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palimpsessed · 2 years

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Fan Fiction Year in Review 2021

I did one of these last year and thought it was interesting to look back over what I had written and think about what I may write going forward. This retrospective list of questions is from @captain-aralias.

If you're a writer, I'd also encourage you to do this. Tag me so I can see your thoughts 🥰

List of Complete Fics for 2021

1. Lotus-Eaters and Sirens - G, 557 words

2. It's a Kind of Magic - M, 15,806

3. The Thrill of the Hunt - M, 11,230

4. Chamber by Chamber - E, 19,043

5. The Hex Files comic - G, 183 (It has a storyline and words that I wrote so I am counting it)

List of In Progress Fics Started in 2021

(because I have a LOT of words 😤)

1. Sleeping with the Fishes (co-written with @the-greater-grief) - M, 7,786 by end of 2021

2. Slings and Eros - M, 52,882 by end of 2021 (This fic alone makes up half my total year’s word count!)

I also wrote a bunch of non-fic things, mostly about AWTWB, that I hadn't expected because I wasn't used to getting asks like I did last year. I'm going to include them, too, because time spent writing is time spent writing.

1. Baggage - regarding Simon's literal and figurative baggage in WS, 480

2. AWTWB and Chosen Ones - thoughts about Simon's arc, Smith Smith-Richards, the Mage, and Chosen Ones, 686

3. The Watford Goats and the World of Mages - working out my ideas about the the goats in AWTWB and Agatha's journey, 314

4. The rest are all tumblr asks linked on my blog at the bottom of my Masterlist 19,147

Total:

4 complete fics, 1 comic, 2 in progress fics, 3 meta, 9 asks

word count: 128,114

word count for fics: 107,487

Thoughts: In my review post last year, I noted that all of the fics (4) I had completed were for events, and I predicted it would be the same for 2021. In fact, it was not! I figured out pretty quickly that I have a problem with over committing when it comes to fandom events and forced myself to scale back. I did participate in some events, but most of the content I made for those was art.

Best/Worst Title?

Best: Slings and Eros

I love this title, even though I have this fear that it won't make sense without my long explanation. Which I'm giving. I just feel like this title does so much. I even made a whole other post about it once. It's a play on words from a Hamlet soliloquy, which feels meta in itself since Shakespeare has to have quite a hold over the World of Mages (even though this isn't a magickal fic). Beyond the source, though, is the context, which is Hamlet trying to decide if he should end his own life and framing that life as enduring a series of trials ("the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"). I liked this quote particularly for my fic, because it's a Greek Mythology AU, and Greek myths frequently feature stories of a hero enduring a series of labors in order to achieve some overarching goal. This is true for the myth that directly inspired this fic, Eros (or Cupid) and Psyche, and also true for my fic. It's also a big feature of the classic Hero's Journey, which of course, ties back perfectly to the idea of the Chosen One. I also liked the fact that I was removing the word "arrows" from the quote, just as I removed Eros/Cupid's arrows from the story and replaced them with a sword, which felt far more appropriate for Simon. And instead, I could use "Eros" which very conveniently sounds almost exactly like "arrows" and also hints to the source material, Simon's characterization, and one of the major themes of the fic.

I also really like Lotus-Eaters and Sirens and Chamber by Chamber.

Worst: Sleeping with the Fishes

I stand by this title, and I think it makes sense once you've read past the first 1 or 2 chapters, but without any context, it probably sounds like a Mafia AU, when it's actually a tennis and texting AU. I like it, but I feel like it was probably not a great choice in the grand scheme of things. I just saw an opportunity for puns and went for it.

Best/Worst Summary?

Best: Chamber by Chamber

"I'd give him all that I am.

I'd give him all that I was.

I'd open up a vein.

…

I'd tie our hearts together, chamber by chamber.

Simon and Baz have been through a lot. They've also been hard at work on communicating their needs and feelings. Here's some (therapeutic) smut."

This maybe is unexpected because it's a book quote followed by "here's some smut" and there's no actual plot to summarize. But the "chamber by chamber" quote is what inspired the series that culminates in this PWP one shot, and it's smut, so...it really does tell you all you need to know.

Worst: Lotus-Eaters and Sirens

"Simon has some thoughts about sirens while watching Baz drive away from their eventful trip to the Omaha Renaissance Faire.

(This is when Simon is being cute and happy on battle adrenaline and car snogging, and reality is trying to creep back in.)"

I just reread this summary for the first time since I posted it probably and it's so clunky. I don't even know why I have the second part there. I am contemplating how much it would matter this late in the game if I rewrote it, or at least deleted the second part.

Best/Worst First Line?

Best: Chamber by Chamber "Baz is squirming beneath me. It's good. It's hot. It's perfect." Yup. It sets the scene, it sets the mood, it also helps to set up some dom/sub dynamics they're playing with in this fic, too. Also I wanted it to be reminiscent of the night spent kissing at Pitch manor. (Simon on all fours above Baz.)

Worst: It's a Kind of Magic "I can tell it's happening almost before it does. I've had lots of time to learn. I know the signs better than he does, now." I think this opener is weakest among all of last year's fics because it takes its sweet time to get to the point. I don't think I define the "it" in that first sentence for several (admittedly short) paragraphs, and even then, I think I imply, rather than state, that the "it" is Simon slipping into a depressive spiral.

Best/Worst Last Line?

Best: This one is going to be a tie between Chamber by Chamber (the fic not the series) and Lotus-Eaters. Despite them both being one shots with no plot, I really think both of them pack a wallop in their final lines and I am incredibly proud of them! I'm not going to include the last line of Chamby because, plot or not, it actually is a spoiler. For LEAS, I feel like it's safe, though, so I'll drop that one here. "And then…Well. Then I drown." What really makes this line punch for me is that it's a Simon POV taking a Baz line from canon and reversing it from "burn" to "drown", fitting in perfectly with the siren/water imagery Simon uses for Baz in the fic. (Also, points to me for using water imagery for Baz before AWTWB!) It also goes a little further in that the fic is sort of in conversation with the part of CO where Simon compares Baz to a siren (the kind on police cars) and turns that on its head, by having him revise his comparison to the other kind of siren (the singing, ship-wrecking kind). That part in CO runs parallel to Baz's part comparing Simon to an open fire, which is, of course, where the original quote "and then you burn" comes from.

Honorable mention to the Hex Files comic because I intentionally set up Penny's final line to sound like a spell, in order to make it ambiguous about whether she was actually casting on Shepard in the last panel.

Worst: Looking back, I really like all of my last lines. I felt incredibly good about every one of them when I figured out how I was closing out each of these fics and I don't think any of them need improving. So, for this I will say, the worst lines are the ones that don't exist yet because the fics aren't finished and I am a completist.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I think I wrote fewer fics than expected (even though I did not place expectations on myself) but more words overall, so I guess I'm about equal. 2020 was obviously a very unpredictable year, so not really a great barometer of actual productivity. I was back working full time in person by the start of 2021, and then the day after Baz's birthday, I had surgery which kept me laid up for the better part of 6 months. Of course, I thought I'd be a lot more productive writing wise during that time, but I didn't really account for how tiring it is to regrow bones so...I spent more of that time on art. Plus, we got AWTWB?! After that, my brain melted and then I was going back to work with a COTTA deadline looming.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I wouldn't say "never predicted", especially because I was already planning it in 2020, but I wrote my first smut! And it ended up being one of my favorite things I've written so far. It was something I hadn't planned on doing, because smut felt intimidating and way out of my depth. But then I was rereading WS, as you do, and the chamber by chamber scene always sticks with me, especially Simon talking about "all that I am...all that I was..." and how those two ideas of his self-identity and self-worth really weigh on him and his relationship with Baz and what it would look like if he really could give all of that to Baz. And then I spiraled about trauma and liminal spaces and monster parts (my love). And I realized I was going to have to write a smut fic if I was ever going to know peace.

What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

Torn between two lovers... Chamber by Chamber (if it's not obvious by now given how I haven't shut up about it) and Slings and Eros. Both of these fics were/are incredibly challenging to me as a writer--Chamby for the smut but also what I think was an ambitious agenda about dealing with trauma throughout the three part series--and Slings and Eros for being a plot-heavy (for me) epic complete with epic poetry that is very likely going to break 100k. Both of them have been exercises in patience in their own ways, and labors of love that I have enjoyed even when I haven't.

Okay, NOW your most popular story?

Going by kudos and bookmarks, it's Chamby

(To the Manor Borne is still my most kudosed and A Man of Letters is still my most bookmarked overall)

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

I would have liked to see more love for my Penny/Shep comic but it's not Snowbaz and it's the very first comic I did, so maybe that's to be expected. Actual fic-wise, I'm kind of surprised that The Thrill of the Hunt underperforms its Chamber by Chamber colleagues because this fandom seems rabid for vampirism and that's what it's all about. But maybe people read the first one and get impatient for the smut and skip to the last part? I would like to see more engagement on Slings and Eros because it's my current project and I'm excited about it, but it's a beast and I get that a lot of people don't want to read WIPs, especially longer ones.

Story that could have been better?

I didn't answer this last year, and I'm not going to answer it this year, either. I just don't think it's worthwhile for me to hash over what ifs in my fan fic. If I think something can be better, I keep working on it until it is better. Otherwise, it won't see the light of day.

Sexiest story?

The one with the sex in it. 😉

Saddest story?

I think this is LEAS. There is soft and sweet to balance out the sad, but it's not really ever happy. Simon is riding a high from the Ren Faire as he contemplates how much he is just head over heels for Baz, but the undercurrent to all of that is how much he feels like he isn't good or good enough for Baz. He loves him but he can't give him what he deserves; he wants him but he's going to drag him down. It's a lovely meditation full of devotion, but that devotion is telling Simon that he isn't worthy and that's sad, even if he closes the fic reaffirming how hopelessly in love he is with Baz.

Most fun?

When I first went to answer this, I thought it meant most fun to write, but there’s another question about that further down. So then this means the story that is the most fun. And I have no idea how to answer that 😆. Probably Sleeping with the Fishes. Texting is usually a fairly good time. Anyway. I’m still keeping my original answer since the other question is combined with easiest to write, which is different from my answer here. So starting it felt like pulling teeth, partly because it required a lot of research and reading and outlining, and then I got the completely inadvisable idea to write epic poetry, and then had to slog through several chapters to get Simon and Baz into the same place...but SAE has been the most entertaining for me, I think, because of the character dynamics. Getting to write the first Penny, Agatha, and Fiona POVs was so freaking fun. Also, the boys are absolute disasters and I love to watch them just completely lose their minds over each other in every scene. And knowing where it's all going is just SO GOOD and I can't wait for the payoff!

Story with the single sweetest moment?

I think it's SAE, but I don't really want to tell what the moment is because I don't want to spoil it? There's a thing at the beginning, about Baz leaving offerings in Simon's shrine. And at one point, when Baz is having a really hard time, Simon does this really adorable and heartfelt thing that echoes the offerings Baz leaves, as a way to try to let Baz know that he isn't alone. And it just...is a very Simon thing to do and I love it. (Chapter 7 for those curious.)

Hardest story to write?

It's a Kind of Magic needed so many rewrites. I had written The Thrill of the Hunt and didn't realize until I went to write Simon's story in the series that his had to go first, and Baz's second. So then I had to sort out how I wanted to write part 1 when I already had part 2, and what parallels I was going for, and what the ultimate goals were in each part, etc. I think I had a much clearer idea in my head for what I was trying to accomplish with the Baz part than I did with the Simon one. I had a sense of what I was trying to get at, but I think I wasn't sure how to get there, or maybe even where "there" was. I started and re-started it so many times and just chipped away at it for a solid two months fruitlessly before I think things finally started to make sense in my head. Then I had story pieces and had to decide how they fit together and what order they went in. Then Baz started to lead me in a new direction I wasn't really prepared to go. Ultimately, it all feels very smooth and satisfying, but it was such a struggle the entire time. I had been most worried about writing Chamby and I sat down, wrote a full outline in one day, and just went point by point until I had 19k. It was wild. All the hard stuff had already happened I guess.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

I kind of already answered this. I think it was Chamby. There were some lines in there that had me howling when I wrote them. (Baz compares the tightening in his bollocks to the event horizon of a black hole.) There’s a line about them not holding back with each other, and I feel like I was doing the same—just letting them go and do their thing. It was also incredibly moving for being unapologetic monsterfucking PWP, but for the most part, I just had such a great time with it.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

I think SAE has gotten me to think the most about the characters, in so far as it is an AU, and I'm spending a lot of time exploring the ways in which canon and the source myth converge and diverge and how that informs the characters and their dynamics. I don't think it's shifted my overall perception of the canon characters, but the ones in my fic, yes.

Most overdue story?

Same answer as last year, so we're moving on...(I get random bursts of creative energy and then they dissipate before I can capitalize) (but I will persist)

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

I wrote smut, and I co-wrote a fic, and I started a fic off with poetry in a form I'd never written before, and I made a comic, and I started a super long fic with a fully developed "external" plot. I think what I learned is to take risks.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it?

Liminal spaces! I haven't screamed about them for a while, but that was really the driving force behind so much of my writing this past year. Chamber by Chamber is the obvious one, but also SAE, probably just one of many reasons those two are my favs.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Write what feels good when it feels good. But also venture out of my comfort zone once in a while. Since this is next year already, my immediate goal is just to keep working on my posted WIPs, but also to let myself think about/work on other things, too, because I feel like I need that reminder.

#fan fic year in review #lotus-eaters and sirens #it’s a kind of magic #the thrill of the hunt #chamber by chamber #sleeping with the fishes #the hex files #slings and eros #spicy links

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 3 years

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A chatty writing update | novels, short fiction, etc!

Hi folks!

It’s been a while since I last wrote an update on this blog! I thought it’d be fun to go back to basics, and just talk about writing. This post chats about: new plans for Feeding Habits, my newest novel, my short story goals & growing collection, along with process reflections.

(image description: a photo of green leaves with the text “writing update” in a white font written on top. /end image description)

Post starts under the cut!

General taglist (please ask to be added or removed)

@if-one-of-us-falls, @qatarcookie, @chloeswords, @alicewestwater, @laughtracksonata, @shylawrites, @ev–writes, @jaydewritesfiction, @jennawritesstories @eowynandfaramir, @august-iswriting, @aetherwrites, @avakrahn, @maisulli

What have I been up to?

For starters, I finished my second year of my Writing undergrad last week and got two of my final grades back today (A+ baby)! For anyone who has taken online university, y’all already KNOW, but this year was so difficult. Would not recommend! Really proud of myself to have gotten through this absolute rollercoaster of a school term and am excited to get into some writing. That leads us to:

What have I been up to (writing edition)?

2021 started off so fast. By the time January hit, I was so consumed in my new semester that I did not have time to write Feeding Habits (my novel). In the first few days of the term, I managed to write between class, until I could no longer keep up! Essentially, I did not write any of that novel until exam season (last week), where I did manage to get in about 3k words in ~4 days.

Feeding Habits

I’m currently drafting what I believe will be the last chapter of this book (chapter 10: Swan Song). This chapter is so bizarre for a few reasons. It begins the book’s third part and also marks the shift back into Lonan’s head from Harrison’s. I originally thought this part would be much, much longer, with at least another five chapters to go, but quickly realized the book’s content was nearly completed. In my 4 day 3k palooza, I hit 50k in the book (the word count goal), and couldn’t see myself extending past 60k. Since then, I’ve made the loose decision to write this final chapter as a ~novella. Here are a few reasons why:

1. This chapter is structurally very strange.

I unashamedly shift from present to past to present to past past, and so much more every 12 words. I mapped out the timeline on a sheet of paper, and there were over 20 shifts in scenes (the chapter is only about 4400 words at the moment). The fictive past is incredibly important to this chapter, more important than the present, and I thought it would make more sense to not break randomly for a chapter so I could upkeep the consistent inconsistency of the chapter.

2. The chapter is very abstract

This stems from the structural changes, but there are paragraphs in this chapter of the fictive present that are loosely based in reality. They’re more poems than they are factual paragraphs, and keeping them all contained in one place (so a mega chapter/ novella) would reduce the most confusion!

3. There’s not much left to cover

Like I said above, Feeding Habits is on its last leg, lol! I know exactly where the book needs to end up, which is very, very soon from where I’m currently at on the timeline. Swan Song should cover what 2-4 chapters would cover in terms of arcs.

Feeding Habits and I have a really weird relationship, tbh! When I realized a few weeks ago that it’d been over a year since I started the book, I realized I just needed to finish it. Not that I want to rush (because I’ve taken longer than a year to write a book in the past), but that in order to move onto another project, I’d like to put this one behind first. This book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and has reminded me there’s always a time to let go. This sort of scrounges up a conversation about letting this entire series go, which is certainly something I’ve been contemplating doing soon(ish). If this spinoff series gets a third book, that may or may not be the last Fostered book for a very long time (or ever)! There are many complex reasons to move on, but the main one is that I have other projects I’d like to focus on. This is not a definitive decision, but something I’ve certainly been thinking about!

Here are a few excerpts I wrote recently:

(TW: death, gore)

Dying feels like being a trout dangled out of water. Clinging to a hook. Mouth open. Scales iridescent in a final death cry. It’s like blood spurting up the knuckles, drowning out the flesh. It’s that moment on the long fall down when the clouds cup the body. Easy drifting. The sound a skull makes when it cracks is really just the afterthought.

(TW: death, gore)

Kill shot. Death blow. Coup de grace. Right in the heart. He feels it. The blood swelling, slicking his palms. He can do it. Reach into the cavity. Feel for the ribs. Part each bone. Then cup the humming heart. Stay there. Right. It’s never been easier.

Look at this PURE moment of Lonan holding a baby I CANNOT:

The grocery store was a fifteen-minute walk away. With Olivia clinging to his shoulder, Lonan was acutely aware that she could feel his heartbeat. Open valve. Close. Repeat. Hers pulsed right above his, a miniature drumming. The sky had bruised purple, misted with clouds. The evening air nipped his cheeks, so he made sure Olivia was securely fastened between him and his jacket. With wide eyes, she absorbed the drowsy suburbia, all its family cars pulling into driveways, all its couples heading back home after a sunset walk. When Lonan passed a young boy walking two golden retrievers, Olivia giggled, and didn’t stop, even after he’d spent fifty dollars on groceries and nearly the rest on a red Corolla marked with a MUST GO NOW sign outside a convenience store.

Let’s move on!

Mandy and Cora

I said I wouldn’t talk too much about this project, but I just love it so much?? I wanted to share my SUPER early thoughts on drafting a novel, especially one that is SO different from what I’ve been writing recently. I talked about this before in THIS post, but the summary about this project is that it’s a YA contemporary novel! Can’t believe I’m writing YA again, it’s been so long, but I also think it’s going so well. Everything I’ve learned as a literary fiction writer has been a fantastic primer for transferring back to the genre. Admittedly, I have not written much, but I’m having a lot of fun diving back into a lighter project. This is the summary:

Cora and Mandy are identical twins who’ve always done everything together. But when Mandy decides to go to university out of province after graduation and Cora doesn’t, Cora takes this as an opportunity to “test run” life apart from her sister for the first time by spending the summer at her aunt’s house across the country.

I have come up with a few ~things since I last talked about this project, mostly how I’d like to structure it. As of now, I’d like the book to be structured super loosely. I’m really pulling on a lot of inspo from “We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour (which is SO good), particularly how “nothing happens-y” that book is. This project (which I still need a title for!!) will be structured in short chapters that cover something Cora does on her own for the first time (without Mandy). For example, a few ideas are “Flight”, “Lunch”, and “Groceries”. “Flight” is the first “chapter” (they’re really kind of vignettes) where Cora flies to her aunt’s house. I still can’t determine if this book will take place in Canada. On one hand, I feel like there will be a wider audience if it takes place in the US (is that just an assumption??? maybe?? someone let me know!), but also: don’t really care too much about an audience at the moment! It could also take place in Canada (So Ontario and British Columbia). But if it does take place in the US, I think it may take place in NYC and San Francisco. The problem is: I really don’t like researching lol, and while I’ve been to NYC many times, I will definitely write it wrong! Does this really matter on a first draft?? absolutely not lol, but of course I am already overthinking!

But back to structure: I am looking forward to seeing what this looser structure will do. This is a story that is solely around one half of a set of twins learning to be her own person (and ultimately that she doesn’t have to completely forget her sister in order to do that), and as a twin who KNOWS this feeling, I think this structure of her doing things for the first time is SUPER relatable.

I was worried it might sound silly/worrying to others who are not twins that Cora hadn’t done things like “lunch” or “groceries” on her own, but I feel this so much as an identical twin myself! Not that she hasn’t done anything at all by herself, but as a twin, when you do something without your twin for the first few times, at least in my experience, you notice. If any twins are reading this--weigh in!

This story is the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It definitely is an OwnVoices book! Usually, I avoid details that are remotely similar to me because they make me uncomfortable haha, but with this book, it’s all me, lol! The characters are all Guyanese, which is SO fun because I’ve been planning what they eat (my fellow Caribbean peeps know: the FOOD!), which is so fun (yes they have pumpkin and shrimp, yes they have roti, yes they have pera, yes they have mithai). Every time I’ve gone to dabble at this book, or even think about it, I get incredibly emotional for this reason? I don’t exactly know why. I think this is a story I just so want to tell, with the culture I love SO much that I definitely struggled to love as a child. This is reclamation bitchessss!

Not going to lie tho: the prospect of writing ~a book~ is kind of freaky! I’m going to make the minimum word count for this book pretty short (50k) and see where it goes from there. I think I will focus on this project this summer! Originally I was going to write a literary novel this summer, but I think this one’s calling my name!

Here’s a pretty rough excerpt:

Try. I remind myself that’s what I’m doing after the flight attendant fills me a disposable cup of Coca Cola and all I can think of is Mandy and I shoving Mentos into a bottle of the stuff when we were twelve. Just me, wedged in the middle seat between an exchange student heading out for summer break and a middle-aged woman sipping a cocktail, thinking of Mandy and I bursting whole oranges in a blender when we were bored one Winter break as the plane dips through a wave of turbulence. Mandy and I dying our hair neon green with highlighters (didn’t work—our hair is too dark) as the plane lands on the tarmac. Mandy and I arguing so loud last month, we both lost our voices as I lug my carry-on out of the overhead compartment and shuffle off the plane and through the airport, searching for Aunt Vel.

Short Fiction

I’ve written so much short fiction this year! I have a goal to write a short story a month (they can range in length, as long as 1 is “complete”), so my short story brain has seriously been soaking it all up lately. Let’s chat my month to month breakdown so far:

January:

I wrote four stories in January! The first is a flash fiction piece called “Shark Swimming” that follows a young woman who attends a shark swimming class after breaking up with her girlfriend. I wrote this story for a “test” workshop for my fiction class, and it was based off the prompt “think about something you’re afraid to do and make the character do that thing”. I’m not particularly afraid of sharks, but had been wanting to use the title “Shark Swimming” for AGES (literally since 2018).

This story is one of my favourites. It’s only about 900 words, but I think there’s something profound in how mundanely specific it is. The entire story doesn’t even see the narrator swim with sharks once; it actually takes place fully in the sanctuary’s lobby. But I really love this narrator. This is the first story I’ve written in second person in a while, though I felt really connected to the unnamed narrator. She struggles with accepting that she truly is a “boring” person, and there’s something about the final image that really gets me!

I’ve been submitting this around, though it’s been rejected a handful of times. Hoping I can secure it at a magazine one day because I really love it!

The second story is “Joanne, I’ll Pray for You” which is actually a rewrite of one of my very first short stories (the first story I did not write for a class haha), “NYC in Your Apartment”. I LOVE this rewrite a lot, and also learned the original is not a very good short story! Revising this story taught me just how much I’ve learned in the 2 years I’ve been writing short fiction. Seeing the 2019 version versus the 2021 version side by side is fascinating because I essentially “gutted’ the 2019 version of its beginning and end until all that was left was the middle of the story (aka the actual story). AKA: this is the only story I’ve ever written with a hopeful ending and I cut out all the happy bits lol I am SO sorry (that arc is more for a novel or novella). That’s how this went from a 5k word story to an 1800 word story (my Submittable thanks me for this lol). A lot of details and scenes I included were more pertinent to a 3 act structure/novel, which of course short stories don’t often have because of their brevity. I love rambling about writing theory, and seeing that actually pay off is so fascinating!

(TW: trauma)

Like the original, this story follows Joanne, a woman in her early twenties, who spontaneously breaks up with her boyfriend. She claims the poltergeist haunting her drove her to this decision. The original draft focused a lot more on the traumatic events Joanne survives, but this draft really loosens them up. It focuses less so on the events themselves, and more on how Joanne’s life is affected. I found the details of these events were less important, and even sort of contradicted Joanne’s insistence she is being haunted. Instead, the poltergeist really takes more precedence in the new draft as a force Joanne doesn’t understand. That ambiguity, I think, is what the story truly needed.

I also centralized Joanne’s relationship with her boyfriend, Julian, here. Now don’t get me wrong, I really didn’t add anything to this draft. It was a matter of trimming the fat around it to leave the lean “meat” in the centre. But by removing that fat, I was able to emphasize what was most important here, and that was her relationship. Julian always played a really big role in the original draft, but I feel like his role as both a friend and partner to Joanne is much more emphasized since this draft literally is only two scenes now. Because there is less, there is more room for Joanne to reflect, which I’m happy about!

A final change I made was the setting and therefore the title. The original, which was “NYC in Your Apartment,” I couldn’t keep because I shifted the setting to Toronto (this is how I originally saw it, but in 2019 I just?? couldn’t?? write?? canlit??), and “Toronto in Your Apartment” sounded sort of gross LOL. The new title comes from a line in the story which I think is more relevant to the themes!

The next short story I wrote in January was “How to Spell Alpaca.” This one is super fun because I wrote it SO fast (in about 15 minutes or so). THIS is the writing update if you’re interested in learning more. I talked extensively about this one in that update, but some developments are that I dove into an edit a few weeks ago to really understand the core of the story. I’m still not quite there (this is just an intuitive feeling; I know not everything has “clicked), but I am really intrigued by the two mothers in the story, the narrator, and her newfound acquaintance, Violet. Both really struggle to understand their place as mothers (the narrator even declares she isn’t a mother anymore). The narrator, who is in her 50s, sees herself in Violet, who is much younger (~20s), and so she views Violet’s relationship with her daughter in a cautionary, yet mournful way, like she can see it will end up like her own relationship with her daughter, despite wanting the opposite. This is a really subtle story. I feel like if you blink, you’ll miss the message. But I think it’s compelling for that reason. It’s really a portrait of parenting and how to grapple with mistakes you may make that inevitably affect your children. Wow just unlocked the theme writing this lol.

The final story I wrote in January is “The Party,” which may be in my top 3 faves I’ve ever written. This story follows Aida, a recent divorcee in her ~40s. The day her divorce turns official, she moves into a new house and receives a party invitation addressed to the previous homeowner, yet RSVP’s anyway. At this party, she’s hoping to find some sense of noticeability, having struggled with being nondescript her whole life. Things seem quite normal at the party, until it gets bizarre.

I LOVE this story, y’all. Like “How to Spell Alpaca” it really delves into motherhood. Aida, our narrator, is incredibly hurt after her divorce. She now lives farther from her children she struggled to feel connected to in the first place, and doesn’t really know how to reignite her life. This party is a means to do that. This is the first story I’ve written that contains a “twist” which is strange because I really prefer stories that give us as much info as possible upfront, but yes, this one sort of twists.

February

I wrote one story in February, and that was “Protect the Young.” This title is SO changing when I think of a new one because it’s thematically incorrect, haha, but this story follows a woman in her late 40s whose daughter, Lindy, announces she is married the same day all their backyard chickens turn up dead. The discovery of dead chickens prompts our narrator to recall her ex-husband’s murder and the role her daughter may have played in his death.

I love this story so much! I think this would make a great closing for my short story collection. It just has that vibe! I wrote this for my second fiction workshop. I thought I had to hand in the story a week earlier than I had to, so I panicked and wrote this in one sitting! Little did I know, I did not need to do that lol but I’m very happy because this story is so fun. We get to learn more about Arnold (her ex), his relationship with Lindy, and how that translates to Lindy’s relationship with her new husband, Malcolm. I LOVE true crime (I listen to about 3-4 hours of case coverage daily), and this is my first “true crime” story. Because of that, I’m very sus of a few details that probably wouldn’t slide in actual investigatory work, so I’ll also be working on that in a revision. My professor also gave me a great suggestion that may alter the story’s structure a bit, though I look forward to toggling with it in the future.

March

In March, I was really on a Criminal Minds kick lol. I’ve been watching this show since I was seven (oops), and dove into a rewatch since it hit Disney+! This story, “Where to Run When the Lamb Roars,” is very clearly Rachel watching 5 episodes of CM a day. Oops! We follow 14-year-old Astrid as she and her older half brother kidnap a young girl to sacrifice for their yearly ritual.

I knew a few things going into this story, but the main thing was that I did NOT want to show any details of a potential murder (if one even occurs). I really wanted to keep all of those elements off the page because this story is not about those events, but about Astrid’s relationship with her brother. They are a murderous duo, with Astrid actually being the dominant partner. I wanted to explore that. I knew her brother, Fox, was more of a submissive partner in their team, even when he used to do this same thing with his father when he was much younger (chilling!), and so it was a task to explore how this young girl’s desire for violence works. The end actually comes right before the story starts, one could say, but I like it for this reason. It really made me contemplate the story by the time I finished it, and helped me examine what it really was about versus what it appeared to be about.

April

(TW: sexual content, non explicit)

I was so busy this month! Who knows if I’ll write a story last minute, but I did write one story this month called “Five Times Fast.” I wrote this during a “writing sprint” that was being hosted at a flash fiction workshop I recently took with one of my favourite writers ever, K-Ming Chang. I learned so much from this class, and am so happy I came out of it with a draft! This story is just over 300 words, so the shortest flash I’ve ever written, but I’m really happy with it. It was based off the prompt “describe the last time you or your character was naked.” In this case, the narrator has a “friends with benefits” relationship with Ricky who works at a laundromat. This story highlights a moment in this relationship (and also Ricky’s goofy personality lol). I really like it! Hopefully I’ll submit it to some magazines soon.

My short story collection

Very briefly I wanted to touch on my short story collection which I’ve titled “She is Also Dead.” I’ve been meaning to make a blog post on this, so look out for that in the coming months, but this collection is already at around 35k words (about 14 stories so far). The collection also surprisingly has a solid amount of flash fiction which is kind of fun! There’s definitely a range here, which is what I personally love in short story collections.

I feel very professional now that I have a ~collection chart. This is her:

(image description: A chart with the title “She is Also Dead.” It is broken into four columns: Story, Status, Word Count, and Published. Entry 1 - Story: Slaughter the Animal. Status: Revisions, Word Count, 3982, Published: N/A. Entry 2 - Story: Joanne, I’ll Pray for You, Status: Polished, Word Count: 1809, Published: N/A. Entry 3 - Story: Primary Organs, Status: Published, Word Count: 2342, Published: The Malahat Review. Entry 4 - Story: Faberge, Status, Polished, Word Count: 619, Published: N/A. Entry 5 - Story: The Wolf-Antelope Will Not Come for Us, Status, Polished, Word Count: 1556, Published: filling Station (forthcoming). Entry 6 - Story: How to Spell Alpaca, Status: revisions, Word Count: 1327, Published: N/A. Entry 7 - Story: Blink Twice for Final Judgement, Status: Polished, Word Count: 6572, Published: N/A. Entry 8 - Story: The Species is Dead, Status: Published, Word Count: 1208, Published: Minola Review. Entry 9 - Story: Shark Swimming, Status: Polished, Word Count: 907, Published: N/A. Entry 10 - Story: The Party, Status, Polished, Word Count 2339, Published: N/A. Entry 11 - Story: Fig, Status: Polished, Word Counter: 947, Published: N/A. Entry 12 - Story: Protect the Young, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4128, Published: N/A. Entry 13 - Story: Where to Run When the Lamb Roars, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 2174, Published: N/A. Entry 14 - Story: Phantom Limbs, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4844, Published: N/A.) /end image description.

This order is DEFINITELY not permanent (at this point whenever I write a story, I just fit it randomly into this chart lol), and some of the info is outdated (for example, Slaughter the Animal is now polished!!! thank god!!!). But just an idea of what I’m thinking of including.

This is the summary so far:

In SHE IS ALSO DEAD, characters are pushed to act on their gravest impulses. A small town turns murderous when their local invasive species, the Janices, begin dying. A child struggles to understand her mother’s suicide. A college dropout who insists she’s being haunted by a poltergeist unexpectedly breaks up with her boyfriend. A mother acknowledges her daughter’s murderous tendencies after her backyard chickens mysteriously die. A young girl caters the funeral of a girl rumored to be killed by a wolf-antelope. A newly-divorced mother RSVP’s to a bizarre party she was not invited to, and a murderous brother and sister upkeep their yearly tradition of abducting a young girl. These stories follow characters who navigate death, violent desires, womanhood, and loss, both self-imposed and otherwise.

This is also so subject to change as I may pull and add stories to the collection!

I think I’m going to leave this update here for now! I’ve written TONS of poetry too, but I honestly ~hate my poetry right now lol, so! Hope you enjoyed this chill rambly update. Hope writing has going well for you all! All the best!

--Rachel

#writing #writeblr #writerblr #amwriting #writingupdates

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x0401x · 3 years

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Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #25

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Sri Lanka Nakata Diary

Title: I got to make some time all of a sudden.

Hello, this is Iggy.

Just as the title says, I suddenly managed to make some time for myself here in Sri Lanka. The guest who was supposed to come over had to go on a last-minute trip, so I wound up with almost an entire day off.

My boss told me that I should take it easy while I was at it and that studying was forbidden, so if you’d like, please give me suggestions. I think there aren’t many people living in Sri Lanka among the ones who are seeing this, so anything goes. Like your favorite ways to spend your leisure time, for example.

By the way, I like cooking when a senior acquaintance of mine comes over, but I noticed lately that I don’t cook much when I’m alone. Eating out is best when it’s Sri Lankan curry.

Ely_03

Hi, Iggy. I always have fun reading your blog. I live in Greece. I have interest in Japanese people because my daughter is studying abroad in Japan, so I’m happy to have found this blog.

1975Halleluja

Do they not have night clubs there? How about you try going to one? I’m reading you all the way from Egypt.

BB_Typhoon

How about trying to clean up your room? It might be surprisingly messy.

Archangel

Hello, nice to meet you, Iggy-san. If you are in Sri Lanka, apparently, there is a Sri Lankan massage called Ayurveda. You are finally having a day off, so isn’t it a good idea to relax in a way you have never experienced before? Take care of your body. I found the spa below. Not so bad, is it?

(This URL is only visible to the administrator.)

Title: I went to do Ayurveda!

Hello, Iggy here. Thank you for your previous comments to my blog.

I went to the spa that Archangel-san introduced to me, and it was a series of first experiences, so I was very excited. Back in my country, I kind of imagined that women were the ones who get this kind of massage, but if my tired body would get better, I could keep getting it in the future too.

The owner of the spa was a Tamil speaker. It would have been great if I were more able to talk to them. Thanks to them, I experienced enrichment in many aspects.

Iggy out.

Archangel

Iggy-san, it seems you had a fulfilling day and nothing makes me happier. I think that the most efficient way to study about languages and gemstones is to proceed with the two paralleling each other like wheels. I hope your training will be fun.

Punk_Of_England

When I read a blog from someone who’s having fun, I have fun too! If there were a ‘like’ button, I might have pressed it nonstop. Take care of your health. Man, anonymous sections sure are convenient.

Title: Three-Wheeler

Hello, Iggy here. I had a question in one of my updates.

Do you remember that, last time, I wrote an article about purchasing a three-wheel bike called Three-Wheeler? I’ve been addicted to riding it around lately.

I did have a driver’s license in my motherland, but I was the kind who didn’t have a car or bicycle, so maybe my eyes opened up to the fun of driving a car when I came here.

This thing is like a bike with a hood, so it feels good when the wind hits my face. Finding waterfowl when I’m running around the man-made areas in the evening makes me feel satisfied.

I’m going to study now. After I’m done, I’ll go ride on the Three-Wheeler again. Looking forward to it.

Archangel

Iggy-san, hello. It seems that you are enjoying your new vehicle. Although this is excessive concern, but if I may share my worries about the Three-Wheeler, while it does have a casual ride quality to it, is not appropriate for crime prevention. For example, there is no wall to protect your body if a thug happens to attack from the side of the vehicle while it is temporarily stopped. Your senior and boss have probably already told you not to carry valuables with you when you are riding. Please be careful.

Iggy

>Archangel-san, thank you for always leaving comments. Indeed, I do recall my boss telling me that. I never take valuables with me when I use the Three-Wheeler, but I’ll make sure to take it to heart once again. Thank you very much.

ilovestones

I went back to read the article about the Three-Wheeler. So cute! I don’t see bikes like that in my country at all. Must be fun to drive around one of those. I think this would come in very handy if you ever feel like renewing all the strata within a 20km radius of your house. I’m jealous.

Punk_Of_England

This might be the anonymous section and all, but I think people’s quirks show in their text, so it’s hard to tell if they haven’t yet been discovered or if they’re just being let through...

Title: Men in Skirts

Iggy here. Just as the title says, I’ve passed by several men who were wearing skirts. I wonder if it was traditional wear. But it also had a colorful and casual feel to it, so I’m slightly confused about what it was. I’m not very confident as to whether or not I was making a rude face when I looked at them. My apologies to them.

Archangel

>Iggy-sama.

That is called sarong, which is a traditional wear in Sri Lanka. Please refer to the URL below.

(This URL is only visible to the administrator.)

I believe you understood that it is used as formal wear. Perhaps the fact that there were so many men wearing colorful sarongs means it was a wedding ceremony? Do not be so discouraged.

Title: I was given a sarong!

Iggy here. For now, please take a look at this photo.

(The image is displayed only to accounts authorized by the administrator.)

I got a red and blue gingham check sarong! It’s comfy! Since it’s the locals who wear it, as expected, there’s lots of pros to it – it’s breathable, doesn’t bleach in the sunlight, and it’s easier to walk in than I had imagined.

As you can see in the picture, the length is down to the ankles. It’s longer than a Scottish skirt and that helps. It seems people put this on to go to wedding ceremonies. So cool. Above all, it suits the climate of Sri Lanka, so I think that’s better to wear than Bermuda shorts if you want to spend time here.

I received this from my neighbor, but it’s extremely comfortable, so I’m planning to buy one or two more for myself. I wonder if this can’t be worn every day.

Shinghalion

I am a local. It makes me happy that you like my homeland’s clothes. This sort of garment also seems to be trending amongst Sri Lanka’s elite college students in the recent years, so if there are any places near you where college students hang out, then the boutiques next to them are where you should aim to go. Please have a pleasant life. By the way, it seems to me that someone is leaving several comments. Are you okay? If they are being a nuisance, it seems that there is also a block function here. Just my excessive concerns.

Archangel

>Shinghalion

Pleased to meet you (just for the sake of it). Please do not say such outrageous things to someone you have never even met.

Title: I ended up accumulating sweets.

(The image is displayed only to accounts authorized by the administrator.)

I made too many...

The picture is of coconut rolls, pudding and caramelized date. As one would expect, I can’t eat them all on my own, but when I tried to share with my neighbors, they told me that it’s bad for children’s teeth and got a bit angry, so things are awkward. What should I do?

Title: My boss came over!

The sweets that I made in big quantity didn’t go to waste. Lucky me.

Weird coincidences do happen. I’m truly glad for that.

I wonder what I should make next time he comes. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions. As for Sri Lankan sweets, I still only know about things like watalappan, and also the rolls, cream buns, and coconut dumplings sold at the station’s kiosk. But all of them are delicious, aren’t they? If you have any recommendations, please tell me.

