Thank you and farewell...

Brian Jacques passed away Saturday, February 5.

I got the news from Twitter and I was actually struck with physical shock when I read about it.

I can't say that I was always a big fan of Jacques, but he was definitely a huge part of my childhood. I loved Redwall, even if the other books in the series sometimes seemed to regress into repetition. My younger siblings loved the series and so I constantly was surrounded by the books all the time. I loved his narration in the recording of his books and I actually still use my CD of Redwall to fall asleep sometimes. His voice was just so soothing.

And now he's gone. It breaks my heart.

I blame the holidays and work...

Quite a bit to catch up on before 2010 ends, no? Here's a start.

December 26 – Soul Food What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?

Okay, I'm going to do some tweaking with this prompt to make it about writing (though I did eat some fantastic kebabs this year at a little mom'n'pop place about half an hour away. I went with friends, we had a great time and the food was heavenly).

Revised prompt: Soul Food What did you take in this year that you will never forget? What went into your brain and touched your soul?

I didn't do a whole lot of memorable novel reading this year. I could list books from the past few years that I've read and that have stuck with me or influenced my writing, but they were all in years past, not really 2010. I didn't have a lot of time in 2010, or at the least, didn't read books that really made an impact.

Outside of books, however, I read a lot. I was on the internet a lot for school and such (*cough procrastination cough*) and I read a lot of articles. A lot of blog posts, a lot of articles, a lot of TV Tropes. It's hard to pick a defining one.

Outside of reading, I got involved much deeply with YouTube. There is so much more on there besides silly cat videos and shots of people getting themselves hurt in improbable ways. Amongst my greatest finds were the VlogBrothers (especially their "Thoughts from Places" series and just general wackiness), Wheezy Waiter, and bandgeek8408. All with their own brands of wacky, but occasionally the beautiful insight that makes you ache with its truth. Beautiful, beautiful things.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

December 20 – Beyond Avoidance What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

- Should have written more. Like, a lot more (trying to fix that now).

- Should have read the box of library books sitting across my room (seriously, some of them have been out for, like, months).

- Should have watched the last few episodes of the last season of Beauty and the Beast (for real, that has been out for months... I want closure, I just can't bring myself to sit down and look at Elliot's mullet again).

There's always going to be "shoulda, woulda, coulda"s in life. But all of the above were avoidable. Like, easily avoidable. But that means that they could still happen. I just need to stop watching YouTube videos and start on Maddigan's Fantasia.

Jones and Miyazaki...

I've found that the best way to get something done is to stop whining about how it isn't done yet and actually do it. The hard part is convincing myself that the truth of this is truly truthful.
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In the wake of NaNo, I've been spending some of my newly-freed-up time rereading Howl's Moving Castle and its sequels and I just have to say... I love them. I mean, they're confusing as all get out sometimes and the end always involves every character even briefly mentioned in the book being thrown together into mass chaos and the endings are always saccharinely happy, but I really, really like them.

And, due to the way my exposure to both turned out, Howl's Moving Castle the book will forever bring Howl's Moving Castle the movie to mind and that leads me into my love affair with Studio Ghibli.

They make great films. The animation is lovely, the characters are heartfelt, and all in all, they just have a simple "feel good" feeling about them. Even Princess Mononoke, one of the darker, bloodier films, makes you just plain feel good. (I'll admit to not having seen Grave of the Fireflies, which I understand is mindblowingly sad and depressing.)

And, because they are on my mind, I felt like going through a timeline of how I discovered the wonderfulness that is both Diana Wynne Jones and Studio Ghibli.

(I have a feeling this may be long and rambly. Beware.)
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I have my library to thank for it all. I have my library to thank for a lot of things, but to list all of them would take too long, so I'm just going to restrict myself to this one particular thing.

Summer reading recommendations. My library does them. I'm sure your library does them. Up popped Howl's Moving Castle the book, mentioning that it was also made into a movie. Don't ask me why I put the movie on hold before the book, but that was how it went.

I watched the movie. This was one of my early introductions to anime and my first to Studio Ghibli. I fell in love. The atmosphere, the characters, the music. All lovely. It was a sort of whimsy, filled with hope despite any darkness that loom.

It took me a long time to get to the book itself. I'd actually read Diana Wynne Jones before (Year of the Griffin, I think...) and I'd always found her a little off-putting. She does have a style that sort of zooms along in the strangest way, details that will be immensely important sort of being skimmed over and requiring the reader to think about what they're reading as they read it in order to make sense of it. That hadn't been my thing at the young and tender age of maybe twelve or thirteen (I think?) and so I'd sort of skipped over her. But the movie made me want to read the book and so I did. I liked it a bit, but my love for it has grown over the years with each rereading (and the fact that I keep rereading it says something) and today it is probably in  my favorites list.

Anyway, I watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind next. Again, I have the library to thank for that. I was browsing the shelves and came across the manga for Nausicaa (which, by the way, I highly recommend) and picked it up, recognizing the name "Miyazaki". I read, I think, the first three volumes before I watched the movie. Loved it. Loved the movie. Was deeply in cinematic love with Studio Ghibli.

I think it was Castle in the Sky that was next, then the others after that sort of run together into a blur. I watched them all one right after the other, but I'm not sure of the order anymore. All of them were marvelous. Even the weaker ones were still fantastic. Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa are some of my most favorite movies of all time.

