Author: Ajmorse

The Words – Choosing Between One Reality and the Next

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Last night, I saw the movie, The Words. It was a last minute decision, there was honestly nothing better to watch and I thought, hey, I’ve seen a trailer for this, it looks romantic.

Little did I know, that it was going to be completely different than what I expected…what a relief!

***I recommend this for anyone looking for a thought provoking film and if you just happen to be a writer, you’ll love it too!

This movie is intelligent, and just very well written. The Words is the name of a novel, which is narrated by the author throughout the movie; it is about a writer who finds a story, which he takes as his own.

The music is beautiful, the acting is superb and  it easily sucks a viewer in; the scenes are intricately woven and well placed ***this would be one of my examples of how to write a great plot!!

Anyway, the movie brings up questions about a writer’s capability and what it truly means to be a writer and the sacrifices that are made; about choosing between fiction and reality and that all writers eventually make a choice.

“Hitting a little close to home?” asked my friend in my ear during the movie, and well, yeah, it does!

I sometimes wonder if I don’t take too much time with my imaginary worlds. I’ll emerge hours later with a sort of glazed over expression and a dumb look on my face. My mother will be asking me a question but I’m still off in the story, I’ve still got the character’s voice in my head, I still feel their emotions.

Sometimes, it makes me worry, because it is so difficult to come back to the real world…to connect, to pay the bills, to do the laundry, to answer a friend’s text. Especially when things aren’t going well.

Sometimes the fiction world becomes an escape mechanism, a therapy. There is nothing wrong with this to a point, but suddenly I’m afraid. If you get too lost in your fiction, do you miss the real world, too?

Because, well…there is also beauty in reality, too.

Good Food, Good Breathing, Good Life

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Well, what can I say? Life sucks really, and the more you try to make it better sometimes…the more things fall to the wayside. Feel like crawling back into bed and hiding under a blanket yet?

I guess the only thing I can do now is share this picture:

Garlic toast with freshly chopped tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, topped with parsley and freshly ground salt and pepper.

My lunch. Sometimes when life gets you down, you got to be creative. I’m no great cook by any means, but I love getting creative with food sometimes, and when you can make something beautiful out of something so simple…it reminds me to relax, take a deep breath and realize that there can be something good about the everyday goings of life, no matter how mundane they seem to be.

When I was in college and stressed out, I used to send food pictures to my sister all the time. Although, it probably helped me gain that extra freshman fifteen, it was such a comfort.

Remember that food is something you can control, too. Even if it has to be healthy, it can still be tasty! And isn’t control what some of us want just a little bit out of life?

The Boy with the Bread

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Been reading The Hunger Games today because I recently watched the movie last night and am struck with a particular scene in the novel: Where Peeta, the bread boy, throws a starving Katniss burned bread from his kitchen.

For those of you who haven’t read the book, I suggest you go read it now. Not only is it great reading, but great writing too! From the first page you are drawn into Katniss’s world, you feel her emotion, and the unrest in the dystopian society that she lives in. (I can’t tell you how much I don’t like that word, for some reason it just irks me.) It is a fast read, but not a read for the faint of heart, certainly.

Anyway, I guess the English Major in me is stuck on the Boy with the Bread Scene and the juicy little bits that scene may or may not represent. Oh, it certainly doesn’t have to represent anything, but I love that it can and that Suzanne Collins isn’t dumb. That deliberately or not, she has created a scene that sums up the heart of the novel, or at the very least a great portion of it and that is:

Sacrifice.

What does Peeta sacrifice when he throws Katniss the bread? Well, he certainly didn’t get hurt for nothing. He was willing to risk injury to himself, in order to be “kind” to help out Katniss, who was someone in need.
His motives? Well, love. He later claims that he’s been in love with Katniss ever since a young age. (Although it certainly takes her awhile to believe it).

And isn’t that at the very heart of the novel? Peeta’s initial sacrifice only goes to emphasize Katniss’s sacrifice; the offer of her own life in exchange for her sister’s at the reaping. It is because of her love for her sister that she sacrifices herself. And other characters experience their own sacrifices as well. It is the love and the sacrifices accompanying them that says a lot about family, about life and death throughout the novel.

Any thoughts? What do you love about the novel? About the characters? About Katniss?

Iconic Characters in Movies and TV

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Just finished watching Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and I guess I am struck tonight by how inspiring great movie characters are and the writing behind them.

When you see the silhouette of Indiana Jones on the big screen, one doesn’t always see the great writing that went into such a script, but its been something that I’ve been thinking about lately. How great movie/TV characters stay with you and are a great inspiration for me, especially as a writer.

Everything about the characterization of Indiana Jones is well thought out, so cleverly or accidentally crafted; right down to the name of course. I did not know that Indiana was the name of George Lucas’ dog at the time! Hah!

But I was just telling my mother earlier today: “Look at a great character like Sawyer from Lost.”

Mom: “Yeah, what about him?”

Me: “Everything about the character is Sawyer, even the name. You can say the name Sawyer and you automatically know who or what that person is and (in Sawyer’s case) what clever lines he might have.”

Mom: “Okay…”

But my line of thinking is this: Who wouldn’t want to create a character as great as Sawyer, or Indiana Jones or Han Solo? To write something that has become legendary and I guess that’s the ultimate success, isn’t it? When the character becomes more than what’s on the page. It just simply IS.

(Here’s hoping that the new show Revolution has a similar feel, yeah? Even some of the lines we see in the trailer look good. But ah, I digress…)

When a character, or when a character’s lines or scenes or actions get inside you and make you laugh, cry or feel something – that is the ultimate success, too. Who wouldn’t want to create a character that quite literally flies off the page and reaches others? Because I know I definitely would!

