Here we go -

Tomorrow morning I leave for my 11-hour flight to Los Angeles with a 50-minute layover.
I arrive at 6pm US time, and 5 hours after, I'm off again to Miami, with another layover, arriving midday the next day.

Phew.

But I can't wait!

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

The second book I read was Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

The first time I saw this book was in a library in England in 2007. I was hesitating between that book, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In.

I'm terrified of spiders and I well knew about Anansi from my Caribbean parents so I quickly put Anansi Boys back down without reading the synopsis too carefully (Or if I did, I forgot it by the time I did read the book). For some reason I never really pinned down the genre of Never Let Me Go from the synopsis, it seemed so...I dunno but I wasn't intrigued enough.
I went with Lindqvist because I love vampire books and his seemed original and perverted enough to redeem the genre (if I were a vampire these days, I'd be turning in my grave).

I finished Never Let Me Go today which means I've now read all three books.

After some thought I feel like Never Let Me Go is a not-quite book.
It's not-quite dystopian, not-quite sci-fi, it's not-quite dark, not-quite literary.
The entire time I was reading the book I wasn't sure how I felt about it, if I liked it or not. I kept reading on because it felt like the story was about to pick up and give me the answers I was looking. In the end it didn't, at least not quite.

You figure out pretty soon that the kids at Hailsham are clones that are essentially being grown to become donors for originals, which is to say non-clone people. And...that's it. From the start the narrator seems relatively uncertain about her memories, uncertain in her memories and pretty passive. Things happen and she accepts them. Even on the rare occasions she rises up and shows some character she pretty quickly backs down and goes back to her previous state. She's a not-quite human with not-quite emotions and a not-quite life.

Things and events that seem important, that seem to provide some hope, eventually end up being meaningless. The love story doesn't happen as you think it will and it doesn't end as you think it will. In fact the book ends with a sort of fizzle like it isn't quite done. Someone described the book as being one of quiet desperation. I see that, you read it and feel like there's no hope but I think I wasn't expecting the quiet desperation to be unerring and unswerving. There isn't really ever any contrasting emotion to bring out this desperation. It just is.

I don't know what I think of the book because I'm not quite sure what it is I read. I sometimes felt sorry for these kids but also felt that wasn't the point of the book. Also the book is essentially a long monologue and doesn't have much action or dialogue so it reads with no real ups and downs. At the same time I didn't not like the book and read it well into the night and reached for it first thing this morning to finish it. Interestingly the book makes much of the kids being 'told but not told' what's going on and that's basically what happens to the reader. You get it and don't get it at the same time. Like I said, it's a not-quite book or at least, it's a book that you kind of have to figure out on your own.


I saw the trailer for the movie which necessarily has to be a bit more action-driven so I'll see that and see if I pick up on anything else.

We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

I bought two books ten days ago, thinking it would take me a month to read them and that I'd have one for my flight on November 3rd.
I sorely underestimated myself. I guess I thought I was busier.

The first book I bought was We Need To Talk About Kevin. I'd just seen the movie based on the book starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller and I was blown away by how good it was. I tend to get obsessive about my passions so I couldn't stop thinking about this movie and wanted to know everything about it. I saw it based on Lionel Shriver's book of the same name.

Reading the book after seeing the movie is clearly the way to go. The opposite invariably makes me feel cheated when I see all the nuances that have been omitted or flat-out spooned out to the audience, all the scenes and characters that have been changed or left by the wayside. Reading the book after is like being given a treasure chest and discovering all the jewels you couldn't see before. So for me the experience was great.

For what it's worth, the trailers do not do the movie or the book justice, although now that Britain has got the movie, maybe the trailers will be revisited. Had I seen them before I would have written it off immediately. As it is I sort of wandered into the theater with a hazy synopsis - A mother must come to terms with her son's "irreparable act". Not particularly enticing, to be honest but I get free tickets so I figured why not.

