Catharsis.

Here on Earth, life depends on the adjustments.  The ups and downs.  The happy and the sad.  The one side the gives you perspective when you get to the other.  The never-ending teeter-totter, the constant pendulum of laughter and tears.

I just had a tears moment.  Over my own characters.  And not just one or two, as it usually happens.  No, this moment came courtesy of almost every character I've ever been close to.  It must have been twenty, thirty at least.  Crowded inside my head.  They reminded me of every sad thing I've ever written, every misfortune, every death.  Every person who had to move on in the timeline, in the reality inside my head.

It was hard.  But I needed it.

I have a tendency to take this art for granted.  I forget all the time what an honor and a privilege it is to be able to do what I do.  These characters - these people all living inside my mind... it's a beautiful, bittersweet state of being.

It's beautiful because they're my friends.  They are closer to me than anyone on this planet will ever be. They live inside my skin; they move me with their beliefs and their choices; their thoughts run through my veins.  I can't be a single entity anymore because they are me and I am them.

It's bittersweet because... they are me and I am them.  And they suffer.  Oh, they suffer.  When they suffer, I suffer.  They're bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and I feel everything they feel.

And there are those few characters who turn out to be more of me than the others.  The ones whose pain comes from mine.  The ones I understand because they are me - they have more of me than the others do.  They're special.  They understand.  It's raw and horrible and I hate them because they have all my worst weaknesses.  But there's no way to keep from loving them, too, just for their weaknesses.  I know how it is.

How do I forget this?  How do I not end up face-first on the ground every time I open a document to write, in abject humility for being allowed this?

The feather-heavy touch of My Characters, holding my hand, living and loving and fighting and dying inside my skin.  These beautiful broken people, children from my mind Athena-like, who came to me without invitation and without permission.  Punching through my walls, braiding themselves to my heartstrings, taking me over and dragging me down into the deepest waters of emotional vulnerability.

I'm allowed this.  I can experience this.  The sweet curse, the bitter blessing, the white rose with bloody thorns.  It's a good thing it takes a long day and an unexpected mood change to make me realize this.  If it happened every day, I think it'd be too much for me.  I can only feel so much at one time.

This is why I hate book-movies.

The Twilight Saga.  The Hunger Games.  And now Beautiful Creatures.  All books or series that have been or are going to be made into movies.   The hype is unbelievable. (Well, not for Beautiful Creatures.  That's not quite as well-known, for excellent reasons.)

I think everyone knows Hollywood is struggling.  And I personally don't mind lots of books being made into movies, if the people making them have proper respect for their sources. (That doesn't mean I want my book-movies EXACTLY LIKE THE BOOK!! but that's another rant.)  I love books, and there are hundreds of amazing, engaging stories out there.

So why doesn't Hollywood use them instead of picking out the stupidest, most boring chick fluff on the market?

Okay, okay, The Hunger Games is no chick fluff (mostly).  But it's not the best thing since sliced bread.  Katniss is annoying, the violence isn't gory but it's self-indulgent, and aaaaaauuugh, de Wuv Twiangle!  Must every girl have at least two guys hanging on her every selfish word now?

Anyway.

I have a list of books that deserve to be made into movies.  Hollywood, listen up.

1. Ranger's Apprentice series

Action!  Adventure!  Blood!  An awesome old grumpy mentor!  What's not to like about RA?  And, Hollywood, it's got ten books.  Sequel material!

I've actually heard whisperings of an RA movie, but that was ages ago, so it's might have been dropped.  I'd enjoy any recent interviews/snippets about it, though.

(Oh.  And if it does get made into a movie, Hollywood, please get Jeremy Irons to be Halt.  I BEG OF YOU.)



2. Artemis Fowl series

You know the whole villains-as-heroes thing that's going on?  Artemis fits the bill perfectly.  With fairies and technology.  It's James Bond in Wonderland.  Or... something.  Anyway.

Seriously, after ages of this series being insanely popular, it should be a movie already.  I guess finding a convincingly evil twelve-year-old could be difficult.  Asa Butterfield was kinda creepy as Morderd on Merlin, but he's not the Artemis type.  Oh well.

But really.  I'd pay twenty dollars to see this movie.  With some great CGI affects, it could be epic.


3.  The Sisters Grimm series

Fairytales are in, too, Hollywood.

