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shadowkat1. So, I went to the "writer's meetup" group in my area. Like 90% of these things, ten people RSVP'd with two on the waiting list, with only three people plus the organizer showing up. The organizer doesn't really count for two reasons - 1) we were at his house, so he sort of had to show up, and 2) he's the organizer - you'd hope he'd show up to his own event (although they don't always...bizarre I know, but there it is.)
It was interesting, but...sigh...I don't know if this is going to work out. Granted it's only the second meeting. Eh, best to show you -
Organizer: There hasn't been anything interesting done with vampires...outside of maybe Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and True Blood - with vampires coming out of the closet.
Me (pondering for a minute then taking the plunge): True...although, the other innovative vampire tale was Buffy...the vampire slayer.
(Organizer and two other people at the table look at me..very oddly for the space of two minutes)
Me: That was admittedly 10 years ago.
Organizer: Actually 20 years ago...with the movie -
Me: well, I don't count the movie that was crap - it's the tv series,
Organizer: which was hardly innovative or brilliant - the idea existed in comic books, or was taken from them and it had been in comics for a very long time...
(Well, okay, don't ever mention that you are in the Buffy fandom or are a fan to this group of people...which may be hard to do, since it's sort of referenced in my novel. Although it's doubtful they'll notice it. I considered arguing, but why bother? The problem with Buffy, is basically the problem with most tv series - it's uneven. There are great episodes and horrible episodes. Even Breaking Bad and The Wire have this problem. It takes a while for the viewer to get hooked. I have to admit, I didn't get obsessed with Buffy right off the bat. I watched it intermittently in S1 and S2, it really wasn't until Spike and Dru popped up that I got somewhat intrigued, and when Angelus showed up that I got obsessed for a bit, then lost interest, then gained it again somewhere around S5. It was a weird series. And yes, it had comic booky/campy elements to it - which were bound to turn off people.)
Moving on to Shakespeare.
Me: Rafe Fiennes film Corianolous looks quite good.
Organizer: Shakespeare makes really bad movies, it's best for plays. Unless you have really good actors. (He went on to explain but lost me. Said something about how when Henry the V states the fields of France, this works in a play, but not on screen - because you just show the audience the fields of France - and film is a visual medium solely. I don't know...I've watched films that were mainly dialogue based and had little action or visuals...granted they tend to put me to sleep, but still. Also, I can think of a lot of great films made of Shakespearean plays. Actually I like the films better than some of the performances I've seen on stage. But generally, he's right. I didn't bother to argue.)
or...
H: Lost in Translation was the best film ever.
Me: Didn't like it. It's very atmospheric
Organizer: It's ...feminine. Not masculain, nothing happens.
H: Why didn't you like it - I can guess -
Me: I kept falling asleep during it -
Organizer: Like I said nothing happens...
Me: Well, stuff does happen, it just..it's a princess story and I don't tend to like princess stories.
Organizer: You wouldn't like Soffia Coppola then, she wrote it as autobiographical.
Me: No, most likely not. Don't like her films.Although it may be a mood thing...
Organizer: You along with most theatergoers..
(Well that's actually good to know.)
Although, must admit it was fun to gossip about film and theater. Learned all sorts of gossipy tid-bits. And insider stuff. The culture geek inside me was in heaven.
There's nothing I enjoy more than talking about books, tv shows, films and theater.
Organizer is a television writer/screenwriter/playwrite who used to intern for Francis Ford Coppola, and went to NYU, before moving to LA, buying a theater, and directing a slew of plays. He also worked for the New York Public Theater.
And it could be a useful group for my book. They might be able to help me figure out what to remove and what to keep - which is currently my problem. That and an inability to write creatively because I don't trust my muse right now. The internet has put distance between us. The Organizer tells me I need to stay away from discussion forums, he's probably right.
Social marketing killed the writer.
