readingredhead (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
readingredhead) wrote2008-09-22 09:09 pm
readingredhead) wrote2008-09-22 09:09 pm
Entry tags:
Writer's Block: Autumn Begins
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I have written a sonnet about the difference between spring and autumn, and it is posted somewhere on here, and I love it. Part of me wants to post it as an answer to this but I'm in the process of revising it for my poetry class on Wednesday so I'll probably keep it to myself for now.
I love autumn -- it's my favorite season. It's the transition between summer and winter -- the difference between the extremes, the warmth of summer sun and the cold of winter wind, and the moment when the leaves begin to fall in the same caramel-honey-auburn color as the slanting light that pierces my perception of life at around 5:27pm once daylight savings time hits.
I feel autumn in hot chocolate and warm blankets, in snuggling closer to the people I love on cold nights, in the condensation that forms on the inside of the single-paned windows of my dorm room, in the biting cold of early mornings, in the nestling of myself into puffy jackets and hiding from the elements in the safeguarding arms of warm wood libraries and cozy cafes. I feel it in the visceral sense that the world is preparing itself to be remade.
Also, it must be said -- now, and for the past three years, autumn is inextricably linked to National Novel Writing Month, which I am now going to shamelessly plug. DO IT! DO IT NOW! October 1st the site should open for sign-ups again. Is anyone crazy and stupid and wonderful enough to write with me this year? I still don't know what story I'm going to write. I have a few plotlines in my head. Because I am procrastinating doing my homework, I will discuss them now!
#1: At the moment I'm really considering writing this modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice that I thought up for my sister at the end of last year. I wrote the first part of it to her on a series of postcards. Technically I'd have to start from scratch since you're not supposed to bring written work with you into November, but it might be worth it. In my modern P&P, the Bennets live in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska. On a farm. Jane goes away to college in New York -- at NYU to be precise, studying communications -- and Elizabeth wants nothing more than to follow her sister in getting the hell out of Nebraska. But a (probably fictional) bill passed by the US House of Reps decreases the subsidies provided to corn farmers right after Jane goes to college, and Elizabeth knows her father won't have the kind of money he needs to support her at an out-of-state school, plus she still has three younger sisters who need to go to college, so she does the selfless thing and decides to go to University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Her plan is to save money so that she can go to grad school for journalism on the east coast. Of course she visits Jane in New York over the summer where she meets Darcy, and where Jane has met Bingley, and things progress from there...
#2: This is not nearly as detailed, but it's my attempt to answer a question that I've been thinking about for a while -- how do you write a fantasy story in which your main character has no magical powers at all? Meet Leia McAllister, 17-year-old Nordstrom employee (got to put that job training to use somehow!) who finds out, quite by accident, that her friend Jill is a wizard. And once she finds out, she's on the run from Earth's Wizarding Council, most of whom want her memory completely wiped. But, a mindwipe has to take place within a certain amount of time after the memory is made, otherwise there is a danger that the mindwipe will interfere with other more important memories and potentially impair intelligence. Of course some wizards on the Council wouldn't care, but there is a radical reformist movement battling it out with a traditional conservative movement and neither side can get the upper hand. And poor Leia gets stuck in the middle of this. (Also there are aliens who are wizards!)
#3: This is the anti-Twilight story. Boy meets Girl. Boy likes Girl. Boy is vampire. Girl is drug addict, has AIDS. Girl wants sex; no one wants Girl because Girl has AIDS. Boy is vampire and can't get blood diseases anymore. No one wants Boy because Boy wants to drink their blood. Girl doesn't care if Boy drinks her blood because she's going to die anyway, but would he sleep with her first? What starts out as a skewed relationship of convenience turns into something potentially meaningful just in time for Girl to die. The End. (Great antidote to Stephenie Meyer, yeah? I think of it as RENT meets Buffy.)
#4: There is one more, but I have forgotten it.
...so now I'm going to go and actually do homework. Radical idea, I know, but what can I say? I'm pretty awesome. :)
I have written a sonnet about the difference between spring and autumn, and it is posted somewhere on here, and I love it. Part of me wants to post it as an answer to this but I'm in the process of revising it for my poetry class on Wednesday so I'll probably keep it to myself for now.
I love autumn -- it's my favorite season. It's the transition between summer and winter -- the difference between the extremes, the warmth of summer sun and the cold of winter wind, and the moment when the leaves begin to fall in the same caramel-honey-auburn color as the slanting light that pierces my perception of life at around 5:27pm once daylight savings time hits.
I feel autumn in hot chocolate and warm blankets, in snuggling closer to the people I love on cold nights, in the condensation that forms on the inside of the single-paned windows of my dorm room, in the biting cold of early mornings, in the nestling of myself into puffy jackets and hiding from the elements in the safeguarding arms of warm wood libraries and cozy cafes. I feel it in the visceral sense that the world is preparing itself to be remade.