The movie and book deals with the dark dynamic between a mother who resents her son for 'ruining' her previously adventurous baby-free life, and said son's subsequent feelings of rejection and how it affects him as he grows up. More than that, it deals with a mother's inability to understand her son, who quite probably doesn't understand himself either, nor does he understand the world around him. The result is akin to watching a sociopath grow and evolve, and understanding how he came to be like that, if not why. (Or do I mean why, if not how?)

The story appealed to that part of me that adores the dystopian, the deranged, the disturbed, the darkly enticing. Truth be told I sometimes saw Kevin as a possible alternate for myself. I understood, more instinctively than rationally how he could and would do some of the things he did. I know I empathised with him perhaps far more than I should have. Also knowing what I did, there was an odd sensation of feeling like the mother distrusted her kid too damn much and never gave him a chance and thinking well...did he give her a chance to act differently?

In the movie three actors play Kevin - a toddler, a pre-teen and a teen - all of whom were amazingly at creating a cohesive thread and making Kevin come to life. I had their images in mind, and Tilda's for the mother, when reading the book which made the book's universe that much more immersive for me.


I will say that the first part of the book is frustrating because the mother/Shriver takes so long to get down to it. I read on because I knew what was coming next and knew I'd love it. I wasn't disappointed but I did have to bear with those first few chapters. Would it have been the same had I read the book first? *shrug*


Either way I definitely recommend the book and the movie, though I'd say watch the movie first. 

I find interesting that he is in blue and she is in red. I would have gone with him in red to represent his unending rage and her in blue to represent her distance and cold demeanour. At the same time, his blue also suggests a calculating and chilling intensity while her red is the turmoil of confusion and jumbled emotions. It works but it does tip the scale in her favour I think.

One lesson I learned this summer

is that screenplays take longer than I thought to write.

Far longer.

And without proper preparation that time increases.

I'd say 80% of my script is outlined by now. I feel I'm missing some logical connecting scenes and only one of my main characters gets all the fun stuff. Work and procrastination make it hard to beat it out on a regular basis but bit by bit I'm fleshing it out.

I hope my UCLA class helps me out with creating a fully fleshed out script by the time it's over.

In writing news...


Yesterday I received the three books assigned to me for my UCLA class.

Never has reading assignment been such fun.

I finished Blake Snyder's Save the Cat this morning - a book I'd heard about and had been planning on getting for a while, specifically for the BS2, which I've seen posted on a number of sites.

I got so much out of this book. I wish I didn't have to work today so I could immediately put it all to use on creating next summer's blockbuster :)

The next book on the list is Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. I don't yet understand why this one was on the assignment list but given my own latent comic project, I'm excited about it.

---
In other news...


I'm defending my thesis on pole dancing this Saturday.

UCLA

So I've just enrolled in a screenwriting class at UCLA
which means I've now been a graduate student, both under and post, in four different countries now.

My cousin tells me the UCLA sports team are called the Bruins so I must go and study up on them :)

Obligatory Eureka post

Yes!
My new method worked.
I've plotted out my screenplay.

Three more screenplays to go.
Oh, and a novel.

Screenplay writing

I've learned in the past weeks that I am unable to write a screenplay without first writing the story down as a short story.

Better late than never.

In a way it feels like a waste of time but given how much time and effort I would otherwise waste on coming up with stilted storylines before scrapping them, it really probably isn't.

I wonder if the same would work with the novel.

Right now I'm working on about 4 screenplays; first writing them as short stories. When that's done I will do the same for the novel and hope it inspires the rewrite.

David Foster Wallace

I need this on my blog.

David Foster Wallace's commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005:
This is Water - Some thoughts delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life.


Part 1 -

Part 2 -
I especially liked 00:08:00 onwards

Update - Novel rewrites

I seem to be much more diligent about my other blog probably because it's a fun and silly break in the day (and I get to talk about me me me without feeling narcissistic).