2. Enjoying Feast of Crows - it's a bit like reading an analogy of interconnected short stories. You get slices of these people's lives, and how they interconnect with each other. Also lots of stories within stories. Some horrific, and some touching. In some respects it reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand, except far better written and less grating in places. King's The Stand - had a sexist overtone to it, which admittedly was so 1980s.
I've changed my mind about Cersei.
Whose actions are beginning to make a lot more sense to me now. Maybe because I'm more detached? Or Lena Headley's performance in the tv series has somehow seeped into the novels? I don't know. But I can see that everything she's done has been for her children and to fight this inertia or feeling of powerlessness over her own life. The man she loved, her other half, her soul-mate, she can't have and is told repeatedly to want him or have him is a sin against nature. So she's doomed from the beginning. Add to this - a father who is treating her like little more than a brood mare or chess piece, which admittedly is how he treats all his children and how he in turn was treated. Within the context of the story - Cersei's action make sense. It's tempting to impose our own morality on these characters...but I often wonder if that isn't just a tad self-righteous?
I've always wondered this. I wondered it when I was working as a defense attorney...what right do I have to judge someone else's decisions and actions? I do not know what I would have done in their place. People claim they do, but they aren't thinking it through...they are thinking what they'd do if well they had their upbringing, their DNA, their parents, their privileges...etc and just well had those same things happen to them but as themselves. (Ghod, I hope that sentence made sense. Assuming anyone read it. Hard to tell, unless someone responds.) But what would you do if you were really that person? Had that person's parents? Had their body? Had their options and challenges?
The wonderful thing about stories like Feast of Crows is it puts us inside another's head. We are given the opportunity to see the world through another pair of eyes, that is assuming of course we can divorce ourselves and our own ego long enough to do it - to actually see what they see. I don't mean become them, just..observe..without judgement. Which I think is REALLY hard to do. Some people can't do it at all. I couldn't last November, in 2011. Which is why I stopped reading the book for a bit and read other books instead. Now, a year later, I'm in the right head-space to do it. At any rate, I find myself less emotionally attached to certain threads, more impartial, and as a result less judgmental and more able to appreciate all the individual threads and see how they tie together and what the author is doing.
Seeing a story through an emotional lense is rewarding, true, but it can also be crippling. You lose half the story. Equally true, that you lose half if you only see it through a logical detached lense. The trick is both. I think I have both now. I feel for Cersei, Sam, Cat of Nine Tales, Jamie, Victorian...and I see the irony of their actions, because I know more than they do. I see the tapestery that they are mere threads in.
I see where their actions lead. I know for example that Cersei does care for Jamie and what she wants from him and why she's so frustrated with him and why she's done certain things - things that make no sense to Jamie, who has lost all faith in her and believes she never loved him at all and only used him for her own needs. And I know how devoted Jamie was to Cersei and why he has abandoned her. But they don't know these things.
Same with Cat of Nine Tales....I know what lies behind her dreams.
I also can see where George RR Martin is heading now...where each character is going.
The connections. And how each action results in a reaction...or chain of actions. It's actually fairly well plotted all things considered. Far better in some respects than some others I've read, again King's novels come to mind, more so than Tolkien's. I see more similarities with Stephen King than Tolkien, stylistically speaking. And a few parallel's with Frank Herbet, who was equally mystical, although Martin's mysticism is a bit more grounded and far more satirical.
No, these books are meant to be savored, I think. Not sped through. Like a fine meal. Eat too fast...and you miss things, but they are also books you need to read in the right frame of mind. Or at least I do. Everyone is different after all. We don't live in a "one size fits all" world.
At any rate, I'm loving how each chapter ends with an epithany or reveal - which the reader realizes, but the character does not, because the character is too close to it, to see it.
Brienne...tells the Elder that she can't go home. The only thing she can give her family, herself, the only thing she has left is...her vows to Jamie and Catelynn...and her duty to follow through on them, no matter how impossible they may seem or futile. Even if she dies in the attempt.
