I randomly started thinking about society while watching True Blood. I think it was a first season episode, but when I speed watch a TV show it all ends up jumbled in my head. Well anyway, in the plot people were being kidnapped. Can't really say anything else to avoid spoilers, but it made me realize that society is kind of like a locked door. Or more specifically the law of a society is like a locked door.

How many people here lock their front door before going to bed? In a city it's a given, but in the country it's a bit more lax. I personally lock the door before I go to bed because i'd rather not be attacked by an axe-man or, worse, Edward Cullen. But would a door really stop anybody? If somebody had the inclination and time they could break down any door. Perhaps they'd break the glass and unlock the door from the inside, or perhaps keep hammering 'till it gave in.

Society is like that unfortunate door. We have laws, punishment and social standards, but aren't they fragile? The IRA in Belfast during the troubles became so powerful because they worked outside society. They showed people that the safety of a locked door is nonexistent. They showed people that the laws of society couldn't protect them. And if there isn't any law or order then there's only chaos. And if you're halfway sane real chaos will frighten the bejesus out of you.

Have we really changed that much from medieval times? Well, of course we have. But we still put our fate in people above our station. We pick people for office instead of it being decided by bloodline or divine intervention, but they're still people. Although this does lead into another tangent on how people with more money will have a much better chance at future success than people from a lower class, but I want to talk about True Blood.

Omfg I love it. When I first heard I thought it would be either a) an adult version of twilight or b)just two dimensional characters having sex. While there is a lot of sex (sometimes for no purpose whatsoever), they're 3 dimensional characters. And the setting is just awesome. I can't say why it just is.

I do have some complaints about it thought. The humans are at such a ridiculous disadvantage it makes any contest irrelevant. The soldiers of the sun and Eric is a bit of an example. Although, we do find out he's like the oldest and strongest now, so i guess I can excuse that. But i'd love to see a resourceful human take out a vampire. I just think the power level is a little skewed. And the biting thing during a couple of Bill and Sookie's scenes are just gross. Just saying.

Anybody else here watch True Blood?

Edit: Oh I finished my BIG exams but I'm waiting to get the results to gossip about them:P

The main reson I want to see this movie is the guy with the hat and trenchcoat. He's badass.

There are a couple of reasons I like writing fantasy. I’m going to hurl myself straight into this by making a list:

1)Anything can happen. Of course that has a danger to it as well. If you write someone with fire for hair then you have to explain why they don’t, you know, BBQ. I digress. If you can explain it properly then you can have music as a magic system. (cough, Garth Nix, cough)

2)Real life’s troubles and history can be exaggerated and dealt with. How many stories have you read where an evil tyrant tries to kill/control another race? How many books are about awkward teenagers trying to get jiggy with a vampire?

Take Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example. He said that that was a mirror image of teenage troubles. (I probably got that completely wrong)

3)You can have incredible fight scenes.

4) You can have extraordinary plot twists (with proper foreshadowing)

5) You don’t have to stay with what’s happened then or now. You can throw in conflict like class division, racism, sexism, etc.

Those are a couple of reasons I like writing fantasy.

Why do you like writing whatever genre you mostly write?

We just had Christmas! Leftovers in the fridge, an open bottle of wine lurking on the table and that strangely hungry feeling you get the day after over-indulging. Life is good.

I got a book and money this Christmas. Since I have exams in a couple of months (sweats) I didn’t really get much. I buy presents to last, God damn it. The majority of the money I’ve spent either buying stuff for people or hoarding it away. I also have to buy revision books. I also have to learn to talk louder since in my last Oral exam he couldn’t hear what I was saying. If I ever become a teacher I’m going to pick a random student each week to give a speech on what we studied. That’d help them with speeches and lessen the fear of speaking in public. As a German proverb says “Fear makes the wolf bigger than it is”.

Yes, I did steal that from twitter.

Just to wrap this up I’m going to say we had a cold snap and here are some pictures.





I wanted to post one from late summer, but oh well. Livejournal is acting up.

 

  Dude, you have to buy this book. It has a great plot, great characters and pirates. Pirates!

                                              I always liked Robbin Hobb. I've noticed a bit of a pattern in her books. The role of women play a very strong role, slavery appears and disease lurks in the background.

Her stories are fueled by conflict. All characters have their own agenda in this story. Some are sexist, some are twisted and some are just plain irritating. In my opinion it's the mark of a good writer where you hate a character one moment and then you start sympathizing with them later.

If you want to learn how to create great conflict, read this book. If you want to read an incredibly good book, read this book. If you want to see that Fantasy can deal with big issues, read this book.

I'm off school because I can't reach the school. Roads are icy and a small blizzard hit halfway to my school. In colder countries they're probably scoffing at our complaints, but we are defintley not prepared for any form of snow. We're prepared for weather that goes from freezing, to windy, to rainy, to sunny and then back to windy within the space of a heartbeat, but not for snow and black ice. I had the vaguest feeling I was about to die on my way to school. We turned around half-way to crawl back home in a huge traffic jam, and it did not help that the songs on the radio seemed to come from a scene from "Save The Last Dance". Well, that's enough about the snow.

