"May the odds be ever in your favor!"

Everyone on tumblr and even facebook is a buzz about The Hunger Games. I'm in love with them myself. A co-worker recommended them to me when I still worked at The Natural Cafe. He knew my love of Harry Potter and thought these were a good antidote to missing our messy haired wizard hero. I started them right when Mockingjay was first on the shelves and Borders still existed.

I loved the movie. A lot of the mistakes and changes from the book I missed because I purposely didn't re-read the book before I saw the movie. I realized that doing so ruins the movie experience because I end up spending the whole movie fuming about everything "they ruined."

Talking with other fans I'm realizing a lot of the changes but overall I'm really pleased with the movie. I completely agree with the opinion that it is one of the best book to film adaptions. I don't believe any of the Harry Potter films got as close (feel free to argue you that one if you don't agree.)

Worst adaption ever though? The Last Airbender. I know that isn't a book, but from the cartoon to the screen was the worst film and worst adaption I've ever seen. So disappointing. I bring this up because I'm excited for the new Avatar cartoon series, Legend of Korra. Yes, I am a huge nerd.

Note to Self

Dear Self,
It is time to start reading again, writing again, and exercising again.
I feel uninspired and as if I eat only cookies.
That needs to stop.

Love,
Emily

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Okay, so maybe I'm just overly feminist but I really believe that all characters should have more to them then just to serve the purpose of making another character change something about their ways.
In my fiction class today, we read a boy's short story in which he had such a character. A man moves to a new city, and he is naive about many things. He meets a pretty girl, and basically just from meeting this girl decides to change his life.
I don't buy that. And I told him so. But that he replied something along the lines of, "I feel like most guys do that." And my professor (who is a woman, by the way) agreed. Which really annoyed me. This girl should at least be using the guy for something in her life too. She shouldn't just be pretty and fun.
The female character he wrote is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Many movies I love have characters like this. Zooey Deschanel basically is one in real life. Wikipedia tells me that the MPDG is "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."

Why is this okay? How can a whole class of writers accept this? Maybe, I've grown to be too big of a feminist but I really believe all the characters should have their own purpose not just the purpose of making someone else's purpose.

Risky Business

Today, my poetry professor emailed me to tell me I'm too hard on myself and that I am a gifted writer. He thinks that I am always looking for the right answer, which can't exist in poetry. I think that what he said was true, but I would include that what I really want is to know that I am on the right track. I want to know that I'm saying something meaningful to someone other than me. I think I'm starting to need validation as a writer.
It's too late for me to switch my major, but I want to know that what I'm writing isn't complete bullshit. Poetry is my downfall, and unexpectedly my poetry classes are my favorite this quarter. I would still consider myself a fiction writer, but I think I'm learning more from this class than any other writing class so far.
So here it goes, I'm going to post a draft of a poem that I am working on. You can hate it, love it, or tell me it needs work. I'm up for anything. My professor also told me that I take criticism well, I am willing to rewrite and that I am an open, risk taking person in my writing.
So here's another risk, posting my own poem online.

Outside

In one moment our friendship was lost

Like the dog on the sign taped to that streetlight

My boyfriend is drunkenly petting a stray cat on the lawn

Your boyfriend is next to me saying you didn’t mean it

You snarled and snapped and stomped back into the house

the house where everyone else drinks and laughs

The house where I should be instead on this concrete curb,

My hands cupping my face
and your boyfriend, not mine

Attempting to bring me inside

Your boyfriend laughs when I tell him there’s nothing left to fix

"Tears stream down your face"

I don't believe that anyone goes to class ever expecting to cry. Let alone have the whole class break out into tears. Men and women sobbing, leaving the room, wiping their cheeks, hiding in their hands. That's not something you expect from a class.

But today, that's what happened in my honors creative writing class.

My professor, the week before this class told us to write down what we want to say in our poetry. We all wrote things like "the truth", "experience", and all that other cliche stuff you say to not say what you actually want to say. He made us get more specific, and I wrote down about a moment in my life that I think of every once and a while that haunts me. He told us to write about those things in our poems due the next week.

Everyone's poems were decent, and they didn't specifically acknowledge anything in the author's life. Even mine, though a story (because I'm a fiction writer) didn't acknowledge my true feelings about the subject of the poem. But my professor asked everyone to talk about what their poem was really about. Each member of my small class talked about personal issues in their lives and many cried.

