First and for most, I've moved some of my blogging stuff to Tumblr. You can find my tumblr page here.
Secondly, editing on Gabriel has been finished up. The new file is uploaded onto kindle, and currently from now through June 27th it will be free to pick up there! This is both so that new people can pick up a copy as well as to give previous purchasers a chance to get an edited copy for free.
Work is still being made on my next book, the first in a series called the Providence series. As things start getting finalized with it more information will be made available!
Thanks darlings!
Monday, June 24, 2013
Saturday, March 9, 2013
A little update and a few thoughts
All right, a quick update first and foremost.
Gabriel – It’s been reedited and just needs to have the edits entered into the file on the computer and then read through one more time as a check. Then it will simply be a matter of making sure the formats work right. Once this is done the kindle file will be updated and I’ll likely have a few free days for you to pick up the kindle version so that those who’ve previously gotten the book and want a newly edited copy can grab one as well as any curious new readers.
Providence book 1 – The first book of this series is coming along though slower than I had planned. It’s a mix of things including a shortage on writing time and then a bit of writer’s block that’s been happening. I’m aiming for it to be completed by the end of this year though and at least ready for editing if not release via kindle.
General life – I’ve been busy with work and school the last few months, and been dealing with a bit of feeling stuck in place which is likely contributing to the writer’s block and procrastination on things. I’m attempting to change a few things within my life to help with this, one of which is looking into buying a place so I can get out of the dreaded apartments. Though I don’t want to live in Colorado once I’m out of school I’ve calculated that going part time will take me at least another 5 years to complete my degree, and the thought of living in an apartment that entire time in draining. My only real fear is that I’ll get a place and find myself trapped in it when I’m ready to move on.
Now, a short little bit on some of things I’ve realized over the past year or so since Gabriel has been out on Kindle. I’m insanely proud of my little book despite the knowledge that the editing could be better; a fact that wasn’t helped by the person who had originally been doing the editing for me flaked on that job. I could have likely edited it better myself than I did, though I’d been working on it for close to 2 years if I remember right and there’s the simple truth that when you’ve been staring at something for that long you tend to miss your own mistakes more. Luckily, I have a new editor who, though not an editor by profession, is at least helping me catch and fix a good chunk of the grammar and spelling mistakes that happen when you’re typing like a madwoman.
I’ve also realized how strong some people hold onto their views that if you’re self published it must mean you weren’t good enough. I personally chose to self publish because it worked better for me; I never even tried in the traditional send it off to the publishers way. Though I would love writing to someday support me the honest fact is that for most writers it isn’t the only thing they do to survive, and right now I wouldn’t even have the time to begin to think where to start on that end. It’d be nice to be published by an actual publisher, but the self publishing was something suggested to me and I’ve found it works. There are still some things that are far more difficult with it, such as advertising when you’re on your own especially as I’ve never been someone who really put out there that I write in the first place.
It’s also getting people to see that just because you’re self published doesn’t mean your book is inherently bad. I’ve both people I know and strangers doubt whether my book is worth reading simply because of this fact. You can’t do much about this other than tell them that they won’t know unless they give it a chance. I’ve had the exact words of “well anyone can self publish” to “you probably don’t really want me to read it” said as excuses why people won’t give it a shot. Really, I don’t care that much. I’d love some constructive criticism; it’s how you grow as a writer. The thing is that it should be constructive, not just you’re decision to be rude or mean. I’ve gotten some great criticism in the small handful of reviews I’ve received, and I love and appreciate it.
Speaking of reviews, I’ve also found that the number of books you’ve sold either through actual sales or giveaways rarely show in the amount of reviews you get. I’ve gotten maybe 5 reviews in all on my book between people who’ve bought it and those who got it during a free day. I’d love to hear what people think if they’ve read Gabriel or read any of my future stories. So, please don’t be afraid to review even if you did dislike it.
I think that’s going to be it for now. I haven’t forgotten about this little blog, things are just hectic and what time I have to write I’ve been trying to focus on getting work on Providence done.
I have been thinking of starting a blog that will be snippets of writing exercise and such, so if you’d be interest in something like that let me know.
Until next time, my dears…
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Oh dear me...
Just where has the time gone? It doesn't seem like that long ago I was promising a post here, and now months have passed in silence. I apologize for this, but I'll be up front now about how this will probably go from here on out. When I first started up this blog I had every intention of updating it on a weekly basis, or at least close to one. I've never been much of a blog keeper though, even my diaries from back in the day faded away into silence for months when I attempted to keep them. So, from now on I'll be doing my best to post at least once a month but long spans of quiet are likely to happen especially if I find myself straining to figure out just what to write about to you all.
