Don't even know if anyone actually reads livejournal anymore
Well, hello Livejournal! Good to see you! It's been a while. I finished the first semester of college. So howdy do. It got a little stressful at the end, a little harried, but all good conclusions do, I suppose.
I've been thinking about stories a lot. After November ended (and I won NaNo, though it doesn't feel like a win because my novel was so underwhelming this year and I didn't really know anyone else who won that I could cheer with) I dropped writing so fast that I didn't even bother thinking of any figurative language to cleverly end this sentence with. Sure, the first few days after are supposed to be writing-free, and they certainly were, but when I don't have any English classes, and while tumblr and facebook and youtube are in existence, it's so easy to succumb to all those mindless timewasters before sitting down to write something properly. And so that happened to December even though I had planned to do some major editing--because The Curator desperately needs editing (and when I say 'editing', I mean slashing out pages at a time and rewriting them). Instead of doing something worthwhile, I've been putzing around the internet and I feel guilty about it, because I miss writing! I really do!
So now I'm here, and instead of procrastinating by reading junk on tumblr, I'm procrastinating by writing. I like to consider it progress.
But what I was originally going to say about stories was that I've stumbled upon a few good ones over the past few days, and I think that's what dragged me back to livejournal. To write about good writing. How self-indulgently useless.
I saw Black Swan, and it was absolutely stunning. The fact that I loved it speaks enough for its brilliance, as there is no past evidence to hint at the possibility that I could love a movie about professional ballet dancers...but it was disturbing, and scary, and beautiful, and just tied together so well that I couldn't help but enjoy it. (And now I have to think of a way out of seeing this with my mom, because we're going to watch all the Best Picture nominees for the Golden Globes like how we did with the Oscars last year, and I would figuratively die of awkwardness if we watched that movie together. I can't even imagine.) Anyway, it was an incredible film, and the whole good and evil theme is one of the few things that I can tolerate being so overused in stories because it really fascinates me. (Okay, Black Swan wasn't about good and evil so much as the unobtainability and paradox of perfection, but bear with me.) Just...what makes something good, and what makes something, well, not good? I love trying to stretch the definitions set by humanity, because sometimes it's hard not to wonder what the world would be like if certain people, hundreds of years ago, thought just a little differently. Maybe I'm not making any sense. It's like when something is said to be impossible just because it doesn't adhere to the laws of physics that humanity created. So I wonder, since when has humanity been infallible?
That's getting a little deep for one in the morning, so I'll stop there. All these crazy philosophical ponderings of mine inspired me to start writing a story of my own...nothing serious, just to force myself to keep writing (and keep procrastinating on that editing that has to be done) and to play with a few ideas...basically, it'll be a stronger brand of science fiction than I've ever done, set in a world that is split in two because every inhabitant is marked somehow (I haven't decided, but I'm leaning towards some sort of genetic somethingorother) as either being inherently good, or being inherently bad. The 'good' ones live in the one half, and the 'bad' ones must live in the other, and because of a sort of force field separating them, there is very little interaction between the two. Because of this, nobody really knows how the other side is run, except for this one dude who has some sort of genetic mutation that caused him to be born with no mark at all, so he can cross the barrier freely and deliver messages on large-scale issues, like anything regarding the planet as a whole, or whatnot. Anyway, of course he comes to realize that there is very little difference between the two societies at all, and tries to end the division, etc, etc. It's all going to be from the point of view of a girl on the 'good' side, so only half of the action will actually be seen. I hope it works out okay. I like the concept a lot, if I may say so myself.
Ummm...yeah. Some of the people I follow on tumblr post stuff about Misfits, so I naturally got curious and wanted to see what all the fuss is about, and naturally I'm desperately and pathetically hooked. It's so well-written, and so freaking edgy--in a good way, though, so it feels real, not in a gimmicky, forced way like lots of edgy shows end up with--and somehow believable. I mean, if five screw-ups were given superpowers, this is exactly how they'd react. Just...everything about this show is awesome. The acting is consistently incredible, the plots and baddies are creepy, the dialogue is hilarious, even the soundtrack is better than that of any other show than maybe Supernatural...and the characters are surprisingly complex and dynamic--I especially love watching Simon grow from a creepy kid tagging along, nearly invisible (heh heh), to a creepy kid who leads the others. He's the one who's always deciding what to do next. They all change and develop so subtly that it's hard to notice, but by the beginning of the second series (that's where I am now, if that wasn't clear before) they are all unmistakeably different. Except for maybe Nathan, but for some reason I always fall for the smart-ass type so I'm fine with that. (And he has such GORGEOUS eyes and with that accent, how could I NOT love him
I guess that's an acceptable length for an 'I'm not dead' post. So that's all for now.
