Follow up on Yesterday

Yesterday I discussed writing prompts (look below if you don't believe me) and said which one I had (basically write lyrics based on the third song you listen to) and what song (something by The Weepies). That was a major fail. Which probably makes everything I said about prompts worthless. But wait, there's more! We are, by nature, a creative species, and so I don't see why I can't be creative and alter the prompt. Yes, you can do this. It's not like using adverbs (every time you use an adverb, Dickens kills a kitten). For me, the song that came up started a story. I got 500 words into it and realized that I had a story going, but a few things were wrong with it. (1) I had no expertise in how the story was unfolding (a complex mafia conspiracy which would involve a lot of police procedural stuff), (2) it was turning into a novel/novella length piece (you can tell early on if you'll be able to make something a short story or if it will have to be longer), and (3) the writing was flat, something I wouldn't enjoy reading. So I stopped and asked myself, "How can I fix this?" The obvious answer came today: Find a new song!

The new song that came up was "Spaceman" by The Killers, a great synth-rock band from Vegas. If you haven't heard them, I suggest doing it. They are my favorite rock band of all time and I own two of their albums along with parts of their other two. There are only a handful of their songs I don't enjoy.

Now that the advertisement is out of the way, I'll tell you how I altered this prompt: I started over (so a new three songs) with conditions. To count as one of the three the song had to be (1) non-classical, (2) in English (I have many foreign songs), (3) by an actual artist (I have many remixes by random people out there with too much free time), and (4) meaningful lyrics. This way I would have something to work with.

So when you're getting inspiration, don't think that you have to be true to the original, because that would eliminate creativity, and we don't want that. Also, for this prompt, if you so choose to use it, don't think you have to write a story based around the lyrics. It can be based on a single line, a verse, just the chorus, or a random image that appears in your head while listening to it. That last one is what happened with me, and so if you read the story, you would not be able to tell me that it was based on a song.

The Joy of Prompts

I said I would be deviating from the strictly reviewing idea of this blog now that I was back into it, and this is the first post like that.

Since I want to be a writer, I need to write just about every day. Sometimes, though, I have no ideas and have no open projects going (like now). So what do I do? Some authors simply start writing. I once read about a writer who started writing about the wall in front of him, and it turned into one of his novels! I can't remember the name of the author, but geez... I don't think I could write about a wall.

Sometimes I can just start writing (though usually something sparks it, and I'm not reduced to writing about walls), but when the inspiration is really out of me, but I want to write, I turn to the internet and writing prompts. There are many websites out there that are happy to give you prompts to jump-start your next writing project. A lot of times, these projects for me go nowhere, other times I create great stories that I enjoyed writing.

Today is one of those writing prompt days, and I got it from the site Toasted-Cheese, who make a writing prompt for each day of the year. I'm going to see if this one creates anything special: "Put your music player on shuffle and write based on lyrics of the third song."

You could give it a try, and see what happens. Even if you aren't a writer, it might be fun to take a break from that crazy life so many people live and write a quick story, you'll find it more exciting than reading a book. The song I get to work with is "Can't Go Back Now" by The Weepies.

About a Boy

By Nick Hornby

This is the first British book I've read since I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone back in the fourth grade. I have to say that this book beats anything J.K. Rowling could write, but I hate Harry Potter and all of his wizard friends, too. I don't know why that is, just that it is. I got bored halfway through The Chamber of Secrets and decided that the series was too boring to move on and I didn't care about any of the characters.

Not true with Hornby's fictional people. I worried so much about Marcus, the boy this novel is about. He has a very dysfunctional family, and the other central character Will has a dysfunctional pseudo-family when he gets sucked into Marcus' life. This wasn't a novel of plot, like Rowling's books, it was a coming-of-age novel about a boy who doesn't fit in at all. How he changes kept me moving to see just what kind of kid he would be by the end of the novel. If you read it, too, you'll be sucked into how everything in our childhood somehow manages to create the person we become. There was just one problem with Hornby's style. It felt as though we were spending too much time in the character's heads. It's fine to get in there every once in awhile, but entire pages of a 3rd person narrative shouldn't be in the 1st person. That and his excessive use of "OK." I'm not British, but it seems they use it for just about everything according to Hornby, and it bothered me.

4 stars.

Next (which I promise won't be as soon as this one was): The Gun Seller by House, I mean, Hugh Laurie (yes, the Hugh Laurie. Turns out he also writes novels).

Getting Back Into This

I forgot I had this blog, not that anyone had been reading it (although I hope there might have been one person out there). I discovered it today, when I was looking at starting up another blog which I have to do for an English Composition class (yay!). That one is something about literacy, I think. But now I'm going to get back to reviewing the books I'm reading. It might also have some new elements, like bits about me writing my own stuff (since I do want to be a writer).

Anyway, the last book I read was Lisey's Story by Stephen King. Before I started it I thought it was pronounced Lie-zee, but in the first paragraph, King is very smart to say that it is short for Lisa and pronounced to rhyme with Cici (I think that's what he used). But that's not about the book at all.

The book is about a woman trying to move on two years after the death of her husband, who was an award winning writer. As the inside jacket says, they were intimate, sometimes to a frightening point. And it's true! This novel I can safely say is not one of Stephen King's horror novels. Like The Green Mile it wasn't about scaring the reader, but it still had King's fantastical elements (a place called Boo'ya Moon in this book).

Once again I was impressed with King. He is a master storyteller and he has shown why he is my favorite author. It's long, of course, but everything is curcial in it, compared to some of his other long books (I hated It because it had so many worthless parts that could have been eliminated). His descriptions, images, and settings are still vivid in my mind. I can see all the characters, and I can see Boo'ya Moon. I wish I knew how he did it.

4.5 stars!

The next book will be About a Boy by Nick Hornby, a British author I have never heard of.