Archive for » February, 2010 «
First vampires get neutered and go back to high school. God knows why. You’d think they’d have better things to do with their immortality than sit through algebra and pine after jail bait. While the simpering pussy vampire isn’t new in the slightest (I remember being 11 and wanting to tell Louis to get a tan just to shut him the hell up), the market’s become saturated with whiny little bastards that somehow, by the graces of a rather sadistic set of gods, find something interesting having him pine after a chick 1/16 his age. That’s like a grown man falling in love with a sperm. Ew.
But now it’s seeped into zombies. How, I have no fucking idea. They’re not even sexually appealing. Vampires were stretching the necrophiliac in all of us. I mean, technically they were the UNDEAD, having already died and risen. Really creepy when you think about it. But zombies? Not only are they dead but they’re actually decomposing. How the shit can that be made into a romance?
I read Generation Dead expecting a hell of a lot more than what I got. Aside from the fact that it’s a total social commentary on how we treat people considered “different,” (I really don’t like being preached to), it was boring as hell. The “zombies” just kind of lumbered along as social activists without personalities and the MC started developing a crush on one. It’s a corpse. A reanimated corpse. That’s rotting. And may or may not have a craving for your brains. Nom nom nom?
And then we’re getting books like Never Slow Dance with a Zombie and I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It and I have to wonder where the hell the market went there. Yeah, it’s different but I thought SMeyer promoting unhealthy pedophile relationships was bad. Now girls (and guys?) are going to start hanging out at the morgue looking for dates.
I get the transition of vampires. I can see the evolution there. They’re supposed to be sexy so they can draw you in and eat you. But zombies? Why must we destroy zombies too? Why must they, too, get their testicles chopped off and handed to them? Why can’t we just keep them little more than brain-hungry puppets functioning on the basest of ferral instincts? Because that’s what they are.
So call me a zombist. I’d never date one. I don’t want to dance with one. I don’t want to kiss one. For the love of Christ. Can someone please give horror its nut sack back?
No, I’m not a PETA nut. I’m not even a crazy animal rights activist. I’m just morally opposed to zoos and any places where animals are harbored purely for our entertainment. Like Seaworld. Killer whales were not put on this earth to smack balls into baskets with their fins for us. Bears aren’t supposed to ride tricycles. Horses aren’t supposed to high dive. And so on and so forth.
Zoos and animal sanctuaries can have their merit. I’m not opposed to helping endangered animals thrive by breeding and caring for them in captivity, nurturing them back to healthy numbers, and then releasing them back into the wild. But do they really need to be put on display? Every zoo I’ve been to, the animals look downtrodden and melancholy. Some of them even look drugged for how sluggish and unresponsive they are. Ooooo, yay! I can see a tiger! I’d much rather pay for a safari on the Serengeti and put myself in the cage while the animals run around their homes as they should. Animals are much more majestic when they’re free to live.
So really, should we be all that surprised that a tiger jumped out of its compound at the San Francisco Zoo and mauled a kid to death after the dumbass kept pelting it with rocks? And the police shot the tiger to death. As if it was expected to be a little calico kitty. Or what about when a full-grown chimp going, pardon the pun, ape shit on someone, literally ripping her face off, after being made to perform for most of its life, not to mention slapped on human mood stabilizers? Really? And again, the chimp died.
And now we got a killer whale (uh, hello?) that lived up to its name and started to eat its trainer during a live show down in Seaworld. If my life were reduced to a performing monkey act, I’d probably want to eat my trainer too.
And let’s not forget Roy’s unfortunate run in with his own Siberian tiger at his show. But the tiger was in good spirits before the show, they say! Guys, it’s a fucking tiger. Let’s get real here, okay?
Let me put it this way: the only reason dogs don’t eat our faces in the night is because they’ve been domesticated for 10,000 years. And even then they still maintain that instinct that allows them to flip out on people for no apparent reason or provocation. These performing animals? They’re, what, two, maybe three generations born in captivity? Do you really think you’ve bred the wild out of them in that short of a time span? Please tell me people can’t be that stupid.
Go ahead and think I’m a heartless bitch for not really caring that yet another trainer got his ass eaten by a performance animal. That’s the risk they take, isn’t it? You had Steve Erwin doing all sorts of inappropriate things to exceptionally wild animals. He put himself in that danger so the law of numbers would dictate that the probability he’d die by one of those ferocious animals would increase dramatically. Not a shock that he ended up going out that way. And the Grizzly Man living his life with wild grizzly bears. Are we really that surprised that he was mauled to death by one? Duh?
It’s like being surprised that a race car driver dies racing his car. You’d think it’d almost be inevitable considering the risk involved in doing something like that. You put yourself in that risk. So don’t be surprised if you die by it. These aren’t kittens and puppies and cute little teddy bears. They. Are. Wild. Animals. Period. They function on pure instinct. Just because you’ve trained it to toss a ball in a basket doesn’t mean it isn’t plotting your death.