In between work and procrastination (bane of my life) though, I'm progressing on the rewrite. The next time I'm home long enough to work on it I'll be on chapter 11 which is cool. (only 15 to go) The most fun part is creating my own mythology and letting my imagination roam.

Everytime I go in for a new draft or editing I end up changing so much of the original concept, it's crazy. I still have all my diary entries about the original concept, one day I'll have to do an entry or comic (or both cause I really like talking about myself :) )about that.

Hopefully this is it though - this is the rewrite that polishes the book for an agent and publishing. And hopefully I'll settle on a title at last cause the one I had - In Dreams Begins Responsibility - (a Yeates quote) doesn't work anymore.

*fingers crossed*

The Misadventures of Deana - a comic

I just created a new blog to showcase my new 'comic'.
It's called the Misadventures of Deana and can be found => here

First episode is up!

Today, on the eve of my deadline -

I finally handed in my 125-page thesis today!

Now...I've only got to get it approved then defend it in September. *shudder*

Also had the most awesome Korean bibimbap today.

Didn't get any personal writing done today but I do have a concept for a web series which I shall now get to work on -

overall a pretty good day.

To celebrate here's a vid from 2009 of Prana at the first French national pole dancing championship. She also used to teach me back when I had the time and money to go...le *sigh*

At work yesterday

I mentioned to one of my coworkers that I've got Bioshock posters in my room -
and this customer picks up his food and goes

"Whoa - Bioshock posters...backing away from the crazy lady now."

then had the nerve to smile at me like "eehh just kidding lolz".

Of course because I have to be polite I smiled instead of telling him to mind his own business but what the shit is so creepy about a poster/art work on one's wall?

I've also got a huge Dali print above my bed, am I fit for the loony bin?

*sigh*

It's midnight -

I've just hit page 40 aka the end of the first act/descent into hell of the second act.

I'd keep at it but I've slept two hours in two days and my brain has turned to sludge so I'm signing off.

WIP: Control - a script (sex update)

On page 32 now and have officially written my first sex scene.

Since the catalyst (page 12) I've been a little late on my beats - perhaps by five or so pages - but I think my screenplay flow better this way.

Keeping the beats in mind does help remove unnecessary fluff though, which is good since I tend to be long-winded.

I need to read The Time Traveler's Wife again.

Give old lady a ride home at midnight -

Spend entire ride hoping she's not a murderer. 


paranoia101

WIP: Control - a script (quick update)

I've just hit page 12.

According to Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet I should be hitting the catalyst right about now, the second part of which is coming up in the next page or two.


Whether or not I do, so far I'm really enjoying my scenes and coming up with the dialogue.

WIP: Control - a script

A young woman finds herself trapped in a manipulative sexual affair w/ her boss, that threatens to unravel her entire, seemingly perfect life.

I've got the main beats planned - just trying to figure out the last scene now.


Happy or not?

Typically I go for the unhappy endings, the dramatic deaths and the bleak moods, and initially that's how I wrote this.
But I'm thinking maybe I'll go in another direction this time. Besides Hollywood likes its happy endings. If my script were ever sold, they'd probably make me go that way anyway. If not happy, then at least hopeful.

Long live Excel spreadsheets

I wish I'd discovered them sooner.
In addition to using them for my rewrites, I've planned what I think is a pretty damn good script treatment and am using them for another script and a short story.

To say I used to hate Excel.

Queen of the nation called Procrasti

I just counted and - un-fleshed out stories aside - I have 22 projects at the moment that I'm working on or have on the backburner.

One of them includes a plan to bring new content of my own to this blog, rather than have a mish-mash of randomness.

