I’m thinking...
Last night the urge to write was strong, however, inspiration was sadly evasive. I feel like starting on a new story, but I’m having difficulties deciding on a plot line. This always seems the way, whenever the urge to write is the strongest, inspiration as to content of your story is always the hardest to find. Anyways, I was thinking of various writing styles that I could choose from, and I'm finding myself rather fascinated with writing in first-person. It's so very hard to write in first person well. I used to write all my stories in first person, and then I went through a stage where I realized how much easier it was and I felt that it was an easy way out, so I avoided it like the plague.
The truth is though, I think it is almost more challenging to write in first person because of that initial feeling that it is easier, because really, it isn't. I remembering that was what struck me the most when I read "Brideshead Revisited" for the first time. It was the gradual realization that I did not like the character from whose point of view the story was told, and I wasn't really meant to. It's interesting, I think, because when a story is told in first person you almost feel automatically an identification with the person through whose eyes you are seeing the story. It's hard to help- it's one's natural impulse, you are seeing the world through this character's eyes, so you can't help but feel attached to them in some shape or form. So I've been finding stories where it is told in first person but you end up disliking that character rather interesting.
Agatha Christie has written a few of them, another one that jumps to my mind is "Rebbecca," you don't really dislike the young woman from "Rebbecca" however, she is rather insignificant. She seems to be rather unimportant and we end up looking over her, seeing her only as a tool to view the more important, significant characters. The whole thought rather fascinates me, the idea of the character we see in first person being dis-likable or even insignificant as we view the bigger fuller picture of the other characters. I'm rather tempted to try my hand at writing in a styling like that.
Also, sadly, I think I'm in a rather melodramatic mood. I feel like writing a story of cutthroats and pirates and ruffians. Which is strangely out of my comfort zone as I've never written something like that, or at least, not for a great many years. I prefer to write "everyday" stories, stories of ordinary people living mostly ordinary lives. I'm not really sure if I could write a truly melodramatic story anyway, I would have too much fun with it and be poking fun at all the characters. Oh dear, the idea is getting rather more tempting with each second I turn it over, a tale in the first person with a bland, boring character who no one much likes. A melodramatic tale in which I make fun of all of my characters and their dramatics.
I definitely do want to attempt to write something in first-person again. It's really much more challenging, I think now, to write in first person without loosing the identity of your character and making them blah or making them into this super human with perfection in all things. Interesting thoughts to think about.
From the Kitchen...
Crumbs lying on a white plate with blue rim. A red mug, half filled with steaming coffee. An almost empty Coffee-pot sitting on the counter. These are the items our kitchen is made of in the morning.
I'm reading...
*scuffles bashfully* Emily has leaped to yet another book, last night I went and read a copy of L. M. Montgomery's short stories, cover to cover. All her stories make me so happy. I think carry them with me for always. Whenever I'm in a rather gloomy mood I shall whip out one of her books from my purse (that's the other nice thing about quite a few copies of her books, they are all so nice and small and yet plump at the same time that they fit especially well into one's purse) and I shall read a page or two, wherever I am. Then I shall go prancing around throwing flower petals and sunshine at the world.
I'm wearing...
Storybook description time: the girl writing away at her desk hunches over so she can adjust to a better positioning in which she can smack at the keyboard with her long fingers. Her blond hair is twisted and pulled over her shoulder. She looks rather sleepy and shivers for all of her warm red sweater. It is a cold, sleepy sort of morning.
Around the house...
There is really nowhere else I would rather be at the present moment. I'm really quite content sitting here, writing away at my journaling page this morning, though later this afternoon a nap might be nice. Is that too much of a luxury for me to ask for?
I'm listening to...
Pachebel Cannon is playing in the background. Do you know, I think it is fixedly in my mind Wedding music, because when I close my eyes I can picture the bride dressed in white, walking slowly up the isle, with the rest of the wedding party walking slowly after her. I feel like going to a wedding. I love weddings. They are just such beautiful, happy things. *beams happily as she thinks about it* Someone should get married and invite me to the invite me to their wedding. *contemplates* I could write a story one a wedding. *blinks* that could be a simply marvelous idea...I must think on this.
To live the liturgy...
I would like to make it to part of the twenty hour adoration this Friday. I'm not sure if I will be able since it's Eli's tenth birthday, but if not this week I definitely will make it the next week, and I might still be able to go this week, we just need to think how to plan it all.
