Benedict Cumberpatch as Hamlet

Hello, readers! Those of you who follow me on Facebook may remember me having a fan-girl meltdown over Benedict Cumberpatch as Hamlet and promising a more intelligent rant soon. Sorry it took so long to write this post, but here it is.

This term I've opted to take an Acting Shakespeare class to fulfill my art requirement, and also because I want to look at Shakespeare's plays from an actor's perspective. Are there any differences between reading Shakespeare as a literature student or as an actor? The short answer is yes, there are, but that's a blog post for another occasion.

My purpose in mentioning this class is simply to explain why I dropped $20 on a movie ticket for a school assignment. I was already a Benedict Cumberpatch fan, and I chose this option over a free play at a local theater. However, I'm not sure I would have spent the money if I wasn't in need of inspiration for a graded paper. God definitely works in mysterious ways, and this is one of those times.

Benedict Cumberpatch is now one of my favorite actors of all time. I've scene him in a few on-screen roles that I liked, namely: Khan in Star Trek, Smaug in The Hobbit, and the well known title character of Sherlock. I've seen him play the cold-hearted villain, an animated dragon, and a "high functioning sociopath" hero. On stage, he was all these things and more: madman, hero, bloodthirsty killer, loyal friend, tortured son, regretful lover, and prince of Denmark. Before seeing this play I never really liked Hamlet, but Benedict breathed life into that character and made him a living breathing person. Cumberpatch didn't play Hamlet. He WAS Hamlet! I wasn't even in the same room as him, and the energy in his role was tangible in the theater. There were times when I actually teared up, and that almost never happens at movies. When Hamlet spoke, I didn't see Smaug or Khan or Sherlock. He ricocheted between wrathful tears and manic laughter with ease, all while making it look perfectly natural. I was watching Hamlet.

For the first time, I actually understood Hamlet as a character. Others have a right to their own opinion in this instance. But as far as I'm concerned Benedict Cumberpatch is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and he always will be.

For the sake of fairness though, no production's success rests solely on the shoulders of one man. Every single one of the actors involved was brilliant. I wasn't too sure if I liked Ciaran Hinds as Claudius at first, but by the end of the first couple scenes I was sold. As much as I loved Cumberpatch, one of the most moving scenes in the play was the scene where Claudius finally tells the audience that he wants Hamlet dead. I actually had to clutch my purse to keep from shaking. And Karl Johnson (Twister Turrill from Lark Rise to Candleford) was a fantastic choice to play the ghost. Every time I've seen him act before, it was always in a comic relief role, and he dons that persona in Hamlet too as the grave digger. But he totally nailed the spooky ghost act. It was genuinely creepy. Ophelia was heartbreaking, Gertrude was frustrating, and Horatio was the kind of best friend everybody wishes they could have. Like I said, everyone was brilliant.

And the stage crew deserves a round of applause as well, because the set was incredible. It had to have taken a lot of painstaking labor to put it together, take it down after the show ended, and keep it in working order every day in-between. During the intermission, a crew of people actually dumped piles of dirt all over the stage floor! Dirt! Or at least it was a substance that looked like dirt and must have been equally frustrating to clean. That is serious dedication, and they deserve some recognition for it.

I could go on for hours about everything I loved in this production, but I'll stop after one last thought. I've heard it said often that stage acting is the true litmus test for acting talent, and Shakespeare is the ultimate test for stage actors. Now I understand why. This play has changed the way I look at Shakespeare forever. The $20 spent was a steal, and I absolutely intend to invest in more National Theater productions.

This American girl is now a Shakespeare fan-girl.

Best Boutique Ever!

Hi everyone. I have to start by apologizing for taking this long to update my blog. As my mother has pointed out many times, I have this bad habit of taking on too much responsibility, and priorities had to be chosen these past few months. The latest news on Book Three is that I'm almost halfway done with it. For some reason, the creative process is taking longer with this novel, but I think you'll love it when it's done.

Thanksgiving is coming up this Thursday, so the timing of this post is appropriate. Some of my friends have already listened to me complain about writer's block several times, but I haven't complained half as much as I wanted to this year. The fact is that this is the first time I've tried to write a book on top of a full-time job (full-time college in my case), and lately I've been struggling to remember why I'm writing at all.

Part of the reason it's hard to write is because every time I read my own work, I get discouraged. I forget that this is only the first draft, and neither of the first two books were good before I polished them. I forget that every single writer goes through periods where they doubt their own abilities, and all I can think about is what I should be doing better. Greater men and women than me have gone through this same struggle and failed, so what makes me think I'm different? Even if I finish the book on schedule, will it be as good as the previous books? Writer's block is no fun for anybody for any reason, but when your passion is supposed to be writing it can be miserable.

