Josephine Moon's Blog, page 11

Movie Review: Dolittle

I have read some dreadful reviews of Dolittle–all of them written by critics. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find reviews from your everyday mum/dad/viewer and you’ll find a kinder story. I have to agree with the latter group of people. This is one of those films where ‘the critics’ (whoever they are) have taken to the film with a ‘slash-and-burn’ pile-on mentality, throwing enough weight into their words to make them sound superior. (It is reminiscent of many book reviews I’ve read with the same lofty attitude.) Another time I’ve had to disagree with the critics is with the film The Holiday (starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet). To this day, The Holiday remains one of my favourite films of all time and from my perspective is a fantastic piece of romantic comedy that does exactly what it sets out to do and leaves us all feeling happy at the end. The critics smashed it; audiences felt differently.

Back to Dolittle… This film is not brilliant (though Robert Downey Jnr is), but it doesn’t deserve the backlash it’s received. Apparently, it had a fraught production, with multiple shootings, heavy rewriting, severe editing, delayed schedule, and ‘new talent’ brought into the production team to try to save it. Despite this, there are many things working in its favour.

The storyline begins with Dr Dolittle having hidden himself away from the world as a hermit living solely with his eccentric bunch of talking animals. Never having recovered from the loss of his wife and having grown a long beard and acting much like an animal himself, he is like a castaway who has been stranded on an island for many years, which, metaphorically speaking, he is. This all changes with two adolescents arrive onto his property on the same day and he is called back out into the world to save the dying queen of England or lose his estate he shares with his beloved animals. This leads him to open his world and ultimately his heart, all while sailing the seas to mystical islands, essentially in a bit of a pirate race with the bad guys. Downy Jnr is a master actor and there is real depth in the grief he portrays while barely saying a word about it. [image error]

As an animal lover, I adored the many wonderful animals in this film and general notions of living closely with them and being able to communicate with them as equals and I know many other animals lovers will feel the same. As a human, I appreciate the journey Dolittle must take to re-enter the world after such a crushing loss.

I agree with the critics in that a lot of the humour falls flat. There were several times in the theatre when the entire audience was dead silent when I’m sure they were supposed to be laughing. But it was entertaining enough to keep my seven-year-old engaged (and he has a ruthless attention span) and it’s a good piece of harmless, enjoyable fun.

Verdict: take it for what it is and enjoy

Movie review: Frozen II

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School holidays have been and gone and movies were consumed!

Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf are back to continue the journey of life in Arendelle in Frozen II (or Frozen 2). I took my seven-year-old son to see it and here’s what we thought.

Firstly, my son was not even a year old when the first Frozen came onto the screens and I somehow managed to miss the whole event until he was four years old, at which point he saw it, loved it, loved the song, and dressed up and sang along just like every other kindergarten kid. Now a big seven-year-old, he said he didn’t want to see Frozen II because he didn’t like it. I asked him what he even remembered about the first one, to which he paused and said, ‘I remember the song.’ Okay, yes, we all remember the song. Fair point. (And the film even takes a moment to make fun of it too.) Still, I made him go because it was stinking hot, I was exhausted and needed a sit-down activity, I wanted to see it, and there was nothing else on at my local cinema that was suitable. His final objections to seeing it were doused at the promise of an ice cream.

Generally speaking, sequels are rarely as good at the originals and this movie had to meet a bar set so high from the from first one it’s amazing it ever got off the ground.

The story continues following the lives of sisters Elsa and Anna in their kingdom of Arendelle who, at the end of the previous film, had been a rightful queen who had faced her fears and embraced her own uniqueness and was accepted by the people (Elsa) and had been a much wiser and more grounded woman, who’d learned hard lessons about trust and love and had proved to her sister that she was worthy of standing by her side (Anna). In Frozen II, Elsa is visited by a song only she can hear, calling her out of the kingdom and to an enchanted (but magically locked) forest, where she has to heal a great injury of the past.

The film is once again visually luxe and enchanting. Elsa is still conflicted, but not in a way I was expecting, and to be honest I’m not sure it was particularly clear why she was so conflicted and why the end result was as it was. (Please excuse my vagueness, I’m trying not to give away spoilers.) The greatest loss in this film, for me, was Kristoff, who was so funny, warm and active in the previous film but who has been relegated to the background, his one and only big scene seeing him singing a lovesick eighties-style power ballad in forest. That would have been okay (nothing wrong with an eighties power ballad) but it was pretty much all we saw of him and I missed him. His role in this film is to spend the entire time trying to propose to Anna. For me, this was unnecessary. I would be quite happy for them to be ‘living in sin’ together

Introducing The Writers Emporium

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I have news!

I have teamed up with best-selling author Rachel Bailey to create The Writers Emporium, a collaboration focused on bringing high-quality professional writing development workshops, retreats and training here to the beautiful Sunshine Coast.