And that's a part of it, I created this with the thought of it being a 'writer's' blog and that I'd post my observations about writing when the honest truth is that when I have that time to steal away to write I'm far more likely to work on whatever story I'm trying to pin down to the figurative paper of my Word program. Therefore, this is my 'writer's' blog but I'm going to be a bit more loose in what I put here.
Now, an update on what I am currently working on:
Gabriel will hopefully be in paper print by the end of the year. The main thing I need to work on is formatting things and making sure it lays out the way I'd like. I may possibly rehash the cover, however, I find myself overly fond of my only mildly touched by photoshop drawing I did for the original Kindle release so it may keep its cover the same. I am my own editor, so I can't promise perfection but I'm also hoping to fix what mistakes I find during a second look over. I will keep you up to date for when it is available in paper form, and my plans are currently to go through CreateSpace for this step.
I am working on the first book of my Providence series still, and it has gone through many re-workings and restarts. The main chunk of the story is all down on paper, but as I discover little things that need to be fixed in the world and that will need to be changed so that later on within the series things flow correctly I find I have to retype large sections and thus the basic rewrites. I have finally reached that point though where all my little details are figured out, and so I have started work on my final draft of the story. As soon as that is done I will jump into the full editing, attempt to rein a friend into helping with a little editing if I find one willing enough, and once that point is reached I can give a better idea of when it shall be released. I will likely follow my path which I took with Gabriel and release it first on the Kindle before moving onto paper print.
A life update:
What have I been doing the last several months? Well, this summer I took a class as I was taking this fall semester off from school. The class and the short 8 week schedule we were expected to learn all the same things most would in 16 weeks kicked my ass a little, but I managed to pull the class off with a B.
This fall semester off hasn't been quite as relaxing as I'd hoped due to work stuff with the day job. It seems to have calmed down some for now so hopefully the next couple of months before classes start up in January will be a bit less stressful.
I went to Scotland, a long time dream of mine, and I thoroughly enjoyed it though I admit that it seemed to pass in an almost detached sort of way. I saw so many beautiful things and learned so much history of this place that I've always felt a connection with yet I felt strangely disconnected during the trip as though it wasn't really happening. I saw Culloden battlefield, took a boat tour on Loch Ness, walked through amazing castles and explored Edinburgh mainly by foot. I spent a peaceful morning at the Clava Cairns and Standing Stones and watched a trio of little old women preform a solstice ceremony in one of the circles not even realizing I had chosen the solstice as my day to visit them. I took two different ghost tours, both with extremely different approaches, and explored the underground of Edinburgh with an EMF meter and a couple who were locals. I took a book lovers tour where we were shown some of the buildings where Sir Walter Scott and Sir Arther Conan Doyle studied and lived, as well as the real coffee shop that J.K. Rowling wrote in as well as the far more publicly known coffee shop that she wrote in but didn't start out in. I climbed up far too many narrow, steep spiral staircases to get the view from up top than is really good for someone with mild claustrophobia and a dislike of heights. (I will say that they at least weren't elevators, something I hate far more than heights and tight spaces alone). It was an amazing trip yet it somehow feels like it happened years ago despite having only taken place at the end of September.
I more recently celebrated Halloween by going to the Shining Ball at the Stanley Hotel up in Estes Park, CO. It was all in one a fun yet slightly disappointing weekend, which managed to be far more eventful than my friend and I would have guessed.
The ball itself was the part we found ourselves disappointed with. Though we had fun and enjoyed seeing the different costumes they made the dance floor extremely too small for people to really dance, and put it all in the same room with the tables which were mainly too close together to dance amongst them if you couldn't find a spot up on the floor. Tickets weren't cheap ($90 with no seating, I believe it jumped to $120 if you wanted seating), and yet you still had to pay for all your drinks and if you weren't seated there was no ordering food. I had one of their specialty mixed drinks where you got to keep the collectors glass, and it was $15 and ended up tasting like High-C mixed with vodka. My friend and I managed to enjoy ourselves still, and even squeezed onto a corner of the dance floor once it got a bit later and some people had cleared out. I owned the joint when they played The Time Warp. I was dressed as a masquerade version of Loki, which I'll post a picture of below. My friend went as a Steampunk Automaton.
The rest of the time we spent was the really...interesting part. Stanley Hotel is reportedly haunted, the fourth floor having a number of different ghosts including the ghost children. Room 217 was the room Steven King stayed in that help inspire The Shining. The first night after the ball my friend and I both woke to what sounded like someone pacing restlessly in our room; the floor boards were creaking incredibly loud that I finally sat up and turned the light on at which point all noises simply stopped. I had brought my digital recorder with me as well as my EMF detector so we could goof around ghost hunting. At this point I suggested that we record the rest of the night so that if the pacing sounds started again we could hear them when we listened back. What we got was a little more than floor boards creaking. In fact, we got a male voice saying something along the lines of "Curse you, couldn't get 'free'". We're undecided still on the last word, but we've managed to figure out the first four (which makes far more sense than my initial impression that he was saying "Curse you, cookies and cream). Our door also constantly rattled throughout the night as though someone was trying to open it, something it hadn't done during the times we were awake earlier in the evening.