Omali Yeshitela Wolves — Dead Prez

“I’m not a hunter but i am told,
that, uh, in places like in the arctic,
where indiginous people sometimes might, might, hunt a wolf,
they’ll take a double edged blade,
and they’ll put blood on the blade,
and they’ll melt the ice and stick the handle in the ice,
so that only the blade is protruding,
and that a wolf will smell the blood and wants to eat,
and it will come and lick the blade trying to eat,
and what happens is when the wolf licks the blade,
of course, he cuts his tongue, and he bleeds,
and he thinks he’s really having a good thing,
and he drinks and he licks and he licks,
and of course he is drinking his own blood and he kills himself,
that’s what the Imperialists did with us with crack cocaine,
you have these young brothers out there who think they are getting something
they gonna make a living with,
they is getting something they can buy a car,
like the white people have cars, why can’t i have a car?
they getting something they can get a piece of gold,
white people have gold, why can’t i have gold?
they getting something to get a house,
white people have a house, why can’t i have a house?
and they actually think that there’s something that’s bringing resources to them,
but they’re killing themsleves just like the wolf was licking the blade,
and they’re slowly dying without knowing it.
that’s what’s happening to the community, you with me on that?
that’s exactly, precisely what happens to the community,
and instead of blaming the hunter who put the damn handle and blade in the ice
for the wolf,
that what happens is the wolf gets the blame, gets the blame for trying to live,
that’s what happens in our community,
you don’t blame the person, the victim,
you blame the oppressor, Imperialism, white power is the enemy,
was the enemy when it first came to Africa,
and snatched up the first African brothers here against our will,
isss the enemy today,
and that’s the thing that we have to understand.”

Bits of genius

Because I don't have a night light, if I get some flash of inspiration at night when I'm in bed, I'll grab my phone and write a note to look at the next morning.
I recently looked at my phone to go through my ‘flashes of genius’ and…

Note 1 - Bridge of broken bananas

Note 2 - Replace sex toy

…

I know it must have been genius at the time but what the…I don't even know how sex toy relates to my current story.

Final Draft - 8/26

There's nothing more unglamorous than working on an endless rewrite in your pyjamas that you haven't left for two days.

It's been a year since I worked on the book while I focused on school and re-reading it, it blows my mind how often I use the phrases "she saw", "she heard", "she looked at him", clunky adverbs like "angrily", "testily", "mockingly" etc., or endless internal monologues that I'd literally just wrote in different form in the previous chapter. I feel a little like Ayn Rand minus the talent to pull it off.

Thankfully (shit - there goes another adverb) there are some other, quite good parts, and while it hurts to cut entire paragraphs (my word count! my word count!), I do feel like this rewrite is a good one. A yearlong break is not something I recommend but I've definitely come back with a fresh perspective and new ideas (is that redundant? oh my god, does this count as a monologue?).

Then, the fact that this is what I hope to be the final rewrite before I query again in September makes it kind of magical after all.

And listening to Pryda on repeat while I write makes it even better.

Daniel Beatty on "Duality Duel"

at Def Poetry -

I hate the use of the n-word. Maybe that made this poem that much more powerful to me.
Either way I was wide-eyed and transfixed by the end.

Deep.

Neil Gaiman on your coming year

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

—	Neil Gaiman I like this guy

Rabbit, rabbit

Finally went to the bank to cash my glorious 25-pound winnings

only to be told that I would have to pay 16 euros to process the check and 14 euros to convert the money from pounds

meaning I'd pay 30 euros to cash an approx. 28-euro check.

Har dee har har -

I think I'll do what I'd originally planned and just keep it as a memento of my first-ever winnings and maybe frame it later on.

If the Rapture really is tomorrow -

my terribly unglamorous death will occur as I struggle through the last of my exams.

I won't even get my - long overdue - Masters before I die. Talk about ironic.

Also I probably won't be taken anyway. Not that I wanted to, but as a huge Bioshock fan/(convert?), you'd think I'd get in on that fact alone. More irony.

the real Rapture

Of course the end of days could also take place next year on December 21st.

Two days before my birthday. My only consolation is that the man who goes by the initials J.C., and whose birthday outshines mine every damn year, won't get to party either. suck it.

