Q&A

I've been tagged! Thanks, Melody.

These are the rules...

1. You must post eleven facts about yourself.

2. You must also answer the eleven questions the awarder has given you and make up eleven questions for your awardees to answer in turn.

3. Tag eleven fellow bloggers

4. Notify them that you've awarded them

5. No tagging back

6. And the eleven blogs you tag must have less than 200 followers.

 

...but I'm not going to follow them. I will do step 2, and tag a few bloggers.

 

Here are Melody's questions:

 

1. What's your favorite hair-and-eye color combination?

I love red hair and green eyes. Also blonde hair. Also dark hair and blue eyes... really I don't have a preference. I think every combination is pretty.

2. Who is an unpopular character you rather like but would find difficult to defend?

I find that Martha Jones is often disliked. She is a companion to the Doctor on Doctor Who. I am guessing that people don't like her because she was in unrequited love with the Doctor... which is one of the reasons I do like her. Because falling for someone who doesn't care for you doesn't make you a weak person. It is a thing that happens.

Martha Jones fell in love with a man who never looked at her that way. Yet she was strong enough to be there for him and be totally awesome. She was clever. She saved the world a few times. No big deal. She took care of people. Shakespeare wrote sonnets about her. She walked all over the world, completely alone, telling a story that saved all of time and caused an entire awful year to have never happened. Martha Jones was epic.

And in the end, she was strong enough to walk away. She knew that as long as she was with the Doctor, she couldn't get over him. She had too much dignity to stay and continue to feel overlooked. So she told the Doctor the truth and left, saving herself and saving her friendship with the Doctor in the long run.

Sorry, I just have a lot of feelings about this character. I would be very interested in seeing the other side, though. If you are a Doctor Who watcher who doesn't like Martha, I would genuinely like to hear your argument.

3. What is your second-favorite version of Pride and Prejudice? (It might be assumed that those who like P&P95 would have P&P05 as their second-favorite and vice versa, but this is not always the case.) And if you haven't seen at least two versions of P&P... why haven't you? :D

I will always be partial to P&P95 with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth... because that was the first Jane Austen I was exposed to and I have loved it for a long time. I like the character development in that version, because I think it is very close to the book. There are problems with it, of course, but you learn to overlook problems in movies you truly love.

So I guess my second favorite version is the modern Youtube version produced by Hank Green. There are over 50 episodes so far, of 3-4 minutes each, and they are so close to the first proposal... it should happen any time now. This version is told as a video blog that Lizzie is keeping. The way they have updated the story has been really clever.

4. What is the book you're most embarrassed to tell people you haven't read when they ask? (Not that I want to embarrass you or anything. Haha.)

I've never read Catcher in the Rye. Nor have I read many of Dickens' works. These are embarrassing because I'm a literature major, so I really should have read more of these classics by now.

I'm also embarrassed not to have read Princess Academy; Palace of Stone. The first one is one of my favorite books, but I just haven't found the time to read the second one.  

5. What is your favorite game? (As in, card and board games.)

I like "Pit" a lot, because it is quick and fun and doesn't take too much talent. I think my favorite, though, is probably "Clue" because I have always loved mysteries.

6. Do you typically write in cursive or printing?

 

 

 

 

 

7. What is something you promised yourself when you were younger that you would never do, but ended up doing later on?

I was very different when I was a kid. I don't much like my past self, honestly. I was very girly and sensitive, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I was also very pretentious about it. I could be very snobby... but I didn't realize it until I grew up a little.

Not that I am perfect now.

Anyway, as one specific example, I never thought I would be interested in science fiction anything. Now I love it.

8. How do you say "era"--"air-uh" or "ear-uh"?

"Air-uh"-- unless I am trying to sound posh.

9. Do you keep a journal/diary, and if so, do you write in it often?

Yes, I do, and I try to write in it at least several times a week. It is essential to my sanity.

10. If you could suddenly have the ability to play an instrument that you've never even tried before, which would you choose?

Piano. Or drums. If the ability to play comes with a free instrument, then maybe mandolin or melodica or something interesting like that.