The second night was the one that really got us though. We were both sitting on the bed listening to try and figure out what the voice had said the night before when out of no where our door opened. The door that lead out of the room and shouldn't have opened without our key from the outside or us opening it from the inside swung wide open with force, and then slowly closed itself again. I went out into the hall immediately and saw no one outside, and we had heard no one approach or leave our door within the time frame that it opened. We also tested to see if it could have been closed but not latched but found that if it hadn't latched all the way it immediately opened by just an inch or two, nothing like the full forced opening and then closing we'd seen.
We recorded that night too, and I am slowly working my way through both recordings to see if we caught anything else weird. Both of us at different points in the night experienced strange things as well, but nothing quite as dramatic as the door. I, at one point, heard my friend get up and go into the bathroom only to feel someone get back into the bed besides me and hear the sheets shuffle. I sat up and turned the light on again only to confirm I was alone and my friend was indeed in the bathroom. At a different point in the night she thought I had gotten up and gone into the bathroom only to then hear me take a breathe as I was still asleep and had never gotten up.
It was an eventful stay that had me giddy with excitement due to my interest in the paranormal and my poor dear friend perhaps a little more freaked out than she had prepared for when she agreed to come along for the weekend.
So, those are the main highlights of the last few months for me really. At this point I am planning on eating some dinner, and then sitting down to write for a while before bed. Hopefully it won't be quite so long before I update again, and I will make sure to update when good progress is made on my projects.
Until next time my darlings...
And that's a part of it, I created this with the thought of it being a 'writer's' blog and that I'd post my observations about writing when the honest truth is that when I have that time to steal away to write I'm far more likely to work on whatever story I'm trying to pin down to the figurative paper of my Word program. Therefore, this is my 'writer's' blog but I'm going to be a bit more loose in what I put here.
Now, an update on what I am currently working on:
Gabriel will hopefully be in paper print by the end of the year. The main thing I need to work on is formatting things and making sure it lays out the way I'd like. I may possibly rehash the cover, however, I find myself overly fond of my only mildly touched by photoshop drawing I did for the original Kindle release so it may keep its cover the same. I am my own editor, so I can't promise perfection but I'm also hoping to fix what mistakes I find during a second look over. I will keep you up to date for when it is available in paper form, and my plans are currently to go through CreateSpace for this step.
I am working on the first book of my Providence series still, and it has gone through many re-workings and restarts. The main chunk of the story is all down on paper, but as I discover little things that need to be fixed in the world and that will need to be changed so that later on within the series things flow correctly I find I have to retype large sections and thus the basic rewrites. I have finally reached that point though where all my little details are figured out, and so I have started work on my final draft of the story. As soon as that is done I will jump into the full editing, attempt to rein a friend into helping with a little editing if I find one willing enough, and once that point is reached I can give a better idea of when it shall be released. I will likely follow my path which I took with Gabriel and release it first on the Kindle before moving onto paper print.
A life update:
What have I been doing the last several months? Well, this summer I took a class as I was taking this fall semester off from school. The class and the short 8 week schedule we were expected to learn all the same things most would in 16 weeks kicked my ass a little, but I managed to pull the class off with a B.
This fall semester off hasn't been quite as relaxing as I'd hoped due to work stuff with the day job. It seems to have calmed down some for now so hopefully the next couple of months before classes start up in January will be a bit less stressful.
I went to Scotland, a long time dream of mine, and I thoroughly enjoyed it though I admit that it seemed to pass in an almost detached sort of way. I saw so many beautiful things and learned so much history of this place that I've always felt a connection with yet I felt strangely disconnected during the trip as though it wasn't really happening. I saw Culloden battlefield, took a boat tour on Loch Ness, walked through amazing castles and explored Edinburgh mainly by foot. I spent a peaceful morning at the Clava Cairns and Standing Stones and watched a trio of little old women preform a solstice ceremony in one of the circles not even realizing I had chosen the solstice as my day to visit them. I took two different ghost tours, both with extremely different approaches, and explored the underground of Edinburgh with an EMF meter and a couple who were locals. I took a book lovers tour where we were shown some of the buildings where Sir Walter Scott and Sir Arther Conan Doyle studied and lived, as well as the real coffee shop that J.K. Rowling wrote in as well as the far more publicly known coffee shop that she wrote in but didn't start out in. I climbed up far too many narrow, steep spiral staircases to get the view from up top than is really good for someone with mild claustrophobia and a dislike of heights. (I will say that they at least weren't elevators, something I hate far more than heights and tight spaces alone). It was an amazing trip yet it somehow feels like it happened years ago despite having only taken place at the end of September.
