Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts

Sunday, 31 July 2016

Evolving In Your Craft

"You're just another brick and I'm a sledgehammer"
- Rihanna
It's the way she says it. There is some contempt there, tiredness, warning, matter of factness...It tells me a story; or causes me to superimpose my own story on the words. And in my mind, she's telling some guy (okay +Chris Brown ) who thinks he's the shit that he's actually not. He's just a brick and she's the sledgehammer.
SMASH! BURN!
GirlPower!Rihanna rocks.

Believe it or not, that extract actually does have something to do with evolving in your craft. Rihanna's just happens to be singing rather than writing. The point is, her way of singing has evolved to the point where you can pick up nuances without having them spelt out for you.
As a writer, I'm a great admirer of writers who can do that. I'm not sure I'm one of them yet. I do hope that there is visible evolution in my writing. I can see it in my fanfic on the Winchesters. The way I wrote it when I started out is definitely not how I write now. I'm not sure if it's because of greater understanding about how the Winchesters work or just me getting better. And for the record, writing about characters developed by someone else or even real person fan fiction is a whole different kettle of fish than writing original characters. It's a good way to get one's feet wet though. My first ever story I wrote for public consumption was a real person fanfic featuring +Rihanna and Chris Brown. It was immensely popular on tumblr I must say; even people who didn't like me personally stopped by to read it. And by not like me personally I mean they used to talk about me on other tumblr pages about how they REALLY don't like me but they just visit my page to read my fanfic. It gave me confidence. Let me know that my writing abilities weren't all just in my head.
Maybe.

sidebar; I'm at this hotel near my house and they're straight up playing +Dolly Parton...Like, I don't even know.

The most challenging thing to write, in fan fic or fiction is the 'sex scene'. People take for granted that since everyone (or close enough) does it, then it must be the simplest thing to write.
Right?
Wrong.
Most people write sex scenes where:
1. The foreplay is like interminable. IRL nobody has that kind of time. You're afraid one of your kids will wake up any minute, or you have to get up and go to work or +Empire is coming on any minute now. Ain't nobody got time to 'tease her nipple for hours'. And really, hands up if you want your nipple teased for hours. No seriously. hands up.
2. There is all this explanation of whose limbs go where in a very mechanical way that loses me about three limbs in; I can't keep all that in my head at the same time. In fact a lot of people write very mechanical sex; he inserted his member into her hot leaking mount of venus and thrust hurriedly/leisurely/forcefully/desperately in and out until his vision whited out...if I had a nickel.
Thank you. Very much, for reminding us how sex works.
My sister's friend and I were chatting at my nephew's birthday party and she told me that she doesn't read novels anymore because she's unable to can with all the descriptive passages. An example of one would be the one I read last night where 'Jared' had been asked by 'Sandy' to take her to town and he didn't want to because it was a busy time on the ranch and he had a lot of work. See how I summarised that in one sentence? It was in three. bloody. paragraphs. I call them the 'who cares' sections of the story. Talking to my sister's friend caused me to have an epiphany.
Imagine you don't have to read through that crap.
Just go straight to the next pertinent part of the story.
I do that a lot even if I never realised it before it was verbalised by someone else. Especially with the so-called saucy parts. In my head, as I skim I'm thinking 'sex sex sex sex, uh huh, more sex, the end'.
Diana Gabaldon writes a mean sex scene though. I read through every word. There was this one thing Jamie did to Claire called 'girdling' where he was literally seducing her ass. It was epic. I wrote a whole piece about it on +EzineArticles. It's still one of my most popular articles. I'm grateful that at least one thing the Outlander Series gets right is the sex scenes. Because they've taken my Jamie and made him into this foolish typical male that he absolutely isn't. I had to stop watching. End of rant. Plus they made Claire bitchy. No really, end of rant.

Another writer who has absolutely impressed me, is compo67 on Archive on Our Own. This one sex scene she wrote was written as if they were composing music. I died with admiration, jealousy and envy.
In my own writing, the sex scene I'm really so proud of that I wrote it twice was the dub con at the beginning of Child of Destiny. That was some crazy shit that just wrote itself. My editor said it was too much. I said fuck you very much, it stays as is. It was raw, sometimes painful; but it was honest. And that's what I was going for.
Anyway, I need to get back to my day job. I had another breakthrough on the loo this morning and I'm yet to implement it in the story. Get Child of Destiny here and let me know if I should have listened to my editor.

Sunday, 19 June 2016

Story Envy

So I was reading this story on archive, about a boy who nobody remembers. Now when I'm reading a book and it's exceptionally good, I get this feeling in my chest of awe or respect. Not really sure how to describe it.
When I'm reading fanfiction and it's exceptionally good writing, I just get envious. Like seriously, why don't I have those skills? It's crazy.
I don't want to be envious. I don't like ugly emotions. But I can't help myself.
So this story about this boy who nobody remembered five minutes after he is out of sight; it was really good. But I don't recommend it. The reason I don't recommend it is that even if you're a writer, it won't make you jealous.
It will traumatise you.