Also, it must be said -- now, and for the past three years, autumn is inextricably linked to National Novel Writing Month, which I am now going to shamelessly plug. DO IT! DO IT NOW! October 1st the site should open for sign-ups again. Is anyone crazy and stupid and wonderful enough to write with me this year? I still don't know what story I'm going to write. I have a few plotlines in my head. Because I am procrastinating doing my homework, I will discuss them now!
#1: At the moment I'm really considering writing this modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice that I thought up for my sister at the end of last year. I wrote the first part of it to her on a series of postcards. Technically I'd have to start from scratch since you're not supposed to bring written work with you into November, but it might be worth it. In my modern P&P, the Bennets live in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska. On a farm. Jane goes away to college in New York -- at NYU to be precise, studying communications -- and Elizabeth wants nothing more than to follow her sister in getting the hell out of Nebraska. But a (probably fictional) bill passed by the US House of Reps decreases the subsidies provided to corn farmers right after Jane goes to college, and Elizabeth knows her father won't have the kind of money he needs to support her at an out-of-state school, plus she still has three younger sisters who need to go to college, so she does the selfless thing and decides to go to University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Her plan is to save money so that she can go to grad school for journalism on the east coast. Of course she visits Jane in New York over the summer where she meets Darcy, and where Jane has met Bingley, and things progress from there...
#2: This is not nearly as detailed, but it's my attempt to answer a question that I've been thinking about for a while -- how do you write a fantasy story in which your main character has no magical powers at all? Meet Leia McAllister, 17-year-old Nordstrom employee (got to put that job training to use somehow!) who finds out, quite by accident, that her friend Jill is a wizard. And once she finds out, she's on the run from Earth's Wizarding Council, most of whom want her memory completely wiped. But, a mindwipe has to take place within a certain amount of time after the memory is made, otherwise there is a danger that the mindwipe will interfere with other more important memories and potentially impair intelligence. Of course some wizards on the Council wouldn't care, but there is a radical reformist movement battling it out with a traditional conservative movement and neither side can get the upper hand. And poor Leia gets stuck in the middle of this. (Also there are aliens who are wizards!)
#3: This is the anti-Twilight story. Boy meets Girl. Boy likes Girl. Boy is vampire. Girl is drug addict, has AIDS. Girl wants sex; no one wants Girl because Girl has AIDS. Boy is vampire and can't get blood diseases anymore. No one wants Boy because Boy wants to drink their blood. Girl doesn't care if Boy drinks her blood because she's going to die anyway, but would he sleep with her first? What starts out as a skewed relationship of convenience turns into something potentially meaningful just in time for Girl to die. The End. (Great antidote to Stephenie Meyer, yeah? I think of it as RENT meets Buffy.)
#4: There is one more, but I have forgotten it.
...so now I'm going to go and actually do homework. Radical idea, I know, but what can I say? I'm pretty awesome. :)
Re: Plotlines
#2: "Leia"...OK... This is roughly the Young Wizardry universe? If you do do this, I want to see if you can go through the entire book without granting her magical powers. That includes magical devices, etc. (I suppose she can come into contact once or twice, but it can't be an advantage!)
#3: Sounds like RENT meets...wait... *has not read Twilight.
#4: [error: no information]
I'd like some hot chocolate...
Re: Plotlines
#2: Yes, Leia. Her father was a major SW fan, and her mother agreed that they'd name her Luke if she was a boy and Leia if she was a girl, because the mom was so convinced it would be a boy. Look how well *that* turned out!
It kind of is in a Young Wizards-esque universe, except with a lot more bureaucracy in the wizarding hierarchy. And Leia, who would die before admitting she's a die-hard SW fan herself, will be intensely wowed by the alien wizards who will be too much like Jedi for their own good. I'm also considering that George Lucas potentially had wizards in his employ, who led him to design certain aliens in SW after *actual* aliens that they had met, so Leia might run into some of those or at least hear about their existence. :)
The whole point is to keep her completely normal throughout the book. In fact, thus is the book title, currently: "Normal." She's gonna be completely powerless. This is not one of those things where she suddenly finds out at the end that she has magical powers!
#3: Do not read Twilight. Unless you want your eyes to BURN.
no subject
#1: This is my favorite of the bunch. It's cute, it'll be a great plot outline at least to follow, and modernizing any story is always a blast. Plus, it's got NYU, which is beautiful and awesome. Would you keep the names?
#2: I like stories that seem like the main character is unexpected. Like here, it's not the wizard herself as the main character, it's her friend. There was a book I read once in which the protagonist's (16-year old) best friend is pregnant, rather than the main character herself. Fun spin.
#3: Hahahahaha this just makes me laugh. It's like a better, grown-up, and not-yet-but-will-be-well-written Twilight.
#4: I changed my mind. THIS is my favorite.