I recently changed from writing on the computer (disdain) to good ol' pen and paper. Slower, less grammatically correct (case in point) and more paper. But I love writing on paper. Good ol' paper. Do you know before the fall of consensus? And everybody called President Eisenhower old Ike with affection? Yeah that's kind of like me and paper. Sooner or later I'll get testy and want change. Maybe there will be a new stylish paper out by then?

That completely reminded me of something. Does anybody want to practice french with me? No, that is not a strange come on. I have a pretty important french exam next year and I want to pass it. So, if anybody knows someone who can speak fluent french, is willing to deal with a not even close to fluent in french person and wants to refine their english send them my way. Of course I won't be giving out my address or anything...

I'm so excited about my new story. The magic system is based on slaves. Each time you use magic one of the slaves die. My main character is a pampered sort of spoiled brat who hunts people with bounties on their heads, and can;t use magic. Doesn't mean she can't use things that use magic;)

Anybody else want to share what they're working on?

I love my story ideas. I do not love the fact that I can’t seem to finish a bloody story, but I love the ideas. Since I’m bored, and I’ve been mistreating my blog, I thought I’d put some of these ideas here. Hopefully my blog won’t try to get revenge before I finish. (Looks nervously for Livejournal/Skynet)

·         One was where there were three cities bound by an agreement not to fight. In one of these cities was a garden, and in the centre stood two trees. Both gave power, one gave death. The magic system was based on runes. When you used magic it bled energy out of the surrounding nature. Which had the potential to create some badass imagery. Imagine a sorcerer’s battle where grass blackened and trees withered. Naturally some villain broke free from a prison, and everybody thought he killed his parents. He was a madman, but his brother, who everybody thought was selfless, actually killed his father and mother. Throw in the fact that his brother was the prince of the largest militaristic city, the antagonist was the rightful heir and you’ve got craziness.

 

Also the land was bordered on three sides by water, which ended at colossal icebergs and on one side by a barren desert filled with monsters. Unfortunately, I had too many characters and I just wasn’t a good enough writer to finish it. Or maybe the idea sucked? Who knows?

 

Here's pictures of some of the runes:

 

 

·         Another one was about a banshee who could sense emotions. And was in Secondary (17 age group just in case someone doesn’t know what secondary is). She had to put up shields to stop from being swamped by emotions, and sometimes they failed. Banshees were sort of...I wouldn’t say second class citizen, but they were definitely disdained. Probably because in my book they started World War 2. They could also control people’s emotions.

Also the main character once said in the book: “I hate vampires. After twilight they thought they were hot stuff. They’re not.  They’re pretty much a mummy with makeup.”

 

·         Ever hear of the growth curve of bacteria? I’m guessing you have so I’ll carry on. My idea was that humans entered the death phase of that curve. But we survived by cloning animals to feed the ever expanding population. The air had to be sterilized and the same with the water. Sounds dandy doesn’t it? The thing is, this was just in one (very big) city. Everything outside that city was left to rot. So outside the city were hordes of people who were dying of hunger, disease and the pollution. Then someone unites them, and sends the billions of people against that city.

I have more but I’m kind of bored of doing that now.

Recently I went for a couple of stomach tests where I had to be heavily sedated. It was actually quite funny, because I did not sleep afterwards like I was supposed to, and I thought I was fine. Even though I was wobbling while I walked, and I was getting memory loss. I supposedly asked the same doctor whether I could get a burger meal three times, and looking incredibly depressed when she said no. Can you blame me? I had the idea of food stuck in my head.

Now a week off school (puts feet up) with nothing to do but relax.

...

(Remembers Leaving Cert) Aw crap.

 
I saw this on Valerie Kemp's blog, and I thought I'd steal borrow it.

I think Sabriel was the first fantasy book I ever read. My memory’s a bit fuzzy, but I think I may have read The Goblet of Fire first. Although, this was the first actual fantasy book I read. By the way I found out how to link an image, so link’s in image. I know. Me bad.

Now I loved Eye of the World. It really thought me the importance of dramatic   dialogue, imagery and world building. It’s a nice romp through classic fantasy.

The way of shadows has an incredible plot, incredible characters and exciting fight scenes. This was the only book that made me afraid of the villain.

The amount of characters that this author juggles is astounding. A game of throne's quite graphic, but it’s brilliant.

The deathly Hallows...Yeah, I don’t even have to go into detail about this. 

I'm not going to pretend here. This is a good contest, and the only thing you have to do is link in your blog. Should be a good look in.
http://cindy-pon.livejournal.com/36799.html

I follow Leah Cypress on twitter, and she replied to a couple of my tweets. I read the blog she does with a coupl of other people. So, I liked her. Se seems like a pretty nice person.



Mistwood was good. That's honestly the best word I can think of to describe it. It's not too bad, but it's not excellent either. Most of the plot had me guessing (which is hard, or easy. Not really sure which) , but I would've liked other things to be handled differently.

That's pretty much all I can say about it. It's a good read, but it's just good.

Description: 4/10

Plot: 7/10

Characters: 6/10

Overall: 19/30

I lost my awesome calculator so I don't know what the overall score is rounded out of ten (sigh).

I'm thinking of giving the book away as a giveaway. I know other people would like it more than I did, but since everybody has probably bought it...