I more recently celebrated Halloween by going to the Shining Ball at the Stanley Hotel up in Estes Park, CO. It was all in one a fun yet slightly disappointing weekend, which managed to be far more eventful than my friend and I would have guessed.
The ball itself was the part we found ourselves disappointed with. Though we had fun and enjoyed seeing the different costumes they made the dance floor extremely too small for people to really dance, and put it all in the same room with the tables which were mainly too close together to dance amongst them if you couldn't find a spot up on the floor. Tickets weren't cheap ($90 with no seating, I believe it jumped to $120 if you wanted seating), and yet you still had to pay for all your drinks and if you weren't seated there was no ordering food. I had one of their specialty mixed drinks where you got to keep the collectors glass, and it was $15 and ended up tasting like High-C mixed with vodka. My friend and I managed to enjoy ourselves still, and even squeezed onto a corner of the dance floor once it got a bit later and some people had cleared out. I owned the joint when they played The Time Warp. I was dressed as a masquerade version of Loki, which I'll post a picture of below. My friend went as a Steampunk Automaton.
I was meant to have a hoop skirt on, but I had forgotten it at home unfortunately so my skirts weren't as full as they were intended. I still rather enjoyed my costume, even if I was one of two people in the entire place that got what I was meant to be.
The rest of the time we spent was the really...interesting part. Stanley Hotel is reportedly haunted, the fourth floor having a number of different ghosts including the ghost children. Room 217 was the room Steven King stayed in that help inspire The Shining. The first night after the ball my friend and I both woke to what sounded like someone pacing restlessly in our room; the floor boards were creaking incredibly loud that I finally sat up and turned the light on at which point all noises simply stopped. I had brought my digital recorder with me as well as my EMF detector so we could goof around ghost hunting. At this point I suggested that we record the rest of the night so that if the pacing sounds started again we could hear them when we listened back. What we got was a little more than floor boards creaking. In fact, we got a male voice saying something along the lines of "Curse you, couldn't get 'free'". We're undecided still on the last word, but we've managed to figure out the first four (which makes far more sense than my initial impression that he was saying "Curse you, cookies and cream). Our door also constantly rattled throughout the night as though someone was trying to open it, something it hadn't done during the times we were awake earlier in the evening.
The second night was the one that really got us though. We were both sitting on the bed listening to try and figure out what the voice had said the night before when out of no where our door opened. The door that lead out of the room and shouldn't have opened without our key from the outside or us opening it from the inside swung wide open with force, and then slowly closed itself again. I went out into the hall immediately and saw no one outside, and we had heard no one approach or leave our door within the time frame that it opened. We also tested to see if it could have been closed but not latched but found that if it hadn't latched all the way it immediately opened by just an inch or two, nothing like the full forced opening and then closing we'd seen.
We recorded that night too, and I am slowly working my way through both recordings to see if we caught anything else weird. Both of us at different points in the night experienced strange things as well, but nothing quite as dramatic as the door. I, at one point, heard my friend get up and go into the bathroom only to feel someone get back into the bed besides me and hear the sheets shuffle. I sat up and turned the light on again only to confirm I was alone and my friend was indeed in the bathroom. At a different point in the night she thought I had gotten up and gone into the bathroom only to then hear me take a breathe as I was still asleep and had never gotten up.
It was an eventful stay that had me giddy with excitement due to my interest in the paranormal and my poor dear friend perhaps a little more freaked out than she had prepared for when she agreed to come along for the weekend.
So, those are the main highlights of the last few months for me really. At this point I am planning on eating some dinner, and then sitting down to write for a while before bed. Hopefully it won't be quite so long before I update again, and I will make sure to update when good progress is made on my projects.
Until next time my darlings...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
News
So, with finals for this semester being next week I'll probably be taking a small hiatus in updates. I meant to post last week and then got super busy. I think it will just be better if I agree with myself to take a little break from the blog until the semester is over. After that I'll try to get back onto a more regular updating schedule again.
Sorry, life likes to get in the way and make things crazy.
Thanks for sticking around. Until then dears...
Sorry, life likes to get in the way and make things crazy.
Thanks for sticking around. Until then dears...