You know those stories which grab you and pull you so deep into someone's mind set that you become that person? So much so that you feel like what's happening to that person is happening to you? That story was like that. It was not a happy ending. In fact, it was a regular Charlie Foxtrot. (I just figured out what that is!)
Well anyway, as writers I believe that's what we're all aiming for. To make the reader care excessively about the characters, so much so that they manage to totally escape their own lives and catapult into the universe you've created.
If this is at all something that's happened to you while reading any of my books, please do let me know.
Like...seriously.

It's father's day today. So I'm gonna tell you guys about 'The Bulitia Story' also known as Requiscant in Pace. Bulitia was my dad, and the main character in this novella is named after him. They share a lot in common; strength, resilience, fortitude, cunning...but my dad was never a slave and he wasn't put on a ship or nothing. I don't know about his encounters with the supernatural. One time, we were watching football; I think it was Euro20whatever, and it was Greece vs. Italy or something. In any case, Greece was the underdog.

Well as usual, my dad had fallen asleep on the chair and I think we woke him up talking about how Greece was going to be slaughtered. And he got up to go to bed and said "You know what? As long as my fist is closed, Greece is going to win the match."
And we were like, "Sure Daddy. That's going to happen."
Guess what happened.
Greece won.
It was the freakiest thing.
Maybe dads are all prophetic? I don't know.
Ali was. About his boxing.
I'm just gonna put that under the 'mysteries' box and get on with my life.
I have a BDSM story to write so I'm gonna get on that.
I really don't get how pain is pleasurable though.
http://bit.ly/RIPbookpage



Wednesday, 8 June 2016

There Are Various Ways To Be Sick

I feel like somebody gave me a severe beating. My neck muscles hurt, my arms hurt, my back hurts and my ribs hurt. My non-six pack feels...uncompromising. You'll never guess what brought me to this low.
See day before yesterday I got some craving for some iron in my system so I went out and bought some liver, fried it up and ate it with some Ugali and Sukuma Wiki. Sounds delish huh? I thought so. Ate too much. I know I did. I was still hangover cooking for two from my son being home on Sunday. Anyway...

So I continue with my work, watching CNN which has somehow become the default channel in my house; when I start to feel nauseous. Now my usual M.O for dealing with sickness is to ignore it and hope that by doing so, I can trick it into going away. Don't look at me like that. Sometimes it works.
This time though, it didn't. When I started throwing up, I didn't stop until morning. It was just on and on and on until there was nothing left to throw up but bile. I experienced mass reflex. Liver is banned from my menu forever.

When I woke up next morning I didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't do shit but lie in my bed all day to make sure that shit was gone.I hate vomiting. I loathe nausea. It's one of them main reasons I want to punch people in the throat when they tell me to have another child. You have another child. I have a puppy. A puppy doesn't make you throw up for nine months, or keep you up for the next two years all night breastfeeding, or bite your breasts, or cry, or talk. Basically all you have to do with a puppy is feed it once a day and wash it fortnightly. There. is. no. contest. Puppy wins by a landslide. Love you Chris.

Speaking of things that are nauseous, how about that +Donald Trump guy huh? Hail Hydra! Some vapid blonde was trying to argue his case with me on +Facebook. Here's a tip for free, if you have to twist what a guy is doing to make it seem palatable to normal people, you're the one with the huge problem. Still, the man has no shortage of supporters. +Piers Morgan for one. God it hurts to even say his name. He's such a fool. Like seriously, all the lights are off. How dare he put +Muhammad Ali  and Donald Trump in the same sentence? How dare he compare them? Seriously? Muhammad Ali said more inflammatory things? Yeah he did; he lived in the sixties. When segregation was still a thing. He was trying to set his people free. How dare anyone compare that to the hate Donald Trump spews? To his racism? God, it makes me so mad; I could punch him. That man is such an attention whore that it really doesn't matter what kind of attention he gets. He'll eat it up. That's why the only way to deal with him is to turn your back on his stupid, retarded ass and ignore him. That's what I'm gonna do. My blood pressure demands it.

Oh yeah, Muhammad Ali died. I'm happy for him because I do believe that he went to a better place. A place where his voice is loud again and he can trash talk everyone, come up with new rhymes and just all round continue to slay. I'm sure seventy two virgins are waiting and the original Mohamed will be on hand to give him a high five for a job well done.
It's also +Prince Rogers Nelson's birthday this week. Happy 58th birthday to you! Did you see that +Madonna . tribute? I mean...

So I went to the pharmacy today to get some pain killers for my muscles so I can at least function halfway to normal. The guy gave me a pack of ten. I asked if I need all of them. He said yes. I'm a pharm tech. I know that unless one has chronic pain one does not need to take ten tablets of a pain killer for temporary muscle pain. I will be better tomorrow, with or without painkillers. But these days it's all about the money money money and how much you can sell to people and next thing you know; Prince is dead.
People, take some time, educate yourself about everything that goes in your body. Or do like the townspeople of Le Marais do and let Mya's grandma help you out.