Still...

can't harbingers of doom stop picking on me and select a less inconvenient date for the end of times?*

*if such a time exists (maybe after I die?)

* also how am I supposed to be reincarnated if there's no world to be reincarnated back to?

Poling bunny

Exams all week next week

Book Challenge - To Kill a Mockingbird

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.  They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird."

It seems long-winded at first because Lee is so thorough in giving background and setting up the story but it all comes together for a bitter-sweet conclusion. 
There's so much warmth in this novel, which runs right alongside sadness, particularly when drawing the inevitable parallels between then and now in terms of prejudice and race relations, but you end the book thinking progress, even when slow, does come - 
hopefully.


A definite recommend.

Miami City Ballet

This year, Miami City Ballet celebrates its 25th year anniversary with a special 3-week show in Paris' Les Etés de la Danse


and I'm going to see them :D

The first time I saw a ballet I was nine or ten and I was just blown away.
This will be the first time seeing a live show since!
So cool!

Also...

Baryshnikov is coming! Going to try to get tickets for his show as well!

Des bouts par-ci par-là

Exams in one week -
10 from Monday to Saturday to be exact.

On the plus side, I finally finished a book, and what a book!
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is amazing.
An absolute A+
For a review that pretty summarises my own feeling, read this:
http://www.pajiba.com/book_reviews/the-brief-wondrous-life-of-oscar-wao-by-junot-diaz.php
As someone who was born and raised in a country that is not the country of her parents, some aspects of the book rang particularly true.

When my exams are over, I need to go over all the footnotes again and pick up a book on the history of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. I can't believe I've never heard of Trujillo...although, if the DR is part of a mandatory two second review in US schools, goodness knows it wouldn't make the cut in French schools. We don't even learn about French colonies for fuck's sake.

The book did provide inspiration for the final editing (which might as well be called a rewrite at this point) process of my book (sidebar) and I also need to pick up a history book on Jamaica. Why go looking for mysterious and exotic locales when I can pick my (family's) own?

Have now started The Hobbit. Will move on to the LOTR trilogy afterwards. I kind of saw the first one so the first chapter in The Hobbit is actually fun to read cause I still remember the images.

Does anyone know who drew the image above?

Nicholl Fellowship and other titbits

I entered my screenplay in the Nicholl Fellowship today.

It took me unbelievably forever to settle on a story - everytime I thought I had one, I changed my mind, and even while writing this one, I had so many ideas for other stories, it's ridiculous. In the end, time meant I had to stick to this one so I wouldn't have a bunch of unfinished stories and no screenplay to submit.

Frankly, I hope to make it at the very least past the first round. Despite being pressed for time and having to put it aside for studies, anything less would be shit.

We'll see. I know I still need practice but I feel reasonably confident about this one - again, to make it past the first round at least.

I wasn't able to enter the Disney fellowship but I'm still going to work on a spec script this summer. I've got a bunch more ideas as well and I have to finally edit my book to make it ready. Aside from the Disney fellowship though, so far I'm on track with all my goals (in the sidebar).

For the next three weeks, I'll be on self-imposed hiatus so I can get my Masters (another sidebar goal after all). Can't wait for that to be over.

PS: I lost my 'earnings' in the chaos that is my room. I need to find it and cash it, lol. Or frame it. Something. But find it.

I am a paid author, thank you please very much

Yay!

I got my massive 25-pound check today!

My first writing earnings ever :)

Neil Gaiman on books, life & death

“My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of ‘Gone With the Wind’, and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important. Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It’s actually one of the things that you live and die for.”

Neil Gaiman

If I should have a daughter...I'd want her to be like Sarah Kay

Two beautiful poems to frame a moving speech about moving past fear of yourself towards self-expression.
Sarah Kay's voice just brings you to tears, she's so full of passion

Globalshortstories.net competition - 2nd place

I got second place aka highly commended at a competition I entered in February :)
The story is a sort of metaphor for drugs and creativity and I was inspired both by Bruno Mars' song of the same name, Dreamtaker, and the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat's life.


The review makes me think they're talking about someone else, haha, but I'm so pleased.


Our highly commended writer, earning £25, comes from Paris, France, and is Deana Mundell, for Dreamtaker, of which Fiona says: “This is the stuff of nightmares and has a quirkiness which engaged me from the start. It recalled the reversal of fortunes in that classic movie ‘Nightmare Alley,’ which I saw only once when I was nine years old and yet the vivid impression of almost every scene has stayed with me ever since. The use of language is suitably economic and serves to highlight the very dark subject matter. Well done.”


http://www.globalshortstories.net/februarywinners2011.pdf


Mine's the second story.

Two confessions on "Supermoon Night"

a) I'm terrified of planets. I can't look when they show footage of planets on TV. Their monstrous size and their... "supernatural-ness" I guess, just creep me out. I could never be an astronaut.

b) If a full moon's light shifts to shine on me while I'm sleeping, I get crazy nightmares, hence why I keep my shutters closed at all times. I've been caught too many times. I'm definitely ruled by the moon.

What I'm doing right now in between school assignments

Most aspiring screenwriters simply don’t spend enough time choosing their concept. It’s by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months — sometimes years — are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie.

~Terry Rossio, WORDPLAY/Columns/01. A Foot in the Door

Wednesday Words

1) I'm crazy busy with school assignments, end of year thesis, exams and papers...my life is one big pile of never-ending homework.

2) I'm trying to find a concept. I'm working on a couple of stories but what I'm looking for, more than pretty sentences in a row, is a message, something that people will read and remember.
I'm trying to figure out & write "the truest sentence that I know". That's harder than it seems.

3) I'm trying to find time to meet the fellowship deadlines. With 2 months to go, I keep thinking that's more than enough time. Except when you factor in 1) and 2), it's not.

4) The results for the 1st competition I entered are in. I didn't win or place :(

I went to Granta Mag's Paris event today

& got my 17 euro (!) book signed by Dinaw Mengestu & Mark Gevisser (who spelled my name wrong, haha).
My 1st autographs ever :)

Art

Say it out loud, it's like spoken word.

Literary magazines

More so than winning competitions, my ultimate goal, obviously, is to be published.
Novels, screenplays, songs, editorials, articles, non-fiction...I want to write it all.

So far though, I haven't submitted to magazines. A lot of it has to do with them accepting only post submissions which costs money I don't have since I'm not in the US. Though that's mainly an excuse for me and my fear to hide behind.

I'm writing this now to make myself accountable: I'm working on a non-fiction contribution which I hope to finish and send by the end of next month at the latest. I've never written anything like that; it feels like submitting a diary entry in a way.

But now it's out there so I have to do it.
Who knows? I might even be selected :)

I've just submitted to 5 different competitions

I always plan on submitting to all the competitions and magazines around & then just before pressing 'submit' - or 'pay now' as the case may be - I chicken out & think of all the reasons why I shouldn't.

They won't like my style
They won't like the genre
They won't like the language
I don't have any money
My story sucks
I suck & I'm also stupid

I've just submitted to 5 different competitions & I'll be submitting more stories to literary magazines whether or not I place or win.

An excerpt of my story - Dreamtaker (1400 words)

"He was the worst storyteller I'd ever come across yet his little bursts had created a thread in my mind, and I could see everything that had happened to him. The young and beautiful artist, riding triumphant on his rising star, the large and imposing, equally beautiful, equally charismatic dreamtaker, promising to take the artist to the next level. I leaned forward, anxious for this new pause to end."

I'm terrified

but tomorrow I'm submitting to the following competitions:


Cazart
Global short stories
Brighton Cow
Unbound Press
Dark Tales
Exeter
Gemini magazine
Meridian writing
Bristol competition
Writer mag
American Short Fiction
Writersdigest
Bridport prize

I'm not sure if I'll write a different story for the following publications, but I will submit to these as well:

Glimmer Train
Granta magazine
The Paris review
Zoetrope
The Georgia Review

Jean Michel Basquiat - The radiant child

This weekend I wanted to watch something real.

I wanted to be affected by images on the screen in a way that no Hollywood movie can. I wanted to see real lives, real paths, I wanted a touch of humanity.

I started out with Waiting for Superman, which I reviewed previously. Then I came across this documentary: Jean Michel Basquiat - The Radiant Child.

My knowledge of Basquiat is tenuous at best. A few years ago I knew of him only his name. I didn't know he was dead, I didn't know he was black & I didn't know he'd died so young. Since then I've come across articles, book excerpts, interviews that reference him in some way so I eventually learned all this about him but not much more.

I went into the documentary blind as it were.

Waiting for Superman

Going into a documentary like this, you know from the start it's going to tug on your heartstrings.

There's also no surprise about what the message will be.

Education, in America in this case, but here in France as well, is in an abysmal state. We know this.

Barack Obama and other Americans like to quote French statistics on education spending, in order to show that they could be doing better.

The sentiment is commendable but the stats are wrong. We, in France, are also facing spending cuts, poor education in low-income areas, and what seems like a government unwilling to take the necessary steps.

Kindred - Octavia E. Butler

I read this book three years ago. It was part of a friend's required reading.
She gave it to me because I was looking for something new to read.

It tells the story of Dana Franklin, a 26-year old black woman living in California with her white husband. The relationship is entirely run of the mill and I remember liking that the book made no big deal about this interracial couple.

This detail turns out to be an important plot after all point because it shows that Dana is a woman, whose life is unaffected by racism, slavery, intolerance. She's a free woman and it's normal to her.

On her 26th birthday, she is summoned through time, back to the antebellum South, by a young white boy. Rufus Weylin is the son of a slaveowner, and, it turns out, Dana's ancestor.
1st wake up call for Dana.

In total, Dana is summoned six times, and each time she must save Rufus from death. This means saving him even after he has raped a young woman. Failure to do so means erasing her timeline. Each time, too, she stays longer, meaning she has to learn to live on the plantation as a slave. For 20th century Dana, this means obeying her white ancestor. Failure to do this means being whipped, raped or killed.

I do all but three on this list

But I think it's pretty much unavoidable.
Sometimes I feel like my shit is made of cinnamon and rainbows, then I remember that a lot of people hate cinnamon.

wishes for sons - by Lucille Clifton

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/79

Pole Dance Thesis

24/7

Exhausting having to try finding possibly erroneous information from uncertain sources.
Weeding out the facts, while knowing that I might be completely wrong.
Trying to select what's relevant to the goal, to my studies, to me.
Solving the problems of writing about an essentially 'anglo' discipline when my first target is French.
Having to translate it 'on my own dime' for the Anglo audience, since they will benefit from it most.

And yet...I love it. It's fascinating.

I'm thrilled to be able to provide the first extensive piece of literature on pole dancing and, hopefully, being a part of pole dancing history.
I'm hoping to publish this later on.

Neil Gaiman on Piracy & Copyrights

I wonder if this is universally true or just the truth for an established writer.
I love posting my stuff & getting feedback & I realise it's a great way of advertising but I'm still afraid of posting long excerpts.

I don't steal other people's writings when I see & love them online so it stands to reason that I'm being paranoid.

Interesting...

Novel extract - Chapter 1

The cathedral was a graveyard of loneliness, hinting at dark secrets buried just outside the moonlight’s reach. Séléné could practically feel the scratching of skeletal corpses of shunned hunchbacks against her back.
She walked along the path, limping slightly. The wounds on her body were healed by now but she had never forgotten the agony of the thousand blows she had been delivered.