I'm creating...
I just finished a four page letter and drawing that I'm going to be sending off to Australia today. Good speed to you, little letter.
A few plans for the rest of the week...
This week I'm going to be very good. A good scholar. I refuse to make any other little plans that might distract me from this goal. Emily has been bad girl recently. *hangs head*
One of my favorite things...
A spring breeze in the air, a book in my hand, a warm patch of sunlight out in the grassy yard, just reading. I'm ready for spring to come, can you tell? *beams*
Monday, February 27, 2012
Emily Writes
I'm thinking...
At the moment I'm bemoaning the fact that I am writing on a program that apparently doesn't have a feature to check my spelling for me. It is most unsettling, truthfully. For, as I write, I'm begining to wonder rather frantically 'did I just mispell that?' 'how about that?' and there is no way of knowing. So then I begin to feel that perhaps I shouldn't be writing at all, if I'm to be mispelling every second word (I know I can check it later, but I want to know as I go along. Yes, I know, I'm spoiled.) Really, I need to be more determined. I sat down to write, and I'm going to write, come mispellings and grammer errors! It is unerving me though, and I must try and stop thinking about it.
Actually, on a more interesting strain of thought, I was just thinking about free writing. It's really a good practice. I was just reading in a book how they all sugest that the best practice at becoming a good writer is to sit down and force yourself to write unstoppingly for however long, without thinking about mispelling and grammer errors and wondering if your topic of discussion is interesting. The thing is just to sit down and write whatever thought comes into your head and not correct or worry but let yourself put your thoughts onto paper and see what comes of them.
I was thinking however, that really, that's how I write normally. Okay, so I'm constantly slowing down and backspacing and looking for a good subject to talk about, but the general idea of writing to get down your thoughts is how I write normally, and Iove reading when people write like that. The very best emails and letters are the ones that you know the person writing you has done that. They've written to you exactly how they were thinking and how they would talk to you. I think that's really a sign of someone who writes well, you know. Writing is the way they pick up the stream of their thoughts and put it into words.
So many people's writing in letters and things happens to be very stiff and formal. Unlike how they would talk to you. They pick their topics carefully, put them into stiff paragraphs with stiff formal periods at the end of each stiff formal sentance. I find myself writing like that actually too, when I write to somebody I am less comfortable with. I was just picturing how it would be if we talked like that sort of letter to each other in real life. I can just picture the two people sitting straight up in their seats, their hands sitting on their laps and their feet tucked neatly under the chair as they looked at each other formally.
"Dear Fredricka, How are you?"
"I am quite well, dear Jane, and you?"
"Oh quite well, quite well."
"I planted a garden yesterday."
(insert look of interest and yet not over interest by anymeans)
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
(Insert awkward silence as we search for a new topic)
Nobody talks like that, you see. So we really shouldn't write like that. Well, you want some formality. Some proper organazation of the thoughts, but other than that we should write as we talk- only more so. Writing seems to be a way that you can get out all those words that you couldn't find the voice for in normal speech. Writing is a way that we can put down words that there didn't seem to be words that would be good enough when we were trying to speak them with our voice.
So there is nothing better that I like than an email or letter where I feel that the person writing it is talking to you, specifically you, and letting the words carry them away. Writing out their thoughts as they come to them, and not sticking stiffly to point one, two and three, in that order. You can always tell the people who love to write by their letters and emails, you can always tell they enjoyed themselves writing it because you enjoyed reading it. Right now I'm feeling rather blessed with my correspondants. I love people who write. I love people who read so much that they practically eat the words up off the page, and I love people who write like they are spilling out a box of words they had stored up just for the occasion.
I'm reading...
This morning I went and hunted up 'The 101 Dalmatations' to read aloud to my younger brothers for a little bit while they played with legos. Confession: I believe it was me that really wanted to read it. A friend was talking to me about it the other day, all about reading it again and this part and that part and fond memories flooded back to me. Memories of the funniest lines and of darling little scenes. Ever since then I've felt the urge to read it again myself. I think that's always the way, someone mentions a title and a few scenes they loved paticularly and after that you simply have to hunt up your own copy and read it again yourself.
