it's philosophical but it's boring. Oh so boring. I gave up already.

You see I have this problem, I hate poetry, GOD I HATE POETRY. Poetry that doesn't tell that story, is basically snazzy words set to a beat. I love a beat but some poets, IT'S JUST PRETTY WORDS WITH NO MEANING SET IN SOME SORT OF PATTERN and we are supposed to read something into it. I have this problem with a certain Ms. Plath, I really tried to understand her poetry really I did but to me, it was just pretty words. I'm ashamed to admit this, that I have no perchance for poetry. I should being a writer and self-proclaimed intelligent person but heck, if it's not Folk Songs or from that Anthology you get at GCSE, I don't want to know.

If someone isn't dying, being left at the altar, being betrayed, coming back from the dead, losing one's baby or bitterly rebuking someone. I don't want to know.

So with this comic, this is my problem. The way she writes. It's just so empty, it's meant to be so meaningful and AAaaaAAaaah surreal but eh... if you refer to people as "the witch" and "the priest" i'm going to assume it's a children's book. It's so simple and because of that, yes it's beautiful, but it's empty beauty. It reminded me of a Neil Gaiman book I have (do not get me started on him, seriously. I liked mirrormask but everything else...)

But then again I am pretty jealous, she touches on some beautiful things like, where is your real home and such but yeah. I want real characters with real flaws and real dialogue. It's just not for me.

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Ballet II

I watched a short documentary on sky arts recently, about Marcia Haydee's sleeping beauty. What attracted me was the performance of the 'male' Carabosse. So strange to change a female villain into a male. I'm more familiar with the sleeping beauty of the disney versions, so it was an intresting change! remember maleficient? now think of her as a guy :D.

Right now my book focuses on gender and how we percieve it, so it was intresting to watch something where the gender of a traditional character was switched as it is in my own book. Characters as I portray them in the beginning turn out to be the complete opposite as the books progress, gender roles switch and change and I try to challenge what we assume about gender in our own society. I owe alot to my studies of Dr Kimmel's book, Gendering Society which I recommend if you want to expand your horizion on the concept of gender.

I couldn't find the original to show you, the first one I saw with Richard Craygun but this one from the Flander's ballet website isn't bad:

http://www.koninklijkballetvanvlaanderen.be/Site/video_en.htm

Sorry I couldn't embed, but I emplore you to follow the link.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Angel Myth

Haaaaaaa~ I'm a big fan of this manga (or whatever the Hong Kongize word equivelent is, oh OTAKU tell me!) Even though only the first chapter of the first book has been released in English :(. I hang out at the scanlation forum in an attempt to get them to scanlate more but apparently yadda yadda excuse excuse. I read the raws but I'm a little confused still on the story.

As far as I can tell, there's this girl, this guy who turns out to be Lucifer and her guardian angel Gabriel (everyone loves him for some reason... I blame the pre-raphaelite, though in a spout of hypocrisy I too was awed by Edward Burne-Jones's stained glass at that House I went to which I can't remember the name and was partly the inspiration for new book). Anyway turns out she's the re-incarnation of the angel of light (here the chapter in english ends) From the Raws I can see that, turns out that her previous life person had some sort of relationship with the big L. (They Kiss) Anyway turns out she gets attacked in a big white dress (I approve) then gets saved by someone, there's this other angel who was attacking her before but now is helping her. I really couldn't tell what was happening.

I don't think the story ends in the manga, as I heard somewhere that the author wrote several books around it. I found this manga many years back, when I was searching for angel art for a book I was writing about angels at the time, called Angelic Rising ( I was 14) and since I am writing about somewhat Angelic beings now (they have wings, that is it. My religion won't let me go further than that, it makes me uncomfortable) I wanted to re-visit this manga, I had saved some pictures in my old art folder when I first discovered anime and was amazed by it. Her artwork is the most beautiful of angels I've ever seen, just one look at her webpage sets my inspiration soaring.

Her is some cosplay of said stories, which also inspires me. (It's the bad yet awe inspiring dancing I think) what happens here, that I can't understand from looking at pretty pictures written with chinese characters confuses me. Why is Gabriel and the main character's little demon fighting? who is the angel the big L beats up while attempting to court the main character? I know the red haired one is Michael but I don't know the names of the others. Also where can I get a dress like that white one?? so NIIICE! I want to run around a castle in it and pretend i'm a Gothic Heroine! Ah well never mind!



Ha, I also stalk the author, I was shocked at her appearance, as I am at most authors. When I read their books, I get an image and they look nothing like that image! she goes to lots of cons in HK I think and has pretty hair which she curls. wonder if someone will write like this about me one day! here's hoping! I am a bit of a fan but ah but you'll never find out my true love ;D.

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Writing is An ESSAY

Sorry about the last post, viewers of which I have just one but heck. (Maybe I can steal some from Got Medieval if I write GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAA!! in the comments, On another note I was completely ignored by Kate Beaton after pimping her on my facebook so much, when attempting to get her intrested in Horrible Histories. Maybe I should post on Got Medievial. Man am I off topic!) But I was tired and expect this blog to be full of badly written grammer and paragraphs as all my work goes on my novel, so fuck it if I write like a loony here.

Anyway I am trying to explain how writing a novel is not easy, it's basically writing an essay. It's easy to write as though you were talking, rattling off chapter after chapter but a really good book takes time. You need to plan out when certain things happen, when character x recognises emotion x etc. etc. (the last part is really important in my current book) I spent four days re-writing the last three small chapters until I was completely satisfied.
*GASP* have I become a perfectionist?

I must thank my Father for helping me out, with this. He who poked and poked me to re-write my essays until it was no longer an unfocused mess but a focused essay and hopefully my novel will also become focused.
Man I wish I was older, sometimes

(pros: People won't gasp when i tell them my real age, nicer menfolk (hopefully, or those thirty year old Thai men who became my good friends were just flukes), no more bitchy girls, not having to feel i'm inclined to go out drinking when I turn into an emotional poet after just one shot, can deal with sudden changes in moods better
Cons: having to get married and have children as society demands, getting wrinkles, having to work full time, feel like life is slipping away, parents getting older and get more bad natured)

Anyway I'm tired now, working is hard :( Bye BYES.

Sunday 2 August 2009

Writing, you're doing it wrong.

Now I'm no Holly Lisle, but I am most known on Deviantart for my witing tutorial which gets a favourite almost every other day (this isn't really something to be proud of -_-) but anyway, I do know writing, i've been doing it for 11 years, writing full length novels for six. Anyway today I was on a writers forum, oh horrors of horrors, what was I doing there? well I do hate writers forums but I realised I have a problem writing conversation scenes and was looking for some help. However what I stumbled across was a bunch of people discussing grammer and words that they hate. I mean come on, for me, grammer yes it's important but the average modern reader isn't really going to have a fit if I write grammer which has been amalgamated by modern day, I don't read a story for the grammer, I read it for the story and I write for the story.
You're missing the whole point, the emotional intensity of the characters is the most important for me, and no writing style is ever the "best" take lord of the rings for example.

So yeah, characters first, grammer second.