This series is definitely a younger series, but if the movies got a little more grown-up - not a lot, just draw the characters more complexly, cut down the corny humor, make things a bit more terrifying.  Like How To Train Your Dragon, really.  Epic movie that came out of epic-but-sixth-grade-oriented books.  It's possible.



4. Children of the Red King series

Maybe a Charlie Bone movie would be pretty tacky coming straight off the heels of Deathly Hallows: Part 2, but in a year or two, I bet a lot of people would flock to see some more 'magical academy' stories - for instance, people with HP withdrawal.  Like me.

And again, sequels, Hollywood!  And they just keep getting better. (I haven't finished the series yet, but I'm close.)  The characters are interesting, and the 'endowed' idea is just fun.


5. The Bartimaeus Trilogy

Okay.  The best YA series of its kind - what kind that is, I'm not sure; maybe urban fantasy? alternate reality? somethin' - as a movie?  With the snarkiest djinni and the rottenest little magician you've ever met as co-stars?

As Bartimaeus would say: I ask you.  BEST. MOVIE. EVER.

True, I can imagine about a hundred things that might get lost in translation, due to Bartimaeus's amazing inner monologue and those delightful little footnotes.

But, if the movie didn't take itself too seriously, they could find ways to put it in there.  As long as it did take itself seriously sometime.  So, if they found a way to balance the humor with the darkness... Harry Potter, meet you maker.

***

So can you tell what I like to read/watch?   Yeah, lots of those are very similar.  Well, they're sending out a ton of similar teen romance movies and faux-angsty action movies now.  Might as well start a new trend!

Really, the best stories are in the kids' books.  Take my word for it.  You too, Hollywood.  Try looking for stories somewhere besides a Twihard's bookshelf for once.

An(other) Ending Era

Eragon was published in 2002 by nineteen-year-old Christopher Paolini.  And thus a saga was born.

Oh, granted, it's no Harry Potter or Narnia or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or any of the parallels people draw.  It's stuffed with flaws, enough to make some people detest the very phrase 'Inheritance Cycle.'  It's a bit similar to the Twilight Saga, actually.

Don't worry, Chris.  Inheritance is much better.

I just finished the fourth and final (?) Inheritance book, aptly titled Inheritance.  I've read the three preceding books over the past three weeks, and today spent a good five hours, almost straight, finishing up Inheritance.


How do I feel?  First and foremost - exhausted.  Inheritance is a very involved cycle, and, even skimming lots of Eldest and Brisingr, it's a lot to take in in four weeks.

But, despite many people's claims of dissatisfaction, and while not forgetting the continuing flaws inherent in Inheritance (like that bit of wordplay-ish?  I did), I also feel very justified.

(Oh, no spoilers from here on.  Just to assure any fans.)


I'm going to compare the Inheritance Cycle to the Twilight Saga again, though I mean no offense to Mr. Paolini - I think one reason a lot of people resonate with both series is that they're both a sort of wish-fulfillment project.  With Twilight, you have - it makes my head hurt to say it, but the wish for true love. (It fails miserably, but that's a rant for another day.)  Inheritance handles the wish for something more.  At least for me.

Sure, every little girl's dreamed of Prince Charming.  But everyone knows how it feels to want more - to want to be better.  At some point, however brief or faint or vague.  Eragon the Rider, the Shadeslayer, the Kingkiller is, like Bella, a person into whom we can place ourselves.  Maybe not too much - I certainly don't want to go around spouting metaphysical claptrap and confessing love to elves, no matter how entertaining that sounds - but... Eragon grows.  He gets better.  He changes from a lowly farm boy to the hope and dream of an entire continent!

Who can't admit to not wanting that sort of importance, that kind of significance?  Not just the idea of power, but the very idea of changing into something so much better?

Another reason I think people might stick with Inheritance is because, even if you don't enjoy it, you're still connected to it.  Because, like it or not, after those pages and pages and pages of details... you're in Alagaesia.  You have been under Galbatorix and you have been in Du Weldenvarden and you have sat through the interminable dwarvish customs.

You're vested in victory.  At least I was.  And when the end of Inheritance rolled around... I was so tired.  I had been to Hades and back with Eragon and Saphira, and the fact that they had won... it was relief.  Palpable relief.  Alagaesia and I were safe.

Only Narnia has the same sort of claim on my literary home.  Narnia's is much stronger, of course.  But it's the same thing.

But aside from all that, the most significant reason that I, personally, enjoy the Inheritance Cycle is the way it mimics the old.  Unlike the Twilight Saga, a thoroughly modern invention, Eragon takes us back to epics like Beowulf and The Odyssey and Iliad, to ancient yarns of elves and magic and dwarves and violence and good against evil.  Inheritance's very style, however clumsily, calls your mind back to those epics.

It's... comforting, in a way.  The story has happened so many times that nothing can go wrong.  I know how the story ends, no matter what happens or who dies or what's destroyed along the way.  Good wins and evil doesn't.  Bittersweet endings are inevitable, and, yes, much of it was overdramatic and not very logical at all.  But good wins.  It's the full feeling that a tall tale's come full circle, and that I can leave the campfire storytelling and go to bed with the simple relief that good wins.


Excuses for over-the-top writing, too many filler subplots, and stolen situations?  No.  As I said, I skimmed most of Eldest and lots of Brisingr because lots of it is just so much fluff.  I actually can't stand Eldest - it's a rather self-indulgent book - and Brisingr... too long.  Inheritance had its problems as well.  Even Eragon, one of my favorite books, is rife with cliché.

But it's the cliché of the whole cycle, to me, that makes it endearing.  It's the harkening-back to those old stories, the respect it pays to how stories used to be told.  Clumsy respect?  Most definitely.  But better that than most of what there is now.

I'm glad the Inheritance Cycle is over.  It's taken a decade and it's about time for things to come full circle.

However, I admit to anticipating the news of Chris's return to Alagaesia, as he says he intends to return, and I'm ready and willing to slog through as many pseudo-archaic terms and not-surprises as it takes to enjoy the fireside tales he'll tell.

That said - Imma go watch some Sgt. Frog now.  I need to unwind.

Belle/Mulan/Pocahontas = Ariel? [A Raving Senseless Rant]

I mentioned in the last post that I can't stand the movie The Little Mermaid.  Seriously.  I can't stand it.  I love "Kiss The Girl," and Ursula is a wicked villain, and Sebastian is funny.  But I'd rather watch the entire Vampire Knight series than watch The Little Mermaid again anytime soon.

Most of this rather unhealthy hatred stems from Ariel herself.  How girls love her and want all her merch and sing "Part Of Your World" nonstop is way beyond me.  I guess it's just easier to be her than to be someone better.

It boggles my mind how people compare Ariel to the likes of Belle, Mulan, or Pocahontas.  And they use the flimsiest arguments.  "Ariel is just like them.  She's spirited and lively and fiery just like Belle and Mulan and Pocahontas."

Sure she is.  I don't deny that.  But it's how Belle, Mulan, and Pocahontas use their spirit that sets them waaaay apart from Ariel.  Belle (she's a bit weak in the beginning, but she gets her sea legs, so to speak) uses her 'spirit' to save her father in a very selfless act.  Mulan dresses like a man and goes to war - not for grrrl powah or anything, but to save her father.  Pocahontas, while still not my favorite Disney heroine, is intelligent and brave, and through her courage saves both John Smith, her people, and his.

What does Ariel do?  She complains about her life (she's a PRINCESS, she could do anything she wanted), stalks a sailor she's never met, and then gives up her whole life in order to attempt to communicate with the same guy who's never met her before.


That's spirit, all right.  Really misdirected spirit, but hey, she's spirited!  Little girls can look up to spirit!

JUST STOP BEING A FIERY SPUNKY HEROINE AND SHOW SOME INTELLIGENCE ONCE IN A WHILE, YOU STUPID STUPID FEMALE!

Really, what smart decision does Ariel ever make?  She's a total jerk to her dad (who is actually pretty awesome, if you ask me), she disobeys just about everything anyone tells her, and she makes a deal with a sea witch.  Now, real love wouldn't make a deal with a witch.  Obsession would.  Ariel is obsessed.  Not in love.  Obsessed.

Besides all that, she gives up her voice - which is the main technique people use to really get to know each other - for... a pair of legs.  Which she doesn't know how to use.

Nice try, Ariel.

I shudder to imagine Ariel's thought processes.  "Let's see.  I hate my life for some reason, and I'm like so in wuv with the hot human dude on the ship.  Like, humans are so much better!  So I'm gonna go trade my voice, my fins, and my family to an evil sea-witch.  And if I can't get the dude to fall in love with me in three days, then I get my soul sucked out.  But, like, no prob.  This is cool."