Monday, April 16, 2012
Things to come
So, with my first book having been out for about three months now and the first draft of my second book almost done, I figure I'll give you a little preview of what's to come in the future. I've had it asked if Gabriel is going to continue past this first book, and the answer to that is no. I always planned on that book being a standalone story, and I feel like it wrapped up well. Though I'm sure there could be more that could happen within that world, I have no plans to write anything else involving those characters. I love them all, but no further story with them has presented itself to me.
My next book is going to be the first in a series though. I don't have any solid plans yet for how many books are going to end up being in the series at the moment. It's going to be the 'Providence series', and it will be a fantasy-based series that takes place in a somewhat dieselpunk setting. It's going to be heavily influence by myths, legends and folklore from around the world. The series will revolve around the six crew members of the airship, Providence, and their run-ins with the creatures from that myths and legends that people don't believe are real.
In the first book the small crew runs into an old friend from the Captain's past. The man, Breandan McCoy, is a Shifter who deals with unusual problems that are tied to the supernatural world. As the Captain, Quinn, tries to reconnect and settle what he sees as an old debt to Breandan he finds himself and his crew pulled into the middle of a series of murders and disappearance that the Shifter is investigating. Meanwhile, Breandan ends up wishing he'd continued to avoid any meetings with people from his past from before he was turned into a Shifter as he deals with the town's growing suspicions that he's the one responsible for the deaths he's trying to stop.
Between the twin sisters who run things on the financial side as well as being the ship's protection detail to the ship's doctor who doesn't like to talk about his past, the crew has plenty of history with each other as well as secrets they keep hidden. Over the course of the series we will learn more and more about each of them, and what has managed to bring the small group together to form a tight knit family aboard the ship.
I have another series I'm brainstorming on, but I haven't quite solidified the entire concept quite yet. I have two main characters who's personalities are already strongly present, I just need to decide on some things when it comes to the world they're going to inhabit. I'm working those detail out slowly but surely so that when I do finish the first Providence book I can hopefully get started on the first book of this series.
That's a little taste of what I'm working on. I'll probably get a full summary up once I'm closer to finishing the second draft of my next book, and I'm hoping to have it ready to be released no later than the end of this year if not perhaps a little earlier depending on how smoothly things go.
Thanks, and have a great week.
Until next time dears...
My next book is going to be the first in a series though. I don't have any solid plans yet for how many books are going to end up being in the series at the moment. It's going to be the 'Providence series', and it will be a fantasy-based series that takes place in a somewhat dieselpunk setting. It's going to be heavily influence by myths, legends and folklore from around the world. The series will revolve around the six crew members of the airship, Providence, and their run-ins with the creatures from that myths and legends that people don't believe are real.
In the first book the small crew runs into an old friend from the Captain's past. The man, Breandan McCoy, is a Shifter who deals with unusual problems that are tied to the supernatural world. As the Captain, Quinn, tries to reconnect and settle what he sees as an old debt to Breandan he finds himself and his crew pulled into the middle of a series of murders and disappearance that the Shifter is investigating. Meanwhile, Breandan ends up wishing he'd continued to avoid any meetings with people from his past from before he was turned into a Shifter as he deals with the town's growing suspicions that he's the one responsible for the deaths he's trying to stop.
Between the twin sisters who run things on the financial side as well as being the ship's protection detail to the ship's doctor who doesn't like to talk about his past, the crew has plenty of history with each other as well as secrets they keep hidden. Over the course of the series we will learn more and more about each of them, and what has managed to bring the small group together to form a tight knit family aboard the ship.
I have another series I'm brainstorming on, but I haven't quite solidified the entire concept quite yet. I have two main characters who's personalities are already strongly present, I just need to decide on some things when it comes to the world they're going to inhabit. I'm working those detail out slowly but surely so that when I do finish the first Providence book I can hopefully get started on the first book of this series.
That's a little taste of what I'm working on. I'll probably get a full summary up once I'm closer to finishing the second draft of my next book, and I'm hoping to have it ready to be released no later than the end of this year if not perhaps a little earlier depending on how smoothly things go.
Thanks, and have a great week.
Until next time dears...
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Hunger Games movie vs. the book
So, I only read the Hunger Games books after I had heard that the movie was coming out. This meant that when I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago it was still pretty fresh in my mind. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed the books, especially the first one. As far as the movie goes, I'd say that I liked it but that it wasn't quite up to snuff though I rarely find movies based on books are. It's the fact that they can't always fit everything into the movie that the book gets in, and that there is always to some extent a 'sprucing things up' for the movie version. Now there were several things I enjoyed about the movie adaptation, but I'll go over the things I wish they hadn't changed/left out first.
Now, I'm sure it's needless to say that there will be some spoilers, but I'm put the warning up anyway. If you haven't read the books or seen the movie I would recommend not reading this blog as it will contain spoilers for both. This doesn't limit itself to just the first book either as I may address a few things that happen in the later books in how the changes in the movie effect it.
