Kangaroos, here I come!
A personal soundtrack of sorts, curated by yours truly.
November is an important month for me. Why, you may ask. Is it because of NaNoWriMo?
Hell no. I already waxed poetic on my feelings about NaNo (and Daylight Savings Time too, for that matter last November).
Is it because my birthday is in November?
We’re getting warmer.
My decision to re-watch all six seasons of the show Xena Warrior Princess – which is set in Ancient Greece – corresponded with my decision to someday rewrite my shelved first fantasy novel as historical fiction, also set in Ancient Greece.
That and because Xena is such a thrilling character – my favourite fictional character, in truth – whom I hadn’t watched since the show ended in 2001.
Ghostbusters original cast (1984).
Some people are really excited about it.
Others are really upset.
Like really upset, to the point of borderline self-righteousness, with words like “gimmick” and “pandering” receiving a thorough workout.
Maybe I’m just splitting hairs over semantics, but in and of itself, I don’t consider a gimmick to be a negative thing.
All marketing and media uses gimmicks or “hooks” to attract a target audience, in this case the hook being the casting women where previously there’d only been men, ostensibly to attract – at least in part – a target audience of female viewers.
Which right there may well be the real issue.
When I’m getting ready to start a new writing project, I spend a lot of time developing and getting to know the main character. One of the things I do is write a character monologue to help get a sense of his/her voice.
With my WIP, I had the brilliant idea to include this monologue as the novel’s opening – a decision for which members of my writing group rightly called me out when I read it to them. Comments included,
“Nothing happened.”
“I was bored.”
“There was no action; it was just a bunch of information that didn’t mean anything to me yet.”
“I found it rather poignant.”
(I think I fell in love a bit with the guy who said that last one. However he was already taken, plus he eventually quit writing and gave up the group, which suggests he didn’t really know enough about writing craft to give me proper advice.)
By GEARSMITH on deviantART
Because the movie, in my humble opinion, made his personality almost completely unrecognizable.
Optimus Prime – right up there with Xena, the Warrior Princess – has long been a favourite character of mine. For those unfamiliar with the Transformers franchise – of which there have numerous incarnations via cartoons, movies, and comics – the main, unchanging premise is that of a race of giant alien sentient robots who are gripped in an eons-long war of good against evil.
Optimus Prime is the long-standing leader of the heroic Autobots against the ruthless Decepticons led by the tyrant Megatron.
(For the record, her character wasn’t actually a princess, which I like better now that I’m well past the age of 5 and its pervasive draw to all things “princess”.)
The show Xena Warrior Princess aired while I was in high school and university, from 1995-2001.
I’m not sure how it was I came to discover it or its two companion shows, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and The Adventures of Sinbad, but all three quickly became part of my Saturday afternoon routine. Xena was always my favourite.
And in my customary inability to pick a winning horse, dismissed it without watching a single episode, deeming it just another sci-fi show on Space – a network whose programming quality, let’s be honest, varies.
But recently, my blog-buddy Eric J. Baker wrote about Orphan Black, recommending everyone give it a try. Plus, with the second season having recently started, news of Orphan Black and its success was everywhere in Canadian entertainment news.
So, I decided I’d watch a bit, and thus far am halfway through season 1.
Ser Bronn of the Blackwater
Also like most people, I have my favourite Game of Thrones characters, many of whom have died horrible deaths.
Thankfully, I still have a couple of favourites left, one of whom is Tyrion Lannister’s sellsword bodyguard-turned-knight, the aptly-named Bronn.
Bronn is a secondary character in the series, yet one I’m always excited to watch. This despite the fact that the roguish soldier of fortune – a hard-drinking, womanizing, wry, cunning, yet still reasonably amiable mercenary – is a common high fantasy trope.
My Brain On Vacation by Jo1day (http://jo1day.deviantart.com/art/My-Brain-On-Vacation-56050055)
I don’t know about any of you, but my poor brain gets a lot of use over the course of a year. I’m always thinking about something. This past year, I expended much brain power on the following:
Writing.
Thinking about writing.
My brain is always in high gear, speeding from one thought to another, passing by past concerns, gaining ground on up and coming ones. That is hard enough.
(Continued from Part 1, Part 2 – The Good, Part 3 – The Bad, and Part 4 – The Ugly)
Conclusion
Love it or hate it, fan fiction is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.
A Frame Around Infinity 