The Child Is Made Of One Hundred

The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
A hundred languages
A hundred hands
A hundred thoughts
A hundred ways of thinking
Of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
Ways of listening of marveling of loving
A hundred joys
For singing and understanding
A hundred worlds
To discover
A hundred worlds
To invent
A hundred worlds
To dream
The child has
A hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
But they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
Separate the head from the body.
They tell the child;
To think without hands
To do without head
To listen and not to speak
To understand without joy
To love and to marvel
Only at Easter and Christmas
They tell the child:
To discover the world already there
And of the hundred
They steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
That work and play
Reality and fantasy
Science and imagination
Sky and earth
Reason and dream
Are things
That do not belong together
And thus they tell the child
That the hundred is not there
The child says:
No way. The hundred IS there.

by Loris Malaguzzi

Z is for Zathura

Zathura is story by Chris Van Allsburg that is a follow up to his story Jumanji.  Both were made into hugely successful movies, along with another one of his books, The Polar Express.

The story revolves around brothers Walter and Danny Budwing who find the abandoned Jumanji game in a park.  Upon opening the box it's discovered that a second game, Zathura, is hidden in the bottom of the box.  With a roll of the dice the game begins and the brothers find themselves stuck in a game that won't end until one of them wins.

Van Allsburg is a wonderful story teller, whose stories are made all the more amazing by his illustrations.  If you have a budding writer in your life, look into his book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.  Each page is a gorgeous illustration with a simple caption, just begging for you to write a story to accompany it.

Q is for Quotes

Who doesn't love quotes?  Here are some of my favorites in wallpaper format found around the internet.

O is for Once Upon A Time...

Isn't it interesting that almost all fairy tales start out his way? "Once upon a time..." and from there the story starts.  With just those 4 little words you know you're in for an exciting tale, and yet you don't know what tale it will be.  Are you about to hear the story of Snow White?  or Hansel and Gretel?  The Frog Prince?


All this thinking on novels and fairy tales and labyrinths in previous posts have started some creative musings.  Then today I read an article about a Hollywood resurgence in fairy tales and the plethora of movies we'll be seeing in the coming years.  Not your ordinary run of the mill fairy tales, but re-imagined ones.  Granted they're the same old tales, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and surprisingly The Wizard of Oz.  They've taken the characters and put a new spin on the story.

While many people think this is a very bad idea (who messes with a classic?!) one should bear in mind that it's been done before.  Quite successfully too.  Gregory Maquire re-imagined The Wizard of Oz  to produce Wicked and look at how well that turned out?  He's worked on other tales too, like Cinderella and Snow White.

       

So I'm thinking, wouldn't it be neat to redo a fairy tale?  I would think it a bit easier than writing an entirely original book...you already know the characters and have a basic plot outlined.  It could be a nice little side project to tackle when writer's block is keeping you from other writings.  I for one would love to write a story where elements of all the tales converge, or perhaps have a character that comes in contact with all those characters at some point.  And of course it will have to begin with "Once upon a time..."

N is for Novel

Ah...the great American novel.  It's what every writer aspires to produce...unless they're not American, then I suppose they hope to write the great "insert country here" novel.  Like many other budding writers, I spent the past November frantically writing for NaNoWriMo, with the dream of a 50k word novel that would be (quite obviously of course) the next number one best seller.

Needless to say that dream was dashed when my 50K+ word novel was accidentally lost (curse you computer virus!) and my back up misplaced (why are memory sticks so small?!?!?!)  So as I've been mourning my shot at fame, fortune, and movie deals, I've also been contemplating what exactly makes a novel.

Staring at my shelves full of books, I realized that if someone asked to borrow a novel, there are truly a select few that I would consider suggesting.  I decided perhaps my definition of a novel was skewed, until I realized that I don't really have a definition for a novel...I just kinda eyeball it.  So I went to the internet to search for the true meaning of what a novel is, because the internet never lies. Ever.

nov·el /ˈnɒvəl/ Show Spelled[nov-uhl] –noun  

1. a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting asequential organization of action and scenes. 

Upon  reading this I became aware of two things. 

1. Thanks to all those years of schooling, I was correct; novel is indeed a noun. 
2. I must have skipped that day in class when they discussed "prose".  The word conjured up images of Edgar Allen Poe, and I'm fairly certain he did not write a novel...unless he did indeed write a novel, in which case I am totally awesome for remembering that. 

prose /proʊz/ Show Spelled [prohz]  –noun 

1. the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.