The change I think I hated the most in the movie was how they treated Prim's character. In the books Prim always came off as just as strong as Katniss, but in a different way. She was a quiet character with a lot of emotional strength to handle situations, and in the movie they made her act almost like a whiny little sister that Katniss had to constantly reassure. She lacked that sense of strength that she had in the book, and it put me off to the movie even though she's only in the beginning part before the Hunger Games actually start.
While we're on characters I'd like to touch on Haymitch and the various mistakes I feel they made with his character. There is the first that he didn't really come off as drunk enough. In the books Haymitch is falling off the stage, pass out where he's sitting kind of drunk. In the movie he comes off like he's just always slightly buzzed. It's a continuous buzz, true,but that's as far as it ever seems to get Another thing I felt they did wrong was they minimized the instance where he starts to realize Peeta and Katniss may have a chance, and decides to actually start training them. In their training he has a very small role, and they completely took out where he coaches Katniss on behaving like she loves Peeta. There is none of that, and it plays a big role in the books. The entire team that is there to prepare them for the Games get a very pulled back role in their training. There's no one there to tell them to hold hands when they head out on the carriage, Peeta just suggests it. There's no one there telling them to play up the romance, it's just awkwardly handled between the two of them. The only hint we got of this was Haymitch sending the one message with the soup about 'You call that a kiss?' and we never even see the follow through of that where Katniss plays up the affection to get the sleeping drought from the sponsors. They dropped the ball on this, and it seems to be to be a rather important drive in the story.
The riot in District 11 after Rue's death. This bothered me, because though we were getting a behind the scenes look at things during the Games opposed to the point of view in the book, there was no mention of District 11 rioting during the events of the Games. I found it to be more poignant that they sent her the tribute, that this poor Distract pulled its money together to show their appreciation to Katniss. Though I'm sure they made this choice to foretell what happens in the next movie I felt like it would have been better to keep the hints of rebellion down a little more in the first movie.
I felt they left a few side characters out that they could have kept in the story line. The big one for me was Madge, and how she was the one that gave Katniss the pin. I know they can't keep every side character in the story, but I always felt like Madge giving Katniss the Mockingjay pin was a way for a rebellion that had already started to build to show some support for a tribute. I may be off the mark on that, but it lost some of its significance for me with Katniss just buying it randomly at the market. Also, the Avox girl was never presented or given her back story. She, like Madge, doesn't show up much after her initial purpose is served, but she was a tie to Katniss's past and showed the punishments that the Capitol gave to those that went against them. They touch on the Avoxes only slightly when Katniss mentions they might cut out their tongues, but it's never really explained that this is an actual punishment they've used.
I was on the fence about how the movie showed us the behind the scenes aspect of the Games. In the books it's told completely from Katniss's perspective, and we don't see the what's happening outside the games throughout that entire first book. We don't get the view of being one of those people stuck watching the games on TV whether they want to be or not. Part of me felt like this was a good move as it allowed some aspects of the world to be explained, like the tracker jackers, that we wouldn't have necessarily had explained to us as seamlessly otherwise. A lot of the things we learn about the world in the books we learn through Katniss's inner dialoge, and this obviously wouldn't have worked as well in the movie to hear her thoughts constantly. At the same time though, I think it allowed some of the seriousness of what was happening to be dimmed as we were basically made those spectators in the Capitol watching the commentary and the view that this was all entertainment.
Now, for the things that I like. I loved the casting in this movie, pretty much all of it even on the characters that I felt they missed the direction of in the writing. Jennifer Lawrence was perfect as Katniss, and I find it rather ridiculous that people were calling her too big boned to play the part of Katniss. Josh Hutherson was great as Peeta and played the role of the frightened but determined 'boy with the bread'. He was both charming when he was aiming to be for the Capitol people, that touch of shy when he wasn't, and genuine n his approach to how Peeta felt towards Katniss. We didn't see much of Gale or Prim in this book, and I've already address the issue I had with how Prim's character as a whole was handled but both Liam Hemsworth and Willow Sheilds seemed to fit their roles well for the short time we saw them.
Elizabeth Banks was perfect as Effie Trinket, I loved how she seemed to take on Effie's offhanded way of treating the fact that Peeta and Katniss may die. Woody Harrelson was good as Haymitch though he was both skinnier than I pictured the man and as I said before, not as drunk. Woody Harrelson not acting like a drunken lunatic is something unexpected out of a performance from him.
