My laptop downloaded a virus..... Guess what went missing.... Guess how much I swore..... Oh yah.
Did you know that a person can go from being perfectly calm to crying their eyes out in a matter of seconds? Well, they can. I think I felt my heart stop when I realised that among the other missing files my "CW" file! I mean, whilst yes I was utterly heart-broken at the prospect of losing my first year portfolio and all of those "Why Write?" essays, I think losing the dissertation, the reserach, the pictures, the character profiles, the related articles and EVERYTHING related to my Creative Industries work, disapearing in merely seconds was enough to make me mentally capitulate!
I think I died this morning.
It's ALL OK THOUGH!!!!!!!!
I'd begun to re-write when a mate of mine popped round with a BIG bar of (dairy free) chocolate and told me to pack up the laptop and he carted me off to PC World who, in a matter of however long have managed to restore the file (beloved "Why Write?" essays included!)!
MARVELLOUS!
I am one happy little bunny!
Seriously though. Nearly died.
BACK EVERYTHING UP 20 TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
xXx
- Mood:
shocked
Imagine being that size and having a strawberry that big?!?!?!?!? WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've given up on my graphic novel idea. My art skills are not up to scratch and the research is driving me loopy! Do you realise how many different genres/ styles of graphic novel there are (not aimed at you Matt, I know you do!). It's been great to investigate and it's a project that I'm going to hold onto but I just don't think it has a place in this collection anymore.
CUT
Maybe I'll keep the character and put them into prose? Will that work? Can a visual character be more than a pretty picture? I'll give it a bash.
xXx
- Mood:
loved - Music:Billy Joel- And So It Goes
I am so full of other people's opinions and feelings and passions and "evidence" for whatever cause it is that they are defending and all I can say is that religion is a truly frightening thing.
People can be so militant and resolute in their faith that it almost doesn't matter what anyone else does/says/thinks/feels. They are right. As simple as that.
Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion' is nothing short of vicious. It's clear that he is not a man of faith but it was a shame to see that he is not only a non-believer in God but also in manners. This book is self-indulgent to say the least and I am ashamed to say that I was suckered into buying it!
However, I have enjoyed reading Robert Winston's 'The Story of God'. This is the guy who presents the BBC's Millennium Child project 'Child of Our Time'. Utter legend! Granted, I am some what biased because I love him as a scientist but this is a truely insightful piece of writing. He's a scientist with faith. How fabulous is that!?
xXx
- Location:in the midst of God theory books?!
- Mood:
cranky - Music:Nathalie MacMaster- Get me through December
- Aki is a (private) feminist. She is an orphan who left Japan when her parents died. She moved into her aunts home in Korea, in Pusan. She grew up feeling rootless and abandoned. She blamed her father for her parents death and belived that love was the only way to rejuvinate her deflated soul.
-Aki has this picture on her desk. She likes to remind herself of her own pesimism.Aki is linked to Lana.
xXx
- Mood:
productive - Music:Ben Folds- Brick
This is Marcus' living room. Ish. Earthy, basic, with LOADS of books.Marcus is beginning to be one of those characters who really gets into your head. You want to hate him, I mean, he's essentially a child abuser but you feel for him because you have to acknowledge the situation he's in. It's not illegal.
I thought I'd show you all what his world looks like.
xXx
- Mood:
tired - Music:Corinna Fugate- Wake
This is Lana. She's not what life wants her to be. She was born into the right family, from the right area and she's was brought up to be a proper little lady in this nasty little world. The problem is that because of her cotton wool childhood she feels no joy. Nothing. Not an ounce. She longs to feel something and so she's dropped herself into the seedy side of life. Prostitution, a poor diet, shabby and reckless lifestyle leads us to one conclusion; this girl is desperate to feel something. She's even willing to die for it.