I've been thinking about stories a lot. After November ended (and I won NaNo, though it doesn't feel like a win because my novel was so underwhelming this year and I didn't really know anyone else who won that I could cheer with) I dropped writing so fast that I didn't even bother thinking of any figurative language to cleverly end this sentence with. Sure, the first few days after are supposed to be writing-free, and they certainly were, but when I don't have any English classes, and while tumblr and facebook and youtube are in existence, it's so easy to succumb to all those mindless timewasters before sitting down to write something properly. And so that happened to December even though I had planned to do some major editing--because The Curator desperately needs editing (and when I say 'editing', I mean slashing out pages at a time and rewriting them). Instead of doing something worthwhile, I've been putzing around the internet and I feel guilty about it, because I miss writing! I really do!
So now I'm here, and instead of procrastinating by reading junk on tumblr, I'm procrastinating by writing. I like to consider it progress.
But what I was originally going to say about stories was that I've stumbled upon a few good ones over the past few days, and I think that's what dragged me back to livejournal. To write about good writing. How self-indulgently useless.
I saw Black Swan, and it was absolutely stunning. The fact that I loved it speaks enough for its brilliance, as there is no past evidence to hint at the possibility that I could love a movie about professional ballet dancers...but it was disturbing, and scary, and beautiful, and just tied together so well that I couldn't help but enjoy it. (And now I have to think of a way out of seeing this with my mom, because we're going to watch all the Best Picture nominees for the Golden Globes like how we did with the Oscars last year, and I would figuratively die of awkwardness if we watched that movie together. I can't even imagine.) Anyway, it was an incredible film, and the whole good and evil theme is one of the few things that I can tolerate being so overused in stories because it really fascinates me. (Okay, Black Swan wasn't about good and evil so much as the unobtainability and paradox of perfection, but bear with me.) Just...what makes something good, and what makes something, well, not good? I love trying to stretch the definitions set by humanity, because sometimes it's hard not to wonder what the world would be like if certain people, hundreds of years ago, thought just a little differently. Maybe I'm not making any sense. It's like when something is said to be impossible just because it doesn't adhere to the laws of physics that humanity created. So I wonder, since when has humanity been infallible?
That's getting a little deep for one in the morning, so I'll stop there. All these crazy philosophical ponderings of mine inspired me to start writing a story of my own...nothing serious, just to force myself to keep writing (and keep procrastinating on that editing that has to be done) and to play with a few ideas...basically, it'll be a stronger brand of science fiction than I've ever done, set in a world that is split in two because every inhabitant is marked somehow (I haven't decided, but I'm leaning towards some sort of genetic somethingorother) as either being inherently good, or being inherently bad. The 'good' ones live in the one half, and the 'bad' ones must live in the other, and because of a sort of force field separating them, there is very little interaction between the two. Because of this, nobody really knows how the other side is run, except for this one dude who has some sort of genetic mutation that caused him to be born with no mark at all, so he can cross the barrier freely and deliver messages on large-scale issues, like anything regarding the planet as a whole, or whatnot. Anyway, of course he comes to realize that there is very little difference between the two societies at all, and tries to end the division, etc, etc. It's all going to be from the point of view of a girl on the 'good' side, so only half of the action will actually be seen. I hope it works out okay. I like the concept a lot, if I may say so myself.
Ummm...yeah. Some of the people I follow on tumblr post stuff about Misfits, so I naturally got curious and wanted to see what all the fuss is about, and naturally I'm desperately and pathetically hooked. It's so well-written, and so freaking edgy--in a good way, though, so it feels real, not in a gimmicky, forced way like lots of edgy shows end up with--and somehow believable. I mean, if five screw-ups were given superpowers, this is exactly how they'd react. Just...everything about this show is awesome. The acting is consistently incredible, the plots and baddies are creepy, the dialogue is hilarious, even the soundtrack is better than that of any other show than maybe Supernatural...and the characters are surprisingly complex and dynamic--I especially love watching Simon grow from a creepy kid tagging along, nearly invisible (heh heh), to a creepy kid who leads the others. He's the one who's always deciding what to do next. They all change and develop so subtly that it's hard to notice, but by the beginning of the second series (that's where I am now, if that wasn't clear before) they are all unmistakeably different. Except for maybe Nathan, but for some reason I always fall for the smart-ass type so I'm fine with that. (And he has such GORGEOUS eyes and with that accent, how could I NOT love him
I guess that's an acceptable length for an 'I'm not dead' post. So that's all for now.