Monday, October 27, 2014

Revisiting

            Well, I've done it again. Surprise, surprise, I've left writing my blog too late and I can’t come up with any ideas for what to say this week. Possibly because I didn't even notice that a whole week had passed. The trouble is, this time I've run out of clever ideas for filling the empty space.

            I mean, I've already blogged about blogging, written blogs that didn't exist and simply saidsomething profound. What else is left?


            Revisiting them, I guess.





Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.






If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Memory

            This morning, while I was driving to GenreCon, I had an idea for a blog topic. It was a good, profound one, too. I even had it half written in my mind. By the time I arrived, I had no clue what the idea was about.

            Memories are fascinating and frustrating things. You can’t remember what you want to (at least, not when you want to) and you can’t forget what you don’t want to remember. Memory varies from person to person, both in content and in style.

            Personally, I know my memory is in third person. I don’t remember events as if they happened to me; I remember them as if I observed them happening to myself. I also have an excellent memory, at least for most things (blogs apparently not being most things). I tend to be able to replay events for analysis with a high accuracy to how things actually occurred.

            On the other hand, there’s my brother. He has a pretty good memory most of the time, but every now and then he tells a story from our childhood that is slightly confused – specifically in that he remembers things that happened to him as happening to me. They mostly seem to be his unpleasant memories, so I suppose it was a coping mechanism to superimpose them onto me. I find it amazing, though, that a brain can do that.

            One of the best stories I have about different types of memories, though, comes from my mom. She has a good childhood friend who she visits with every now and then. When they are remembering past times, my mom’s friend can remember all the details of an event – even recalling conversations word for word. My mom, on the other hand, remembers all of the emotions connected to the event, what it felt like to be there. Together they’re able to paint a very accurate picture of their shared memories.


            Now... what was I talking about again...?






Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.






If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving

            Hey, it’s Thanksgiving, isn't it? Well, at least here in Canada it is. That means this should be an easy blog to write, right?

            To be honest, I've never really appreciated Thanksgiving. Taking a day aside to be grateful for things? It just didn't make sense to me, because the things I'm grateful for, I'm grateful for all the time. I mean, if I needed a special day just to sit down and think about what I'm thankful for, I’d be pretty ungrateful.

            No matter, it’s as good a reason as any to get together with family and eat too much food.

            I’d list all that I'm thankful for, but the list is both too short and too long. So I’ll stick to saying I'm grateful for short blog posts on nights when I stayed up too late and didn't get around to writing them earlier.


            Happy Thanksgiving. But only to Canadians (and anyone else who doesn't have their own Thanksgiving but wants to join us in ours). You Americans have to wait.





Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.






If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Monday, October 06, 2014

The Hobbit Book Review (Sort of)

            I guess this isn't really a review because, let’s face it, The Hobbit really doesn't need any reviews. If I even have to tell you it was written by J.R.R. Tolkien, chances are you’re reading the wrong blog. So, I guess this is more like my thoughts on the book rather than an actual review.

            Naturally this isn't the first time I've read this book and it most certainly won’t be the last. I think I was in the area of five years old when my dad read The Hobbit to me and my brother. I loved it, in spite of the recurring nightmare it gave me (Smaug chasing me and my family – actually, when the dragon attacked in the movie, it was almost identical to my dreams. Well done, Peter Jackson). It is, to this day, one of the greatest stories I've ever read.

            It isn't just the story itself that has made this book so great, but the writing. Tolkien’s style in this book has personality. It’s more than just words on a page, its storytelling. The book reads as if Tolkien is sitting there in front of you, a fire crackling in the fireplace while he tells you this beautiful tale.

            As I read the book this time, marvelling at how wonderful and enjoyable it was, I came to notice something that I find to be very sad.

            No one would publish The Hobbit in this day and age.

            It all comes down to the writing and what is expected of us as authors. If you look up writing tips, Tolkien goes against a great many of the ones you’ll find.

            We’re supposed to use “said” all the time. No more dwarves grumbling what they say or Bilbo squeaking when he’s frightened. Apparently readers’ eyes just skip over the “said”s and similar. Personally, I read every word in a book and there’s nothing quite as bland as seeing nothing but “said”.

            Exclamation marks! We’re not supposed to use too many exclamation marks. They lose their effectiveness if they’re used too frequently, it’s true, but the amount they’re supposed to be cut out is unbelievable. Used properly, exclamation marks change the entire tone of a sentence, the feel of the book. You wouldn't believe how many of them Tolkien uses! I agree with moderation, but these days they’re becoming extinct.

            Adjectives. Descriptive words. We’re supposed to avoid them. Some people take this too literally and say to never use them. Instead of a nice word that gives clear and definitive meaning to something, we’re supposed to use excessive space to describe the specific characteristics of those words. To me, that’s a waste of time for both the writer and reader if every time someone waves excitedly their hand waves back and forth in blur with a grin on their face. Tolkien uses adjectives all the time and very effectively. Again, it’s a case of using it in moderation, but elimination clutters the writing.

            So, on the off chance that someone decided to publish The Hobbit, they would first run it through editors to eliminate all these “problems”. I can’t say that I’d want to read the book once it came out the other end of that process. They’d take out the split infinitives.


            If you haven’t read The Hobbit before, you should. There’s never been a book like it before and there never will be one again until people stop clinging to guidelines as rules. Writing is an art and art is an expression of yourself. If you allow rules to remove your personality from your writing, can you still call it art?






Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.






If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.