Hanorah Words

So... One of the first criticisms I received about my short stories was that it seemed impossible that a character who had suffered long periods of torture could save himself from a vampire as powerful as Gaia without a hitch. They were right, but I didn't have to be happy about it. Around the same time, I had these weird... dreams. A couple times I woke up and I could swear I could see some woman's face above me... almost like she was sitting on the ceiling. Usually I'd wake up again and realize that I was dreaming. Either way, the two stimuli... literary criticism and bad dreams led to the next character I created: Nemo. For those in the group who are young, under-educated, uninterested in words, ignorant, or just plain stupid, "Nemo" isn't the name of a fish from a Disney movie... Well it is, but first it was a name used in The Odyssey  by the clever Odysseus to trick a cyclops. You see, "nemo" means "nobody". So, Finding Nemo , the...

I used to have a bit of a fixation on Mary Shelly's famous book, Frankenstein . I read the book. I watched all the movies. I took the tests on the book to earn points for my school's reading program. It happens when something piques my interest in some way and this happened to happen when I was working on the first book I ever finished writing which I called Eight (it was my lucky number at the time, nothing in the book had anything to do with the number eight when I first started writing it). Everything in the book was going pretty well. I had characters/players established, I had a plot I thought would work but had room to surprise me. I was still early into the book, but I thought everything was set up... And then Chapter Six happened. I was a junior in high school. I stayed up late frequently. I finished Chapter Five and I was going to go to bed... And then Chapter Six happened. It may have been exhaustion. It may have been stress because my mom was getting married...

There are a lot of different approaches to world-building I've seen over the years.  I've probably tried them all at various times. Why? Because I want to write stories and I need a world where these stories happen. It's kind of essential that an author has a world with set rules that they can follow so that readers don't end up losing interest when something "impossible" happens. A lot of authors do a lot of research to make their worlds seem more and more real. For example, I've got an idea for a story about a character who gets tortured and survives it who must go through the healing process after said torture and the story would somewhat revolve around that. I can either A) make up a world where the process goes the way I want it to go making everything up on the fly and possibly destroying everyone's suspension of disbelief or B) do a bunch of research and talk to medical professionals and other people who are involved in healing folks afte...

You've probably noticed by now that I really  like fantasy. ... Look! A ferret! To distract you from that! Unfortunately, a lot of fantasy is the same. It takes place in a medieval setting. There's elves and dwarves and dragons and knights in shining armor. There's wizards with long beards. There's maniacal dark lords who either want to take over the kingdom or destroy the world. A lot of fantasy has become... generic. So, I end up avoiding a lot of fantasy because I don't want to read the same thing all the time. That's the same reason I don't read romance or mysteries as well. They get boring after a while. I can understand the love of the medieval fantasy setting. I mean even in the Middle Ages people were thinking of some mysterious romantic time with knights in shining armor who defended the people and one the heart of a fair maiden. They had all manner of stories to that affect and that fiction was passed down through time to u...

This should helpfully tell you nothing. So, after I went to Kentucky to dispose of my uncle's ashes with my family, I went to King's Island with my cousin, Steph (I may have called her Stevie in past posts). While we were walking around, I tried to convince her to watch Baccano! , and she responded by telling me to watch some show called Sword Art Online  or SAO. Well, last time I tried to get her to watch anything, she wanted me to watch Firefly  which I refused to do out of pride or silliness or something.  She then refused to watch Doctor Who  until I finished Firefly ... which was motivation enough for me to know to watch anything she tells me to watch besides the fact that I know Steph has great  taste. What did she tell me about the series? "It's about... a bunch of people who can't leave a video game until they win it... and then it becomes a love story." Now, I should warn you that the only videogames I ever really played were Mario Brothe...

Seeing this increases the dopamine levels of your brain... Interesting... When I was in mortuary school, I moved into a one bedroom apartment with a girl who was into anime, manga, and Japanese culture. She had this huge  bookshelf with all manner of different mangas with only two small lower portions for other books (art books and her limitted regular fiction intake). She also had other books stored under her futon and in her closet. I stored all my books at my mother's house and in stacks around my bed... and stacks around the front room at random. If a person were to put me in a room with a bunch of books I've never seen or experienced before, I would eventually get around to looking at them. During this time period, I started reading Fullmetal Alchemist , Bleach , Fruits Basket , Kitchen Princess , Mars  (I think that's what it was called), Ouran High School Host Club ,  Death Note , and many, many others. Some I liked and they really stuck with me for a lo...

Don't look at my scary face! Urgh... This movie removed 98% of our IQ! Grr... Somebody flipped my asshole switch! Ugh! I'm the coolest thing in this film. *Whimpers* Forget about all that! Look at me! Ooh... Where was I? Oh, right! I was going to write about Maleficent. What can I say about Maleficent that hasn't already been said? .... (Do you hear the crickets yet?)... Well, okay... Umm... I liked it and I hated it all at once which seems to be the order of the day with Disney this year. What did I like about it? Diavel, the crow that turned into a guy: he was interesting and cool. He seemed to have a moral compass but still did what his lady liege commanded even when he didn't agree. He also just looked bloody cool. I mean, did you see the way they made him look like a dragon? That was interesting and cool! Obvious CGI, but it was awesome looking CGI! Aurora herself. They didn't give her much to go on, but Elle F...

This face either makes you want to punch it... Or makes you really happy... So, when I first started watching Doctor Who , I really liked Rose Tyler. I thought she was a pretty cool companion and her first name is my middle name. There have also been times when I felt pretty low as a nursing assistant at a nursing home when I felt like I was below  a girl working in a shop and I wished the Doctor would come, blow up my job, and whisk me away. She was a very good self-insert for girls everywhere in a lot of ways which is was a Companion needs to be at times. The problem with Rose Tyler, for me, happens when you think about her. When you really think  about Rose Tyler-- Well, when I really think about Rose Tyler, I don't just think about her sad ending and how the Doctor "loved" her. Instead, I think about the whole picture, because when it comes to stories, I'm a big picture sort of person. You can distract me with the small, interpersonal stuff for about a ...