The first four sentences - would you continue reading?

I can't get enough of Bruno Mars.

I think he's officially the greatest singer/songwriter/producer I've ever come across.

*looksforKanye*

The Huffington Post - 11 most surprising books banned

I read this expecting books like 1984, The Diary of Anne Frank or even the Da Vinci Code, which all have been banned at one time or another.

But surprising is right. Included on the list:

- Merriam-Webster's dictionary (This is creepy to me. Isn't this what 1984 was about? which as I said, was banned, too?)
- Roald Dahl's - him again? :) - James and the Giant Peach and The Witches
- Louisa May Alcott's Little Women !

Read the others and the reasons at
Link : http://huff.to/e5h3Hu

I think

I'll write a spec script for Raising Hope for the Disney Fellowship.
That show is hilarious - I hope it doesn't get cancelled.
Also Garrett Dillahunt...*drool*

Version Française - On life

La vie est le point de confluence de paradoxes entremêlés de façon inexorable -

Tout comme l’ecstase ne se connaît pas sans avoir connu le désespoir, la gloire ne se définit que par le prisme de la défaite -

et ainsi de suite -

Les uns sont incapables d’exister sans les autres -



I wrote this poem when I was younger. It's not finished but I'm not a poet. This is as far as I'll ever get.

“To all the secret writers,

late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every stripe, dig out your paintbrush, or your flute, or your dancing shoes. Pull out your camera or your computer or your pottery wheel. Today, tonight, after the kids are in bed or when your homework is done, or instead of one more video game or magazine, create something, anything.
Pick up a needle and thread, and stitch together something particular and honest and beautiful, because we need it. I need it.
Thank you, and keep going.”


– Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)

Read me

Vintage dictionary word necklaces from Etsy. Too cute.

"Necklaces are custom made with your word of choice. In the message to seller at checkout, please leave a 1st, 2nd and 3rd word choice option. In the event that your 1st choice is not available I will choose your 2nd or 3rd word choice.

Please keep in mind that the word must be 6 letters or shorter or it won't fit under the glass."

Link: http://www.etsy.com/listing/61206397/vintage-dictionary-word-necklaces

Novel extract - The story takes place in a desolate and empty world.

Nostalgia, or something like it, is tangible, interwoven in the very fabric of reality. Everywhere is blue, a dark Prussian hue. From the low sky to the rocky terrain and the deep abysses pockmarking the ground, everything is blue nostalgia. The atmosphere is leaden, like a storm waiting to happen. Depression thrives here, with mortality as its constant, oppressive companion.

- In Dreams Begins Responsibility - in progress

Creative clutter

http://flavorwire.com/151458/desks-of-the-rich-and-famous-workspaces-of-highly-creative-people

Susan Sontag - American author
Yves Saint Laurent - French fashion designer
Milton Glaser - American graphic designer
Albert Einstein - German physicist
Tina Fey - American writer, comedian
Marc Johns - American artist
Woody Allen - American screenwriter, film director
Al Gore - American politician
Roald Dahl - British novelist. (fun fact: his parents were Norwegian. He could speak English, Norwegian and, apparently, Swahili)

- If clutter is a good gauge of creativity and talent, I'm at least as good as Ayn Rand, Aaron Sorkin or God.

On school break for two weeks. Going to (aka need to) -

- get a headstart on rewriting my book
- get a headstart on my goddamn thesis (school has an annoying way of always being around when you have plans)
- get a headstart on my screenplay entry for the Nicholls Fellowship
- save up for California ticket. Air fare is 800 euros. Need to get that soon before the rates increase.
- figure something out with this blog so I don't delete it every couple of months

Submission - Runner up

One of my old short stories placed runner-up in a competition I entered back in October 2010.
I'm not ashamed to say I found out after googling myself - the PG kind.


This makes two :)

Link to the story: http://www.twisted-tails.com/winners/autumn2010/files/Deana-Mundell.php