Jamie...finds out from his Aunt that it's his brother, Tyrion, who was ironically Tywin's true son. She'd made the mistake of telling Tywin this and he didn't speak to her, too tied up in his ego, too foolish...to see what she saw - that power is not always physical.
The wit, the brain, the sharp clarity, and the ruthlessness...are all in Tyrion. And she fears him...because if he is like Tywin, they are doomed. And Tywin's twisted rotting smile has an eerie and ironic meaning. And I realized reading that passage what Martin was doing...Jamie and Tyrion are going in opposite directions in an odd way, Jamie towards redemption and Tyrion towards doom. Or perhaps not. It's a chilling and haunting statement she makes...
Jamie: He had a son. (in regards to Tywin)
Genna: Yes, I know, that's what scares me. (and then she tells Jamie - that she loves him, he reminds her of the best in all her other brothers, Tyg's fighting, Gerion's smile, and
Kevan's loyalty, but Tyrion is Tywin's son.)
She's right. If you think on it. And it makes sense Tyrion killed Tywin. To become him.
He may well be headed to be Dany's Hand, as Tywin was once upon a time Aegon's.
George RR Martin has managed to charm me with his blog, his interviews, and his writing.
Oh dear, am I in danger of becoming fannish? I hope not, he writes very slow. And has the annoying habit of doing other things that are unrelated to Game of Thrones. His fans often want to tie him to a chair and make him finish his Song of Ice and Fire, before he commits to anything else. It's hard thing to be a fan of a story that has yet to be finished and is only half-way through in the telling. Much easier to be one of a story that has been completed and already committed to paper and long published.
It was interesting, but...sigh...I don't know if this is going to work out. Granted it's only the second meeting. Eh, best to show you -
Organizer: There hasn't been anything interesting done with vampires...outside of maybe Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire and True Blood - with vampires coming out of the closet.
Me (pondering for a minute then taking the plunge): True...although, the other innovative vampire tale was Buffy...the vampire slayer.
(Organizer and two other people at the table look at me..very oddly for the space of two minutes)
Me: That was admittedly 10 years ago.
Organizer: Actually 20 years ago...with the movie -
Me: well, I don't count the movie that was crap - it's the tv series,
Organizer: which was hardly innovative or brilliant - the idea existed in comic books, or was taken from them and it had been in comics for a very long time...
(Well, okay, don't ever mention that you are in the Buffy fandom or are a fan to this group of people...which may be hard to do, since it's sort of referenced in my novel. Although it's doubtful they'll notice it. I considered arguing, but why bother? The problem with Buffy, is basically the problem with most tv series - it's uneven. There are great episodes and horrible episodes. Even Breaking Bad and The Wire have this problem. It takes a while for the viewer to get hooked. I have to admit, I didn't get obsessed with Buffy right off the bat. I watched it intermittently in S1 and S2, it really wasn't until Spike and Dru popped up that I got somewhat intrigued, and when Angelus showed up that I got obsessed for a bit, then lost interest, then gained it again somewhere around S5. It was a weird series. And yes, it had comic booky/campy elements to it - which were bound to turn off people.)
Moving on to Shakespeare.
Me: Rafe Fiennes film Corianolous looks quite good.
Organizer: Shakespeare makes really bad movies, it's best for plays. Unless you have really good actors. (He went on to explain but lost me. Said something about how when Henry the V states the fields of France, this works in a play, but not on screen - because you just show the audience the fields of France - and film is a visual medium solely. I don't know...I've watched films that were mainly dialogue based and had little action or visuals...granted they tend to put me to sleep, but still. Also, I can think of a lot of great films made of Shakespearean plays. Actually I like the films better than some of the performances I've seen on stage. But generally, he's right. I didn't bother to argue.)
or...
H: Lost in Translation was the best film ever.
Me: Didn't like it. It's very atmospheric
Organizer: It's ...feminine. Not masculain, nothing happens.
H: Why didn't you like it - I can guess -
Me: I kept falling asleep during it -
Organizer: Like I said nothing happens...
Me: Well, stuff does happen, it just..it's a princess story and I don't tend to like princess stories.
Organizer: You wouldn't like Soffia Coppola then, she wrote it as autobiographical.
Me: No, most likely not. Don't like her films.Although it may be a mood thing...
Organizer: You along with most theatergoers..
(Well that's actually good to know.)
Although, must admit it was fun to gossip about film and theater. Learned all sorts of gossipy tid-bits. And insider stuff. The culture geek inside me was in heaven.
There's nothing I enjoy more than talking about books, tv shows, films and theater.
Organizer is a television writer/screenwriter/playwrite who used to intern for Francis Ford Coppola, and went to NYU, before moving to LA, buying a theater, and directing a slew of plays. He also worked for the New York Public Theater.
And it could be a useful group for my book. They might be able to help me figure out what to remove and what to keep - which is currently my problem. That and an inability to write creatively because I don't trust my muse right now. The internet has put distance between us. The Organizer tells me I need to stay away from discussion forums, he's probably right.
Social marketing killed the writer.
2. Enjoying Feast of Crows - it's a bit like reading an analogy of interconnected short stories. You get slices of these people's lives, and how they interconnect with each other. Also lots of stories within stories. Some horrific, and some touching. In some respects it reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand, except far better written and less grating in places. King's The Stand - had a sexist overtone to it, which admittedly was so 1980s.
I've changed my mind about Cersei.
Whose actions are beginning to make a lot more sense to me now. Maybe because I'm more detached? Or Lena Headley's performance in the tv series has somehow seeped into the novels? I don't know. But I can see that everything she's done has been for her children and to fight this inertia or feeling of powerlessness over her own life. The man she loved, her other half, her soul-mate, she can't have and is told repeatedly to want him or have him is a sin against nature. So she's doomed from the beginning. Add to this - a father who is treating her like little more than a brood mare or chess piece, which admittedly is how he treats all his children and how he in turn was treated. Within the context of the story - Cersei's action make sense. It's tempting to impose our own morality on these characters...but I often wonder if that isn't just a tad self-righteous?
I've always wondered this. I wondered it when I was working as a defense attorney...what right do I have to judge someone else's decisions and actions? I do not know what I would have done in their place. People claim they do, but they aren't thinking it through...they are thinking what they'd do if well they had their upbringing, their DNA, their parents, their privileges...etc and just well had those same things happen to them but as themselves. (Ghod, I hope that sentence made sense. Assuming anyone read it. Hard to tell, unless someone responds.) But what would you do if you were really that person? Had that person's parents? Had their body? Had their options and challenges?
The wonderful thing about stories like Feast of Crows is it puts us inside another's head. We are given the opportunity to see the world through another pair of eyes, that is assuming of course we can divorce ourselves and our own ego long enough to do it - to actually see what they see. I don't mean become them, just..observe..without judgement. Which I think is REALLY hard to do. Some people can't do it at all. I couldn't last November, in 2011. Which is why I stopped reading the book for a bit and read other books instead. Now, a year later, I'm in the right head-space to do it. At any rate, I find myself less emotionally attached to certain threads, more impartial, and as a result less judgmental and more able to appreciate all the individual threads and see how they tie together and what the author is doing.
Seeing a story through an emotional lense is rewarding, true, but it can also be crippling. You lose half the story. Equally true, that you lose half if you only see it through a logical detached lense. The trick is both. I think I have both now. I feel for Cersei, Sam, Cat of Nine Tales, Jamie, Victorian...and I see the irony of their actions, because I know more than they do. I see the tapestery that they are mere threads in.
I see where their actions lead. I know for example that Cersei does care for Jamie and what she wants from him and why she's so frustrated with him and why she's done certain things - things that make no sense to Jamie, who has lost all faith in her and believes she never loved him at all and only used him for her own needs. And I know how devoted Jamie was to Cersei and why he has abandoned her. But they don't know these things.