A work in progress.
xXx
- Mood:
curious
Brilliant! He's made friends with a guy who I can only describe as a "religious-shopper". This guy has tried every religion under the sun. He's been talking to Marcus for a couple of weeks now and so far this guy (straight, in case you were wondering) has said that he thinks that Marcus is :
~sensitive
~a lost soul
~spiritual
~honest
~probably a closet wanker hidden by a hopeless romantic
~the kind of guy who rejected his family's wealth to find himself!
Brilliant.
If only he knew that a) Marcus doesn't exist and b) he's sleeping with a 14 year old.
I've learned from Sarah. I won't share Marcus's main storyline. It WILL NOT END WELL!!!!!!!
xXx
- Mood:
chipper
HE SAID THAT IT WAS COOL!!!!!!!
He even asked for the web address?! I'm beginning to think that I'm talking to a teen who may be the sort of teen who thinks that death is cool. Not in that curious, slightly morbid, Adam's family kinda way. In the 'he may need serious, professional help' kind of way.
I'm going to take a step back as my ethical opinions of this social study, are being challenged. I will not be a party to coercion into self-harm related acts.
We'll see. May need to keep my distance. Sarah's young and impressionable after all.
xXx
- Mood: working
Poor old Marcus has NO friends! Seemingly there are no women on Myspace who are out to seek men like him. A hopeless romantic has no place on MySpace.
Sarah, on the other hand is having a little more success. She has made friends but they are email friends at the moment. She seems to be really popular with the emo/ goth crowd who all think that she's uber cute but no too bright.
I've got one "friend" who I think she should talk to about her fate.
We'll see how he reacts!
Peace out!!
xXx
- Mood:
devious
this is how I feel at the moment. Utterly emo-ified.
This MySpace thing doesn't seem to be working. I think I need to network more. I don't know what to say. Maybe I should just start blogging on Myspace. In character I mean. Hmmm......
Maybe.
The guy page was stupidly hard to do. I'm not a guy. There are restrictions to my imagination.
xXx
- Mood:
gloomy
Ok, I was having a few issues with my characters and their individual voices. Writing a persons personality down on a piece of paper has proved to be somewhat problematic.
Anyway! I thought, I need to research people and how they interact. Have a bit of a sociological experiment if you will.
I'm using MySpace to see how people react to my characters. I find that MySpace is one of the social networks that people are rather open with. If someone likes the look of your profile then they add you. Simple. Then a relationship is formed, a psuedo-cyber-space relationship none the less but heck, it's human contact! Plus, MySpace is a means by which to put one's personality on the page, litterally. People look at your page and judge you by it.
I've got a couple done already so check em out. We'll see how they fair in cyber-space!
http://www.myspace.com/2yrs2live
http://www.myspace.com/fakeswamiboy
if any of you are on MySpace then please do add them, you may find them interesting. You may make me understand them even more!
Thank you!
- Mood: chipper
- Music:Amazing Grace
Ok, as we all know finding me in the cinema watching a film like 'I Am Legend' is as likely as finding me indulging in a quadruple chocolate chip, death by chocolate cake with thick cream on top. And a flake.
It's not going to happen.
Instead Sam went to see it. The report I got back was "thank God it only lasted 100 minutes." Damning? Perhaps. I feel that it was less of a review of Will Smith than it was of the story itself. Essentially, this film, and subsequently the novel it comes from has been presented as a '28 Days Later' rip-off. My question is WHY?!
As zombie films go, '28 Days Later' is up there with the greats, it's certainly above the 'Dawn of the Dead' re-make. But what I want to know is, why would someone write a new-age zombie story? The zombie story, as a structure, is one which you cannot change. The living dead walk the earth with no soul and cannibalistic tendencies BUT they never eat each other, funny that.
The very core of what makes them scary is what limits them as characters and this, in turn, sets the zombie story in stone. People find that zombies walk the earth. People die and become zombies. Some survivors gang together clutching at the last few shreds of humanity. It is assumed that they are the only remaining survivors. They battle to find some freedom. They get to a (please choose) dock/ airport (yes, one of them has learnt how to fly!)/ train station/ stolen the fastest car ever created which is zombie proof of course/ a tank/ a space launch site. The ambiguous ending is presented to us, the audience. Do they survive? Do they die? Are they eaten or turned? Do we care? Will we be able to rationalise that the fox cries in the night, are in fact a fox and NOT the un-dead stalking our windows? Who knows?
