A Homely Setting

November 12, 3:30pm.

Mark your calendars.

It's the day I'll be defending my thesis!

I've been really busy working on thesis related work, but soon, very soon, I'll be able to get back to more weekly updates.  I can tell everyone is very excited.


Anyways, the topic for today,


I have to admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for Terry Brooks Landover series.  I’m not going to claim it was the best, most classic fantasy series ever written, but it was cute and had its own sort of mild charm.  The reason I have a soft spot for it is not because of its cuteness, however, but for one reason and one reason only:  the entrance to the magic kingdom of Landover is near where I grew up and the place I still call home.

Home sweet home...

The reason for the entrance location is because Terry Brooks lived for a short time south of my home town and fell in love with it and the secret places of the Appalachian Mountains.  In other words, he worked a place he called home into one of his books.

Brooks certainly isn’t the only one who put a touch of home in their work. One of the trademarks of the Hobbit, at least in my mind, is the pure Englishness of it. Here is a fantasy world, where the main character eats seed cakes and participates in the very and uniquely British activity of ‘Walking.’  Not only that, but it is also important, for a hobbit, to invite people ‘round to tea!

The places we grew up influence us and how we look at the world.  It’s only natural they sneak into literature and into our own writing.  It helps give what we’re writing a sense of authenticity and also a sense of warmth.  When we write about a place we love, or call home, we natural imbibe a bit of something extra into our words.

Have any of you written your own home, or parts of it, into one of your stories?

BAM!

Lookie what comes out 11/30:

Oh yes

And!  If that wasn't enough to make my little heart swoon with joy:

I cannot wait!  Looks like I now have something for my Christmas list.




Also, on Friday, I posted a contributors post to the SF Scrivener.

Whabam!

It's all about some good old fantasy classics.

Long Overdue

Two things that are long overdue:  A blogpost and the topic of this entry

I know I missed last week :/.  I’ve been ridiculously busy lately, and still am, but I’m taking the afternoon off which mean I get to play catch up with my blog.  I'm hoping to get another post up this weekend at some point.

So first things first.  I’m still working on ‘reading’ the Crimson sword.  In fact, its on my windowsill now!

 See?

I’ve just been too overwhelmed with the second draft of my thesis and teaching and all that jazz to actually be able to work on reading and snarking.  I’ll get to it again, I promise.

Now for the real post.  I saw this interview back in April and I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
David Shields
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

So what are your thoughts on this guy?

As for me personally, I have to admit, he annoys the heck out of me.  He strikes me as someone whose trying be ‘edgy’ and a ‘rebel’ and 'controversial'  but really just reveals his own ignorance of stories and how stories work.

First of all, he starts talking about how ‘all art is theft!’ Well guess what, sir, this is old news.  I think everyone knows, or at least many writers know, that most plots have probably been done elsewhere.  It’s the job of the writer to then make that plot their own, make that story their own  Then through the process of themes and voice and using your own words writing you get your own story as a result.  This is why we get a little thing called variety and every title on the shelf isn’t just a copy of ‘The Lord of the Rings.’

Saying ‘all art is theft,’ and talking about how authors use other plots and words is not an edgy statement, nor is it shocking anyone.  Rather, I’m shocked it took you, Mr. Shields,  this long to figure it out.

Why can the visual arts and music get away with exciting moves and not writing?  Because such  moves are different and more subtle and the culture of writing is so extremely different than that of the visual arts and music.  You experience stories differently than you experience anything else.  Stories have to be logical  to make sense.  There has to be an element of science to stories because you’re presenting an ending, or a conclusion, that you need to carry the reader through using characters and themes (your evidence).    If you don’t do this properly, then no one will understand what you’re talking about.  With visual art, you don’t have to understand to admire something.  With writing, since an in-your-face kind of communication, you sort of have to.

And another comment…19^th century novelistic forms?  What the…novels have been around longer than that and the strict 'novel form' not the only form we use, unless this man is talking about something that I'm completely missing.  If he's talking about content, stories go back centuries and centuries to when people were telling each other tales around campfires instead of writing them into novels.  Plots and characters have made stories tick for generations, that's what makes the book, not the book itself.   What exactly is he talking about?  And how is plundering quotes a new literary form exactly?  It sounds like he’s still following the same form anyone else would when trying to prove a point, he’s just using quotes as his medium.  That's not necessarily a form....that's just stupid.

I think he betrays himself in that he doesn’t grasp the concept of story. Now, I do recognize his 'Manifesto' as he calls it, in and of itself, is a work of non-fiction and he used his quote theft to prove a point, so it wasn’t necessarily a story.  However some of the plays he mentions in his interview are works of fiction.  Honestly, he sounds like he’s trying too hard to be artsy and edgy and I think his argument is weak and ill informed.

But that’s just me.

Thoughts?