As far as the other tributes went in the movie I felt they were all equally well cast, especially as they were characters that for the most part we didn't even know their names. We knew those few that stood out, but other's we only know by their Districts. Amandla Stenberg was perfectly cast as Rue, the quiet and shy girl who had more skill than any of the other's assumed. Alexander Ludwig as Cato was convincingly blood thirsty as well, and rather crazy seeming by the end. When I first heard the Lenny Kravitz was playing Cinna I was skeptical, but I ended up loving his performance as Katniss's soft spoke but strong support in the wings.
I felt like they did the feel of the arena right from the get go, though I didn't picture of Cornucopia as being this large black almost plastic-y looking thing in the center of the arena. The fighting between the different tributes played out pretty much as it did in the book, though you could tell they were trying to keep the blood down for the lower rating. They made the decision not to show the ships coming to pick up the bodies, which wasn't something that effected the movie either way. They got the overall feel of the world correct, and did an amazing job with the look of the Capitol and it's citizens. From an artist perspective the movie was beautiful as well, and the design teams did an excellent job.
Overall, though they got a lot right and some wrong I felt by the end of the movie that things were a little flat. Whether it was the lack of the detail that the book gives us so richly, or the fact that the things I felt they missed on were things I saw as being important I'm not sure. Perhaps if I had gone into the movie blindly without having read the books first I'd have appreciated it more, but I left feeling torn and uncertain. They got the gist of things as a whole, but missed the mark on some of the most important elements.
Plus, they left out the line where Peeta asks from his camouflaged vantage if Katniss was 'There to finish me off, sweetheart?'. I missed that line and the fact they didn't use it. Why? I don't know, it's not an important line other than to show that even while dying and covered in mud Peeta had a bit of a sense of humor. Plus, the fact that maybe if he was going to die he'd rather have Katniss be the one that did it.
All in all. I highly recommend the books as a good read. The movie, I'd say see it though I don't think it will be one I see repeatedly. It wasn't a bad movie, but when you enjoyed the books you may find yourself confused about why certain aspect didn't make it into the movie's storyline.
Till next time,dears...
Now, I'm sure it's needless to say that there will be some spoilers, but I'm put the warning up anyway. If you haven't read the books or seen the movie I would recommend not reading this blog as it will contain spoilers for both. This doesn't limit itself to just the first book either as I may address a few things that happen in the later books in how the changes in the movie effect it.
The change I think I hated the most in the movie was how they treated Prim's character. In the books Prim always came off as just as strong as Katniss, but in a different way. She was a quiet character with a lot of emotional strength to handle situations, and in the movie they made her act almost like a whiny little sister that Katniss had to constantly reassure. She lacked that sense of strength that she had in the book, and it put me off to the movie even though she's only in the beginning part before the Hunger Games actually start.
While we're on characters I'd like to touch on Haymitch and the various mistakes I feel they made with his character. There is the first that he didn't really come off as drunk enough. In the books Haymitch is falling off the stage, pass out where he's sitting kind of drunk. In the movie he comes off like he's just always slightly buzzed. It's a continuous buzz, true,but that's as far as it ever seems to get Another thing I felt they did wrong was they minimized the instance where he starts to realize Peeta and Katniss may have a chance, and decides to actually start training them. In their training he has a very small role, and they completely took out where he coaches Katniss on behaving like she loves Peeta. There is none of that, and it plays a big role in the books. The entire team that is there to prepare them for the Games get a very pulled back role in their training. There's no one there to tell them to hold hands when they head out on the carriage, Peeta just suggests it. There's no one there telling them to play up the romance, it's just awkwardly handled between the two of them. The only hint we got of this was Haymitch sending the one message with the soup about 'You call that a kiss?' and we never even see the follow through of that where Katniss plays up the affection to get the sleeping drought from the sponsors. They dropped the ball on this, and it seems to be to be a rather important drive in the story.
The riot in District 11 after Rue's death. This bothered me, because though we were getting a behind the scenes look at things during the Games opposed to the point of view in the book, there was no mention of District 11 rioting during the events of the Games. I found it to be more poignant that they sent her the tribute, that this poor Distract pulled its money together to show their appreciation to Katniss. Though I'm sure they made this choice to foretell what happens in the next movie I felt like it would have been better to keep the hints of rebellion down a little more in the first movie.
I felt they left a few side characters out that they could have kept in the story line. The big one for me was Madge, and how she was the one that gave Katniss the pin. I know they can't keep every side character in the story, but I always felt like Madge giving Katniss the Mockingjay pin was a way for a rebellion that had already started to build to show some support for a tribute. I may be off the mark on that, but it lost some of its significance for me with Katniss just buying it randomly at the market. Also, the Avox girl was never presented or given her back story. She, like Madge, doesn't show up much after her initial purpose is served, but she was a tie to Katniss's past and showed the punishments that the Capitol gave to those that went against them. They touch on the Avoxes only slightly when Katniss mentions they might cut out their tongues, but it's never really explained that this is an actual punishment they've used.
