Mirriam Neal's Blog, page 5

A Villain’s Mind: Part One

A while back a friend asked, “You know that quote that floats around, the ‘every villain is the hero of their own story’? Do you think that’s true?” More recently another friend mentioned he’d been reading a book on writing and the author had claimed, “The antagonist needs to be developed well enough that you… Continue reading A Villain’s Mind: Part One →

The Glamour Man – Snippets

This has been an Interesting NaNo. It’s been a game of fall-behind (re: focus on art commissions + live life) and catch-up. Family came to visit (definitely a good thing) and my wrist injured itself (definitely a bad thing but I have no idea how it happened, thank you for asking). I’m down to the… Continue reading The Glamour Man – Snippets →

Worthy?

I follow quite a few Christian Instagram accounts. You know the kind I mean – beautiful photography pages run by artsy Christian women, constantly posting quotes in swooping calligraphy or posting pictures of half-empty coffee cups with their thoughts from the day.  While I generally enjoy what these women post, there’s a repeated phrase I… Continue reading Worthy? →

The Glamour Man: Snippets from NaNoWriMo

In my last post, I talked about the novel I had actually last-minute decided to write for NaNo; the novel that had taken over my previous idea as the culmination of several past novel ideas. The Glamour Man was once several novels – Aftermath, a post-apocalypse/zombie novel, A Midnight Dreary, a Wild Hunt-oriented faerie novel… Continue reading The Glamour Man: Snippets from NaNoWriMo →

Do you need a writing ‘process’?

Occasionally I get asked things like, “What’s your writing process?” or, “How do you plan a novel?” I assume ‘plan’ is different than ‘plot’ because I could talk about how bad I am at plotting all day long. My writing process – in which a novel comes together and I decide to write it –… Continue reading Do you need a writing ‘process’? →

Netflix’s Death Note: The Good, the Bad, and the Negative Examples

When I heard about the Netflix remake of ‘Death Note,’ I was incredibly skeptical. Every new piece of information – from the Americanization to the casting – made me sink down a little lower in my metaphorical chair. I didn’t expect much when I took the plunge into giving it a try, so I was… Continue reading Netflix’s Death Note: The Good, the Bad, and the Negative Examples →

The Prompting

I never do writing prompts, for several reasons. There isn’t enough room for me to explore and describe everything I want, I have difficulty connecting with characters in 500 words or less, and often prompts feel pointless. I’ve enjoyed short stories in the past, but prompts? They’re much too short. I’d rather not. Yesterday, knowing… Continue reading The Prompting →

Charisma and Pretense: The Legend of the Sword

The Legend of the Sword, Hollywood’s newest take on the legend of King Arthur, is nothing mind-blowing or utterly original. However, it has my favorite cinematic portrayal of King Arthur to date as Charlie Hunnam takes the role of reluctant legend and gives us something rarely seen on-screen: An Arthur with charisma. I have loved… Continue reading Charisma and Pretense: The Legend of the Sword →

That Which Is Caesar’s: Apes and Apotheosis

I’m not really sure what happened with War for the Planet of the Apes. It was like the executives sat down and said, “Yeah, the last two were good, but let’s do something different. Let’s do something like Unbroken meets Predator meets The Great Escape.” Someone may have said, “You realize our main characters are… Continue reading That Which Is Caesar’s: Apes and Apotheosis →

What Fullmetal Alchemist and del Toro Taught Me

I used to believe firmly in genres, and in the idea that a author could only write one of them at a time. Either a book was high fantasy or it was science fiction. Occasionally you could blend two of the together and write, say, a historical steampunk novel, but there were strict rules to… Continue reading What Fullmetal Alchemist and del Toro Taught Me →