 Uh-huh...so...I suppose anything is a novel then.  But I know this can't be true, so I dig around some more and discover that I am not the only one that does not know what a novel is.  A lot of people online seem to think a novel is any book that is over 200 pages and is fun to read.  Wow... if that's all it takes to make a novel, I have a few history books that fit the bill.  So I kept wading through opinions on what makes a novel until I found one that kinda made sense:

"All novels are books, but not all books are novels. Equally, all novels are fiction, but not all fiction is novels. Novels are the longest of the classes of fiction. The other two are 'short story' and novella. A short story is what is says - a short story. Usually published in a magazine, but may be part of a collection of short stories. A novella is harder to define. It's longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. A long novella may be published as a slim book on its own, or it may get padded with one or more short stories."

Ah.  I think I'm beginning to understand it now.  Then I stumbled upon a nifty little piece that broke up books by word count.

So now that I have all this knowledge, the number of "novels" on my shelves should have increased in my mind...right?  And yet, there are some books that I just can't give that title to.  Look at romance novels. Sure, I own more of those than any other type of book, I even call them novels, but in my head they aren't.  In my head they're labeled as "trashy guilty pleasure books".  If I asked you for a novel and you handed me one of those I'd think you didn't quite understand my request.

So I've decided on my definition of a novel.  In my mind, most novels are hardback (they seem classier that way lol), they're long, have an elegant writing style, and have such a great plot that even the clues dropped that you think you would pick up on, you don't. Not until the authors big reveal.  A novel is fresh and intriguing and keeps you guessing until the final page.  That, to me, is what makes a novel a novel. 

So here's my favorite novel so far.  The Thirteenth Tale.  It's the one I would suggest if asked.  It meets all my criteria and fits all the other definitions too.  If that's not enough to tempt you, the cover art is pretty freakin awesome...and come on.  Who doesn't judge a book by its cover?  Even a novel?

 

L is for Labyrinth

...and for being late. I had finally caught up and thought I was doing well!

Labyrinth is a Jim Henson movie starring David Bowie and some random girl that every fan girl wishes she could be. Why? David Bowie, for one.  The first time I watched this movie I had a serious WTH? moment...it pretty much lasted throughout the whole movie.  I put it away near the back of my movie collection and forgot about it.

Fast forward a few years and I come across this book at the bookstore, The Goblins of Labyrinth, by Brian Froud.  It looked eerily familiar.  Browsing though the book I fell in love with the Labyrinth for the first time.

When I got home that night I googled the Labyrinth and spent the next few hours reading reviews, browsing fan art, and discovering the joy of fan fiction.

Fan fiction is amazing.  It's like finding that perfect story and after lamenting the fact that it's over you discover that it was only book one in a series of thousands.  It's a story lover's dream come true.

Now not all fan fiction is awesome.  Some of it will make you cringe and wonder how much the monkey with the typewriter got paid to pound this particular story out. But sometimes...sometimes you get a real gem.

If you're not already familiar with the Labyrinth, I would suggest you watch the movie first, or head on over here to read the novelization.  The book is long out of print, and what few copies do come available are quickly snatched (I saw one bidded up to nearly $300) so don't feel too bad reading this free copy.

Then head on over to fanfiction.net (movies > Labyrinth) to see the wonderful continuing stories of the Labyrinth.

Some fan fics that I love:   

My Fine Feathered Friend

(also known as the best fan fic ever!!!!)

Candies and Pumpkins

Within You

The Tshirt Incident

The Tshirt incident: Retaliation & Escalation 

Of Pineapples and Kings 

 And the beginnings of my own late to be updated Labyrinth fanfics:

http://www.fanfiction.net/~simply01

        

H is for Haiku

It took for eeeever to think up an H word, and I'm still a day behind.

So a haiku is a type of Japanese poetry that when translated over into English results in a 3 line poem of 5/7/5 syllables.  Sounds pretty easy right?  And it is...most of the time.  I've written several over the years, every time poetry was covered in school it seemed writing one was a requirement.  Which is why I was a bit perplexed when after half a day I still had nothing.  Was I worried? No! After all, I have the internet and am well versed in the ways of google.

So I present to you a haiku generator! Tada!  It randomly puts together lines of 5/7/5 so some...okay most...of the hiaku's generated will leave you a tad confused.  At least I was.  So I took the 5/7/5's that I liked (some are just too weird lol) and mashed them together to make my own haiku's

lucid dreams calling

lost in silence in her eyes

a blown kiss wanders

robins call softer

the river sleeps lost, broken

haunted dreams struck down

So go give that generator a whirl and see what crazy haiku you can come up with : )

A is for Amber