11. Which fellow blogger are you the most curious to know the looks of? (I mean, admit it. We're all curious, are we not?)

 

I don't know; I never really thought about it.

~~~~~

My questions:

1. What is your favorite character trait in a main character?
2. Who is a character you don't like even though most people seem to love them, and why?
3. What is your ideal job?
4. What is your favorite book from your childhood?
5. Is time travel a possibility? How would it work?
6. Do you like to write stories, poetry, essays, etc.?
7. What is something you always thought you would do that you never ended up doing?
8. Do you have an accent?
9. Do you have a "bucket list" of things you would like to do before you die?
10. What is your favorite meal?
11. What fictional character do you most identify with?

~~~~~

I tag:

Darby
Bree
Grace
Elizabeth

 

Conflicted

The rapidly approaching month of November, with all the novel writing it brings, has got me thinking about the writing process quite a bit lately.

I've been watching the lectures by Brandon Sanderson found at WriteAboutDragons.com, and he give excellent advice on everything from plot to characters to style, and throws gummy bears at students who ask questions in the class, which I found amusing.

One of his lectures got me thinking about conflict in novels... conflict is basically another word for plot, because nothing that happens has any weight unless there is some kind of conflict. The basic, classic conflicts are Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, and Man vs. Himself (the word "man" being used as a non-gender-specific word). So any time a character comes up against a tornado, the apocolypse, or an abnormal amount of pollen in the air, that is Man vs. Nature. When they are up against the views of society, against a villain, or just against someone who disagrees with them, that is Man vs. Man. And Man vs. Himself is all about internal conflict... whether it is self-doubt or too much confidence, if the conflict stems from something about the character, that is Man vs. Himself.

I love the use of conflict in plot. But not all conflict. I couldn't figure out the difference for a long time. I would read something or see something and think "Well, yes, there is great conflict there... lots of tension... but I don't like it at all. It feels off somehow."

The thing is, the conflicts I love are inevitable conflicts. They are neccessary. When I read a plot twist, my should reaction should be "How could I have not seen this coming?!" You can't just throw characters in opposition to each other, you have to make sure that, given the circumstances, this is the thing that had to happen, because if it didn't, the things you love about the characters would be false. When everything you love about two elements is on the line and conflicting with each other, you have found a good use of conflict.

Ukulele

And in the interests of updating people on my life now, here is me in a video. I play the ukulele now, kinda. My ukulele is quite pretentiously named Hypatia Persephone.

Time is a tricky thing

Eveything is different now.

When I say "everything" I mean both the tangible and intangible, reality-based and imaginary... Blogger looks different, for one thing, and I feel strange coming back to it, like one of those days where you take a nap and when you wake up everything feels slightly wrong, like an alternate reality.

Putting Blogger aside, I feel like I am an alternate reality... I am such a different person now than I was when I started this blog, and yet I am the same. The person I am now contains the person I was then, but that is no longer eveything.

I live in a different city now, in an apartment. Near enough that I go home every weekend. I live in perpetual conflict of emotion--it feels really good to be independent, and to be in school again after a long summer, and to have a place that is my own. I also really miss my family.

I stopped using Blogger because I had become someone who didn't need it anymore. For quite awhile, I didn't have anything to say. Now, I think, I have things to say and not many people to whom to say them.

I wonder: do I still have followers? Will this post show up on anyone's dashboard? Do any followers I may have even remember who I am? Will I ever stop with the rhetorical questions?

Only time will tell.

Helllooooo!

I am still alive and life goes on. I have not blogged in what feels like forever. I hope you are still here, unknown people to whom I am writing.

This morning I got up early, started the coffee pot, reset my alarm, and collapsed back into bed for 15 more minutes of sleep. This is typical. Then I had my coffee, checked my email, looked at pictures of shoes, and played my ukulele for awhile.

Are these shoes not adorable? They remind me of Ms. Frizzle, fictional teacher extraordinaire.

Then I got ready to go and took off in the car. I listen to Phineas and Ferb soundtracks in the car more than I can admit without sounding silly. But you can't tell me this is not a fun song: