Scenic Inspiration for Become

I am a prairie girl at heart. I will always think fondly of being able to drive six+ hours across this great country of ours, seeing the exact landscape that I started out in; aka: the perpetual horizon. Yes, it is lovely to see a field of mustard yellow, or lavender, waving in the wind. And you can't beat the corn mazes around harvest time.

But with that being said, I used to drive 3 hours, willingly, to hike on my favorite trail in the Whiteshell region. I am drawn to places dappled by the sun; by babbling brooks; by hidden, moss covered, gardens.

When I started writing the first drafts of Become a few years ago, I never thought that I would be moving from the flats of Manitoba, to the rocky outcroppings of Thunder Bay - a place I had never visited before, yet was completely willing to throw my roots down in. I naturally gravitate to the foresty places of the world, which is hard when you live in a city like Winnipeg. Even so, Become (the story with a hundred WIP names) was always inspired by the Canadian Shield, a place I once vowed to own a "writing cottage" in.

As the drafts progressed, it became easier to write scenery based on the natural beauty of my new home city. I can literally drive ten minutes and be at a place called The Cascades, where the name doesn't disappoint one to the end destination. There is one scene in Become where characters are at a river with a bed of shale, which was inspired directly by the Current River (specifically: Trowbridge Falls).

It never ceases to amaze me how accessible all of this wilderness is, and I am truly thankful for the beauty around me. I imagine that I will continue to be inspired by the locales of Thunder Bay, even if it isn't specified in my writing, for years to come.

Game of Thrones geekery

Allow me to geek it up for just a wee bit, and fangirl over the impending return of one of my favourite shows: Game of Thrones.

As yet, I haven't read A Dance with Dragons (because we have the mm paperback version and want to keep the series looking alike on our shelf), and I have been anticipating the read for quite some time. It is also important to note that I accidentally read a spoiler that I'm hoping isn't true, and have been waiting to clarify this point like you wouldn't believe. I can't even talk about it with my husband, as he hasn't caught up with me at the end of the fourth volume. It drives me insane.
It never ceases to amaze me how George R. R. Martin can stun me, and yet keep his cast of characters moving in appropriate storylines.

It's brutal storytelling, in terms of content, but never predictable. At least not to me.

In a previous post, I wrote about book versions versus media, and this series is a prime example of separate visions. Though, to be fair, the producers are working with a budget, as well as trying to find a way to limit a cast of hundreds so they can introduce those that remain in a way that makes sense, where the author just had to put his imagination to good use.

Last season, there was a list that someone had made up of changes between the book and the TV show: characters that weren't introduced at all, name changes to avoid confusion, inappropriate characterizations...it goes on...but for me, it's just nice to see it all play out on the small screen, and I'm truly excited for the return of the show on March 31st, as well as the paperback release of ADWD sometime this spring.

On: a quick, and disjointed, update

Among the wilds of Twitter in the last two weeks, I chanced upon a term thrown out by a publisher: emotobook. I'm a naturally curious creature, so I bought a story by Cynthia Ravinski, called Lingering in the Woods. I really enjoyed the writing style and the depth of the story, as well as the idea behind an emotobook.

I had a little bit of a reading vacation (see: five days), but I've decided to pick up City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. Again. I will admit that the first time I read the book, I was a little put off by it. I don't even know why, at this point, but I think it had something to do with how it seemed to be a little too close to its influences for my taste. Having come back to it two years later, and having watched the entire seven season run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the meantime, I have a new appreciation for Clare's writing, and am enjoying the first bit immensely.

I *finally* finished editing For Sale by Owner, so I can start looking for markets today. I like being able to condense an entire idea into only 3000 words. It's very refreshing compared to the long haul of novel writing. I know that some people can go from first draft to umpteenth in less than six months with great success, but I just don't work that way. Next up is to finish Inhibit, start work on another short related to my characters (<3), and then to start drafting the next novel.

Books vs. Media....Fight!

Recently me and my husband saw The Hobbit. I heard mixed reviews about it with some of the most angered being about the inability to discern between so many dwarves with like sounding names. While I agree to some extent (Kili was the "hot" dwarf  >:), another part of the argument was, "does this really need to be three movies?"

My question is this: at what point does a movie based upon a book become a director's vision and less one of the author's, and do we have any right to compare the two mediums?

Really, "based on" can mean anything. I once watched The Strangers, and that was "inspired by true events." I read up on it, and it had less to do with the actual plot than one might think. Also, "based on" and "inspired by" are two completely different terms. But I digress.

I know how easy it is to sit in a theatre and compare the movie that's unfolding in front of you with the book that you adore, which is why I have vowed to not read the book before seeing the movie version if I can help it. I loved Memoirs of a Geisha, but detested the movie. Upon watching the film a few years later, I decided that it's really not that bad, but I hadn't just finished reading the book for handy comparison.
I enjoyed The Hobbit, the movie, probably because I have not read the book. I have since read The Lord of the Rings, but at the time of the saga I hadn't. Thus, I enjoyed all three films.
This is why I'm debating whether I should see Life of Pi - I don't want to ruin it for myself.

The one exception to this rule, I've found, was Silent Hill. Yes, I know it didn't start off as a book, but the film version didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was, which was scary and disturbing. Did it have a disappointing and hard to understand ending? Yay! That's exactly what the game was like! By the way, Silent Hill was also "based on actual events," and is actually pretty interesting if you look up Centralia, Pennsylvania, and their mine fires.

Getting back to the point, is it just that a director (for example) is automatically hindered when they try to take someone else's artistic vision, something that already has a fan base, and turn it out in a visual manner, or should we be learning to separate the two?

Anyway, that's as deep as I can get at lunch hour. Later!