The excitement of it…every little detail; to a head nod, to a muscle twitch in someone’s left hand…to their rumpled clothes. The perfect details. The perfect character. Ah… now who wouldn’t call that poetry?

New page check it out!!

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I just added a new page at the left there in my menu settings, “About this Blog.”  So have a go and find out what The Writer’s Hub is all about! 🙂

<====It’s over there. Just to be obnoxious. And yeah, because sometimes people are blind. And dumb. Or their brains got hijacked by space monkeys. Ever seen a space monkey? Hmm. What an interesting thing to write about…

Rainy Writer’s Block

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It is raining here in upstate, New York (thank you, hurricane, Isaac,) and I am having one of those days where the couch, a nice, warm blanket is where I want to spend the rest of my day. Suffice to say, you might think that this might be a nice time to write…NOT.

A view from my front porch; rain dripping off my mother’s hummingbird feeder.

The more I know I need to write, the more I can’t. When writing becomes an obligation, it becomes not fun anymore and then I  get that dreaded writer’s block. (This has been happening more often than not lately, now that I’ve given myself a deadline for this eBook and definitely want to see this one completed! I think I’m going to aim for November. I want a draft and some finalizations for November at the latest.)

I’m reminded of a fantastic article I found on Patricia Briggs’ website. (Patricia Briggs is one of my favorite authors…she writes primarily Urban Fantasy; the Mercy Thompson series…amoung other things.)

Anyway…where was that article again?

Ah, well I couldn’t find the article I wanted…buut, at any rate, the main gist of it was this: to find a way to make writing fun again.

  •  Go out for a walk, take a break from it, phone a friend…etc.
  • Try another project than the current one.
  • Write in a different character’s perspective for a while.
  • Think outside the box…think outside the current chapter you are working on.
  • Start writing in another place.
  • Research.

What I do sometimes: Take a character in your novel or current idea and have that character write a letter to another character. The end result is this: You get to know what your character is feeling, you know their relationship with that other character based on the letter that he or she wrote, and you get a better understanding of the motivation behind why he or she does what he or she does.

I like this technique because it is very personal and because it’s so personal, you can really understand and hear the particular voice that your character has. (I’m not just talking about the voices that writers hear in their heads, although, there is that too.) I’m talking about the voice, the mannerisms of your character; why he or she is the way he or she is.

Anyway, perhaps, I’ll go follow my own advice now…

Because when it comes down to it, only 20% of what you know of your character actually gets on the page; so you better know that character 100%! And who is a grand example of this? Only J.K. Rowling of course!

Self Publishing — Great Writing or No?

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I was doing some reading today on Smashwords.com and was taken to this page: http://blog.smashwords.com/

It is Smashword’s blog, where there is an interview with a self published or “Indie” writer, Rachel Higginson. (For those of you wondering what Smashwords is, it is a company that helps you create your own eBook. Out of all the eBook publishers out there, they seem to make it the simplest and the cheapest to publish to Kindle and all the other Electronic stores and I have chosen them to publish my own eBook.)

Rachel expresses in the interview, how she had a dream of being published since college, but all of the queries that she sent out to publishers kept getting rejected.

Now, she is a self-published writer and making a living at it! The article felt inspiring to me, who has the very same aspirations…to see my work in print and to make money from it someday.

Nasty spider who built its web in the corner of my house. Sometimes the art of writing is like a great web–there are so many different strands that make up the greatness of the whole, that sometimes one weakness can corrupt the overall structure.

I have not read Rachel’s work, so I cannot say anything as to the quality of her writing…but if she is a best seller, it must mean that it can’t be too terrible right?

My biggest fear is this: to present something that I might consider a work of art to the general public and have it be trash. There are many best sellers out there that have been critiqued for that very reason (Stephenie Meyer for example). They write a novel that reaches a large audience of people and while their characterization and their plot line isn’t original, or their writing, something in their story drew people in.

While one can argue that the writing is not great, the writer has presented an idea that is catching. While the plot is mediocre, and the writing cliché, I would like to argue that in some cases, there is a way to write good cliché.

And perhaps this is the case in many self-published novels. While editors are waiting for that next, great, purely, original idea, the readers and general public are saying: No, we like simple and we like fun and no amount of originality can make up for a good, simple and relatable read.

While I want to be a great writer and to be appreciated for the art of my writing, I also want to create a book that is relatable and fun for a wide audience. I think to create something that is relatable and fun to read is also difficult, because it comes down to style. Every writing style is different, just like every writer behind the writing is different.

My question is this: Is there a way to write well, but also make it accessible?

You see books out there classified as “great reads” but they are not best sellers. And while great reads are not always easy reads, they are not always the most interesting either.

Is there a way to write intelligently, but also make it accessible?

I think, that when it comes to a great writer, great writing is all about balance. And every self published author, must find their very own balance. Finding that balance, on the other hand, is a whole different matter…

New TV Show: Revolution! Yeah!

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Is anyone as excited as me about this new TV show coming on NBC in the fall??

My Dad’s only comment: “Where do they get the bows and arrows and swords from?” Hehehe. I love him.

Finally, NBC’s taking a show of post apocalyptic proportions and presenting it to us for entertainment! (Eh, with the exception of Terra Nova…and we all know how thaat turned out.) J. J. Abram’s involved, so it can’t be too terrible, right? Very excited about this!

As I am an avid TV watcher and lover (of course I am! I’m nerdy like that!) I will occasionally be reviewing some of my favorite TV shows on here. Revolution will most definitely be making an appearance. Also, keep an eye out for reviews of Vampire Diaries, Bones, and Once Upon a Time later on.

I love the summer, but I am excited about the new season of TV starting soon! FINALLY! Something worth watching! Can’t wait!