Over at Cornell Deville, he’s running a type of workshop thing for showing versus telling that I decided to join. Why not, right? After I finished writing my little blurb, I looked at what I wrote and my jaw dropped. Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re writing (or after you’ve written something) where you’re truly, amazingly proud of what you’ve put on paper? And I’m not talking about just liking what you’ve written but a level of “OMFG I just wrote that! I rock!” That’s how I felt and still feel about this little blurb. It’s a definite ‘holy shit’ for me. Now if I could just maintain, I’d be golden.
But the deal for this little exercise was it had to be no more than 250 words and contain the following information: 1) Your main character is 12 years old. 2) She has long hair and we need to know the color. 3) She’s wearing white shorts, a tank top and flip flops. 4) It’s a late summer evening. 5) Her parents are out, and she thinks she’s alone in the house. 6) Something is making her believe otherwise.
Simple enough. We just couldn’t spell out the obvious. He gave a good example using other prompts of showing versus telling that you all should check out. I know I’ve practiced my own SvT on here. But here’s what I came up with for my bit to the action. Can you spot everything I needed to include in my less-than-250-words?
Slick foam rubber smacks against the soles of Maia’s feet to the tune of the aging grandfather clock in the living room. Tick flop. Flip tock.
She hurries past a black window where two luminescent eyes flicker unevenly at her from the other side. In the dead of August days, Maia’s hair burns just as brightly as those flickering bugs. Now it’s just knotted on top of her head to keep from smothering her neck. What was once flowing and smooth was now a nest of uncontrollable frizz.
Stark white shorts hidden behind smears of summer fwap against the wall as she grabs a pair of jeans. The dead duds on the floor came home in a bag from Mom’s hand, not hers. But the spaghetti straps are a must. She would have preferred a tube top but Mom didn’t allow those. Yet.
Just one more night until ‘teen’ officially enters Maia’s life. The kids at school won’t be able to call her a baby anymore.
The porch’s screen door slams and Maia jumps at the call. She frowns and walks to the window where an empty, velvet driveway waves back up at her. The screen slams again and she looks to the trees just out of reach. Their leaves hang heavy in the thick, humid air. A stair creaks and Maia’s heart starts racing the tocking of the grandfather clock.
First one to morning wins.
So I’ve finished typing in all of my edits for Earth Shatterer. It became pretty easy towards the end as I didn’t see much to really change. A few words here and there but nothing major. So when I looked at the ending word count I noticed that I’ve chopped a solid 9,000 words from the previous draft. Not a bad feat. That’s 9,000 unnecessary words gone. But now that leaves me with a word count that’s leaning more towards middle grade than young adult. Crap.
I want the count at at least 50,000 so puffing it up with another 4,000 words isn’t that big of a deal. I don’t want it to be too bare bones and I know a few places where I can go into fleshier detail about some things. But still. It’s a see-saw man, I swear.
Well, at least I don’t have to do another total rewrite. I’m pretty happy with what I have. The first chapter needs to be reworded a bit as the voice is a little off but overall, I’m satisfied. Now it’d be nice if I can be done with it already! I’m so close!
It literally just dawned on me as I was reading something in first person. Just now. Like I’m not reading a book in first as we speak but that’s besides the point. Sometimes things take a little while for me.
I don’t like using first person POV because, reading it, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. When I snap into writer mode, I’m looking at first person and going, is that how the character is really thinking? “Sun rays danced across the ground like faeries in a circle.” Really? If I think that way then I can’t help but think of the Family Guy episode where Peter narrates his own life. Equally as ridiculous.
If it’s not thought presently but maybe the MC relaying information after the fact, then they really talk like that? Really? Star-freckled skies? Really?
It just doesn’t make sense to me. First person is as intimate as you can get with a character. You’re literally inside their brains as they’re going through the story. When they’re going through the actions, do they really think all of that in such a verbose way? Really?
When I snap out of writer mode, it’s fine and some damn good writing. Of course I can read through it just fine. But writer mode keeps poking through the screen going WTF?!
Maybe I’m being way too technical here. First person is inside the character’s head. In the character’s voice. Sometimes I can’t help but think what pretentious asses characters are when they spout off internally like that. At the same time the same thing could be said for third person limited. Sort of. You’re not in the head there. More like on it. Same character voice but you’re not squishing the brain.
I mean, dialogue is one thing but when people shut their mouths, you have to wonder what’s running through their heads and if it’s anywhere near as loquacious as some of these first person narratives make them out to be. I have a hard time believing they all are but writers have to stretch their creative fingers somehow, right? I just have a hard time believing even fictional characters are running that high all the time.