Back to my original question, why make a "modern version" of such a rigid story structure? It's not really possible is it? In 'I Am Legend' we are given hope through Dr. Robert Neville's immune blood and his faithful hound Sam (who is later killed- sorry). We all know that this story will end well. It's Will Smith for crying out loud?! He wouldn't do a film that doesn't leave the audience with a warm glow of confidence in humanity, would he?
No. He wouldn't.
It's a happy ending which completely robs the zombie-esq theme of its only attraction. The sense of unavoidable hopelessness. Great. So it's just a film with some scary cannibals with a taste for man-flesh (funny, as seemingly there is none left on the planet!). They hunt a guy. He fights back and humanity wins. IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!
Tsk. That's a fiver well saved.
Rant over.
xXx
It's not going to happen.
Instead Sam went to see it. The report I got back was "thank God it only lasted 100 minutes." Damning? Perhaps. I feel that it was less of a review of Will Smith than it was of the story itself. Essentially, this film, and subsequently the novel it comes from has been presented as a '28 Days Later' rip-off. My question is WHY?!
As zombie films go, '28 Days Later' is up there with the greats, it's certainly above the 'Dawn of the Dead' re-make. But what I want to know is, why would someone write a new-age zombie story? The zombie story, as a structure, is one which you cannot change. The living dead walk the earth with no soul and cannibalistic tendencies BUT they never eat each other, funny that.
The very core of what makes them scary is what limits them as characters and this, in turn, sets the zombie story in stone. People find that zombies walk the earth. People die and become zombies. Some survivors gang together clutching at the last few shreds of humanity. It is assumed that they are the only remaining survivors. They battle to find some freedom. They get to a (please choose) dock/ airport (yes, one of them has learnt how to fly!)/ train station/ stolen the fastest car ever created which is zombie proof of course/ a tank/ a space launch site. The ambiguous ending is presented to us, the audience. Do they survive? Do they die? Are they eaten or turned? Do we care? Will we be able to rationalise that the fox cries in the night, are in fact a fox and NOT the un-dead stalking our windows? Who knows?
Back to my original question, why make a "modern version" of such a rigid story structure? It's not really possible is it? In 'I Am Legend' we are given hope through Dr. Robert Neville's immune blood and his faithful hound Sam (who is later killed- sorry). We all know that this story will end well. It's Will Smith for crying out loud?! He wouldn't do a film that doesn't leave the audience with a warm glow of confidence in humanity, would he?
No. He wouldn't.
It's a happy ending which completely robs the zombie-esq theme of its only attraction. The sense of unavoidable hopelessness. Great. So it's just a film with some scary cannibals with a taste for man-flesh (funny, as seemingly there is none left on the planet!). They hunt a guy. He fights back and humanity wins. IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!
Tsk. That's a fiver well saved.
Rant over.
xXx
- Mood:
restless
So between reading untold amount of books, two feminist essays, a sociological take on literature, one fist-i-cuffs, some self harm (not on my part), copious amounts of alcohol (again not me) and a heck of a lot of food, I've had a fairly dull holdiay period.
I've been thinking about this girl who knows she's going to die. I've been wondering what that must be like? Would you be at peace with this self-convinced destiny? Or would you alienated everyone, crawl under your duvet and just will on the inevitable? I like the idea of her being out-landishly perky and optamistic. I don't want her to feel invinsable but I would like her to feel un-inhibited.
We'll see.