Geez...

And I'm not even going to start in with the whole 'if he doesn't love you in three days, then you fail - and falling in love with you means giving you a big sloppy wet one.'  You cannot get a guy to fall in love with you in three days, and a kiss does not mean love, and it's a horrible message.  I mean, Prince Philip killed a witch in dragon form to get to Aurora - not that just grandstanding is love, either, but come on.  Eric is such a sap.

Sigh.  And this is the most beloved Disney Princess of them all.  And before you say, 'It's just a fairytale!' I'm going to say that, no, it's not a fairytale.  Fairytales are not tales of happiness and spunky heroines whining and getting their way through the power of insta-love.

I'm sure everyone knows, but the real Little Mermaid went through excruciating pain to be with and to please her prince, and in the end he still went off and married another lady.

Fairytales are painful.  Disney is not.  And The Little Mermaid is Disney.  Not a fairytale.

Okay, I'm done ranting.  If you agree or if, hey, I made you mad, I'd love to hear about it!

Found In Translation

P.W. Catanese is one of my favorite authors.  His Books of Umber trilogy is amazing and I recommend it to anyone with half of their brain functioning on half-capacity.

I read on his Goodreads blog that Happenstance Found (Books of Umber #1) is being translated into Spanish.  He had a bit to say on the translation business, which can be found here.  But this part I found especially fun:

Manu [the translator] wanted to let me know what he was doing with the character names – in some cases, leaving them the same as the English version, but in at least one instance, changing it to an appropriate Spanish counterpart. My hero, for example, is named Happenstance, a word meaning a “chance occurrence.” That name will change to Casualidad, which has a similar meaning. And while Hap is short for Happenstance, Cas is short for Casualidad. (I love that.) 

I'm sorry, maybe I'm a geek, but is that not AWESOME how that works out?  Happenstance, Hap - Casualidad, Cas... HA!  Brilliant.  Bloody brilliant. 

Safe And Sound is kind of an ironic title...

Now, I am not a tremendous Hunger Games fan.  The books are pretty good, but not epic.  I'm probably not going to be seeing the movie in theaters because I have books to read and music to buy and tea bags to splurge on.  

That said.... oh, my stars.  That is a gorgeous song.

I'm a rather big Taylor Swift fan, anyway, and what I've heard from The Civil Wars is awesome (if you haven't heard Barton Hollow, go listen to it and feel the shivers).  But... good grief.  This is a departure from Taylor Swift's music, but her voice is still beautiful.  It's more of The Civil Wars' style, and it really shows.  I never would have thought about the two working together on a song, buuuuuut... I'm kind of hoping for a partnership album now.  

Even if the movie is a fail (and I'm of the opinion that it will be, even if I do like Josh Hutcherson or however you say his name), then I'm thinking the soundtrack will be worth something, if all the songs are this good.  Here's hoping.

A Rant For An Intro

Hello there.  Cactus Maye at your service. *bow*

I figured that a boring old intro would be... well, boring.  And I don't plan on being boring.  If I am, hit me with a crowbar or a piano or something.  So, since I'll not be wanting any piano-sized bruises now, I'll start off with another sort of bang.  

My thoughts on the Hobbit trailer.

So, yes.  The Hobbit.  Hmm.  Well.  Looks like we'll being having a lot of the same of the original trilogy.  

Which means, y'know, HOLY MOLEHILL OF GUACAMOLE EPIC.

Now, it's going to take a while to sell me on Bilbo.  He's never been on my Top Twenty Favorite LotR Characters (though that would be an interesting list).  But he's... well... a hobbit.  The hobbit, in fact.  So I doubt it'll take me long. 

The dwarves look awesome.  Gandalf - well, you just can't mess up Gandalf. (Though I'm wondering about that bit with him and Galadriel.  Looked a bit... erm... weird?  I hope they don't add romance between them.  Because Galadriel is an elf and Gandalf is not and he looks like he could pretty much be her grandfather, even if she is probably way older.  So no.  I'm praying I'm just a bit paranoid.) 

And the music.  Oh, the music.  I swear every time that theme comes on, my heart tries to stop.  Really, it feels like it.  It's beautiful, beautiful music, and I'm glad they've stuck with that theme, because LotR (even the prequel) without it's theme is not LotR.  And the dwarf song.  Shivers.  All up and down my spine.

So, in conclusion: why isn't it December 2012 now?