As you can probably tell, my social  media book promotion has all but vanished, and so I wasn't expecting any sales miracles when I set up my booth for a local holiday boutique at my church this weekend. Normally I lose money at events like this, and, frankly, money isn't something I feel comfortable experimenting with right now. However, I have done nothing to promote my own books this year. So I paid for my little booth, ordered fifteen copies of each novel, and decided that I was going to have fun even if I only sold one book all weekend.

I sold twenty-two copies and met cost for the first time since starting this self-publishing enterprise.

I've never sold more than twelve copies at a single event.

Besides that, nothing out of the ordinary happened, yet somehow this weekend was exactly what I needed. I'm very lucky to live in a community which enthusiastically supports my efforts as a local writer. It was the first time in months that I felt like I'm doing something right. The writer's block is still hanging on with both hands, but now I remember why I'm writing in the first place. Among other things, I'm thankful for this gift, even if I'm paying back my first three years of easy creativity with interest.

Thank you for taking a chance on Violet Eyes. With a little providence, the next book will be out before you know it, and it will be even better than the first two.

Writing Aid Charts

Hello, world!

Many of my readers have been *ahem* hinting that they want to hear more about how Book Three of the Abecedarian Series is coming along. Unfortunately, I can't promise that it will be finished by Christmas this year. But I've said that in the past and God has surprised me, so we'll see what happens. I can promise I am still working on it, and you haven't heard the last of Maia and Rike.

As of the publishing of this post, I'm in the middle of an insane yearly project called Scandinavian Festival Sewing.  So, once again, all I can offer for your reading pleasure is a list of charts; but I do believe you will find these charts interesting — especially if you're another writer. Just like last time, I'd like to thank the Writer's Circle on Facebook for delivering these gems to my news-feed.

Elements of Culture

Limits of the Human Body

Just in case your character loses a limb or gets trapped inside an air-tight cave.

Not that I'd ever let that happen...

*evil laughter*

Emotion Body Language

Because characters can only pace the floor and wring their hands for so long before the story sounds like cheesy Shakespeare fan-fiction.

Once Removed Chart

The concept still doesn't make perfect sense to me, but someday I'm going to need this for another story idea.

Word Nerd Charts

Hello, everyone. Life has been insanely busy lately, so I haven't really done anything I can blog about in the last few weeks. Homework has been replaced with a comfortable routine of writing, sewing Scandinavian costumes for my dance group, and hanging out with friends. However, I also promised myself that I wasn't going to completely neglect this blog during summer vacation.

I "liked" The Writer's Circle on Facebook, so I get lots of helpful, inspirational updates in my newsfeed. Lately, they've been sharing several vocabulary charts that I find helpful when editing for grammar and word redundancy. Someday I'd like to print them all out and hang them up in my dream library/office, but, for now, I'll just share them with you. If you like to write, or if you just like words, maybe you'll find them helpful and inspiring as well.

Enjoy!

Inside Out

It's been a long time since I've done a movie or book review, but it's been a long time since I've seen a movie or read a book that incited such a strong reaction inside me. There have been several good items to cross my path in the last few months, but this is definitely worthy of a fan-rant. I'm talking about the newest Pixar movie, Inside Out.

Before I get started, I need to warn you all that there will be spoilers in this review. If you don't want to read them, check out this trailer link and go see the movie for yourself. Then please, please, PLEASE come back and read my blog so we can  fan-rant together, ha ha.

 DON'T READ PAST THIS LINE if you don't want SPOILERS!!!!!!!

Anyway, Inside Out  is about an 11 year old girl named Riley, who leads a happy life with her family in Minnesota. But then, one day, her parents move the family to San Francisco for her father's job, and Riley has to deal with the traumatic (yet natural) experience of rebuilding her life in a new city with new friends. Most of the story involves her emotions and thought process, which are personified by adorable little characters named: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. These characters live solely to help Riley navigate daily life from her brain's "headquarters."

Every time something happens to Riley, one of the emotions presses a special button and saves the moment as a memory that is permanently viewed with the same emotion that saved it. A few select memories, called the core memories, are saved in a special case in headquarters, and they fuel the different personality islands that make up Riley's character. Throughout Riley's childhood, Joy has always been the dominant emotion, and she believes her purpose is to keep Riley as happy as possible. But after Riley's family moves, she finds it difficult to keep Riley content.

When Sadness touches one of Riley's core memories and accidentally changes it from happy to sad, it begins a chain of events that ends with Joy, Sadness, and all of the core memories being transferred to long term memory storage. If Joy doesn't return to headquarters with the core memories quickly, it will be impossible for Riley to feel happiness. There are so many things about this movie that I could rave about, but I will focus on one for time reasons.

This movie was incredibly deep for a family film. It was light enough that children could comprehend the abstract concepts of growing up and change being a part of life. But older viewers can watch this movie and recognize the subtle nuances of the plot — points that aren't specifically stated but obvious all the same. One of the most interesting scenes, in my opinion, was the scene where Riley is sitting at the dinner table with her parents. In this part, the viewer gets to see the same emotions in the parents' heads, and the differences are loaded with meaning. As the friend I was watching the movie with pointed out to me, Sadness appeared to be the dominant emotion in the mother's mind, while Anger was the dominant emotion in the father's mind.  This made sense at the end of the movie when I realized that Riley's emotions had changed during the course of the story. Disgust developed social awareness, Anger became determination, Fear became common sense, and Joy realized that Riley needed Sadness to be happy. Adult emotions are never as clearly defined as a child's, and Sadness isn't really sad at all. She is understanding, wisdom, and hurt, but, more importantly, she is the other half of Joy. Without her, Joy isn't possible.  I actually had to choke back a couple tears at the end when Joy allowed Sadness to touch all of the core memories to symbolize that Riley was no longer a little girl. Then they created the first bittersweet memory by pressing the special button at the same time, and...yeah...I still get goosebumps just thinking about it.

Overall, I give this movie two huge thumbs up, for kids and adults alike. It has a well-balanced mixture of lighthearted humor and poignant themes that will make you choke up if you're a melancholic person. If you're reading this review even though you haven't seen the movie yet, I highly encourage you to go. I haven't spoiled the entire thing (just the main plot), and I promise you that the trip is worth it.  

Way to go, Pixar!

Rike's Playlist

Okay. Here's Rike's playlist. I'm not listing everything in my computer file because I don't want to give away future plot moods, but this collection is pretty accurate for where he is in book three.

Rike's Playlist

Immortals — Big Hero 6 Soundtrack (Fall Out Boy)

The Impossible — Joe Nichols

Huron Beltane Fire Dance — Loreena Mckennit

Far Away — Nickleback

This Means War — Nickleback

Hero — Skillet

Assassin's Creed III Theme — Lindsey Stirling

Halo Theme — Lindsey Stirling

Skyrim Main Theme — Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens

The Celts — Enya

Lord Mayo — Joanie Madden

Believe it or not, I can actually concentrate better when listening to these songs while writing Rike's scenes. I hope you enjoy them. Maybe you'll even find a new favorite.

Until next time...

 

Rike's Origin

Hi everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Yesterday was my last final for the school year, and now, for the rest of summer, I can focus on writing. I was just going to follow up on my last post "Maia's Playlist" with a list for Rike, but I started thinking and decided it was just a little too impersonal. Instead, I'm going to tell you the story of how his character came to be.

The Last Abecedarian Series was originally going to be written just from Maia's point of view. She was supposed to be a travelling gypsy, and Hugoh wasn't her cousin. In one lost draft of Violet Eyes, he was actually supposed the one to rescue her from the Umbragh soldiers in Briarpatch, and that was how the Resistance was supposed to find out who Maia was. My intention for the romance aspect of the books was to have a classic, cut-and-dried, prince-meets-princess kind of story, because I was more interested in proving that classic fairy tale principles could be applied to modern literature than in coming up with something new.

Rike was no more than a character I created to deliver the news to Briarpatch that Umbragh soldiers were coming to destroy the village. He didn't even have a name in the first draft. I just wanted a brawny farm-boy to ride into town, Paul Revere style, and say, "Umbragh is coming!" However, the draft felt too stiff by the time I reached chapter six, and so I started again with a twist. Instead of having Rike merely bring bad news to the town, I had him flirt with Maia in order to demonstrate that she was attractive and kind. At that point, she was still a gypsy, so they weren't old friends or anything. It was just a flirtation on his part.

In order to make the scene realistic, I thought I had to name him to give him a believable persona. So I searched for a word that I wanted to describe him in the scene, and I discovered the adjective "rakish," which means "dashingly or carelessly unconventional." It can have a negative connotation sometimes, but I loved the way the word sounded, so I found a piece of paper and started rearranging letters to make the word look different. Then I had the idea to substitute "i" for "a" in rake, and that is how Rike got his name.

The result was that Rike's character became so much fun to develop that I couldn't eliminate him from the story when I began the version of Violet Eyes that eventually became published. I made him Maia's best friend, but I still had no intention of making him a possible romantic interest for the heroine.  There will be no spoilers on this blog, but those of you who have read my books probably have your own theories on whether or not they're going to end up together. What I will admit here is that  Rike's character is the most drastically developed character in the series, and it still makes me smile when I hear readers say, "I love Rike!" It wasn't my intention to give him a large role in the story, but his character is the one that made me understand what it means to have characters with minds of their own.

The Last Abecedarian Series is about Maia, but most of my readers have expressed partiality to Rike, so I thought it would be fun to tell you his origin story. If you're looking for Rike's playlist, then don't worry, because it is coming. This just seemed like a more fitting post after more than a month of hibernation.

What do you think? Does anything about this story surprise you? Do you think Violet Eyes could have been just as good without Rike? Let me know in the comments below, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Until next time....

Maia's Playlist

Hello again, everybody. I just realized that I haven't updated my blog since before Easter, so here's an attempt to bring you up to speed on Book Three's progress. It's coming along much harder than Violet Eyes and Daughter of Aero. As I mentioned in my last post, all of my characters have matured, and I'm finding that developing plot twists to reflect the higher level of knowledge and ability is difficult. Don't worry, though. It's still coming along, and I think I'm enjoying the challenge. God willing, it will be the best book yet.

In the meantime, I'd like to share my character playlists. These are the songs I listen to when I'm writing scenes from a specific character's viewpoint. They help me get inside the character's head and write with their emotions or ending in mind. It's my way of sharing spoilers without actually sharing spoilers.

Maia's Playlist

The Hanging Tree (Catching Fire Soundtrack)

Demons (Imagine Dragons)

Book of Days (Enya)

The Impossible (Joe Nichols)

Say (John Mayer)

February Song (Josh Groban)

Crystallize (Lindsey Stirling)

Eriskummainen Kantele (Loituma)

Titanium (The Piano Guys)

King of Anything (Sara Bareilles)

Hero (Skillet)

Dante's Prayer (Loreena Mckennitt)

Invisible (Hunter Hayes)

Elements (Lindsey Stirling)

Brave (Sara Bareilles)

Then You Look At Me (Celine Dion)

              

So, as you can see, there's still a lot of self-searching songs on here, but I've tried to insert a few stronger songs too. I hope you'll have fun You Tubing these songs (if you don't already know what they are).  Next time I'll share Rike's playlist.

I'm Writing This Book to Prove...

 Hello again,

This post is going to be a little more serious than usual, but I think what I have to say is something my readers should know about me and my books. A friend of mine from a local writing group recently shared a piece of advice with me that he learned from a successful writer. When readers ask what your book is about, they're not asking for a description of the plot. The best formula for answering this question is to phrase it as, "I am writing this book to prove...."

Prove what? This idea caught me off guard because I don't want to try to set myself up as an activist, educator, or anything other than a creative writer. As far as I'm concerned, there's two camps in the literary world, the story-tellers and the academics, and I associate myself with the former. It's frightening to open myself up  to the heated debates that sometimes occur in the more academic circles.  However, this advice, coupled with the papers I've been writing for college, have opened my eyes to a new possibility that I've never considered before. The act of creative writing is academic. Even fantasy novels address issues about life, relationships, and virtue, including those eternal questions, "Why am I here? Why do I have to be the hero?"

I am young and inexperienced, but I do know what I like to see in books. Young Adult Fantasy novels have influenced my imagination in many positive ways, and this post isn't meant to be a rant. But I have noticed that there is a significant tendency in modern literature to downplay or eliminate the role of religion and God in plot development. This makes me sad because there are many exciting classic books that build their plots around deep religious themes. Chivalry, obedience to lawful authority (including God), and purity don't have to suck the life out of characters.  It's possible to question the status quo and still have a humble soul. 

In the beginning of Violet Eyes, I made Maia good to a fault because I wanted to distinguish between innocence and ignorance. It was my first attempt to write a novel, so parts of the plot structure were stereotypical; but, halfway through Daughter of Aero, I realized that the stereotypes worked in favor of my intended ending. My characters aren't always perfect. Although I strive to create stories that are suitable for all ages, sometimes my heroine and her friends find themselves in situations where it's not easy to know what virtue is.  Truth is constant, but the perception of the truth can be obscured by pressure and emotion, and that is why there sometimes appears to be a moral gray area. In the end, I want to show that my characters have struggled to maintain the innocence and virtue they started the series with, and they have triumphed because they persevered through suffering. God is a vital presence in my books through the character of Yezua, but He does not release Maia from the role of heroine. If He helps her win a battle, it's because she chose to keep fighting.

So, I guess I'm writing these books to prove that heroes are born through virtue, and firm belief in God doesn't eliminate the need for courage. My goal has been to convey this message in such a way that readers don't feel they're being preached at, but I also want to make it clear that Maia's victory came through the choices she made in all the little trials that crossed her path. That's all.

I just want to share that with all of you while the question is still at the forefront of my mind. Thank you for reading.

Have a blessed and happy Easter, everyone!