I've been watching a heck of a lot of Hereos recently and the sense of unity and closeness is just so compelling in a story. You feel closer to the characters because they're all so close to each other, even though they don't realise it themselves. I've also joined this facebook group called the six-degrees of separation just to monitor how people begin to network with each other when they could be talking to someone on the other side of the planet. Can you learn who a person is by looking at their facebook page? Or are we going to reach a point where our bandwidth or broadband connectivity will determine just how much of our personalities we can put on a website?
I wonder.
Maybe I'll do a MySpace experiment. MySpace seems to be the place where people introduce themselves, Facebook is still very social-networking based. You only talk to people that you know.
I've got loads of pics from the Q&A it's just that my laptop won't upload them yet. I'm working on it. They'll go up soon.
- Location:Ascot
- Mood: devious
- Music:My Own Worst Enemy- LIT
All kinds of mad things have happened. I've been trying to keep on top of work and also organise the Absolute Harmony/ Revelation Rock Gospel Choir Christmas Concert! WHICH YOU SHOULD ALL COME TO!!!!! Please? It's maddness though. I've been trying to keep up with everything that I'm meant to but I have been falling behind.
I'll be able to do more from Sat as that's when the gig will be up! Hurrah!!!!!
Now for the fnal year project!
I've got myself a couple of theory books and philosophy books to help me figure out what I'm up against when it comes to this big "God" question. I've got 'The God Delusion', 'Life After God' and 'The Story of God'. Fun.
Oh!!!! I'm reading Imposture at the moment. It's really good. You can place yourself in the novel. Great stuff!
xXx
- Mood: exhausted
I've been trying to gather all of my work together and sort it out into piles so that I can try to manage it all. Whilst doing this I had a thought. What if we reach a point where all of human kind are suffering with OCD or a form of it? Essentially, what would life be like if little Timmy from next door says that he can't go out a play in the par because the grass isn't growing at a steady and even pace?! Life would be catastrophically boring.
As my other half is a primary school teacher, I've recently been indulging in kids TV (it's so that he can understand the youth of today). We watched Panorama the other day and their research into ADHD. Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder seems to be taking the youth of today by storm. The counter argument that I have heard is that if you send any child between the ages 3-10 for the tests, then they will be diagnosed with ADHD mainly based on the fact that ids will be kids and so they tend to be rater hyperactive in that age bracket!
So this has set the cogs in motion. What if, in the future, we have this awful mix of insecure individuals who suffer unmanagable OCD mixed with the bouncing mob of ADHD sufferers?! What would life be like?
I wonder....
- Mood:
thoughtful - Music:30 secinds to Mars
Right, well, I will be typing my review up tonight and then copy and paste it in. Cheating, I know but it's my only option!!!
Hope you're all doing well.
As I've said to Lucy, I'm good at design and talking to people so I can do 'in your face' promo for the Q&A with Ben,
I'm looking forward to tomorrow because we really did get a lot sorted in Jules.
Anyway. I'm going to go back to my reading.
Night.
- Mood:
cold
So here I am. Finally. I've transfered from blogger cuz you can play more on this one! Ha ha! Fickle, I know.
I suppose it would be a good idea to let you guys know what my plan is for the impending final project. I want to write a collection of short stories that are all linked by the characters that the stories revolve around. I'm also going to be writing each story as a reaction to a big event that affects everyone! Complicated, it may sound but fun, it should be (sorry, I just watched Star Wars. I feel like Yoda!)
You know, I've been researching this idea for ages now and I have come to a great conclusion. The British do not like short stories! They really don't. I've spent hours trailing the net for books and then cross-referencing the titles with libraries and british bookstores and I came up with nothing. If I want to read the books then I have to get them from America, South Africa or Japan which is proving to be rather costly! I mean, if the English department would be willing to fund my cause then that would be sweet as pie but I doubt that that would happen. Anyway, I'm a creative writing student, the English department doesn't know I exist! Topical? Maybe.
I've got a coupld of titles that I'm using to guide my form but if anyone can suggest any titles then that would be awesome!
Emo girl out.
- Location:Ascot
- Mood: rejuvenated
- Music:Snow Patrol
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