Same with Cat of Nine Tales....I know what lies behind her dreams.
I also can see where George RR Martin is heading now...where each character is going.
The connections. And how each action results in a reaction...or chain of actions. It's actually fairly well plotted all things considered. Far better in some respects than some others I've read, again King's novels come to mind, more so than Tolkien's. I see more similarities with Stephen King than Tolkien, stylistically speaking. And a few parallel's with Frank Herbet, who was equally mystical, although Martin's mysticism is a bit more grounded and far more satirical.
No, these books are meant to be savored, I think. Not sped through. Like a fine meal. Eat too fast...and you miss things, but they are also books you need to read in the right frame of mind. Or at least I do. Everyone is different after all. We don't live in a "one size fits all" world.
At any rate, I'm loving how each chapter ends with an epithany or reveal - which the reader realizes, but the character does not, because the character is too close to it, to see it.
Brienne...tells the Elder that she can't go home. The only thing she can give her family, herself, the only thing she has left is...her vows to Jamie and Catelynn...and her duty to follow through on them, no matter how impossible they may seem or futile. Even if she dies in the attempt.
Jamie...finds out from his Aunt that it's his brother, Tyrion, who was ironically Tywin's true son. She'd made the mistake of telling Tywin this and he didn't speak to her, too tied up in his ego, too foolish...to see what she saw - that power is not always physical.
The wit, the brain, the sharp clarity, and the ruthlessness...are all in Tyrion. And she fears him...because if he is like Tywin, they are doomed. And Tywin's twisted rotting smile has an eerie and ironic meaning. And I realized reading that passage what Martin was doing...Jamie and Tyrion are going in opposite directions in an odd way, Jamie towards redemption and Tyrion towards doom. Or perhaps not. It's a chilling and haunting statement she makes...
Jamie: He had a son. (in regards to Tywin)
Genna: Yes, I know, that's what scares me. (and then she tells Jamie - that she loves him, he reminds her of the best in all her other brothers, Tyg's fighting, Gerion's smile, and
Kevan's loyalty, but Tyrion is Tywin's son.)
She's right. If you think on it. And it makes sense Tyrion killed Tywin. To become him.
He may well be headed to be Dany's Hand, as Tywin was once upon a time Aegon's.
George RR Martin has managed to charm me with his blog, his interviews, and his writing.
Oh dear, am I in danger of becoming fannish? I hope not, he writes very slow. And has the annoying habit of doing other things that are unrelated to Game of Thrones. His fans often want to tie him to a chair and make him finish his Song of Ice and Fire, before he commits to anything else. It's hard thing to be a fan of a story that has yet to be finished and is only half-way through in the telling. Much easier to be one of a story that has been completed and already committed to paper and long published.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 10:12 pm (UTC)I admittedly could no longer remember if Cersei ordered it or Joffrey.
The tv series gives Joffrey a lot more power than the books did, which is interesting. Not quite sure why they made that decision. Maybe to make Cersei more likable? While they are doing the opposite with Jamie and having him almost be more brutal than he was in the books - breaking Cleos neck? Seriously? Interesting choices.
I wouldn't exactly say I like Cersei nor do I see her as necessarily redeemable. But at least she's beginning to make sense now or rather I understand her actions. So much of it is due to how her father raised her, the repeated abuses of her husband who treated her like an undesirable object or brood mare, and her desire for things she can't have. Here's a woman who had power stripped from her at an early age and has spent her life trying to take it back. While it certainly doesn't justify her actions, after all other characters had far worse scenarios and have not resorted to what she did, it does however explain them and makes her interesting as a result.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 03:19 am (UTC)It's really Tyrion's situation in reverse. Tyrion was making solid political decisions that genuinely saved King's Landing, not just from Stannis, but from devolving into open rebellion or worse from hunger and fear. But because Tyrion is Tyrion, they saw him as plotting and scheming for his own gain and didn't realize how helpful he was. Cersei is convinced that she is making brilliant political maneuvers and ruling better than any of the men, but an outside eye can see that this is not really the case. A few people even try to gently point this out to her... but Cersei just brushes them off as being intimidated by a strong woman or not appreciating her intellect.