Archangel

>Iggy-sama, I saw your post with great interest. However, I do not think you should forget about the true feelings of the person in question. Please use every day to improve your own skills and promote your physical and mental health. In that respect, as expected, I think that the sweets you are supposed to make should have focus on your current specialties, but do you agree?

Shinghalion

>Archangel, overprotection can be a bad habit if it goes too far. How about you realize that already?

Archangel

>Shinghalion, Neither I nor you know each other at all. Please refrain from speculating and saying such things on your own accord.

Punk_Of_England

Phew~! This is getting kinda interesting. I’ll be watching over the course of events.

ilovestones

Hum, please leave it as that. This is Iggy-san’s blog. Aren’t you being a bother to him?

Archangel

I resent my actions.

Shinghalion

I apologize.

Punk_Of_England

I’m sorry.

Mura_Shimo

Heya, Iggy-san! It’s your well-acquainted H.S. I came to see your blog! It’s a fun one with lots of comments. Considering that you said you didn’t advertise it to anyone, that’s amazing! Natural virtues maybe?

I wanna see you again and talk! Do lots of updates~! I’ll do my best at guitar practice too~!

Punk_Of_England

The possibility of toleration has disappeared, huh. A-san, you okay? Are you going to be silent for the rest of your life?

Archangel

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but I am hesitating as well. Remaining silent might be the safest.

Archangel_Of_Archangel

Hello, nice to meet you, Iggy-san.

I read your entire blog. You seem to be having lots of fun. That is a relief. I have experience with working in a country a bit farther to the southeast than Sri Lanka, so seeing you live a fun daily life reminds me of my youth, which makes me both cry and laugh. This is a very good blog where your daily life comes to mind in vivid colors.

Also, the way that so many people are looking after Iggy-san in the comment section made the corners of my eyes feel hot. Speaking of which, do the people who leave comments on this blog really have no relation to Iggy-san and just watch over him through this blog?

>Archangel-san, can we talk again?

Mail account

Sender: [email protected]

Destination: [email protected]

Message: I shall contact you through the usual phone number.

Sender: [email protected]

Destination: [email protected]

Message: I will be waiting for it. Thank you for always taking care of my son.

Title: The comments decreased?

Hello, Iggy here. Ever since the last update, I feel that the people who always send comments to the blog have gone quiet somehow. Have I written anything weird? It is weird for me to make such a request, but if there is no problem in particular, please be as dynamic as always. I mostly spend my time by myself, so I get encouragement when I read from you.

The city has become lively with the preparations for Perahera. It seems there will be many plans for the summer again, but will I be able to see it live? Iggy out!

Archangel

>Iggy-sama, hello. I shall write a long comment in due time.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinha de vulpian #jr short story collection #tanimoto shouko #jeffrey claremont #shimomura haruyoshi #saul ranashinghe ali #nakata yasuhiro #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation #richard

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years

Text

The Critique of Manners, Part II

~Or~

A Candid Review of ITV's Emma (1997)

Disclaimer: I do know that both this and the Miramax version were released in 1996, but to avoid confusion, I refer to this one as the “1997 Emma” in reference to the US release date.

The bones of this review were written some six years ago after my initial viewing. I’ve watched it three or four times since then, two very recently (Within the past year). I’d started to soften on it in the most recent watch. So many people love it so much I thought surely maybe I’m just crazy or even wrong; until I found this blog post from 2008 (a year before my favorite version was released) that hit on almost EVERY SINGLE thing that skeeved me out about this version when I first watched it.

Like my previous review of Emma. (2020), I’ll be covering the cast and overall handling of the script in comparison with what I know from reading the book. I will also be commenting on my thoughts about the costumes (Whether they are attractive or accurate, or both, or neither) which will be a bit more in depth than it was for the 2020 version, and this will set a pattern for the costumes section going forward.

Directed by Diarmuid Lawrence with screenwriting by Andrew Davies (Or should I say “Written by Andrew Davies with direction by Diarmuid Lawrence”?), this version was a fan-favorite among Janeites for many years for … well, reasons I’ve never been entirely certain of. I’ve read the book twice through and referenced pertinent passages MANY times besides, and really I don’t see what they’re raving about.

Let’s dive in.

Cast & Characterization

I’d known about this adaptation for a while, but I held off on watching it, largely for one reason: my apprehension about Mark Strong playing Mr. Knightley.

I was concerned because when I watched this I had already seen Mark Strong as Sir John Conroy in The Young Victoria and as Lord Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes, both very unpleasant characters. But there have been several occasions when I expressed displeasure with casting choices only to eat my words when I actually watched the movie. So I entered into watching this with an optimistic outlook, sure that Mark and Kate would surprise me with brilliant performances. And I would like to say that they did, but that would be an untruth.

My biggest fear about Mark Strong playing Mr. Knightley was that his rebuking of Emma was going to be a watered down version of ‘RAAAWWWRRR’ that I was familiar with, specifically because of The Young Victoria. It’s very hard for me to see Mark Strong point his finger in Emily Blunt’s face and shout at her, and then watch him do the same thing with Kate Beckinsale (only somewhat less aggressively) and expect to feel all warm and fuzzy about their romance. I expected that to be a tall order. And it was. Whenever he raises his voice, the right side of his face pulls up into a snarl. Now since it does this no matter what role he’s playing I’m guessing that’s just how his face is. It’s not his fault really and it’s almost certainly unintentional, but I’ve seen that snarl before and it does NOT belong on Mr. Knightley’s face.

Don’t ever think I don’t LOVE Kate Beckinsale, and I don’t necessarily think that my problems with this interpretation of Emma are her fault; these things very rarely fall on the shoulders of the actual actors, but those of the screenwriters and directors who guide them. However – and I am aware that this might sound a bit harsh – I would say that at points, Kate Beckinsale’s performance in this movie (In my opinion) barely outstrips community theatre or even very good high school drama club level acting. It seems to me that there’s burden on her here to sound historical or period. This lends to this interpretation of Emma feeling at once both cold and childish (more on that later.)

Her best moments are when she runs into Jane as Jane is leaving Donwell and when she speaks with Robert Martin at the end of the film. I always like scenes where Emma tacitly apologizes to Mr. Martin, and her feeling when she invites him to Donwell is Kate’s finest moment in this movie.

I found Raymond Coulthard’s Frank Churchill insignificant at first, but on repeat viewings I really started to hate him. I don’t think Austen intended Frank’s caddishness (to use more modern vernacular I’d say he’s an utter “Douche”) to be quite this obvious on first glance. He’s a creep in this version and Raymond Coulthard is just not at all attractive to me, from his big nose to his little shark teeth.

Olivia Williams was a good, even great, Jane Fairfax, and in my opinion does a much better job of portraying Jane’s vexation than, say, Polly Walker did (more on that next time), while still quietly looking like she’d like to arm-bar Frank rather than take his vulgar teasing lying down.

She also has the distinction of being the only Jane Fairfax who’s singing REALLY blows Emma’s out of the water, and I like that all of the songs she sings are in languages other than English (primarily Italian I think?). This achieves the double whammy of showing how much more accomplished she is than Emma by emphasizing that not only does Jane sing and play better, but she knows languages too.

Samantha Morton is a superb actress whom I love and I was sort of appalled at how she looks in this movie. Is she dying of a wasting illness? She looks like a gust of wind will carry her away, although since she looked the same in the 1997 Jane Eyre (In which she played the title role under similarly appalling direction) perhaps that was just her look that year?

Dominic Rowan, as Mr. Elton, is… there’s a perfect word to describe it and I just can’t think of it right now. Like every other young man in this movie (other than Robert Martin) he’s got this feeling of skeeviness to me but it’s more than that. It’s a dweebie-ness as well. This is so dissatisfactory to me because Mr. Elton is supposed to have every appearance of charm and agreeableness, with his only obvious fault being his over-eagerness to ingratiate himself to Emma and some rather vulgar locker-room type talk about marrying for fortune. He’s just so… (I’ve hit upon it now after some discussion with my sister) dingy. He looks less like a “very handsome young man” who “knows the value of a good income” and more like the kind of guy that scrubs up okay, but still you can tell from the rumple of his clothes and the pizzaroni odor wafting from him that he lives in his mom’s basement.

The shining star for me in this production was Alistair Petrie as Robert Martin. I love him as an actor and especially after watching him in Cranford, I think he was an excellent choice for Harriet’s Mr. Martin.

Davies wrote the character to be a little more romantic (Actually buying Anne Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest, where originally Mr. Martin was supposed to forget to – something Emma uses as a mark against him to prove how he will age into an “gross vulgar old farmer” who is “obsessed with profit and loss”.)

I especially like an inserted scene where Mr. Martin, working in his field, sees a distressed Jane Fairfax from afar as she is walking home (I think from Donwell). I thought it drew an interesting parallel between two emotionally wronged characters that otherwise would have no interaction.

What’s with Mrs. Elton (Lucy Robinson)? I don’t think nearly enough people question this. I’ve seen it explained away as her being from Bristol and trying to make herself sound more hoity-toity to hide the fact that she’s New Money. I’m not positive on what a Bristol accent sounds like (For that is where Augusta Hawkins is from) but… this sounds like an American trying to sound posh. At some points she almost sounds Texan. It’s all very confusing, because the actress is British.

Prunella Scales lists among her achievements being an outstanding actress and comedienne, as well as bringing into the world Samuel West, one of my all time favourite British screen crushes. She's probably best known for her work on Fawlty Towers, so its interesting to see her range as much less inscrutable Miss Bates. Her performance is by the book, but so much more engaging than Constance Chapman's 1972 offering, although i find her perhaps a shade too placid. She lacks a certain nervousness that I associate with the character (for more information, see my previous review.)

As for Bernard Hepton as Mr. Woodhouse, I can only say I. Didn’t. Like. Him. I have every consciousness of this being a personal bias. I have seen him play too many insufferable characters in too many things to like him as Emma’s lovable if tiresome father. This isn’t a knock on him or his performance; his reaction to Mrs. Elton is some great subtle visual comedy, this is just a me thing.

Another one of the better characterizations, though a relatively small role, is John Knightley. Played by Guy Henry, he is shown to be a good father, and an “Gentleman-like man”, with just the right blend of good humor and caustic comments.

Sets & Surroundings

I’d never paid MUCH attention to or questioned the houses and interiors used for estates in Austen adaptations until the 2020 version of Emma used such ridiculously lavish houses for relatively provincial gentry it forced me to sit up and pay attention. I think the houses used in this version are mostly suitable.

The part of Donwell Abbey’s exterior is played by Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. The Key words for Donwell from the text are “rambling and irregular” and while perhaps not as big as the Former Claremont House (Which, it is believed, was Austen’s inspiration for Donwell Abbey) it definitely is a suitable architectural style and situation and furthermore, having been purchased in the 19th century by a glove manufacturer and having been up to that point left in a little bit of a state of disrepair, fits the “neglect of prospect” Austen describes as well. Its interiors are a cobble-work of the Great Hall at Broughton Castle (Oxfordshire), various rooms at Stanway House (Gloucestershire), and the Strawberry beds at Thame Park (Oxfordshire)

(Top, left – Sudeley Castle; Bottom left – Trafalgar Park; Right – Dorney Court)

Trafalgar Park in Wiltshire and its interiors (a minty sage-green drawing-room fitting in perfectly with the mint-chocolate – primarily chocolate – color palette of the production) played the role of the Woodhouse’s home, Hartfield. A typical Georgian style house in red brick, I believe is consistent with Austen’s description of a “well built, modern house”.

Dorney Court in Buckinghamshire was used for Randalls, Mr. Weston’s recently purchased estate. It’s a Tudor style red brick house and it looks pretty on the mark from the front facade, but I think it’s still too big for a “small estate” with only two guest rooms (Although there’s no panic about the snow in this version – perhaps because it’s already snowing when they set out.)

My biggest problem is the lighting of this movie. I understand natural lighting and I LOVE it when you can even it out – but it is so dark in the evening scenes that it adds to the colorlessness of an already colorless production.

Fashion

Oh Jenny Beavan. You are a well-respected costume designer with good reason. However, I know that most of these costumes are rentals, but why is every-fucking-thing in this movie a shade of brown, beige or green?

As you can see, a rich tapestry of brown and beige. And this isn’t selective. this is (just about) every day-wear outfit in the movie (barring repeats and a few exceptions that I’ll give mention to below.)

Emma’s outerwear is brought to you by Hershey’s Chocolate. Also I’m not certain but I think that her light brown redingote is the same one as Elinor’s in the 1995 Sense and Sensibility? If anyone can confirm, drop it in the comments.

Perhaps the evening wear will be more colorful?

Barely – Mrs. Weston in a brownish orange; Mrs. John Knightley in an orange-ish brown; Emma gets a dark blue? Or is that just the wintery glow from the window on a dark green velvet? Green (either so dark it’s almost black, or washed-out mint) appears to be the only color Emma is allowed to wear other than brown or ivory/white. Even her gown for the Crown Inn Ball (upper right) is an underwhelming and rather dingy ivory. The champagne number she wears for Christmas at Randalls is not only lack-lustre, but also sports what I’m now calling a “Bridgerton Bust” (where the Empire waist comes up too high, with the seam apparently resting across her bust rather than under it.)

The pink frock (seen properly only from the back) on Mrs. Weston is as close to real color as a main character gets in this production, and can be recognized as one of Jane Bennet’s dresses from the previous year’s Pride and Prejudice.

Even Jane Fairfax doesn’t get a break. Rather than putting her in Jane Fairfax Blue ™ (honestly, Jane Fairfax being costumed in blue is so consistent at this point Crayola should just name a crayon in her honor - this is gonna come back in future reviews) she gets a black-green evening number with no trim at all, and a succession of what the Ladies over at Frock Flicks like to call the “Dumpy Regency Little White Dress”, or drab gray-blues.

Some of the background dancers in the Crown Inn Ball scene get to wear pink! Why not put Harriet in a nice pink frock for this scene?! Why is this so difficult?!

Strawberry picking at Donwell is the only time main characters are consistently wearing identifiable colors that aren’t brown or green: Mrs. Weston in pink, Miss Bates in (oddly the most colorful dress of them all) a nice refreshing lavender blue; Jane gets grey/blue and Mrs. Elton, a pastel mint. Harriet is also given a little break in Mrs. Elton’s introduction scene in a (very) pastel blue frock, while Emma sports white (with a trademark green shawl.)

So how about the...

Similarly dull. I almost screamed for joy when I saw that Frank’s jacket was actually blue, and a vibrant blue at that. (The red is too close to brown, I’m sorry.)

So yes, in short the costumes, while perfectly technically accurate (I didn’t get a lot of caps of them but the trousers sufficiently tight, not that I care to look), are drab as a peahen.

As always I’ll outsource any dancing critique by linking Tea With Cassiane on YouTube, since I find her insights on the approach to dancing in Austen adaptations just fascinating and I would like to share such witty and informed reviews.

The Andrew Davies of it All…

*Strong Opinions Ahead*

There are so many reasons why this adaptation isn’t for me. First of all the very idea of making Emma, one of Austen’s most socially complex works (certainly her most vivid) into a sparse 107 minutes is baffling to me. Perhaps I can understand if it’s a Theatrical release but this is a TV production. Why not at least make it a two part special?

And besides the issue that, in order to make this fit the time frame, the story is severely truncated, there’s… the Andrew Davies of it all.

I have some issues with Andrew Davies’ screenwriting for this adaptation particularly. A LOT of issues. Where does one start? I think Knightley is a good place.

It’s not just the casting I don’t like here; but it does say something to me that they chose Mark Strong for this role. It’s a casting decision I discovered with disbelief when I first saw clips from this version in a Period Drama men compilation video on YouTube. I mentioned above that I know Mark Strong as unpleasant characters with man-handling habits. That’s the kind of role Mark Strong is associated with because that’s just what he does well. And I think this played into the casting here, because Davies’ interpretation of Knightley is a bit… fierce. He shouts SO MUCH in this movie and in scenes like the Harriet Smith debacle (where Mr. Knightley of the book even gets a bit angry with Emma) I can understand this, perhaps. But in the book Mr. Knightley takes many pauses to collect and calm himself, because his goal is not to quarrel with Emma but to argue a point. 97 Knightley takes no such pauses and spends the whole scene in what some might call an escalating rage.

Knightley’s cheerful arrival to Hartfield to tell Emma that Robert Martin intended to propose to Harriet is cut out so we start right off with his indignant exclamation of “She refused him?!” and it’s all go from there. To make matters worse, Emma’s own arguments are crippled by Davies’ editing. Many of her more (what might even latterly be considered “feminist”) arguments are cut out. In fact once Knightley gets going, he juggernauts his way through all of his rebukes and speeches from the book, but Emma hardly gets a word in edgewise after arguing that Robert Martin is not Harriet’s equal. What Austen wrote as a heated debate is turned by Davies into a one-sided tirade. (By don’t take my word for it, watch the clip.)

The final cherry on top is having Emma, after Knightley leaves the room with the last word firmly in his grasp, childishly pout “You are wrong Mr. Knightley, and you will see you are wrong and then you will be sorry.” I half expected her to cross her arms and stomp her foot. Worth noting is the fact that Davies adds an additional “It was badly done. Emma,” in this scene where there was none in the book. Rather overkill to my mind. Is this his catchphrase?

At Box Hill, Davies has Knightley begin his climactic rebuke of Emma’s insulting behavior by grabbing her arm and hauling her aside, and concludes by leading her, still holding her arm, to the carriage. Well at least he doesn’t shout at her in this scene; but again, all but one of Emma’s responses are cut out and she stands there, pouting until Mr. Knightley leaves and then she bursts into tears.

When Mr. Knightly proposes to Emma I was feeling good about this scene, until he dropped the “I held you when you were three weeks old” line, and I immediately felt uncomfortable. Maybe you DON’T want mention how you held her when she was a baby after you asked her to MARRY you. But perhaps worse is Emma’s response to the line: “Do you like me as well now as you did then?”

Bringing up holding Emma when she was three weeks old at the proposal (A line which was not in the book) is bad enough but there seems to be a peculiar repeated emphasis on Knightley recalling Emma as a baby. He dragged it up previously when he and Emma make up after the Harriet debacle, as he holds John and Isabella’s baby daughter (whose name, I would mention, is Emma.) In this instance too, the line is a Davies addition.

Let’s talk about Knightley’s strawberry line.

This is delivered in voice-over as a transition to the strawberry picking party at Donwell, and is portrayed as a formal invitation: “Mr. Knightley invites you to taste his strawberries, which are ripening fast.”

At first I was confident that I was reading too much into this (but I think at this point I can safely say that I’m not). I can’t help bursting out laughing every time I hear that line. It was a questionable way to word that if you ask me, especially considering that this is (once again) NOT the line in the book, and it was NOT a formal invitation. It was said to Mrs. Elton and intended to be a joke.

“You had better explore Donwell then,” replied Mr. Knightly “That may be done without horses. Come and eat the strawberries; they’re ripening fast.”

‘ If Mr. Knightly did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so...’

And here I thought Janeites hated adaptations that cut out “Miss Austen’s biting wit.”

To top it all off, we have Frank Churchill (Who I have already pointed out is a bit of a creep in this adaptation and even more detestable than he already was as Austen wrote him) praising Jane: this would be fine, if he wasn’t drooling into Emma’s ear about the turn of Jane’s throat, (He actually utters this line)

and how fine his dead aunt’s jewels will look against her skin. May I just be the first to say “Ehewhegaugh”.

I juxtapose this with the book where Frank's lines are almost exactly as Davies renders them, except Jane Austen never wrote the "have you ever seen such a skin?" Line. The difference i have highlighted in bold:

"... She is a complete angel. Look at her. Is she not an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes as she looks up at my father. --- You will be glad to hear that my uncle intends to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will it not be beautiful in her dark hair?"

Because talking about how pretty your fiancee's hair is, is normal and marginally less creepy than talking about what a fine skin she has or how lovely your (i cannot stress this part enough) dead aunt's jewels will look against it. Davies' script also makes no mention of having them reset, which makes me think he’s talking about the actual necklaces and bracelets Mrs. Churchill would have worn.

