Wednesday, January 23, 2008

There are reasons.
Today Nana will do away with her usual third person thing and talk to y'all normal. Mostly because the subject it semi-serious and Nana has trouble holding a third person speak when talkin all serious. so away we go.

**
As of late a dear friend of mine has been going through some hard times. While her troubles are not what this post is about, they are what got me thinking about things.
I love her deeply and will always be there for her, but, as with most things, when it gets to emotional or hard for her it gets hard for me. I am a sensitive empath so I can usually sense the general mood of most people. When They are someone close it's even stronger.
Since around high school, I've developed a way of turning off my feelings. This skill benefits me greatly in the military and in the sciences that I am pursuing. The only problem is that I have the tendency to do it in situations like the above. It doesn't mean that I don't care, just that I am not going to show much reaction.
This got me thinking further into my hobbies, writing in particular. It was around midnight on one of the more emotional days that the thoughts came to me.

The general idea behind any entertainment is escapism. To be able to forget the world around you for a short period. There are many types of shows and there are audiences for them all. Myself in particular, I hate reality shows. I can't find a real point to them. Then there are the shows/movies like Van Wilder, American Pie, and all the other "I'm a stupid, horney, one dimensional college kid who will l do anything to get laid" types.
I like good stories, characters, coherent plot, you know, something I can really get into and want to watch again. Granted I do have a few guilty pleasures that aren't so plot/character driven, but even I need that little bit of pointless stupidity to relax once in a while.
Same with the games I play. I like games with not only good game play, but story and characters as well. I do have some that are pure game play like the Touhou series and a few hack and slash that spot my collection.
As for books, I hate those trashy romance novels. They are all just glorified sex stories, like Showgirls. I have always believed that a good romance, and this doesn't just apply to books, shouldn't have to rely on the libido of their watchers. Same with the horror movies that are coming out. They are all full of sex/rape and just plain pointless things.
Back to books.
What I like about books more than any other media is the flexibility of imagination. Good books will paint a good picture of the world they are telling of, but leave enough room for the reader to add their own details to help bring them into the story. One of the movies that has always stood as a great example of this flexibility is the Lord of the Rings. Tolken painted a beautiful world in the series and when Peter Jackson brought that world to the screen, you could see that vibrancy and through the extras on the Limited ed DVDs, you could see just how much interpretation went into creating a representation of that world.
But when all is said and done, what calms me the most, engages me the most,is my own writing. After I was finished talking with my friend that night, I found myself going through the things I've written. There is something soothing about it. And the reason behind it, the world in the stories and the novel I am writing are my own personal world. I created those worlds, those characters, so it's all very familiar and comforting to "hang out" in them.
I try to follow the same guidelines I apply to the books I read to the things I write. I know I'm not the best, but I do believe I am good. The care I take to create a character, who they are, who they will be, and what they were; their past, present, and future are all in my mind. Especially for the novel I'm writing, I have many smaller, separate stories that cover their past and sometimes their future. I have shorts that are little one shots that aren't really a part of their lives but just a bit of who they are. Like "A Day in the Life of" kinda things.
In a book series I read by Orsen Scott Card, I found a little thing that rings true to my belief as a writer, A maker is part of what he makes. The best stories that I know have parts of their creators in them. There is alot of me in what I write. If you were to go back and look at all the modern stories I write, including the novel, you'll find that at least one character is an anime fan. In the case of the novel, it's the main character; and in later years of the characters' lives, the main character's daughter becomes a big fan.
So even though I do get writers block, I still find myself reading it over and over. Or writing something unrelated to the main story. That is why I ask people to throw out ideas of stories. I like to be challenged and it's hard to challenge myself. So those of you reading this, don't be scared and give me something you'd like to see a story about.

I know this whole thing might seem a bit tangential but I could care less.

**

In other news, DUDE Keith Ledger is DEAD. WTF!!! Nana knows this sounds cold, but she hopes that they finished the new Batman before it happened. Ledger is the creepiest Joker I have seen; just do a google image search if you don't believe Nana.

Nana is crying twin waterfalls!!!!


NNM
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