Now that I think of it, there's a similar parallel to Jon Snow and his leadership, but that doesn't come up until DWD, which I don't remember all that well myself, so I won't go into any detail.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 09:55 pm (UTC)Tyrion had issues with ego too, but he had great deal more humility. He is also, as Jamie remembers, more educated. Tyrion read. Tyrion knew and remembered his history. Martin makes a point about how forgetting or misinterpreting history dooms one to repeat histories mistakes. Cersei repeats the mistake of allowing the religious sect to arm themselves and fight - thinking, understandably so, that they will go after the religious sect that they don't agree with. And leave her alone. She's convinced that all she's doing is sending a missal in Stannis' direction. What she doesn't see is that this missal could turn around and bite her in the butt. Because, a) she's forgotten or most likely never learned her history, and b) she can't see the forest for the trees - she's so focused on maintaining her own power and her own vengeance, that she doesn't see the big picture. Tyrion did - but Tyrion also listened to people around him. Cersei doesn't listen, she believes people are either fools or against her.
I think she's losing her mind, slowly bit by bit. In some respects she reminds me a little of Joffrey and Aerys in her insanity. She's megalomanic, egotistical, and vindicative, as well as paranoid.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 10:02 pm (UTC)Yes, it's definitely Cersei's orders in the books - Joffrey doesn't know anything about the bastards, actually. (And there's mention of her "dealing" with some of Robert's bastards at Casterly Rock while Robert was still alive, so she has a history of doing that stuff!) I do think that the show makes Tywin and Cersei more likable and Jaime and Joffrey even less likable than they are in the books at this stage. I think the TV show also has made Tyrion less dark than he is in the books to date.
I agree that Cersei's actions are definitely more understandable; I find her an absolutely fascinating character, and I think she's warped by the society she lives in (there are a lot of parallels between her and Sansa Stark, actually, that I find explain some of her attitudes towards Sansa which waver between hatred of Sansa's naivete and a sort of pitying desire to educate her.)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-31 10:35 pm (UTC)Agree about Cersei. As I was telling flameraven...I think she's losing her mind by degrees in the book. And she does remind me a lot of Sansa Stark.
Those two characters are paralleled a great deal (as are Ayra and Asha (Arrya (sp?) - the Ironborn Princess). People have mentioned that she's stupid, but I think more misguided or misinformed or out of her depth. She's never really had any training, Robert and her father treated her like little more than a brood mare. Which is why it makes sense that she would want to kill Robert's bastards, she doesn't want any of Robert's children or issue to live and challenge her children's right to the throne. Note she sees her kids as hers solely. She is a mother lioness. Any threat to her children's power or her own, she takes out without any thought whatsoever. Her father sort of beat that ruthlessness into her. As did Robert (who I'm really starting to despise along with poor clueless Ned Stark who enabled him.).
My current theory is that Ned Stark's sister was in love with Prince Rheagar but promised to Robert, who she did not love or want. And ran off with Rhegar. Robert was an ass all around. This works, because Cersei was initially promised to Rheagar...(sorry can't remember the spellings to save my life). So Robert and Cersei weren't wanted by their intendeds. Rheagar and Stark's Sister were a love match and we don't have love matches in this world - people are bartered like property. Matches are made for power not love. And because of that - we end up with war and hell.
It's certainly a pattern that is emerging in the books. Jamie wants only Cersei but both are promised to people they don't want. Genna is in a loveless marriage. Lysa loves Little Finger but is forced to marry John Arryan who she despises. Little Finger was in love with Catelyn. Ned Stark in love with another woman (who he allegedly had Jon Snow by, although I think you may be right and Jon is the sister and Rhaegar's kid).