But hey, maybe its just a me thing.

Harriet Smith’s story suffers, primarily, I can with some candor admit, due to the time constraints. After Mr. Elton is married, we never see Harriet in any distress. It’s almost as though she’s forgotten all about it! Emma never has to appeal to her to exert herself or to move on. Perhaps this is better than Doran Godwin’s Emma gaslighting Harriet and manipulating her by constantly chastising her for… well general heartbreak (but that’s a bugaboo for a different review.)

My last complaint of note is that ludicrous harvest feast at the end of the movie. The whole concept of this scene just does not seem at all Janely to me. I was under the impression that I was meant to be watching an Austen. Not some bullshit Thomas Hardy knock-off. This is another Davies touch and I hate it more on the principal that it is one of his numerous, obsessive tweaks made solely to point out the existence of the lower classes.

If Davies wanted to show Mr. Knightley’s being an attentive landlord and gentleman farmer then I don’t see why he couldn’t just show Knightley actually running his farm?

“Okay’, you might say, “but I think the highlighting of the servants is to show how good Knightley is by treating them like real people compared to everyone else”, and I hear you. And in the situations where that is the case, like him greeting the Woodhouse’s butler and asking after his family I think that’s totally fine and in character. But things like the servants moving the knee cushions every time someone moves down the line at strawberry picking, to me, is AS ridiculous as the “servants clipping the lawn on their hands and knees with tiny scissors” trope. Like we get it, people took the lower classes for granted, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it would be easier and more realistic to have Mrs. Elton have to move her own knee cushion. I don’t think Knightley would instruct his servants, who he treats so well, to do that kind of thing, but you could write in Mrs. Elton’s expectation of it if you wanted. It seems like the kind of thing she would expect the landed gentry to do.

Screenwriter for some of the best loved Austen’s (including the sacrosanct 1995 P&P Mini-series and my favorite Sense & Sensibility), I thought of Davies for years as untouchable; until Sanditon happened and left everyone who knows anything about Jane Austen really wondering where this mess came from. I put it to you now that it was there in Davies all along.

Davies admitted, when talking about the drastic “Sexing Up” he did in Sanditon that he felt Austen’s works could have done with a bit more sex appeal. I can hardly disagree and additions like Darcy’s little swim in the pond and Edward Ferrars’ angsty wood-chopping are welcome and beloved. But it seems that what he really wanted all along was what he gave us in Sanditon; and finally, without actual source material to stand in his way, he had a chance let his dirty old man show and gave “Austen” the sexing up he thought it needed.

And it gets more troubling as you look back.

In my opening paragraph to this review I mentioned a 2008 blog post that not only agreed with me that there’s something very off about this screenplay, but gave me some possible insights as to why. It points out numerous things that I have always questioned in this version but have never seen anyone else criticize (though I am informed that more recently it has gained its’ share of critics). In fact the post itself actually points out that almost no one in the Austen Blog-sphere had (at that point) criticized this version’s faults in any meaningful way, but my favorite thing about it is that it points out what you find in Davies’ screenplay if you pay careful attention to it “Rather than sitting there and cataloguing what is “technically faithful and whatnot”.

Many Austen bloggers have kind of been playing Miss Taylor to Davies’ Emma for some two decades and change.

The most troubling thing of all is Davies own comments on Mr. Knightley (and other things, more inferred in his screen play). All of the aspects of this interpretation of Knightley that I mentioned earlier seem to stem from the fact that, as quoted in Sarah Caldwell’s book on his works, Davies thinks there’s “Something odd going on with Knightley.”

Davies clearly reads foul, or at least questionable, intentions in Mr. Knightley but I find it interesting that, rather than cutting out material he may have found troubling about Knightley in the book out of his screenplay, he doubled down by adding MORE troubling lines and situations (that were never in the book at all, and imagined solely by himself) in a romantic story with a happy ending.

Perhaps there’s not so much something odd going on with Knightley, Mr. Davies, but with you.

Final Thoughts

At this point I might ask what it is that everyone sees in this version that makes them think it’s so perfect, but that would be a bit pointless since all I’ve read since I discovered this version is people on elaborating on just that and I don’t care to hear much more.

“The lines are verbatim!” textually, perhaps, but it’s the ones that added that trouble me.

“The leads have so much chemistry!” I’m glad you think so, but I can’t find it.

“The costumes are damn near perfect!” And brown. So, so very brown.

As a 90's TV period drama, this version is pretty standard. It sticks to the book (except in those places where the screenwriter saw fit to dabble with some subtle but troubling suggestions about the characters.) And if it floats your boat, as always I'm glad it gives you what you want from the story.

I know I hold unpopular opinions on Jane Austen adaptations, and perhaps this is one of them, but every time I watch this version I feel the need to read the book as a cleanse. Perhaps Davies’s ferocious Knightley was simply a pendulum swing reaction to Douglas McGrath’s almost too laid back interpretation in the Miramax film from earlier in 1996, but even if that’s the case it’s just uncalled for and is my biggest turn off for this film.

Tone: 3

Ribbon Rating: Badly Done! (40 Ribbons)

Casting: 5

Acting: 6

Scripting: 4

Pacing: 2

Cinematography: 4

Setting: 3

Costumes: 5

Music: 2

Book Accuracy: 6

#jane austen #jane austen emma #costume drama #regency #period drama #emma 1996

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haruno-sakura-san · 4 years

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7, 10, 11, 12 and how about a freebie- dealer's choice, pick one more that you really want to answer!

What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

Until I started this blog, I didn't really think about my writing style at all. I just wrote. But now I feel my writing style is a weird mix of over emotional and analytical. No in-between. I can be very purple or (in other words 'extra') when I am trying to write emotion, but if I'm thinking I'm terms of action or decision making, I think I can sound clinical. Especially with RP, sometimes I treat it like a chess match (I think this probably came through in my first thread "locked up". But one thing is definitely clear, I do not keep things short! My style is to have longer sentences in general.

I'm not sure what others would say about my style. I'd be interested in hearing. I haven't gotten any hate mail yet, but people have said they like my work, that I'm good at writing suspense. I have no formal writing training, but I do have some things I want to improve on to make my writing more condensed and uses plot points , flashbacks or introspection to describe emotions rather than just stating them with a physical reaction.

How would you describe your writing process?

I'm a very process oriented person, so I have a very defined one! But really its a mix between plotting and pantsing.

For my fanfic, I'm a lot more organized than rps, which is in part why I started. I hoped it would help me be more spontaneous and focus more on the characters POV instead of just the plot and actions.

Anyway - for chapter fics, I have a plot outline (Incting incident, first plot point, first pinch point, midpoint, second pinch point, second plot point, climax, resolution). I start each chapter with a list of plot goals I want to write (romance, main conflict, subplot1, subplot2, etc.) and try to balance them throught the chapter as best I can so the reader isn't bored. Always save a cliff hanger for the end. Something unresolved.

And then I start to write each scene from there. I let myself be creative in that space - usually not planning anything about the scenes other than the goal I need for my plot.

If I get stuck, I make a note or [ ] and come back to it later. If I don't love a line, I highlight it and keep moving. Dialog heavy scenes I usually just write dialogue first and then go back in for actions later. Everything is about forward momentum, because usually I write the whole chapter (usually shoot for 10k) in one or two sittings.

I also have a chapter notes doc that I save snips I like or am not sure about. Some scenes I rewrite a few times and don't want to lose anything good haha.

At the end, I resolve all my highlights and notes, then use text to speech software and listen to the full chapter, making adjustments as I listen. Then I post! I don't have betas so this is the best I can do.

What do you envy in other writers?

Brevity. I am amazed by people who can convey so much with so little. I love that. I myself am more chaotic. I try to shove too much into a piece or use redundant sentence and words a lot. So someone who can writes really simple, elegant has me going uuuuuughhhh I hate you.

Also people who write very poetically. So jealous. I don't have the skills yet to do that without sounding cheesy, but I'm trying.

Do you want your writing to be famous?

Yes! Sort of. My goal is to have a fic as famous as EvilIsARelativeTerm on fanfiction.net. That would be sick! Their work "Five Kingdoms for the Dead" a Sakura centric fic is God tier and I want to be on that level someday. I'm probably shooting way too high but I don't care! Should be focusing on finishing mine first before anything else!

I'm very competitive, I even keep a spreadsheet of stats on my fic in terms of follows and favs. I want to get to the front page someday too. 🤩

Which is harder, Titles or Summaries? (Not one I really want, but it was short and I got tired of reading my own text hahaha)

Summaries!!!! Like I can fit my whole fic in 200 characters or whatever. No way!

#itachi-uchiha-deserved-better #thank you ❤️🥺#ask

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chillermal · 5 years

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The stories behind Ermal’s songs.

Here’s a summary of what some of Ermal’s songs are about or how were they born. (I didn’t include any song from Non abbiamo armi since there’s a whole interview that he talks about all songs of it,or neither famous songs like Vietato Morire, Lettera a mio padre or Storia di una favole, since I guess everyone knows everything about them.)

Odio le favole

“Odio le favole is a song born in the end of August, after a phone call with a friend of mine.He told me about a common friend of ours, who had tried to hurt herself, a lot. And it made me feel so bad. I experienced a very strong sensation. In my mind, the first thing that I thought, because I couldn’t communicate with her, was that I wanted to tell her…to remember. To remember how everything was. I didn’t wanted to be too didascalic while writing this song. So I just let it flow, in a stream of consciousness.”[I:but does she know it’s about her?] “I never have told her, because I know what kind of person she is,so she wouldn’t like it. That’s because she’s going through a very particular moment in her life,but she’s better now.” *///after singing the line “ma ogni tanto una stronza ci tocca” he said that originally it was supposed to be ‘uno stronzo’ instead of 'una stronza’.” (Interview @ Red Ronnie,2016)

Schegge

“One night I saw a dream. I dreamed that I was standing in front of a window, which exploded in front of me, in a thousand pieces. In the dream, I ran in front of a mirror to look at myself, but I didn’t have even one scratch, and I thought, 'Wow! I’m miraculously safe 'but no, I started to feel something inside. I immediately connected this dream to what I think of music. Music is like 'a memory without origin’, it is something that at some point comes into your life, it explodes inside or in front of you or somewhere near you; you have no memory of it but it is as if it had always been there. And so I wrote this song. In fact, the title should have been initially “Un ricordo senza origine” (A memory without origin) but it seemed too much at that time.” (Interview @ Red Ronnie,2016)

since it got pretty long: the rest under the cut!

Volevo dirti

“This song represents the need to move forward. Despite all unpleasant things we’re surrounded by and whatever may happen in the world, the sky above is always blue; it never changes. And we all should try to keep that flame burning. We’re not the first beings that have dwelt on this planet: it’s very selfish of us to think that, and humans are generally selfish by nature. We are all just passers-by, and time flows even when we stop; we should learn to keep marching on so as to not waste any of it.”( translated from @cordeoblique ,posted on her old blog @/gentlepluck)

“Volevo dirti is an invitation, an encouragement to live life lightly. In a world that goes the other way round how it should go, you have to keep high the desire to live, taking things as they come, because we live once, and despite everything we are the only ones who can choose for our lives.” ( Interview @ All Music Italia,2016)

A parte te

“More than a person, I think of a place, because for me love is a place, not a physical one, but a safe space. It’s a blanket on your shoulders, it’s a smile, it’s where you scraped your knees for the first time, where you first learned to ride a bike. This song was written after I took a trip to Albania a few years ago, when I passed by my old school, in my old neighbourhood, and I got very emotional seeing the same things that hadn’t met my sight in so many years.” ( translated from @cordeoblique ,posted on her old blog @/gentlepluck)

Umano

“It was written in a moment of discouragement and anger. Sometimes it happens, to feel like you’re just a caretaker of your own soul; as if you were a house whose resident delays rent payment, and the financials don’t add up. It was all born from the thought “What’s wrong with this soul of mine, that takes everything without asking, and never asks me about myself?”. This song is somehow liberating. Scars are like seals; when you seal something, you lock it up forever. So, with this song I locked up some of the bitterness I had inside, and I made peace with my soul.”

“It’s not that I can record the songs I have written in every moment. I need to feel when it’s the right moment to do it- and that’s usually during the night. For example, while trying to record the track ‘Umano’, someone told me my voice sounded weird. I knew I could never record that song in the daytime; it was meant to be at night, and I had to be tired too. So I waited, until occasionally, I found myself not having slept for more than 40 hours and there I realized, that was exactly the right moment. I ended up recording it at 6 am. I was totally exhausted, but it finally came out exactly how I wanted.” ( translated from @cordeoblique ,posted on her old blog @/gentlepluck)

Pezzi di paradiso

“Everything comes at a price in life. This song is tied to the concept of ‘being human’, main pattern of the album. By those lines “sembra quasi un incantesimo il nome che abbiamo” I mean that the name of a person influences the course of their life. People identify you by the sound it makes, and you learn to identify with it too. If my name hadn’t been Ermal, my life probably wouldn’t have been the same. I deeply identify with the sound of my name.” // Also Pezzi di paradiso is written during the time he also wrote Viteato Morrire. ( translated from @cordeoblique ,posted on her old blog @/gentlepluck)

Piccola Anima

“I like to have my guitar in my hands and see the passengers go by and imagine their story. That’s how Piccola Anima was born. I once saw a girl passing by, and I thought 'something is not going well for her’ so I wrote this song.”(Radio Italia Live, 2018)

La Vita Migliore

The whole song is inspired from this photo of La Fame Di Camilla . Also the lyrics "È stato bello sognare,sognare insieme” are pretty much the same as the words he used in the post in which he announced the split up of the band: “È stato bello suonare per voi,È stato bello sognare fra noi.”(From Ermal’s live stream on fb & Ermal’s Twitter)

Crescere

“I wrote this song the day I left the house in which I grew up. I saw my sister crying and I felt very bad and guilty. So I locked myself in to the room, in which the only thing left was my piano and wrote this song.”(Live in concert in Milano,2016)

Buio e Luce

“Sometimes it is not understood that the darkness does not exist…It is only the absence of light, a light that can also be born inside the human heart. The only secret to dream big and to not forget to be reasonable.. not even for a little while!” ( Squeezer Mag, 2010)

28-03-97

It’s a song that talks about the Tragedy of Otranto. It took place on 28 March 1997 when the Albanian ship Kateri i Radës sank in a collision with the Italian naval vessel Sibilla in the Strait of Otranto and at least 81 Albanians, aged 3 months to 69 years, lost their lives.

“I felt like I had to write something about that story, not because I was forced to do it, but because I wanted to bring out the pain I had inside of me. And the only way I know to do that is music. Someone makes a painting, another a sculpture, I make music. I shaped my feelings. I’m very attached to Albania, it’s part of me. It is a source of inspiration.”(Albania News,2010)

L’amore perfetto

“It was inspired from the movie ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’. I was watching that movie and in one of its most moving scenes I felt I was about to “throw up”! I paused it and took the guitar in my hand … the rest I don’t remember…” // He also once tweeted it was one of the songs he enjoined the most writing.(Lost High Ways,2008)

20 cigarettes ,for Marco Mengoni

“20 cigarettes was first written in English, it was called “Long Way Home”. We wrote the Italian text at Marco’s house, me and him sitting facing each other. It was magical, I watched him carefully while smoking and looking at his drawings, that he did not want to show me. In my mind those drawings have become photos and so was born the verse ‘and I smoke 20 cigarettes looking at you on photos that I will not forget.’”(Sorrisi e Canzoni,2016)

Natale senza regali, for Marco Mengoni

“Even this song was first written in English, the title was "Christmas Homeless”, talks about Christmas from the point of view of a homeless person. When I made Marco hear it, he liked it right away, also because he was born at Christmas. (Sorrisi e Canzoni,2016)

Big Boy, for Sergio Sylvestre

“It was him who contacted me first, because he had heard that I write in english too. When Pico Cibelli of Sony send me his video, i got very emotional and the first thought was “This guy is too far from home” (Sorrisi e Canzoni,2016)

Un uomo: is dedicated to Dino and is written the day his daughter was born.

New York: Is written with Marco and is dedicated to Marco’s girlfriend.

Voodoo Love: Was inspired by the book called “L'alchimia del desiderio”.

#sorry if i have made any mistake #but it took so long #so im too tired to look at it carefully #ermal meta

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gottaenjoythelittlethingzz · 5 years

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@mastery-in-procrastination, who is busy doing some awesome things for the community, was kind enough to send me this ask: “How long have you been working on "The Reaper's Only Daughter"?” Tumblr ate the ask, but I was able to save my answer! I may have gone a little over broad in my explanation. Thanks for the question, now sit back and experience the journey.

Ah yes. My origin story. I remember it like it was yesterday. Allow me to take you back, to before the beginning...

2018! For me it was the year of television (as ‘17 had been the year of the movie). I vividly remember searching for shows on IMDB to compile a sort of list in January. Some well-known, some old hat, but two in particular stuck out to me. Two my mother specifically enjoyed and had for many years. Sons of Anarchy and Shameless. I was finally at the age to where I could start enjoying these shows and so they were added to my list to be watched later. I remember reading the description of SOA and looking through pictures of tough guys on motorcycles. I knew I had to watch it!

Fast forward to May 15th. I was nearing the end of my high school/senior year. I believe I had taken all of my finals at this time and just had a few meaningless things left to turn in for one or two classes. I had just finished The Punisher (thank the godz) and was ready to start the next series. It was again between SOA and Shameless and I have never made a better or more damaging decision in my entire life than when I hit play on the pilot episode of SOA at 7 am as I was getting ready for school that Tuesday morning. Mind you, my school was a dead zone as far as internet goes, but the media godz were shinning down on me that week. I chased the signal every single day.

For the next 6 days, it was all I thought about, all I watched, all I wanted to talk about! I watched 92 episodes, roughly 70 hours of content in 6 days. Though my mother has seen it many times (as it is also her favorite series with her favorite actor(s) in it) I retold her the stories (nearly every episode, or several at a time) as I watched them. She was the first person to see me “live react” to a show in text or otherwise. She enjoyed it because she hasn’t had anyone to talk to about the show in what is now nearly 5 years and she liked hearing my takes on things.

I stopped talking to friends, I stopped eating (not really so extreme, but I mean...), and on the last 3 nights I hardly slept. I watched it absolutely everywhere! That Friday I skipped school. I reasoned I wasn’t doing work anyway and it wasn’t going to hold me back. If my memory serves me correctly, I watched the finale of S3 through S4 and maybe a little more on either side (but for certain these 14 episodes, technically my favorite in the series) in one straight sitting. In truth, nothing was going to be able to hold me back from this show. I was hard pressed to leave my room, much less my house which made work Saturday difficult. I told my coworkers I was watching it as I jumped up and down waiting to go home (business was slow you see) and I actually left early. I have a bad habit of watching things while driving (don’t do it kids! Listen to your mother!) and actually watched an episode on the way home.

I ended up pulling an all-nighter on Saturday trying to finish it as I had more plans Sunday. Well, it didn’t work. I fell asleep around 4 am with 4 or 5 episodes to go. I watched a few episodes to and from where I was going in the car, but on Sunday night May 20th, 2018, I watched the final two episodes of the series back to back and a weight had been lifted off my shoulders (it also left a hole in my heart, quite literally). I was no longer susceptible to spoilers and I knew the “secret”. What’s more, I completely, 100% agreed with the creator’s decision as to how and when he ended the show.

SOA was the first show that ever captivated my attention in such a way. I was never bored, not for a minute. I wouldn’t call many of the episodes fillers even now that I’ve watched each a couple of times (too many to count, for research purposes, I assure you.) And it is one of the most consistent as far as new ideas and character development/design I have ever seen. What's more is I absolutely adore the main cast and characters alike. It honestly took over my life and has changed it for the better. So much so, that it was still all I thought about for several weeks after I finished it. To the point where I had to watch it again top to bottom, though it took me about 2 weeks while sleeping that time. I’ve never watched a show like that, before or since, no matter how much I like a series.