It's suprising how much I love some of these books. I would almost say that 'The 101 Dalmations' is almost more of an adult book for all it's being a book for children. Every line is formed in this comical way that just makes me shake with laughter even when it's not a scene that is paticularly humourous in itself. I can just picture Dodie Smith writing it, she must have been chuckling to herself as she wrote each line. It's so unforced, you know. In some books the comical lines are very pointed, a character says something and you can tell it was meant for comic, but with 'The 101 Dalmations' no one character is saying anything very funny. The humour is deeper within the book than that. It's in each line, each sentance, practically vibrarinting from the very soul of the book.
Most of it is things that it would take a much older reader to comprehend though. A child listens and accepts the words without a question, giggling and clapping to hear about the doggies, but an older reader pauses over a sentance, reads it again with widened eyes, chokes, and bursts out laughing. There is so much humour hiding deep within the lines that unless you are reading carefully, you will never pick up on.
To live the liturgy...
Ash Wensday was yesterday. I'm really going to try and cut back on my computer time this Lent. In paticular I'm giving up a writing site connected with the school program I use and I am rather obsessivly attached to. I'm missing it. I'm missing reading through all of the threads, the debates, the crazies, the conversations, but the real reason I'm missing it is because I'm missing my friends there. They are all such dear people, and I miss them all, but there is a reason for this. A very good reason. I'm giving up a lot of my computer time because I want to create for myself a quieter atmeshere. Time of silence, for thinking and praying and opening up to a beauitful Lent full of growth. So I'm trying not to think of simply how much I miss talking to all my friends, since that isn't what I'm supposed to be focusing on- that would be taking away from the point. They will all be in my prayers, and I can still email some of them, so I'm trying to embrace these forty days of Lent, of quiet, of thought, of prayer.
I'm creating...
*cough* just because I'm not going to be going on my writing site doesn't mean I can't still partake in the contest does it? *giggles* There is a story contest for us poor suffers giving up our favorite thing. *grins* A contest for rather long stories. I'm rather excited. I have to think about the requirments a little more, and what I want to write with them, but I think I'm going to take part, and write a very long story.
Mom also found a contest that is going on in town for highschool artists. I'm thinking of attempting to draw something for that. I believe you are supposed to draw something of Victorian era in connection to an author of that time. I have to read up a little more on that one too.
Around the house...
I should really go do some tidying up now. Major tidying up. You would think I had been watching two tornados with the mess my little brothers have created this morning, and after that I should practice my violin, and read, and do some school work...and maybe take a nap...all before work...I should go get busy.
At the moment I'm bemoaning the fact that I am writing on a program that apparently doesn't have a feature to check my spelling for me. It is most unsettling, truthfully. For, as I write, I'm begining to wonder rather frantically 'did I just mispell that?' 'how about that?' and there is no way of knowing. So then I begin to feel that perhaps I shouldn't be writing at all, if I'm to be mispelling every second word (I know I can check it later, but I want to know as I go along. Yes, I know, I'm spoiled.) Really, I need to be more determined. I sat down to write, and I'm going to write, come mispellings and grammer errors! It is unerving me though, and I must try and stop thinking about it.
Actually, on a more interesting strain of thought, I was just thinking about free writing. It's really a good practice. I was just reading in a book how they all sugest that the best practice at becoming a good writer is to sit down and force yourself to write unstoppingly for however long, without thinking about mispelling and grammer errors and wondering if your topic of discussion is interesting. The thing is just to sit down and write whatever thought comes into your head and not correct or worry but let yourself put your thoughts onto paper and see what comes of them.
I was thinking however, that really, that's how I write normally. Okay, so I'm constantly slowing down and backspacing and looking for a good subject to talk about, but the general idea of writing to get down your thoughts is how I write normally, and Iove reading when people write like that. The very best emails and letters are the ones that you know the person writing you has done that. They've written to you exactly how they were thinking and how they would talk to you. I think that's really a sign of someone who writes well, you know. Writing is the way they pick up the stream of their thoughts and put it into words.
So many people's writing in letters and things happens to be very stiff and formal. Unlike how they would talk to you. They pick their topics carefully, put them into stiff paragraphs with stiff formal periods at the end of each stiff formal sentance. I find myself writing like that actually too, when I write to somebody I am less comfortable with. I was just picturing how it would be if we talked like that sort of letter to each other in real life. I can just picture the two people sitting straight up in their seats, their hands sitting on their laps and their feet tucked neatly under the chair as they looked at each other formally.