Diana Wynne Jones is still a taste I'm acquiring, I think. I know that there are some people out there who love anything by a particular writer, but I'm much more of an individual book person. Not that I don't get excited to see a new book by a particular author, but I try to take each new thing in stride. Of course, I'm a complete and total hypocrite in that I will instantly buy, borrow or steal my way into a Pixar or Studio Ghibli movie (though I do have my doubts about Cars 2), but I am testing the waters of her other books again and seeing what comes of it.

Dear Bruce Coville...

originally written Wednesday, September 15, 2010

posted here for illustration of this point

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Dear Bruce Coville,

You don't know me, but I have been a fan of your books since I was around ten or eleven. I understand you're well-known for your quirky books like My Teacher is an Alien, but I'll admit I've only ever read your fantasy work, such as the Magic Shop series. I loved loved loved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. But the work that has influenced me the most has been The Unicorn Chronicles.

There were only two books, Into the Land of Unicorns and Song of the Wanderer, when I first discovered Chronicles. I searched in vain for more, since it was obvious the story was meant to continue. I asked librarians. I used my abysmal internet skillz to see if you had died or had given up or if I was just stupid and the library lacking. But to no avail.

Years went by. Then, one day a year or two ago, I happened across the third volume in the series. Eagerly, I snapped it up and read it in scant hours. 

Years more went by until yesterday, when I was deliberately combing the shelves and found the fourth volume. I snapped that up too and stayed up until one in the morning finishing it. I was exhausted today in my early-morning class, but having finished a beloved series from my childhood was well worth the hours of lost sleep.

In the letter before the fourth volume, you mention that you started the series in 1991, the same year I was born. I discovered the books at about ten or eleven, meaning that the books I read were at least several years old. Having looked it up, the first was published in '94, the second in '01, third '08 and fourth just this year in '10. This series has taken my entire lifetime to be published.

I am one of the readers you mention in your letter who started reading the series in childhood, have since grown up, and yet were still wanting you to finish the series. I noticed too that your books seemed to grow up too. The series went from a simple escapist story of a girl going into the land of unicorns that was perfect for my younger self, to an epic with its own take on myth and legend, dealing with mature themes like death and love and family, that was a very satisfying read for my present self. I was able to enjoy the work as much for itself as for its nostalgic value. And for that, I thank you, even if it took you nineteen flippin' years to get the darn thing out.

Sincerely, 

~ a fan

An in-between place...

The pre-NaNo season is very strange. All around the interwebs, people are posting ideas for their plots. So here I am reading all these fantastic synopses and getting all excited and thinking "I have got to add these books to my reading list" and then I stop and realize that none of them have been written yet.


I don't recall if it was from a published book (a Thursday Next book?) or perhaps an original piece of fiction somewhere on a writing site, but I once read a story about a library where all the books that ever could have been written are shelved. They might not have been written, but there was the potential for them to have been written and so they exist in this library.

That's what pre-NaNo feels like to me, knowing that there are so many novels right now that are begging to be written and that they will exist at the end of November. It feels like a time out of time, like I can see the future and I know what is coming, yet it hasn't arrived yet. It's different from anticipating a movie from a trailer somehow. It's different from watching prerecorded images from a film that is in the works. These are novels that literally have not been written yet. They don't exist yet, and yet they do.

Somehow, that idea makes me emotional. Writing does occasionally, the idea that with just words, we can create entire universes that ring just as true as our own. There's a certain grandeur and mystery in that power that I take for granted sometimes. But when I stop and think about it, I'm floored. The idea that our words could be remembered for posterity, that we brought people into the world who don't really exist yet actually do, that you can pour a soul into little black marks, really brings writing home for me. It makes me love writing again, even as it frightens me that anyone would entrust me with this kind of power. It makes me afraid to attempt anything, fearing that I might screw it up, and it gives me a sense of confidence, knowing that there really isn't anything to screw up.

That concept of writing can make me cry when I think about it too hard.

Good luck, little future novels.

Back to my roots...

I was at the library recently and on a sudden whim, went on a rampage through the YA section, dragging random fantasy/sci fi books off their shelves and stuffing them under my arm. Then I went home and spent hours binge reading that particular niche of fiction that first inspired me to write.

I went through a phase of reading nothing but fantasy and science fiction and I was just coming into the age demographic for YA when I first wanted to be a writer. I went through dozens of books a month, learning how to pace my requests to go back (my parents grew weary of taking me every day very quickly) and taking advantage of large bags to haul my supplies home.

It was in YA that I discovered how to put characters to paper, to attempt a plot, to experiment with setting. It was in YA that made me realize that maybe I could try to write my own stories.

Learning to drive gave me nearly unlimited access to the library, but as I aged, I gradually drifted into other genres and the older demographic. I learned to love mysteries and slice-of-life novels and discovered the joys of nonfiction. And I read a good deal of generic fantasy/sci fi, much of it formulaic. It was the dull pickings I found in the "grown up" fantasy/sci fi that drove me to other genres and their wonders.

So, feeling nostalgic, I went back to read some YA fantasy. And I'm liking it. It's kind of the "thing" right now, if the shelves of my library are anything to go by, and so I found quite a large selection. It makes me happy, rediscovering what first drove me to want to write and finding it just as wonderful as I remember it.

Here's hoping that remembering what got me into writing in the first place will help me with my writing now.