Alas, life goes on, there were more shows to watch, and for the next month or so I turned to watching Shameless (another story entirely) and, though I didn’t want to, I stopped thinking about SOA for a time. That was, until I started thinking about moving to college. My mother had an SOA poster that use to be in her office that she gave to me to put in my apartment. I wake up every morning to see it hanging over my bed and I am reminded that I should be writing TROD. I went down to my college apartment about a week before term started. It was the first time I was technically on my own, though I have roommates, and you will never guess what I did during that week. Go ahead, guess. I did 2 things, actually.

I rewatched SOA, though this time I stopped on series 5 (and if you’ve seen it you may know why) and I “broke down” and created a Writeblr. I’ve always loved to write and actually was in the process of shelving what was originally meant to be my first novel length WIP (on the grounds that it did not have a plot to hold the characters together) that now hasn’t been updated in 6+ months. During this third rewatch an idea came to me. “What would it be like to be in this world?” More specifically, “What would it be like to be a woman in this world”?

This was apparently the right question to ask. The rest is history, swirling into a big black and crow feathered blur. I spent a few months creating Schuyler. I slowly stopped talking about the shelved WIP online and started answering questions for her instead. I figured if I was going to shelve 1 project I had better have another to replace it with, and so TROD was born! I nearly immediately had a character personality and a title when I started. The name Schuyler and her family lineage to link her to the canon story took more time. But while I was thinking of all the technical stuff I was also imagining all the fun scenes that would take place in this imaginary novel I was picturing.

I spent so much time thinking about it, specifically the first chapter which you have seen is now available to read on this blog, that the first time I sat down to write I wrote out 5,000 words flat. Many remained in what is currently “the final draft”. This had never happened to me before and I was inspired! I have been working on it ever since. As far as physically writing for it I have only been writing TROD for about 4 months. But in actuality, TROD has been a project a long time in the making. Nearly 9 months of thought and devotion to a Fandom nearly gone, but I’m here now to carry the torch!

9 months in and I have 6 moodboards, a chapter, and far too many tag games/posts to count. I have roughly 30k words written (continuously, obsessively tweaking the first 3 chapters) and another 2k or so of notes (outlines, dialogue lines, and ideas for scenes). This is actually the first story where I’m consulting a sort of outline (my own that I’m always adding to, but also the canon story) and it’s been my best writing experience to date!

This project is going to be long. Longer than anything I’ve ever dreamed of taking on before. I still have much to explore, plot kinks to work through, and many months, if not years, of work to go. But w/o SOA I would have never become so involved in media (as now I want to make it my career), met some of my favorite actors, created my Writeblr or been inspired to continue writing, and I certainly never would have entered into this inclusive community or met so many awesome writers!

*Whew. That was a lot. But SOA and my WIP TROD means a lot to me as you can see. Thanks so much for the ask. Feel free to stop by anytime!

I’m also going to tag @themildestofwriters as I know you may be thinking about diving into this series yourself and I want to both warn you and wish you well if you choose to do so!

And @aspire2bu, as I believe I saw you post recently about how you first got into K-pop in the first place and I found it interesting. Hopefully you’ll find this interesting too!

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notarelationship · 7 years

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Clinging to This Hating Game 4/?

(Yes I got the title wrong on the last chapter, that’s what happens when you try to post form work)

For the @prompt-a-klainefic blog’s 2017 Reverse Bang

Link to the art by @datshitrandom

the prompt:

Kurt and Blaine couldn’t stand each other in high school, maybe one was a jock/cheerleader and the other a nerd/glee clubber. Or they were bitter rivals for competition solos if they were both in glee club. Now they both live in NY and their friends set them up on a blind date, not knowing they went to the same high school.

High School AU, Cheerio!Kurt, Jock!Blaine Rating: Explicit Warnings: some bullying and homophobic language, teenage sex Word Count: ~3800 (this chapter)

Thanks as always to my superbeta @mshoneysucklepink.

Everything wonky is my fault.

AO3 link Chapter 4

On tumblr: Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3

Just a quick disclaimer: It just so happens that the only production of Bye Bye Birdie I have ever seen was a middle school production; I have never seen any film version or a staged version done by adults. I did review some high school productions on youtube while I was writing this chapter.

I only mention it because the school version and the movie version have some different staging, and I definitely had the school version in my head. It's not a huge part of the action, but it is in there so I thought I should clear that up.

Chapter 4

Kurt did his best to avoid talking to Blaine after their confrontation in the locker room.

Football season was over two weeks later anyway, so there were fewer run-ins in said locker room to try and avoid.

Of course dodging him altogether was impossible, with rehearsals for sectionals and the musical starting up in earnest. But those were both group events, and Kurt could be a professional. In fact it would be excellent practice for when he was a working actor. After all, there was no guarantee you would always get along with everyone in the cast of a show. Kurt convinced himself that he was even looking forward to the challenge.

But he couldn't let it go altogether, so he wrote out a card for Beckham.

“I hope this isn’t too weird,” he said to Tina, approaching her in the cafeteria one afternoon. “I know we were never really friends, but if he wants to talk, or anything, I’m available.”

Tina took the card, but looked at Kurt warily. Kurt smiled a thank you and went off to join the other Cheerios at their regular table.

Kurt was more shocked than he thought he’d be, and definitely pleased, when he got a text from Beckham two days later asking Kurt to meet him at the local coffee shop. Claiming he had to be home early for a family dinner that day, Kurt ditched the girls after rehearsal and went to the Lima Bean to meet Beckham.

When he arrived, Beckham was sitting at a corner table far from the door. Kurt was suddenly less confident about this. DId he really have anything helpful to say? Would Beckham even care? Kurt steeled himself and joined Beckham at his table. They exchanged somewhat awkward hellos, and Kurt went to the counter to get coffee for both of them.

Once they were settled with coffee and a cheesecake brownie between them, Kurt broke the delicate silence.

“I’m really sorry, Beck, about what happened to you. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. Not like that.”

Beckham’s cheek twitched. “Thanks.”

He didn’t say anything after that, so Kurt continued. “How are you doing?” It was the most open ended question he could think of. He didn’t want to push too hard.

“I’m good.” Beckham fiddled with his cup. “I really just wanted to tell you that I appreciated your note, and that I’m fine. Um, my parents are being very cool, so that makes it easier, I guess.”

“That’s great. I know the fact that my dad was so amazing when I came out made a huge difference for me. It really helps having the support at home, because you can’t count on it anywhere else.”

Beckham laughed, a little painfully, Kurt thought.

They chatted for a while, discussing college applications, hopes for landing somewhere more accepting, and how Beckham felt about finishing school at home. They’d been talking almost an hour, and they both needed to get home for dinner, when Beckham cleared his throat uncomfortably. Kurt sat back in his seat.

“Kurt, can I, um, tell you one last thing?” Beckham scratched his head. “I just - I don’t want you to blame Blaine for what happened to me. I mean, how it happened. He told me you kind of, well - yelled at him.”

Kurt froze, but tried to keep his face neutral. “He told you that?”

Beckham shrugged. “We are friends, me and him. I just feel like you should know, it wasn’t his fault. He told me he didn’t think it was a good idea, that he’d had some bad experiences and he wasn’t looking to find a boyfriend, even after I told him I was interested.”

Kurt wasn’t sure how much of this he wanted to know, but he sat quietly while Beckham went on.

“At the party I just had too much to drink, and I just wanted to kiss him, you know?” Kurt bit his tongue, hard. “If he hadn’t been drinking too I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have let me.”

Beckham sat expectantly, but Kurt didn’t say anything for a minute. He was trying very hard not to get caught up in wondering what the ‘bad experiences’ Blaine had been referring to might be. Had he been a bad experience?

Kurt tried to avoid thinking of that night pretty much all the time (because who was he kidding, he was a still-horny teenager and wanted to think about it pretty much all the time). Had it been bad? Kurt knew it had been a mistake, for himself, to lose his virginity (whatever that even meant) to a total stranger, but he hadn't thought, at the time, there had been anything inherently bad about it.

Beckham broke the silence as it dragged. “It could have been a lot worse. I saw what you went through freshman year - I still see it sometimes, you know.”

Kurt startled a little. He always assumed no one saw anything. But he supposed he could be honest enough to acknowledge that if another gay kid saw what Kurt had gone through he wouldn't feel terribly safe coming out.

After a little more small talk they finally went their separate ways, and Beckham even asked Kurt if he could call him again if he needed to talk. Kurt of course said yes.

Kurt couldn’t help but wonder, though about what Beckham had said - he didn't want to be one of anyone's bad experiences. And how many was ‘some?’ Blaine seemed to be experienced - at least compared to Kurt's inexperience. Blaine even went to an all boys school - which to Kurt seemed like both a teenage fantasy and nightmare all at once - but he couldn't imagine how there would not be opportunity there that simply didn't exist in his small minded public high school.

Before the glee club could get started on rehearsing songs for the musical, they had to finalize their songs for sectionals. Kurt felt it went about as smoothly as usual.

“Mr. Schue I don’t understand why you think I can’t handle a lead solo at sectionals as well as my lead role in the musical,” Rachel trilled. “Any professional singer-slash-actor can certainly handle more than one performance at a time, and I just -”

“Enough Rachel,” Mr. Schuester interrupted. “You’re not getting a solo at sectionals. Mercedes is more than capable of anchoring this performance.” Kurt could tell Rachel wanted to go on by the strained wriggle in her shoulders, but she kept quiet when Mr. Schuester held a hand up to stop her from talking. “Mercedes, have you thought about what you want to sing? A couple of options, maybe?”

“Well Mr. Schue, I would love to sing “Beautiful.” I know we did it before for an assembly, but I’d love to really let loose for a competition.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Mr. Schuester agreed. “Anyone else have any ideas?”

Everyone shouted stuff at the same time, but eventually they all agreed that it was a good idea to use songs they had in their pocket from past rehearsals. They would open with “Bad Romance,” with Kurt and all the girls but Mercedes on vocals and using the costumes they already had. A costume change would give Mercedes time to come out solo for the start of her song, and the whole glee club could join her for the finish.

For the remaining boys they decided to go with “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night” from Rocky Horror as a final group number. They would need to work out choreography for that one, but it was a lot less pressure than coming up with three brand new performance arrangements from scratch.

“Mr. Schue, if we’re going to use the old Lady Gaga costumes we should probably take a look at what kind of shape they’re in,” Quinn suggested, once everyone was in agreement.

“Great idea. I think they’re still in the storage room behind my office. Kurt? Do you think you can help get them into shape?”

“What? Oh, sure Mr. Schue. Do you think they’ll let me use the sewing machines in the Home Ec room?”

“You sew?” It was Blaine. He’d twisted around to look at Kurt, his eyebrows drawn together in a question.

“You don’t?” Kurt shot back, and Santana cackled next to him. Blaine’s mouth fell open for a second, then he rolled his eyes and turned his back to Kurt.

Mr. Schuester looked confused for a second, then had Blaine, Artie, Puck, Finn and Mike join him in the auditorium to start working on some choreography. Kurt and the girls pulled the costumes out and got to work on them.

They breezed through sectionals with a first place win two weeks later, and Kurt had to grudgingly admit to himself that adding Blaine had helped Mike anchor the other boys in the group, and they had performed better at sectionals than they had at any other competition Kurt had been in.

That left just the musical to work on before the end of the semester.

They had broken off into groups after school to work out blocking and choreography, even while they were rehearsing for sectionals, but now they were beginning to layer everyone's vocal performance over that. Kurt only had one song with complicated choreography, so he worked on learning his lines and helping with costuming.

Kurt was in the choir room with Brittany inventorying the men’s pants they had and that they thought they could use convincingly (wool tweed trousers - yes; striped polyester clown pants - no), when Santana and Blaine came through the door, pushing each other playfully and laughing. They’d been spending a lot of time rehearsing together, and Kurt could see Santana was growing fond of him, in her own inappropriate way.

“Can we help you?” Kurt held back an icy glare. He loved Santana but she could be unpredictable.

“Cool your jets, Lady Hummel,” Santana said. “Schue sent us down to see if you'd found any costumes that might fit us yet.” She tugged Brittany up with one hand and pulled her towards the empty office. “So bang on the wall when you’ve got something,” she said, as the door clicked shut behind her.

Blaine looked up from where he was poking at a pile of shirts Kurt had laid out over the piano.

“Mr. Schue said we might need to bring stuff from home if there wasn’t anything that would work.” Blaine paused, looking at the various piles of clothes around the room. “I didn't realize you were into this stuff Kurt. I’ve rarely seen you out of your uniform.” Then Blaine turned, and caught his eye, and winked.

Kurt’s eyes went wide and he had to forcibly keep his jaw from dropping. He looked down at his uniform. Sue required them to wear it any time the Cheerios were in season, and even though he did not participate on the basketball cheer squad, he was a team leader so he was required to wear his uniform anyway.

“I am required to wear my uniform, but I can assure you I have a closet full of highly fashionable habiliments at home.”

Blaine turned to face Kurt, leaning his ass that Kurt had definitely not been staring at against the piano.

“You know Kurt, don’t you think it’s about time we bury whatever hatchet there is -”

Blaine’s mouth snapped shut when Santana and Brittany tumbled back out through the door to Mr. Schuester’s office, giggling.

“I hope we didn’t interrupt you explaining the birds and bees to young Master Hobbit here, Hummel-fairy.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. They were friends but sometimes she just couldn’t help herself, and he knew it. The only way to manage her was to give it back, just as crudely.

“Maybe the two of you could just give us a demonstration,” Kurt proposed, his hands snapping to his hips. Kurt watched Blaine’s expression move from embarrassed to annoyed to horrified.

Santana smirked, looking between the two of them as if she’d just cornered dinner.

“I’d be happy to, but I don’t think we’ve got the right parts.” She took a few steps closer to Blaine, then grabbed his ass. “But if you want I can show you where everything’s supposed to go.”

“I, no, no thanks. I don’t need anyone to demonstrate anything, thanks Santana,” Blaine protested, squirming away from her. He shook his head, as if removing the last 10 minutes from his brain. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he said, scuttling out of the choir room.

Santana snapped her fingers, squinting at Kurt. “I like him.”

Kurt exhaled loudly and went back to sorting the costumes. “I think you just scarred him for life.”

“You did have your claws out Santana. You might have drawn blood,” Brittany said.

“Nah,” Santana said, smiling at Brittany before looking out the door Blaine had escaped through. “We’re actually getting along great. He works hard, he’s an actually nice guy, as nauseated as it makes me to say it.”

She wandered off to look at her reflection in the office window, fixing her ponytail and adjusting her bra straps as she went on.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you two got off on the wrong foot so fast. In another universe you’d be sharing awkward gay firsts in the back seat of that ugly hybrid he drives.”

Kurt’s spine locked and he shot a glance at Brittany - who was looking at her phone and not paying any attention to him or to Santana. “Why on earth would you say something like that?”

Santana eyed him suspiciously through the reflection.

“What aren’t you telling me Hummel?” She turned around. “Please don’t tell me all this hate you’ve got going on for the short-stack is just masking a secret passion you’re both too frightened to admit to, because that would be entirely too perfect. And utterly cliched.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him.

If Kurt was capable of anything, it was hiding how he really felt about anything, and anyone. Even if they were stupidly attractive. And he didn’t even like Blaine. He set his jaw and stared right back. “He stole my lead solo and my lead role,” he bit out. And everyone who hated me loves him.“The hate is real enough Santana.”

By the time the date of the final dress rehearsal arrived, everyone was exhausted and ready to perform. They had cobbled together costumes that worked, Rachel had enough spotlight on her to be happy, and no one had tripped or fallen over anyone else in several days.

The year before, Mr. Schuester had set up a video camera to record the final dress, so that they all could watch together and make further tweaks before the curtain went up two nights later, and he did the same this year. As disappointed as he was to not have a bigger role, he was proud of what he’d managed to do with what he had, and he felt he’d honed his comedy chops in the role well enough. After all, it could never hurt to have another weapon in your acting arsenal.

They all gathered in the choir room, where a big screen had been set up for them to watch the video. Kurt was surprised when Blaine took a seat behind him, instead of the front row with Rachel where he usually sat, but he shrugged it off. When Quinn and the girls came in Quinn took her spot to one side of Kurt, but Santana and Brittany climbed one extra row and sat with Blaine. Quinn looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

“What? I thought I’d mix it up a little,” Santana hedged.

Blaine leaned over closer to Quinn, and his hand gripped the back of Kurt’s chair. “We’ve got a lot of scenes together so we wanted to be able to comment if necessary.”

“We have a lot of scenes too,” Quinn said to Blaine. She hadn’t cared whether or not she had a song for the musical, so had happily taken the role of Albert’s mother.

“Do you want to sit over here?” Blaine asked, patting the chair on the other side of him. Kurt leveled his iciest bitch-glare at Quinn.

Not at all,” she said sweetly. “Just let me know if you have any notes for me too. We can compare after.” Kurt squeezed her knee in thanks.

Kurt was surprised at how good they all looked. Of course it was poorly recorded, and looked like a high school production, but they could really sing, and some of them could even act.

They all commented throughout, some loudly, some to the person sitting next to them, and some just to themselves. Kurt hadn’t been sure, but he’d thought he’d heard laughing during his scenes, which he supposed was a good thing, since he had dialed up the camp to eleven.

When Kurt’s big number came up, he tried to watch critically. They had to change the key, because there was no way his countertenor was going to be able to sing the baritone called for in the role, but it was working. He and Mercedes danced around each other without missing too many steps, and Artie as Kim’s younger brother did a serviceable job.

And he definitely heard laughing behind him

He was about to turn around and glare when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Blaine’s breath across his ear before he spoke. His nose bumped against Kurt’s temple.

“Kurt you are hilarious,” he whispered. “Your timing is amazing!”

Kurt leaned back too fast, his nose bumping Blaine’s, and he felt Blaine suck in a sharp breath as he pulled back.

“I’m sorry, sorry” Blaine whispered. Even in the dark Kurt could see a shadow cross Blaine’s face, his eyes wide and nervous.

Kurt shook his head. “No, it’s okay,” Kurt whispered. “And thanks.”

Kurt turned to face the screen again. He did not need to be having any kind of thoughts about Blaine Anderson.

All four performances went off without a hitch, surprising everyone. Well, Kurt did find Quinn making out rather intensely with Puck in a deserted supply room, celebrating together after their last performance. Puck just punched Kurt on the shoulder with an unconcerned ‘s’up’ as he walked out, leaving Quinn and Kurt alone in the closet. Kurt shut the door, cornering her.

“Oh my god Quinn, what are you thinking?” He kept his voice to a whisper; the last thing he wanted was for anyone to hear.

Quinn gave him a soft smile. “Oh don’t worry Kurt.”

Kurt stared at her, blinking repeatedly and throwing his arms up in surrender. “Do you not remember what happened to you last time you got involved with him? I mean, yeah, he can be charming when he’s not being an utterly, utterly selfish sleazeball.” Kurt shook his head sharply.

“I’m sure I remember being pregnant, Kurt,” Quinn snapped.

Kurt was about to open his mouth but shut it when he saw the angry hurt in her eyes, and his own shock at seeing her with Puck waned slightly. He considered his next words carefully.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that” he apologized, edging away from his shocked reaction. “But Quinn, are you really sure this is a good idea?” It was hard for him to fathom. They were so close to getting out of Ohio, out of Lima. The thought that she would get involved with Puck again at this point confused him.

Quinn shrugged. “I’m not that same girl anymore Kurt. And I think I just decided that it was okay to have something for me.” She sighed. “Not every relationship has to be forever, and I’m okay with letting this be what it is, just for now.” Quinn smiled and squeezed his arm. “Now come on, we need to get to the party before everyone thinks there’s something going on between us.”

By the time they made it back to the choir room, half the cast had stripped out of their costumes, there were pizza boxes everywhere, and Puck was spraying Mike and Blaine with non-alcoholic champagne.

Kurt watched Blaine as he pulled a slice of pizza out of a random box. He was wearing sweats and a tank top with his hair still styled like the character he'd been playing for the past few days, and Kurt could feel his skin heat up. He thought about what Quinn had said, and wondered if maybe, just for a little while, he could stop worrying so much and just enjoy the moment.