"Dear Fredricka, How are you?"
"I am quite well, dear Jane, and you?"
"Oh quite well, quite well."
"I planted a garden yesterday."
(insert look of interest and yet not over interest by anymeans)
"Oh really?"
"Yes."
(Insert awkward silence as we search for a new topic)
Nobody talks like that, you see. So we really shouldn't write like that. Well, you want some formality. Some proper organazation of the thoughts, but other than that we should write as we talk- only more so. Writing seems to be a way that you can get out all those words that you couldn't find the voice for in normal speech. Writing is a way that we can put down words that there didn't seem to be words that would be good enough when we were trying to speak them with our voice.
So there is nothing better that I like than an email or letter where I feel that the person writing it is talking to you, specifically you, and letting the words carry them away. Writing out their thoughts as they come to them, and not sticking stiffly to point one, two and three, in that order. You can always tell the people who love to write by their letters and emails, you can always tell they enjoyed themselves writing it because you enjoyed reading it. Right now I'm feeling rather blessed with my correspondants. I love people who write. I love people who read so much that they practically eat the words up off the page, and I love people who write like they are spilling out a box of words they had stored up just for the occasion.
I'm reading...
This morning I went and hunted up 'The 101 Dalmatations' to read aloud to my younger brothers for a little bit while they played with legos. Confession: I believe it was me that really wanted to read it. A friend was talking to me about it the other day, all about reading it again and this part and that part and fond memories flooded back to me. Memories of the funniest lines and of darling little scenes. Ever since then I've felt the urge to read it again myself. I think that's always the way, someone mentions a title and a few scenes they loved paticularly and after that you simply have to hunt up your own copy and read it again yourself.
It's suprising how much I love some of these books. I would almost say that 'The 101 Dalmations' is almost more of an adult book for all it's being a book for children. Every line is formed in this comical way that just makes me shake with laughter even when it's not a scene that is paticularly humourous in itself. I can just picture Dodie Smith writing it, she must have been chuckling to herself as she wrote each line. It's so unforced, you know. In some books the comical lines are very pointed, a character says something and you can tell it was meant for comic, but with 'The 101 Dalmations' no one character is saying anything very funny. The humour is deeper within the book than that. It's in each line, each sentance, practically vibrarinting from the very soul of the book.
Most of it is things that it would take a much older reader to comprehend though. A child listens and accepts the words without a question, giggling and clapping to hear about the doggies, but an older reader pauses over a sentance, reads it again with widened eyes, chokes, and bursts out laughing. There is so much humour hiding deep within the lines that unless you are reading carefully, you will never pick up on.
To live the liturgy...
Ash Wensday was yesterday. I'm really going to try and cut back on my computer time this Lent. In paticular I'm giving up a writing site connected with the school program I use and I am rather obsessivly attached to. I'm missing it. I'm missing reading through all of the threads, the debates, the crazies, the conversations, but the real reason I'm missing it is because I'm missing my friends there. They are all such dear people, and I miss them all, but there is a reason for this. A very good reason. I'm giving up a lot of my computer time because I want to create for myself a quieter atmeshere. Time of silence, for thinking and praying and opening up to a beauitful Lent full of growth. So I'm trying not to think of simply how much I miss talking to all my friends, since that isn't what I'm supposed to be focusing on- that would be taking away from the point. They will all be in my prayers, and I can still email some of them, so I'm trying to embrace these forty days of Lent, of quiet, of thought, of prayer.
I'm creating...
*cough* just because I'm not going to be going on my writing site doesn't mean I can't still partake in the contest does it? *giggles* There is a story contest for us poor suffers giving up our favorite thing. *grins* A contest for rather long stories. I'm rather excited. I have to think about the requirments a little more, and what I want to write with them, but I think I'm going to take part, and write a very long story.
Mom also found a contest that is going on in town for highschool artists. I'm thinking of attempting to draw something for that. I believe you are supposed to draw something of Victorian era in connection to an author of that time. I have to read up a little more on that one too.
Around the house...
I should really go do some tidying up now. Major tidying up. You would think I had been watching two tornados with the mess my little brothers have created this morning, and after that I should practice my violin, and read, and do some school work...and maybe take a nap...all before work...I should go get busy.
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