I was on the fence about how the movie showed us the behind the scenes aspect of the Games. In the books it's told completely from Katniss's perspective, and we don't see the what's happening outside the games throughout that entire first book. We don't get the view of being one of those people stuck watching the games on TV whether they want to be or not. Part of me felt like this was a good move as it allowed some aspects of the world to be explained, like the tracker jackers, that we wouldn't have necessarily had explained to us as seamlessly otherwise. A lot of the things we learn about the world in the books we learn through Katniss's inner dialoge, and this obviously wouldn't have worked as well in the movie to hear her thoughts constantly. At the same time though, I think it allowed some of the seriousness of what was happening to be dimmed as we were basically made those spectators in the Capitol watching the commentary and the view that this was all entertainment.
Now, for the things that I like. I loved the casting in this movie, pretty much all of it even on the characters that I felt they missed the direction of in the writing. Jennifer Lawrence was perfect as Katniss, and I find it rather ridiculous that people were calling her too big boned to play the part of Katniss. Josh Hutherson was great as Peeta and played the role of the frightened but determined 'boy with the bread'. He was both charming when he was aiming to be for the Capitol people, that touch of shy when he wasn't, and genuine n his approach to how Peeta felt towards Katniss. We didn't see much of Gale or Prim in this book, and I've already address the issue I had with how Prim's character as a whole was handled but both Liam Hemsworth and Willow Sheilds seemed to fit their roles well for the short time we saw them.
Elizabeth Banks was perfect as Effie Trinket, I loved how she seemed to take on Effie's offhanded way of treating the fact that Peeta and Katniss may die. Woody Harrelson was good as Haymitch though he was both skinnier than I pictured the man and as I said before, not as drunk. Woody Harrelson not acting like a drunken lunatic is something unexpected out of a performance from him.
As far as the other tributes went in the movie I felt they were all equally well cast, especially as they were characters that for the most part we didn't even know their names. We knew those few that stood out, but other's we only know by their Districts. Amandla Stenberg was perfectly cast as Rue, the quiet and shy girl who had more skill than any of the other's assumed. Alexander Ludwig as Cato was convincingly blood thirsty as well, and rather crazy seeming by the end. When I first heard the Lenny Kravitz was playing Cinna I was skeptical, but I ended up loving his performance as Katniss's soft spoke but strong support in the wings.
I felt like they did the feel of the arena right from the get go, though I didn't picture of Cornucopia as being this large black almost plastic-y looking thing in the center of the arena. The fighting between the different tributes played out pretty much as it did in the book, though you could tell they were trying to keep the blood down for the lower rating. They made the decision not to show the ships coming to pick up the bodies, which wasn't something that effected the movie either way. They got the overall feel of the world correct, and did an amazing job with the look of the Capitol and it's citizens. From an artist perspective the movie was beautiful as well, and the design teams did an excellent job.
Overall, though they got a lot right and some wrong I felt by the end of the movie that things were a little flat. Whether it was the lack of the detail that the book gives us so richly, or the fact that the things I felt they missed on were things I saw as being important I'm not sure. Perhaps if I had gone into the movie blindly without having read the books first I'd have appreciated it more, but I left feeling torn and uncertain. They got the gist of things as a whole, but missed the mark on some of the most important elements.
Plus, they left out the line where Peeta asks from his camouflaged vantage if Katniss was 'There to finish me off, sweetheart?'. I missed that line and the fact they didn't use it. Why? I don't know, it's not an important line other than to show that even while dying and covered in mud Peeta had a bit of a sense of humor. Plus, the fact that maybe if he was going to die he'd rather have Katniss be the one that did it.
All in all. I highly recommend the books as a good read. The movie, I'd say see it though I don't think it will be one I see repeatedly. It wasn't a bad movie, but when you enjoyed the books you may find yourself confused about why certain aspect didn't make it into the movie's storyline.
Till next time,dears...
Monday, April 2, 2012
Oops
So, I have noticed that I've not posted the last couple of weeks. I actually have a post planned out for this week, but as I was baby sitting my nephew today I haven't gotten it typed up like I normally would. I'm aiming to have it up by the end of Wednesday at the latest though. It's going to be my thoughts on the Hunger Games books vs. the movie!
Sorry it's been quiet lately. It's pretty much just a mixture of a hectic last couple of weeks, and the fact that when I have had downtime I've been a bit lazy. ;)
Take care!
Sorry it's been quiet lately. It's pretty much just a mixture of a hectic last couple of weeks, and the fact that when I have had downtime I've been a bit lazy. ;)
Take care!
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