“Hey,” Blaine appeared at his elbow, a paper plate with a slice of pizza in each hand. “Pizza?”

Blaine’s shirt was soaked, and he smelled a lot like apple cider. He had a hopeful expression on his face, like he was worried Kurt would say no to pizza.

“Sure,” Kurt said, trying to return the sentiment and look pleased as he took the offered slice. He was happy to have the offer. He just wasn’t entirely sure he knew how to convey that to someone. “Who doesn’t like pizza?”

Blaine bit his bottom lip, but his smile dialed up a notch. “Great.”

They chewed in silence for a while, watching their friends enjoy themselves.

“So, uh, Kurt,” Blaine started. “What are your plans for the rest of the semester?”

Kurt shrugged. “Study for finals, any extra credit I can get.”

“Ah yes. Have to maintain that GPA.”

Kurt shot him a glance, wondering if Blaine was mocking him. The grimace on Blaine’s face suggested that maybe he was mocking himself a little bit. Kurt flashed back to what Blaine had said about his parents being able but not entirely willing to pay for him to study performing.

“Well, not all of us get to be so sure our talent will be recognized.” Kurt knew it sounded bitter, and he almost regretted saying it when he saw Blaine’s startled expression.

“Kurt, I -”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.” He wondered if every conversation they had would be awkward. “You are, um, very talented. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of options.”

Blaine flushed pink, but Kurt couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or something else. “You will too. I don’t know how you couldn’t.”

Kurt laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Crossing my fingers.”

“Yeah.” Blaine smiled, but looked somewhat crestfallen as he folded his plate in half. “I guess I’ll see you in class. Good luck on your finals.”

Kurt watched as Blaine gathered his book bag and random items of clothing from around the room, saying goodbye to everyone along the way. Kurt knew why he was so prickly around people, and it had served him well, had made it possible to get through high school. For the first time, though, Kurt wondered if it might be okay if he started to smooth out some edges.

#clinging to this hating game #prompt-a-klaine-fic #prompt-a-klaine-fic reverse bang #artist: datshitrandom #klaine fic

57 notes · View notes

bts-love-sweat-tears · 7 years

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(Ice) Princess, Part 3

Title: (Ice) Princess, Part 3.

Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

Type: Fluff/ Angst (this one is pretty angsty, but I promise it will get fluffier soon!)

Rating: PG

Word Count: 2,915

Link to: Part 1, Part 2

A/N: It’s 12:30AM on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, but I wanted to get this up on schedule for you, dear readers! I wrote this in two hours with minimal editing time, so please let me know if you see anything I should change or have feedback. I had no idea which direction the story was going to go in until I actually sat down and wrote it. As of right now, I’m thinking there will be two more parts! As always, thanks for reading 💝

Your head drooped forward as the stylist did your hair for the day. You had thought that you had been tired when working the grueling hours you put into the family business, but that was nothing compared to the schedule you kept now. In an attempt to protect Tae’s image after your “sort of” date, you had used all your family and business connections possible. While you were able to keep the photos of your and Tae’s outing out of the press (though every now and then, speculation would pop back up from the fan blogs), it had come at a cost. One of the biggest media conglomerates in South Korea (name redacted for legal purposes) offered you an exchange: the disappearance of the photos in exchange for unprecedented access to one of the wealthiest (and most reclusive, or so they marketed you) young heiresses in the country. Nothing in this world was free, as you had quickly come to realize.

The price you paid was this: a reality TV show. The show followed you around to different meetings and work trips, presenting you as a high flying, 21st century woman. But when that proved not “exciting” enough, the directors had scripted additional outings, shopping sprees and brunches. At first you had been hesitant to present an image that wasn’t your reality, but the producers assuaged your guilt by reminding you that “no reality TV was really reality.” You knew it was pure justification, but what could you do? You didn’t really have control over your image, what with the photos that the company still had filed somewhere. You now had more Gucci, and every other designer brand, than your closet could hold, but you had never felt more trapped or unfulfilled than at any other time of your life.

In a mere six months, you had become one of the most recognized faces in South Korea, with your show garnering record viewership in the 18-25 category, a number of sponsorship deals, and a spinoff was being planned (though your down-to-earth parents were strongly resisting, trying to protect the family’s privacy). It had also garnered cameos on variety shows, though this was the first series where you would be a recurring guest. The show basically paired up celebrities and simulated what it would be like if they were married. It was to be your most intensive filming yet, but it was this or live in the jungle for two weeks. You couldn’t afford (literally or metaphorically) to be gone from the family business for so long. Despite your filming, you were still responsible for running the business. You had never slept less, or felt so worn around the edges, but your public image, and that of the family business, had never been better.

You were nervous about who you might be paired up with, hoping for someone laid-back. You knew that the producers would find ways to create drama somehow, but you didn’t want this to be too much additional stress. In order to make the reactions as authentic as possible, they weren’t going to tell you who your “husband” was until the cameras were rolling. You sighed and lifted your head back up as the stylist finished your hair. For this first episode, they had everyone at the studio to reveal the pairs, and then they would give you the first mission for the week.

As you were guided to your studio chair, the crew was checking the lighting, and stylists were doing last minute adjustments to wardrobes and hair. In going with your public image as Korea’s young, trendy professional woman, they had put you in a classic black dress, spike heels, a blazer, and a silver statement necklace. A few weeks ago on your show, the producers had mandated that you get a haircut, so you ended up with a super sleek, asymmetrical bob. Looking around though, it could have been much worse. Another woman had hair down to her butt, which the stylist was still desperately trying to finish curling, and another was in a skirt so short that you were grateful for the business concept. You would never have been able to sit comfortably in that. Your hair and wardrobe weren’t low maintenance compared to your life before, but it struck you that it was all relative. One of the guys had so many gold chains, you thought he might topple over, and another had guyliner that would give Marilyn Manson a run for his money.

As your eyes wandered around the studio, you noticed only one empty chair, directly across from you in the semi-circle. You wondered who would cut it that close to a filming. Before you could even finish the thought, a familiar face plopped down. Tae. You felt a blush immediately form on your cheeks and neck. You were feeling a weird mix of nostalgia, yearning, and….anger. You hadn’t heard from him since that eventful day six months ago. You knew he had been touring internationally, but it wasn’t THAT hard to send a text, or grab a coffee in between concert obligations. Did he even realize how much your life had changed because of him, and what you had traded for him to get off scot-free? You could feel your pulse in your neck, and took a few calming breaths. You had learned how to suppress your emotions and control your facial expressions for the camera. He was looking at his phone, while his stylist fixed his hair. Everyone was fawning over him, as BTS had just won a Billboard award. You were proud and happy, but it was always bittersweet to see him on TV. You wondered if he ever watched your show or other appearances. Would he even recognize you? Here you were sitting across from him, but he hadn’t even acknowledged your existence.

Before you could descend further into self-pity, the camera crew gave the countdown and you were recording. You were having a sort of out of body experience, where you were physically present, but your mind was elsewhere. Before you knew it, the other couples were paired up, and the MC was calling your name.

“And for the final couple this season, we have Y/L/N Y/N and…..Kim Taehyung!” The MC was drawing it out for maximum drama, but you felt time stop as his gaze locked with yours. If you were having an out of body experience before, you didn’t have words for what this was. Your face remained impassive, but on the inside, the same hurt and anger were surging. You guys were given the concept of “power couple” (whatever that meant). Were you being subtly bullied by the media company? The first mission was to get to know more about each other by “scheduling” time for an elegant dinner. Since their was an airdate though, the production crew of course scheduled things between his team and yours. You were whisked away for individual filming, where you gushed (appropriately) about how excited you were, how attractive Tae was, and how you were looking forward to getting to know him more. God knew what he was saying about you. It wrapped up quickly, and you were herded by your manager back to your house, where your show would be filming a “spa-day” with all the best aestheticians in the city. Hopefully it was a fraction as relaxing as they would make it out to be on TV.

To film the first mission, you found yourself back at the French restaurant where you and Tae had quite literally run into each other at your mother’s birthday celebration. You rolled your eyes that this was the place your staff had chosen. You were pretty sure it was bullying now. You were in a red turtleneck sweater dress and nude heels. You opened the door, cameras following you, and smiled to them.

“I can’t believe he chose this place-it’s like he already knows me,” you beamed. “I have so many good memories here, like my mother’s birthday party.” You always tried to put a grain of truth into your lines for the show, hoping it felt more real. You felt like an imposter, but Tae played the role perfectly. He briefly hugged you, pulled out your chair, and was charming the entire time, keeping the conversation going. You felt yourself smiling more naturally than you had in months, and had to remind yourself to keep your walls up. There were cameras here, and it was all an act. Hadn’t that been the reason your mother had liked him to begin with? His acting skills? And you weren’t the type of person to let yourself make the same mistake twice. So you tried to deflect the charm back to him, leaning in close, laughing at his and making your own jokes, and sharing your hopes for the program. With both of you on your best behavior, the filming sped by, and the meal was over before you knew it. The crews then separated you to get the “behind-the-scenes” commentary, and asked what you thought.

You looked “nervously” into the camera. “I hope the whole show can be like this,” you murmured. “I knew he was talented at singing, dancing, and acting, but who knew he was so charming!” You felt bile rise in the back of your throat at that one. You had pushed the truth a little too far, there. “I hope we can spend more time together!” you said, trying to redirect to safer, more generic commentary that wouldn’t test your emotional control. The crew adjusted the lighting, got a few more angles, and you repeated your lines with more or less enthusiasm. After what felt like ten years, your car arrived and you excused yourself. You had actual business to attend to at the company, and you were grateful for the excuse. Managing the company, and knowing that your parents, brothers, (future) children and grandchildren were provided for was one of the few things that gave you genuine happiness anymore.

A few days later, as you were looking through the dividends paid to investors and the residual earnings you had left to put back into the company, your phone began to ring. It was your manager- the footage of you and Tae and the restaurant had been the most popular of any of the new couples, and garnered the highest viewership of any episode that season. People on social media were speculating about “the chemistry” the two of you supposedly shared, and the “tension” between you. If only they knew what that tension was really comprised of. Due to this, the producers were working on a “special surprise” (you cringed at this) for the next episode. Your manager told you to clear your schedule for the following week, and when you protested, she negotiated that you could keep your phone with you to take business calls. You knew this was as much as she would budge, without bringing up “the collateral.” She wasn’t a bad person, per se, just one trying to protect her own cash flow.

An hour later, you found yourself in a coffee shop, sitting across from Tae. He was in full on-charm mode, and you again found yourself fortifying yourself with your anger. You were both there to learn about the next mission. The staff handed you a piece of paper, which you unfolded and promptly dropped to the floor. No amount of anger could have prepared you for this. The producers were sending the two of you to his hometown, where you would meet his parents and family, and work for a week on their farm. The idea was to see how the modern professional woman would cope with small-town values and expectations. On Tae’s side, it would allow him to show you his upbringing and to show you the ropes of rural life. It was clearly meant to be a touching moment, but you were in shock, and there was no way for you to cover it.

“Look, she’s so excited, she’s speechless!” Tae bubbled, buying you some time. When it was clear that they weren’t going to get any better reaction from you, they cut and suggested that they follow you as you packed and prepared for farm life. You knew they would dub that section over later and play up your shock. You numbly agreed to let them follow you around, still not processing anything. Only when Tae gave you a goodbye hug did a little color return to your cheeks. You actually did have a lot to do, as you had to get everything ready to go by tomorrow (since BigHit had cleared Tae’s schedule only for the following week, just for this show. You rolled your eyes-had anyone thought to consult your schedule?) and take care of as much business-related stuff as possible before leaving. Your mother looked concerned when she saw that you were still up at 3AM. She had come down for a glass of water, and the glow from your computer reflected throughout the cavernous white and silver kitchen, casting the space in an eerie, artificial blue glow.

“What are you still doing up?” she tsked her tongue.

“Trying to get these reports done before I leave for Daegu at six,” you muttered.

“Daegu? Why?”

“Well, not even Daegu, if we’re being specific, but a farm outside of it.”

“My daughter? On a farm? You’ve never worked in manual labor or lived outside Seoul,” she chuckled. “You’re the brains of this family, not the brawn.”

“Tell that to the producers, please,” you replied acerbically.

She came around the island you were seated at, and gave you a warm hug. It was the most comforting thing you had experienced all day, and before you knew it you found yourself crying into her shoulder, explaining everything about the new show you were on, and your partner. She already knew why you had your own show in the first place (nothing was a secret between you), but she still sighed as she rubbed soothing circles in your back.

“You’ve given up so much to protect someone who hasn’t given you anything in return. For a supposed ‘ice princess,’ you’re going to awfully long lengths to help someone else. Are you sure that you want to keep up with all of these filming and shows? You were never a person who wanted the spotlight.”

“I know. And I feel like the more they pile onto me, the more I resent it, and him. I just want to run the family business and spend time with you all,” you sniffed.

“Is there a way you can turn them down? Say no and stand up for yourself! The daughter I know wasn’t scared to speak her mind or to negotiate,” your mother countered, trying to give you a pep talk.

“Not without hurting his image and our business.”

“The business isn’t everything,” she replied, pulling you tighter. “You’ve done more than enough for this family.”

It had been too long since the two of you had sat down and spent time together. You were normally so composed- you rarely cried, and didn’t want to burden her. But it was the best feeling in the world to know that you had someone in your corner no matter what. She made you feel strong and brave, and you decided then that whatever happened on this trip, you were going to be your truest self. If you and Tae had a second away from the cameras, you would maybe even be honest with him about how you were feeling. While you guys hadn’t had anything serious, it still hurt that he had dropped you without a word and no inkling of what you had done to protect his career.

You stayed in her arms awhile longer, before you sent her back up to bed. At some point around 5, you woke up with a keyboard imprint on your face. You knew that it was as much sleep as you would be getting, and got ready for the train ride to Daegu. You had to be at the station by 7. Though you knew there would be cameras, you decided you didn’t care. To test how much “reality” they actually wanted, you slipped on your favorite oversized hoodie, yoga pants, and a pair of bright New Balance sneakers. You grabbed your duffle and were out the door. As your driver sped expertly through the early morning streets, you messaged your manager that you were on your way to the station, where the camera crews and staff would meet you. Your trip to Daegu had officially started.

#bts #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts angst #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #taehyung #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #bts taehyung #ice princess

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anamsaorreads · 7 years

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Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Hi there. My name is Edel and I've decided to try my hand at writing a book blog. Who knows if anyone will read it, but perhaps it could be a place where I can find my voice. At any rate, I'm unlikely to find it if I don't start speaking. The following is a fairly longwinded account of my life's reading journey so far — feel free to skip it, I'll try to be more succinct in future posts.

My mother has always described me as a big reader, always with a book, always reading something. For the most part I agree with her, but I'm also a relatively slow reader (I think, I've never definitively tested my wpm reading speed), and I've had lulls, and great chasms of readinglessness, throughout my life. To be fair, many of the lulls or pauses or dragged out perusals have occurred whilst I've been studying, either in school or university, and although I read a lot for those courses, the reading involved was of the kind that was extra slow, and always, always, put me to sleep. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my courses — mostly — and although the assigned texts were interesting in their own ways, they were rarely something to get excited about (with a few exceptions). Actually, I must now confess that many of the books I was assigned were never finished, or even started, during the time frames of their respective courses. I have since read and enjoyed some, and others are on my current reading list (someday, I will finish The Iliad!).

As a child, I remember frequenting my local library quite a bit. Writing this has brought back a memory of using it to research a project on St. Brigid - Irish princess-goddess-saint — when I was 8 or 9. I vaguely recall a small, tattered, dark green, hard-covered book from which I copied the interesting facts and folklore (my research/essay-writing hasn't changed much since then...). A couple of years after joining, I began to notice a pattern of not finishing the books I checked out, and not remembering their titles after a few months (the latter frustrated me more I think, because I had an otherwise excellent memory for a 7 year old), so I tended to only check out Asterix and Obelix and Horrible Histories volumes, and read the novels and storybooks that I already had at home (a faded pink-covered illustrated Grimm's Fairy Tales springs to mind) or that I bought. The first book I ever fell in love with was a Don Conroy book about an owl. I can still see it gliding through the night air and grasping up an unsuspecting field-mouse in its talons. Fabulous imagery!

In my teens I got more into fantasy. I adored the Old Kingdom Trilogy (there were only three when I read it and I haven't read the others in the series so to me it's still a trilogy) by Garth Nix. I felt empowered by the strong female protagonists and escaped into the vivid descriptions of landscapes and monsters (the Dead), magic, and hot, naked, petrified men. I remember almost gagging as one of the books described the movements of the Dead, and feeling like I (me, personally) had to turn it into a movie. I haven't. Yet. I also read a few Eoin Colfer books — the code along the bottom of the pages of the Artemis Fowl books were always fun — and dabbled in Discworld. Later, I got into some slightly pretentious, wordy, philosophical books like The Picture of Dorian Grey, which I think I understood, and Catch-22, which I did not, even though I wrote a review of it for the school magazine.

I took English in my first year at university and we were assigned an array of wonderful classic novels to read when it finally came to studying prose fiction, many of which I'm still working on. After an entire semester studying Wordsworth's "Daffodils" for one course and learning how to study, research, and write about it for another, one would think one would be dying to get one's teeth to some variety. However, perhaps irrevocably bored with the course, discouraged by the difference in my first semester grades between English and my other subjects, or as a consequence of struggling to adapt to college life, I ended up reading the bare minimum: Pride and Prejudice and *some* of Joyce's Dubliners. While I immensely enjoyed reading, and even studying and writing about these books, I must say I enjoyed re-reading Dubliners last year, and re-watching the BBC and movie adaptations of Pride and Prejudice far more.

The course did introduce me to titles I probably wouldn't have picked up as soon but am glad I did — Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, among others I'm looking forward to — and it certainly encouraged my love of books. My other subjects did as well, of course. I picked up Fiche Blian ag Fás for my one of my Irish courses and still haven't put it down, largely because I'm taking an age to read it. One of my Bibstudz (Masters in Biblical Studies) lecturers assigned The Iliad as one of our *weekly* reading and I'm still working on that one, too (he did acknowledge that that was a slightly ridiculous expectation).

Since finishing my Masters, and subsequently deciding that maybe I should take a wee break from formal education for at least a few years I have been making more of a conscious effort to read more, both in terms of volume of books, and variety. I don't think I've ever read more than 4 or 5 books in a year until recently. In 2015, while on an internship with TG4 in the back arse of nowhere, I managed around 5 or 6. One was Baudolino by Umberto Eco, which although fantastical, interesting, and thought-provoking, took at least three months for me to get through. Another was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which I read in two sittings, in roughly 7 hours. By way of a harrowing journey, through poetic prose, beautifully bleak and vivid imagery and description, panic and *a lot* of tears, it quickly became my (current) favourite book.

Now, when I say a lot of tears I mean A LOT. After beginning to weep about 50 pages in (if you've read it you'll know the point I'm referring to), and continuing to cry constantly for the rest of the Sunday afternoon I had chosen to start reading it, I hadn't quite finished it by the time I had to go to sleep. Since I had only roughly 50 pages left, had read the rest of it pretty quickly, and it wasn't very busy in the office that morning — and since I had decided that I absolutely could not wait 8 hours until I got home, or even the 4 hours until lunch — I decided that I could hide in the library and finish it before any pressing work came up. So I did. And I bawled my eyes out for those last 50 pages. I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that pesky colleague. He didn't say anything but he definitely saw me crying, with my puffy red eyes and my sniffling. I just hope he saw the book and didn't think I was in there crying because I was upset for a real-life reason (I'm sure he would have offered assistance if that were the case, he seemed like a nice guy).