I think a lot of the students were turned off by the class, now feeling hesitant to write about things so personal, but for me it only made my love of writing grow stronger. I felt connected the kids in the class, the kids that I still don't remember all the names of. I truly believe crying about these poems is going to turn them into better and more meaningful poems.

Guess I will find out next week!

The Fault in Our Stars

I finished reading "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green. John Green has a way of pulling at my heart and making me cry even when I know that he is going to pull at my heart and make me cry.

I often annoy myself with my knack for predicting the ends of books, movies, and episodes of television because it ruins the end for me. I'm no longer sad or happy or whatever emotion the writer intended the reader/viewer to be. But John Green made my terrible knack okay, I still felt everything that he wanted in his readers.

John Green is who I aspire to be as a writer. If I could write my own life story I would write the way he writes and for a similar audience. I realized after finishing his book tonight that I need to re-read his stuff and almost study it. Study it the way some of my professors tell me to study all books. The thought of "studying" my favorite books used to make me kind of sick. I just wanted to appreciate the books even if I couldn't put into words what made their novel great in my opinion. But now, I want to. I want to learn how to be John Green, but myself. Hopefully, I can do this without copying his novels and stories. I guess I want to be the female John Green, with hints of my other favorite writers and such.

Inspire me.

I believe I've mentioned in a previous post, but I'll mention again that I need inspiration to write. I'm not the kind of writer who just writes randomly for hours. I like to wait until I have something I want to write about.
That flaw or whatever it may be considered has been worrying me for this upcoming quarter. I'm taking three workshop classes, so I'm going to need a lot of inspiration.
Fortunately, I already found some. It was simple, actually. I don't want to post all about my short story here, but I want to share my love of waiting for inspiration.
Waiting makes me feel unburdened by my writing, and the words flow out. I think my characters sound more real, and I think my story is going to be funny. And I'm not great at funny.
Hopefully, I keep getting inspired. Especially for my poetry workshops. Poetry writing is my greatest flaw in being a writer. I just don't have poetry in my poetry. Not to make myself sound amazing but I feel I often have poetry in my fiction, but not in actual poems.

Life's Library

I always try to make a point to read a lot during my breaks. At first, during this winter break I was failing a little. I was just watching How I Met Your Mother, and Angel and also cleaning my apartment to the point of being anal retentive.

But then I remembered that I wanted to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I couldn't go see it without reading the book first. So I pulled the book off my shelf that I bought in the summer at my church's carnival's used book store and began reading.

As usual, I couldn't stop reading. I finished it faster than I intended. I finished it while I was visiting my family, and I hadn't thought to bring an extra book. Which was stupid (but had I brought the extra book, I probably wouldn't have finished).

I wanted to keep reading, even though there is endless television to watch. So I borrowed The Help. I haven't seen the movie yet, and I've heard a lot of mixed reviews. My sisters seemed to like it, even though Sarah hadn't watched the movie either. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't comparable to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I finished The Help in a matter of days, and tried to go back to television (there's always so much left to watch). But I ended up reading (in one sitting) the first of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book series. After that I realized I really need to pace myself. Maybe one comic and then one real book? But what about HIMYM and Angel? Those need to be watched! And then I looked at my book shelf, and I realized on my tiny shelves I've crammed more books than the shelves can hold. I have also only read a little over half of them. Some of these unread books are from last Christmas, and some from this Christmas. Many are borrowed from friends, who have probably wondered by now what happened to their books. It almost makes me sad when I realize how little I have read. But I also know that I read all the time. This quarter alone I read approximately one book a week (plus poetry and short stories) for my classes. I'm also freaking out wondering how my next quarter classes haven't posted books, wondering if that means I have no books to read next quarter. That's unimaginable to me. No books for class! WHAT?!

Then I remembered this, “ 'Have you really read all those books in your room?'
Alaska laughing- 'Oh God no. I’ve maybe read a third of ‘em. But I’m going to read them all. I call it my Life’s Library. Every summer since I was little, I’ve gone to garage sales and bought all the books that looked interesting. So I always have something to read.' " - John Green, Looking for Alaska

It makes sense that my favorite novel sums up my problem, my life actually, completely. There's never enough time, but there will also never be enough books. So, I'm just going to keep reading, and keep watching television and not think about the time or how much is left. I'm just going to keep going.