Last year, I blew my personal reading record out of the water. I read 14 books, including another Eco tome, and I enjoyed most of them. Of course I had to read Brooklyn and Room (otherwise how was I ever going to be able to watch the films) and both were fantastic. I have to say though, I really struggled to get into Brooklyn at first, but for an unusual reason. I started reading it the December before around the time the film came out here, or just before that. I read the first 20 or 50 pages and while I liked it, it made me slightly uncomfortable. I felt like Eilis, the protagonist, was very much like me. Too much like me. Not in the sense that she possessed those traits which I admire in myself (we all like to identify with a protagonist by relating to those aspects of their personality which drive the story, or by seeing in them someone we would one day like to become, or be like), nor was it in the sense that I think a lot of people might identify with the not so desirable characteristics of someone like Holden Caulfield (he is a little gobshite, really), but know that we're probably not quite that bad. Rather it was that, in those aspects of her personality that drove the first part of the book mostly strongly — her reticence, her thinly veiled anxiety — I saw a mirror image that I didn't see changing any time soon. I think it may have irked me even more as she did begin to transform, that I was not changing in step with her.

A friend of mine, who hasn't read the book, but saw the film and did a review of it for his local radio station, mentioned to me that he had seen someone who reminded him of me in the cinema. I flirtatiously replied "Was she pretty?" Of course he clarified that it was more a personality reminiscence and that the girl was on the screen, not in the audience. I knew who he was talking about. I finished the book shortly after Christmas last year and eventually watched the film. To me, book-Eilis is more similar to me than film-Eilis, but it's interesting to see how I may seem to other people.

I'm not really sure why I've given you my entire reading history but I guess that brings me to roughly to beginning of 2016. I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is, so I'll fill you in on what I read during the rest of last year in a future post.

I'd like to use this blog as somewhere to talk about books I've read and want to read — I aim to read 24 books this year, which in comparison to other book-bloggers and -tubers is pretty modest — books I love and didn't, and somewhere to share my thoughts on some of my other bookish interests like languages, Irish history and mythology, movies and TV, photography, the Internet, adventures and more (I know, I'm really carving a niche here).

If you've read this far I'd love if you stay and explore more, say hi, and most importantly, give me your recommendations on books and blogs I should read, movies, TV shows, and YouTube channels I should watch, and anything else you think I should know about.

My plan for the time being is to produce one main post per week, so be sure to follow me and come back next week! (Keep an eye out for random bonus posts! — No promises there though ;) )

Thanks for reading

Edel

#booklr #reading #introduction #hello #mine #bookworm #bookblogger #book photography #books #booklover #bookblog #books and libraries #bookish #booknerd #book addict #lit #literature

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peterdiamandis · 7 years

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Exponential Leadership – Part 3

How do top CEOs lead during this exponential age?

How do you manage the explosion of information and onslaught of increasing competition?

How do you prevent yourself from getting burned out?

How do you maintain agility during today’s tsunami of change?

Today’s blog is the third of three parts deriving insights and advice from three incredible forward-thinking leaders: Beth Comstock, Sue Siegel and Arianna Huffington, who addressed my 2017 Abundance 360 CEO Summit in a module called “Exponential Leadership.”

Today’s blog will focus on Arianna Huffington’s advice.

Let’s dive in...

Meet Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is an incredible entrepreneur.

She founded the Huffington Post, a news platform with millions of readers per month. AOL acquired the Huffington Post in 2011 for $315 million.

Now, Arianna is starting an exciting new company called Thrive Global to help entrepreneurs and individuals make their lives more sane, meaningful and productive.

As a busy entrepreneur, the company’s mission is deeply meaningful to me, and I will be the first to admit that I need to work on all of the advice below.

Let’s dive into Arianna’s best practices for leaders in exponential times.

Arianna Huffington’s 10 Lessons on Exponential Leadership

1. You Don’t Have to Burn Out: We are swimming in a culture (particularly in Silicon Valley) based on the belief that to succeed, you have to burn out – this is scientifically false. People who burn out at work do not perform as well as people who are well rested and balanced.

2. Allow For Time to Renew Yourself: To be your most productive, your most effective, and your most creative as a leader, you must allow time to renew yourself.

3. Do Entry Interviews: Arianna explains, “Right now, everybody does exit interviews. How about doing entry interviews and asking people what they need to feel balanced?” Ask your team proactively how to improve the environment in which they work. The return on this simple question can be extraordinary.

4. Create Elegant Success - Find Your Spot Between Chaos and Order: Arianna spoke about a concept called “Elegant Success” – it’s about finding the right balance between order and disorder. She explains, “You don’t want too much bureaucracy, hierarchy, or rules (ie. absolute order), but you also don't want to have complete chaos.” This takes some experimentation and iteration to get right, but when you do, you can optimize your workflow and maximize your creative output.

5. Our Relationship with Technology Has to Change: Arianna believes that most of us have a very unhealthy, unsustainable relationship with technology right now. We are addicted to it. We waste time using it. It consumes us. This is why she started Thrive Journal within Thrive Global. It’s a media platform to share the latest science about the need to set boundaries and to change our relationship with technology. She wants to create new role models that will shape the conversation around improving our health and productivity. For example, Jeff Bezos wrote a piece for Thrive Journal titled "Why My Sleeping 8 Hours at Night is Good for Amazon Shareholders."

6. Sleep More! Arianna cited a study from the RAND Corporation estimating that sleep deprivation costs us $411 billion per year in lost productivity. You need to prioritize sleep and plan for it ahead of time; otherwise, you’ll miss a critical opportunity to recharge.

7. Put Your Phone Away 30 Minutes Before You Go To Sleep: Arianna explains, “You’ve really got to slow down your brain before you go to sleep. Create your own 30-minute nightly ritual and put your phone away!”

8. Don't Call It Slowing Down: This is really important. Arianna believes that, “If you define these strategies as ‘slowing down,’ you are never going to do them. Nobody wants to slow down, and it's really not slowing down. It's making your life and your work more elegant, more effective and more productive.”

9. Ask for help: In so many cultures, nobody wants to ask for help. Arianna’s goal is to create a community of people who aren’t afraid to ask for help and who want to help each other. If you feel stressed, bogged down, burned out or too busy, ask for help.

10. Make Your Leadership Meetings Device-Free: These days, we’re always multitasking. In meetings, this sometimes means you are in a meeting while sending emails on your computer, sending texts on your smartphone, and receiving updates and messages on your smartwatch. We aren’t fully present, and it’s costing us big time. Instead, make your leadership meetings “device free.” You’ll be amazed by what you can accomplish and what you can retain and learn from these meetings. To incentivize your team to leave their devices behind, aim to do meetings in half an hour, rather than an hour. And create a policy around this notion: “If you have something more important to do, don't come to the meeting.”

You should also buy this phone bed from Thrive to let your devices get some rest while you do:

In Conclusion…

Change is coming. Exponential leaders must prepare for it and embrace it.

You’ve got to resolve conflict proactively, expect the best from your team, and fuel their energy to solve problems and create extraordinary results.

Interested in Joining Me?

A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360.

The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance- and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies).

If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

P.S. Every week I send out a "Tech Blog" like this one. If you want to sign up, go to Diamandis.com and sign up for this and Abundance Insider.

P.P.S. My dear friend Dan Sullivan and I have a podcast called Exponential Wisdom. Our conversations focus on the exponential technologies creating abundance, the human-technology collaboration, and entrepreneurship. Head here to listen and subscribe: a360.com/podcast

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years

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7 graphic design tips you absolutely need to know

Visuals can really pack a punch, depending upon the asset you’re designing and how you balance text with graphical elements.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re a pro designer, there are a few rules that you should keep in mind to take your visual elements from “meh”, to “WOW”.

First things first, we’re going over the basics – these are the rules that you should follow no matter if you’re creating a feature image for a blog, visuals to support whitepaper content, or a full-fledged eBook or infographic.

Consider these your cardinal design rules:

Abide by the style guide.

Consider your colour palette.

Limit your fonts and choose them wisely.

Build in negative space.

Scale is your friend.

Take a step back.

Take it all in.

Now, let’s break these down, one by one:

1. Abide by the style guide

Your brand style guide (whether you’re designing for your own employer or a client) is your bible.

When in doubt, you can always fall back on the the guide.

Often, this asset will contain the company’s choices of fonts, colours and other elements that help ensure all of its visual assets are consistent with its brand identity.

Be sure that your designs don’t stray from the style guide. And if they do, be prepared to have a really, reallyyyy good reason for the decision to break away – or show your reasoning through examples (one that aligns with the style guide, and one that incorporates your own design choices).

2. Consider your colour palette

While the style guide may direct the palette in certain instances (i.e. the brand logo, header/footer elements, etc.), you’ll likely have a bit of artistic freedom when it comes to the overall colour choice of the graphic.

colours can convey a certain mood and message all of their own – for instance, using bolder, warm colours can evoke a different response in your target audience than cooler, complementary colours.

When choosing your colours, consider not only the content and message you’re designing around, but the reaction you want to bring out in viewers.

You should use contrasting colour combinations, or those directly across from each other in the colour wheel. It’s important to ensure that your palette is not only complementary, but also aligns with the style guide .

Selecting a high-contrast colour palette can draw viewers in, and make your designs, well …

3. Limit your fonts and choose them wisely

Full disclosure, I have quite the opinion on typography, as you can see from this piece I wrote on email font choices.

Similar to colours, your choice of font(s) can send a message depending on the shape and size of the typeface. And if the look and feel of your font doesn’t match up with the purpose and content of your graphic, it can really throw readers off.

Using a different typeface for the heading, subtitle and any body text can be visually appealing. However, as Canva put it, for font’s sake, limit the number of typefaces you choose.

Selecting and mixing too many fonts is a rookie mistake, and can make your graphic look messy and just all over the map.

Overall, both sans serif and serif fonts are good for readability. Sans serif has become the more popular option for web content, while serif fonts are typically used for print assets. Remember to follow the guidance from your style guide, though.

4. Build in blank space

While I immediately want to make a Taylor Swift reference here, we’ll push forward without one.

When creating visual elements, it’s good to leave a bit of white space, or negative space, in and around your design. Consider this breathing room for your design – smoosh too much into a graphic, and viewers won’t know what to look at first.

White space can be a design element all on its own, helping to direct the eye to the other shapes and visuals therein.

What’s more, building in negative blank space can help keep your graphics simple, and prevent you from going overboard with visuals or colours.

Take Apple, for example, the veritable king of white space.

The brand really knows how to work blank space into its visuals, and the use of white also helps provide a clean and polished look.

Plus, when the brand does decide to include more colourful elements, including white space around these visuals helps give them the attention they’re due.

Okay, I couldn’t help myself:

See how your eye is drawn to Tay and her shiny red apple? Blank space, people! It’s a must for great graphic design.

5. Scale is your friend

In addition to thinking about your colour scheme, fonts and negative space, you should also put thought into the scale of each of these elements. Scale is particularly important when it comes to any included icons, shapes or illustrations. Giving a greater scale to certain visual elements can shake up your composition while providing emphasis in areas where it’s needed.

Using scale strategically is also a great way to help lead readers’/viewers’ eyes from one compositional feature to the next.

6. Take a step back

This is best practice for anyone who stares at screens all day, but is especially important for designers – don’t forget to take a step back every now and then and rest your eyes.

It’s super easy to get lost in your visual elements if you’ve been looking at them all damn day.

But taking even a short break to go look at the sky or that patch of grass that your dog likes in the park is important. When you come back with fresh eyes, you never know what might jump out at you or what inspiration may come to mind.

7. Take it all in

Building off this last point, it’s also important to avoid getting tunnel vision on a single visual element, icon or shape.

Remember to zoom out and take everything in as a whole, because that’s what your target audience will be doing.

Check to ensure that your fonts, colour scheme, scale and other compositional features support the content, message and purpose of the graphic. And if anything feels off, make adjustments where needed – your goal is to create something cohesive, while still providing a path for readers’ eyes.

Let’s get specific

The above cardinal rules should represent the standards you use for good design in every instance. However, as any great designer will tell you, things get a bit different when it comes to designing for assets like feature images, whitepapers, infographics and eBooks. So let’s drill down a bit further into each one:

Tips for feature images

As a writer, I can certainly attest to the power of a well-placed feature image within a blog – it takes the entire piece of content to the next level. And unlike typically non-specific (and often low grade) stock imagery, feature images can draw on information or stats directly from the text (hence “feature”).

A few tips and tricks to keep in mind with your feature designs:

Pick an engaging fact, stat or quote to design around. I tend to prefer feature images that include statistics, because throwing your target audience a number to drive your point home is a strong strategy. However, a main talking point from the article, or in some cases a powerful quote, can work well too.

Custom imagery or dressing up stock images? While our graphics team usually creates custom designs for our feature images, time or other factors can sometimes prevent this approach. In these instances, another route to take is to start with an image (stock or otherwise) and dress it up with some extra elements and text overlay. Check out the example here from Magnet4Blogging:

The initial stock image, spiced up with a lens flare effect.

Here comes our custom text, in an opaque overlay.

A mockup of the final result. Replace that filler “This is a headline title…blahblah” with something more engaging and voila! A feature image to be proud of.

Tips for whitepapers

Whitepapers are beasts in their own right.

This long-form, in-depth informational content can span across multiple pages, but unlike an eBook (which we’ll delve into below), in a whitepaper, it’s the written content that is the main focus.

Thus, designing for whitepapers can get a bit tricky.

With a few tips, though, you can take on any length of whitepaper like a pro. Keep these things in mind:

Use graphical elements to break up the text. Yes, the writing is the shining star of a whitepaper, but no reader wants to be greeted by a gigantic block of text. Use visual elements to strategically break up the content, and consider adding in bulleted “takeaways” lists, pull-quotes, featured statistics and more. These can help break up blocks of text without taking away from the content.

Be mindful of page breaks. With so much text to account for, it can get a bit difficult to ensure that page breaks happen naturally. However, as the designer, it’s your job to watch for and avoid things like awkwardly cramming new sections in too close to the footnotes. The same goes for weird breaks in the typography – if you can make a few adjustments to avoid hyphenating almost every word landing on the right side of a column, definitely do so.

Choose images wisely. Keep in mind that, more often than not, the target audience reading a whitepaper is particularly savvy and knowledgeable. They’ve downloaded the whitepaper to read something more in-depth and want to come away with the feeling that they’ve learned something new. For this level of reader, clunky stock images can be a quick turnoff, so choose your images thoughtfully. Avoid the smug-looking business person, wearing a suit typing at their computer – your audience has seen this, or a version of it, a million times before, and we can do better.

Tips for eBooks

Ebooks are like the more bite-sized, visual-heavy cousin of the whitepaper.

Wee limit the number of words per page to about 150 for our eBooks – this gives readers just enough written content, while providing room for the graphical elements to really shine.

When designing an eBook, keep these tips and tricks handy:

Keep the front cover simple, yet engaging. This is the first thing your readers will see on a dedicated eBook landing page, and it serves to draw them in and encourage them to complete the form fill and download the asset. Your front cover should be bold, yet simple, and picking the ideal image, icon or other graphical element is key. B2B Marketing Lab contributor Kim Glazier recommends using a striking image as part of the front cover, but remember to keep the message of the content and the brand style guide in mind.

Things should easily flow from page to page. Page breaks in an eBook give readers a moment to digest the content they’ve just taken in, and then head on to the next page. Unlike whitepapers where readers will spend a few minutes or more on each page, eBooks are shorter and meant to be thumbed through. So when you’re creating the design, make sure that things flow, and that readers will be encouraged to flip to the next page.

Include sharable and engaging elements: Ebooks are meant to be shared, and your design should include buttons so readers can easily post the content to top social networks to drive up readership. Remember, though, that sharable links should lead readers to your dedicated landing page and form fill so you can support solid lead generation.

Mirror the design on the landing page: Speaking of the landing page, you can take cues from your eBook design to create something visually engaging. Plus, using this strategy will help make the form fill more streamlined for your target audience, as they’ll get a taste of what the eBook will look like from the landing page.

Consider trying something new: Because eBooks rely so heavily on graphics, this could provide just the opportunity to break out of the box a bit (while still observing the brand guidelines). For instance, the flat design technique has gained popularity recently.

Tips for infographics

In the hierarchy of graphic design, infographics just might be considered the king of the jungle. Here’s how to get the most value out of them:

Show, don’t tell. This means that writers should keep text to the bare-bones minimum, as you’ll be using graphical elements to drive the main points of the graphic home. A bite-sized fact supported by an icon, for example, is often all readers will want or expect.

Don’t go overboard. This includes written content and graphical elements. This is one of those things that’s hard to explain, but you know when a designer has taken things a biiiit too far when you see it:

As Neil Patel pointed out, the above example could have easily been four or more separate graphics. Your eye doesn’t know where to go first, and while the recognisable brand icons help, this graphic is all over the place – what do those dots mean? Why are they different sizes? There’s also a bar graph at the bottom?? As a reader, I wouldn’t even take the time to begin deciphering this.

Go with a theme: This can help inform your choices for colour, font, icons, shapes and more. Take this example, for instance (which also just happens to be about infographic best practices :

The recipe/ingredients theme here ties the content together. The numbered items and dash-line border help to keep everything distinct, yet simple. The reader’s eye is drawn from point to point without being overwhelmed.

A theme is a crucial element that can take your good design to great. Check out the rest of our best practices here.

Learning resources

While the above is certainly by no means an exhaustive list of tips, tricks and best practices, it can help put you on the path to great design work.

When you’re ready to brush up a bit further, check out some of these top educational resources:

Niice – the place to go for inspiration.

Design Taxi – for trending graphic design industry news.

Adobe colour CC – helping you pick an appealing colour palette.

Noun Project – for all things icons.

FontSquirrel – 100% free fonts, ready for use.

Get out there and take your designs to the next level.

Brief

from http://bit.ly/2mBsPrJ

#content marketing

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dazzledbybooks · 5 years

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Editor: Christina Boyd Narrator: Victoria Riley Length: 18 hours and 3 minutes Series: The Quill Collective, Book 3 Publisher: The Quill Ink, LLC Released: Jul. 18, 2019 Genre: Anthologies “But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.” (Persuasion, Jane Austen) Jane Austen: True romantic or rational creature? Her novels transport us back to the Regency, a time when well-mannered gentlemen and finely-bred ladies fell in love as they danced at balls and rode in carriages. Yet her heroines, such as Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, and Elinor Dashwood, were no swooning, fainthearted damsels in distress. Austen’s novels are timeless classics because of their biting wit, honest social commentary - because she wrote of strong women who were ahead of their day. True to their principles and beliefs, they fought through hypocrisy and broke social boundaries to find their happily-ever-after. In the third romance anthology of The Quill Collective series, 16 celebrated Austenesque authors write the untold histories of Austen’s heroines, brave adventuresses, shy maidens, talkative spinsters, and naughty matrons. Peek around the curtain and discover what made Lady Susan so wicked, Mary Crawford so capricious, and Hettie Bates so in need of Emma Woodhouse’s pity. Rational Creatures is a collection of humorous, poignant, and engaging short stories set in Georgian England that complement and pay homage to Austen’s great works and great ladies who were, perhaps, the first feminists in an era that was not quite ready for feminism. “Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.” (Mary Wollstonecraft) Stories by: Elizabeth Adams, Nicole Clarkston, Karen M Cox, J. Marie Croft, Amy D’Orazio, Jenetta James, Jessie Lewis, KaraLynne Mackrory, Lona Manning, Christina Morland, Beau North, Sophia Rose, Anngela Schroeder, Joana Starnes, Brooke West, and Caitlin Williams CHRISTINA BOYD wears many hats as she is an editor under her own banner, The Quill Ink, a contributor to Austenprose, and a commercial ceramicist. A life member of Jane Austen Society of North America, Christina lives in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest with her dear Mr. B, two busy teenagers, and a retriever named BiBi. Visiting Jane Austen’s England was made possible by actor Henry Cavill when she won the Omaze experience to meet him in the spring of 2017 on the London Eye. True story. You can Google it. Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Goodreads⎮Amazon⎮Instagram Victoria Riley is a British voiceover artist and audiobook narrator. Originally trained as a theatre actor, she gradually moved into voice work and is now happiest behind the mic. She loves classic literature and travelling the world. If she isn't recording, she's probably lying in a hammock in some far-flung place, reading book after book after book. Website⎮Twitter I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Christina Boyd. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. Rational Creatures: Stirring of Feminism in the Hearts of Jane Austen's Fine Ladies, the Quill Collective, Book 3 by Joana Starnes, Amy D'Orazio, Caitlin Williams, Karen Cox, Jenetta James, Beau North, Chistina Morland, Nicole Clarkston, Elizabeth Adams, J. Marie Croft, Jessie Lewis, Kara Lynne Mackrory, Lona Manning, Sophia Rose, Anngela Schoreder, and Brooke West. Now that is a lot of names. Each of these writers brought you a story about a different Austen character. 1. Self-Composed by Christina Morland. (Elinor Dashwood.) 2. Every Past Affliction by Nicole Clarkston. (Marianne Dashwood.) 3. Happiness in Marriage by Amy D'Orazio. (Elizabeth Bennett.) 4. Charlotte's Comfort by Joana Starnes. (Charlotte Lucas.) 5. Knightly Discourse by Anngela Schroeder. (Emma Woodhouse.) 6. The Simple Things by J. Marie Croft. (Hetty Bates.) 7. In Good Hands by Caitlin Williams. (Harriet Smith.) 8. The Meaning of Wife by Brooke West. (Fanny Price.) 9. What Strange Creatures by Jenetta James. (Mary Crawford.) 10. An Unnatural Beginning by Elizabeth Adams. (Anne Elliot.) 11. Where the Sky Touches the Sea by KaraLynne Mackrory. (Sophia Croft.) 12. The Art of Pleasing by Lona Manning. (Penelope Clay.) 13. Louisa by the Sea by Beau North. (Louisa Musgrove.) 14. The Strength of Their Attachment by Sophia Rose. (Catherine Morland.) 15. A Nominal Mistress by Karen M. Cox. (Eleanor Tilney.) 16. The Edification of Lady Susan by Jessie Lewis. (Lady Susan.) This collection of stories is taking a deeper dive into Austen’s greatest female characters. I thought it was definitely interesting to see someone else’s take on these characters. We had a variety of characters from the heroines to the minors. A lot of the ideas behind these short stories come the feminist ideas that are discussed in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The narrator was such a perfect match for this book. I loved how she performed all the different characters. She was so easy to listen too. I thought that her British accent fit so well. She put so much life into these stores that I felt I was really able to get to know these characters. I thought the writers and narrator did a fantastic job with the story collection mash up. I thought the stories were fun and engaging. The audiobook kept me listening for hours. Over 18 hours. I thought this was a fantastic edition. I found that I really enjoyed this collection. . Interview with Narrator: Victoria Riley. 1.When did you know you wanted to be an audiobook narrator? Well, I've always said that I'd be happy to just sit in a cupboard all day reading books. I didn't know that I could actually do that and get paid for it. Dreams do come true, folks. 2. How did you wind up narrating audiobooks? Was it always your goal or was it something you stumbled into by chance? I'm actually a classically trained actress and was originally interested in theatre. When I started out, audiobooks weren't really a big thing and it didn't occur to me as a career. I gradually veered into voiceover and my first audiobook was through my VO agent. I then set up my own studio at home and audiobooks are just one of the things I work on. 3. A lot of narrators seem to have a background in theatre. Is that something you think is essential to a successful narration career? I wouldn't say it's essential, but it really, really helps. We've been trained to analyse scripts and characters, to convey nuance and emotion. With audiobooks, you have to do it all with your voice, though, so it is an added skill. However, I do think that some people are natural storytellers. My Mum worked as a primary school teacher and I still remember the way she read books to me before bed. 4. What about this title compelled you to audition as narrator? I LOVE Jane Austen. I love her female characters with their fire and intelligence. To have such strong minds, but be so restricted with their options in life. For marriage to be your only way forward when you have so much to offer the world. It makes me feel claustrophobic just thinking about it. From a working perspective, this is also my first collection of short stories. Short stories are a real art form. You have to draw the reader (or listener!) into the tale very quickly and make them care about the characters without the luxury of a whole novel in which to do it. I really enjoyed each one being a separate little project, so I had a sense of closure and achievement after each one. 5. What types of things are harmful to your voice? I wouldn't say I'm that careful with it to be honest. I've had vocal training drummed into me for decades, so I think it really comes naturally to me to support my voice well and to speak from the diaphragm. I've been trained to project to the back of a theatre, without a microphone, night after night after night. Some narrators get tired voices, but you can't shut me up! 6. Who are your “accent inspirations”? Absolutely everybody! I love accents. I have a broad Lancashire accent myself. I hope you can't tell from 'Rational Creatures'! If I hear a good accent, someone on TV or in real life, I'll be there mouthing the words, fascinated by how they're forming the sounds. Penelope Keith is a good one for very upper class ladies. Pam Ayres for West Country. Some elude me, though. My Cockney wanders all over the place, though you get a snippet of it in 'Rational Creatures'. My boyfriend has a London accent and sometimes he helps me with pronunciations. I'll be texting him asking things like 'Transport or traaaahnsport??'. 7. How did you decide how each character should sound in this title? Well, a lot of the characters are very well-known anyway, which helps. I didn't feel as though I was creating them from scratch. Most of them just jump off the page too. There are simple things like class to consider. Also character traits, like arrogance, pomposity, shyness or humility, which affect voice and delivery. I love a character that you can really embody. When it's so obvious how they should sound that you don't even really have to think about it. 8. How does audiobook narration differ from other types of voiceover work you've done? It takes a REALLY long time, especially if you're fully producing the work yourself. It takes around six hours to produce one hour of finished audio, sometimes longer. That doesn't even include all the prep work you have to do first, reading the work in full, researching characters and pronunciations, deciding on voices. Editing takes forever, combing through the recording, editing out little sounds like mouth clicks or any particular noisy breaths. I also regularly do radio jingles, which is a good comparison, because it takes no time at all! Audiobooks are not for the faint-hearted. 9. If you could narrate one book from your youth what would it be and why? Apart from absolutely everything by Jane Austen? I have so many author heroes! However, if it's from my youth, then I'm going to plump for Roald Dahl's 'The Witches'. His stories are so evocative and he doesn't shy away from darker themes. I was born in Pendle Witch country, so this one struck a particular chord with me. 10. Any funny anecdotes from inside the recording studio? We've all done silly things. Giving an Oscar-worthy performance, then realising you haven't pressed record. Stuffing a cushion up your jumper to stop tummy rumbles reaching the mic. Gradually getting more naked as you stifle in the booth in summer. We've all done it. Giveaway: $20 Amazon Gift Card a Rafflecopter giveaway Sep. 6th: The Quill Ink Valerie Ullmer | Romance Author T's Stuff Reading A Page Turner Sep. 7th: All the Ups and Downs Viviana MacKade Miss Lawrence is Hearing Things Sep. 8th: Jorie Loves A Story Nesie's Place Eileen Troemel Sep. 9th: History from a Woman’s Perspective KayBee's Bookshelf, A Literary Blog Nyx Blogs Always Love Me Some Books Sep. 10th: Country Road Reviews The Book Junkie Reads . . . Sep. 11th: Jazzy Book Reviews Locks, Hooks and Books What Is That Book About Sep. 12th: My Creatively Random Life Dazzled by Books ➜Sign up as a host here

http://www.dazzledbybooks.com/2019/09/rational-creatures-blot-tour.html

#SEO #Local SEO training

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onlinemarketingcourses · 5 years

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What killing rel=prev/next means for SEO

By now, you’ve probably heard that Google is no longer supporting rel=prev/next markup. In fact, Google hasn’t supported it for years.

That’s unfortunate because Google forgot to tell anybody. Many digital strategists were implementing rel=prev/next code thinking that it would offer some SEO benefit.

It did at one time. It doesn’t anymore.

So what happened? And what should you do now?

In this article, I’ll go over Google’s recent announcement about the change. I’ll also explain what the elimination of rel=prev/next means for SEO.

How we got here

Way back in 2011, Google introduced the rel=prev/next markup. It was a way to inform Googlebot that the web page was part of a series.

For example, if you wrote several blog posts about all the SEO basics, you might include one article about keyword research, another article about on-site SEO, another article about backlinking, and so on.

In that case, you’d use the rel=prev/next markup to identify the next and previous articles in the series.

It wasn’t just a good idea for blog posts, though. E-commerce sites used the markup to identify products that all belonged to the same category.

Until recently, Google included documentation on its Webmasters Help page that explicitly told website owners to use the rel=prev/next markup. It read as follows:

Use rel=”next” and rel=”prev” links or headers to indicate the relationship between component URLs. This markup provides a strong hint to Google that you would like us to treat these pages as a logical sequence, thus consolidating their linking properties and usually sending searchers to the first page.

Now, that whole page is gone. Even worse: Google deleted it without telling anybody why.

Eventually, the Google Webmasters official Twitter account issued the following statement:

“Spring cleaning! As we evaluated our indexing signals, we decided to retire rel=prev/next. Studies show that users love single-page content, aim for that when possible, but multi-part is also fine for Google Search. Know and do what’s best for *your* users!”

Do you need to remove the code from your site?

No, you absolutely don’t need to remove the rel=prev/next markup from your site if you have it there.

Why? Because simply put, it doesn’t hurt to leave it there.

Also, Google isn’t the only search engine in town. And Bing’s Frédéric Dubut is on record saying that his search engine still uses rel=prev/next markup “for page discovery and site structure understanding.”

So the good news here is that you don’t need to go back and update all your old pages that have been using the markup since 2011.

Whew.

But should you? That is a different question which gets a little tricky. I’ve considered this previously and did a study on it.

What does this change mean for SEO?

Before I answer that question, let me make one thing clear: it looks like no SEO professional noticed that Google discontinued supporting the rel=prev/next markup from an indexing standpoint.

It wasn’t until someone saw that the Big G had pulled the documentation page that people started asking questions.

So maybe we should ask the philosophical question: “If Google removed a feature and nobody noticed, was it ever really there?”

But what it means is that Google will index the category page instead of the pagination going forward.

That’s not a problem, though. According to Google Web Performance Engineer Ilya Grigorik, Googlebot is intelligent enough to find your next/previous pages with a clear signal.

Remember: the bot is already evaluating all the links on your site. If you’ve structured your website so that it’s user-friendly and practiced great internal linking, Google will find your related content and rank it.

A few tips on category optimization

Now that rel=prev/next has gone away, what can you do to optimize your category pages? Here are a few pointers.

First, make sure you have most of your content on the first page in the category. That’s going to help with indexing. By content, I mean text, images and videos.

Not only that, but it will help with indexing for the right search terms. Once people get to your category page, they can find other pages.

Next, optimize your featured image on your main category page. Yes, I’m recommending you have a thumbnail that is optimized with a keyword in the file name and alt text. That gives Google additional info about the nature of your pages.

Also, optimized images will bring in traffic from Google Image Search.

After that, you should also add as many items to your category page as possible without slowing it down too much.

That one can be tricky in some instances. What if you have 10,000 items in a single category?

See if you can break them up into subcategories. Then, include one representative from each subcategory on the category page.

When considering e-commerce, lately I like to have about 30 to 60 products in a category. I also will not create a subcategory unless I have five unique products.

The million dollar question, do you get rid of rel next rel prev?

Well, since there is already a canonical in place, Google will just attribute all the value to the first page. So you have the option of.

Keep it in place and have it work just like a rel canonical.

Get rid of rel next rel prev and have it treated the same way, but don’t worry about legacy code.

Put in place a no index on all the pages except the category. Some people like this because if you do the no index or a robots.txt block it can save some crawl budget, meaning Google will not crawl the pagination as much.

Personally, I like option 2.

Wrapping it up

I could give you 20 more tips about optimizing categories in this article. Things like adding dates to titles, testing numbers in various items in the template, where to add schema and adding unique content. But I’ll save that for another post.

What you need to know today is that Google messed up and forgot to tell you that it’s no longer supporting rel=prev/next markup. That’s not the end of the world.

Feel free to leave the markup code on your site or select another option above. The choice is up to you. But one thing is for sure, make sure you make it clear to Google which page is Page One. That will help your rankings.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

John Lincoln is CEO of Ignite Visibility, a digital marketing teacher at the University of California San Diego and author of the book Digital Influencer, A Guide to Achieving Influencer Status Online. Throughout his career, Lincoln has worked with hundreds of websites, ranging from start-ups to household names, and has won awards in SEO, CRO, analytics and Social Media. In the media, Lincoln has been featured on sites such as Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, CIO magazine and more.

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myyenlee · 6 years

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Welcome Atavist! A Groundbreaking Publishing Platform Joins the WordPress.com Family

Today we’re announcing that Atavist, a multimedia publishing platform and award-winning magazine, will be joining WordPress.com parent company Automattic.

This news is exciting to me on a few levels — eight years ago I had my first introduction to Atavist when I met a journalist named Evan Ratliff for coffee at Housing Works in New York. He showed me the first pieces of what became a bold new platform for long-form storytelling, which he created with co-founders Jefferson Rabb and Nicholas Thompson. At the time I had just started Longreads, so we shared an interest in seeing a revival for long-form journalism on the open web.

Fast-forward to today and we’re thrilled to have the Atavist and Longreads teams now together under the WordPress.com banner. Atavist’s publishing platform will be moving over to WordPress, and its award-winning magazine The Atavist will continue to serve up outstanding in-depth storytelling with a new feature each month, under the editorship of Seyward Darby. Also joining the team is Atavist CEO Rabb and head of product communications Kathleen Ross.

I chatted with Rabb, Darby, and Ross about what’s next.

Jeff, Seyward, Kathleen, we’re excited you’re here! You’ve had a terrific run over the past eight years — leading innovation around the design and process of multimedia storytelling, winning many awards along the way — what are your hopes and priorities for Atavist moving forward?

RABB: Thank you, I’m thrilled to be here! My number one hope in joining [WordPress.com parent company] Automattic is to bring everything we have built and learned to an audience that is orders of magnitude larger. I’ve spent the past eight years honing a toolset and sensibility for digital journalism, and now I’m excited to put this to use for a mass audience. When these are integrated into WordPress, I am hoping we will have an unbeatable product for storytelling and journalism. There are many fascinating challenges and problems in journalism today, and now more than ever I want to be part of the solution.

DARBY: I’m also excited to be here! I’ve been at The Atavist Magazine for the last 15 months, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. The list of things I love about our publication is too long to include in full, but some highlights are the intimate collaborations with creators, the anchoring belief in the timeless power of cinematic storytelling, and the commitment to nurturing the next generation of long-form writers. Certainly, we work with big-name journalists, but we’re also a magazine that supports up-and-coming narrative writers who want to take a swing at a really, really big story. I love nothing more than helping someone crack the code on a 15,000-word feature’s complex structure. (I’m a big fan of Post-It notes and story trees, and of fist-pumping to no one in particular when an article section falls into place.)

Moving forward, the magazine’s foundational priorities will remain the same: We’ll tell great stories, design them beautifully, treat our collaborators well, and have a lot of fun in the process. My hope is that, by combining forces with WordPress.com, we’ll get to push the boundaries of our projects: dive into more multi-part narrative investigations, produce more original video or audio where it makes good sense, improve the diversity of our roster of writers and artists, and provide journalists with the resources and time they need to report the hell out of topics they’re passionate about.

Winning awards and getting our stories optioned for film/TV, which we also have a strong track record of doing, will be goals, absolutely, but never at the expense of providing a quality experience to every person who contributes to or reads The Atavist.

Tell us about some of your favorite stories you’ve hosted.

DARBY: I’m proud of every story I’ve shepherded as the executive editor, so it’s hard for me to pick favorites. The most successful Atavist stories share the same key ingredients: a propulsive, satisfying narrative, rich characters, and scenes that make readers feel immersed in the world the writer is describing. At first blush, Kenneth R. Rosen’s story “The Devil’s Henchmen,” about what is being done with the bodies of the ISIS dead in Mosul, doesn’t seem to have much in common with Amitha Kalaichandran’s “Losing Conner’s Mind,” about a family’s quest to save a child from a rare, fatal disease; Allyn Gaestel’s “Things Fall Apart,” about an over-hyped art installation in Nigeria; Mike Mariani’s “Promethea Unbound,” about the tortured life of a child genius; or David Mark Simpson’s “Not Fuzz,” about a millionaire hotelier who moonlights as a serial police impersonator. Yet these stories all have compelling plots about everyday people whose lives are shaped by sheer will and unpredictable circumstance. You can’t put them down because you want to know what’s going to happen.

As for Atavist stories that predate my time at the magazine, I’ll award a few superlatives. Quirkiest goes to Jon Mooallem’s “American Hippopotamus,” about a bizarre plan to alter the national diet. Most Lyrical goes to Leslie Jamison’s “52 Blue,” about the world’s loneliest whale. Most Ambitious goes to Evan Ratliff’s epic “The Mastermind,” about a crime lord whose empire spanned pretty much the whole world. (It’s soon to be a book and TV show.) And Couldn’t Get It Out of My Head goes to Will Hunt and Matt Wolfe’s “The Ghosts of Pickering Trail,” about a family living in a haunted house. I’ll stop there, but I really could go on and on.

ROSS: Before I worked for Atavist, I actually worked right down the hall, so I have been reading the magazine for a long time. To me, the best Atavist Magazine stories are transporting: in “Welcome to Dog World,” Blair Braverman shows us Alaska; socialites head to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for an early feminist victory in “The Divorce Colony” by April White; and James Verini’s “Love and Ruin” (the title story of our 2016 collection) is a romance and historical epic all in one, and I think about Nancy Hatch Dupree’s library in Afghanistan often. “A Family Matter” may be one of the most important stories we’ve done. Finally, I love stories about spectacular failures, so I have to mention Mitch Moxley’s article “Sunk,” which is about a disastrous attempt to make an epic movie about mermaids; plus, the piece has some excellent moments of maximalist design, including pixelated fish that bob across the page.

RABB: I have a soft spot for the very first stories such as “Lifted,” “Piano Demon,” and “My Mother’s Lover.” In addition to being great pieces of writing, they were the petri dishes in which our experimental approach to storytelling was born. They included ideas such as pop-up annotations, maps, and immersive sound elements. Even though the way we distribute our articles has changed dramatically since those stories were published—back then, they were exclusively on the Atavist mobile app and Kindle—many of the concepts and approaches in them formed the DNA of our company’s product. Developing those first few stories was an exciting and vital time for me.

Finally, I’m wondering what you think about the state of storytelling on the open web today. Where do you think things are headed?

DARBY: There are so many stories being told in the digital space right now, in so many ways, and to so many different audiences. Take SKAM Austin, which D.T. Max recently wrote about for The New Yorker. It’s a teen drama told entirely through Facebook posts, Instagram stories, texts, and other digital scraps and marginalia—a story crafted for its young target audience, based on the way they consume information and communicate with one another. That project is fictional, but there’s similar experimentation happening in the non-fiction space. Certainly, publications are pushing the envelope on transmedia (multi-platform storytelling) and rethinking story structure based on how events now unfold in real time in the palm of your hand. I’m thinking of projects like WIRED‘s story on police brutality, “How Social Media Shaped the Three Days That Shook America,” and National Geographic‘s partnership with ProPublica, “How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico.” Recently, I was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Lab, an incubator for storytellers who work with emerging technologies like VR, AR, and AI. It was incredible to hear the ways that this diverse group is reimagining how to create and deliver narratives. I can’t wait for all of the projects they were workshopping to be out in the world, and I hope to bring what I learned there to bear on my work at Automattic.

That said, I’m a journalist first, and when it comes to technology, I always have this nagging fear that form might compromise substance. No one should tell a story entirely via social media or VR or video just because they can; they should do so because there’s actual benefit—to the story itself, to the audience reached, and so on. I’m reminded of my very first job out of college, back in the aughts. I was a journalist in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and I also conducted research on media training needs in the region. I met lots of aspiring journalists who said, “This international NGO helped me set up a blog, but I don’t even really know how to conduct an interview or fact-check. Can someone help me with that?” The experience has always stuck with me as a reminder that the basics of great journalism should apply no matter the platform. At The Atavist, we like to say that story comes first, and by that we mean plot and accuracy, then form and reach.

from Blogging Tips https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/atavist-joins-wordpress-dot-com/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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