We will be kicking off 2020 with a two-day event from 8-9th February called the Sunshine Writing Lab. We’ve called it a ‘lab’ because we want you to get your fingers into your work! Our point of difference is that we are so committed to bringing you value in our programs that we are running two streams of training alongside each other across both days. This gives us the flexibility to provide quality opportunities to writers of all stages, from beginners through to those more advanced. You can choose from formal workshops, one-on-on session with either Rachel or myself, or small group sessions (three people maximum). The power is in your hands.

If you’re interstate, no worries! Our location at The Sebel hotel in Maroochydore is just minutes from the Sunshine Coast airport so you can fly in and fly out again and stay at the hotel with the discounted room rate.

Rachel and I both love teaching and we’re so excited to join forces to help you reach your writing dreams.

Check out our website for full details of course content and more and while you’re there be sure to sign up to The Writers Emporium mailing list to keep up to date with upcoming events in the future.

The Best Review Ever

Is this the best review ever? I think it might be! Huge gratitude to Better Reading for this glowing review of Buddhism for Meat Eaters. I love it so much, I had to repost the whole thing here! My heart is full

Numbers, the bane of my writing

[image error]One of my motivations for studying journalism and film and media at university was to avoid maths. The irony, though, is that there are heaps of numbers involved in writing a novel.

Obviously, there is the word count itself, having a goal and then breaking it down into scenes and words per scene or per chapter, and knowing at what point in the word count I need to be ‘changing gears’ at particular marking points. My books always run long so I’m clearly not great at sticking to word counts.

Then there are all the characters. As I tend to write big books with lots of characters, I have to do lots of maths. When I first start a story, I fill a spreadsheet with all my characters and make notes about them in each column. This is most important for their ages. Knowing a character’s age is not just about when they last had their birthday, it’s working out when they were born, when they were at university or when they started working, when they got married, when they had their first child, or second or third, when they got divorced, when they were seriously ill, perhaps knowing when they died.

Then, I have to work it out all over again in relationship to other significant characters. How old were their parents when they had them, and therefore what year was it, and therefore what was going on in the world at large or their small community that might have influenced how they were brought up and therefore what their relationship is like now? And to understand why the character’s parents acted as they did, you need to look back at their parents to see what year they were growing up in and what external factors might have affected them to affect their relationship with their kids, which affected their relationship with your character. Phew! That’s a lot of numbers.

Then, if you have a contemporary story, say, and there are kids in the story, you’ll need to be mindful of the calendar and the school holidays so you aren’t messing that up. When I was writing The Gift of Life, I was so determined to finally have a novel with no timeline issues in it, that I very carefully used a calendar to work out exactly what was happening on what day for the year 2019. (I had begun writing it in 2017 but I will always use the calendar for the year the book is published.) I was so proud of getting all my numbers right, until the first editor who looked at it said, ‘Oh, it looks like you’ve used the dates for the Qld school holidays instead of the Victorian dates.’ As the book is set in Melbourne, this was a huge problem! I couldn’t believe it. Such a silly error to make that caused a flow-on effect throughout the whole manuscript. I had to shift the timeline by a few weeks, which is a tedious thing to do because it has ripples to catch through every scene in the story.

It gets more complicated than that, too, because I tend to do a lot of stripping and rewriting in subsequent drafts and the threads of timelines can get messed up or lost along the way. No matter how hard I try, I seem to be battling timeline issues in my editing phase.

Apparently, it’s true what they say. You can’t run away from your problems. Maths will follow me wherever I go.

Winners Chosen

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Last week, I offered my VIPs the chance to win a copy of Buddhism for Meat Eaters. I received so many wonderful answers as to what they hoped to get out of reading the book that I had to choose two lucky winners! Here are some of the heartwarming responses I received. Thank you to everyone who entered. I’m sorry you couldn’t all win but I loved reading every message, thank you!

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Since I have had kids, I’ve been wrestling with the issue of eating meat… They like animals, and they’re interested in the environment, so I’d hope that reading “Buddhism for Meat Eaters” might help me find some strategies to engage them in looking at meat differently. (L)

In a house full of meat loving males I’d love to find my peace. (T)

I struggle mostly because it’s such a black and white decision: I would love to hear your thoughts on meeting in the middle to be far more conscientious as a meat eating family and being at peace with the decisions I make in the supermarket! (S)

I feel it might help our family to live with the newer ideas around food and living sustainably. (L)

I think this sounds like a great read for my daughter… she had been vegetarian but recently stopped and I am sure is wrestling with this decision as many do. (C)

We’re a family of intense animal lovers and I never felt I could adequately answer my kids’ questions about why some animals are members of the family and others are just food! (D)

I too feel guilt over my eating of meat… I’d love to find some comfort in this book, and a way of balancing those feelings. (L)

I look forward to finding out how I can help to make peace with myself. (M)

I’ve always had an issue with feeling ethically hypocritical as I’m such an animal lover and despise any form of animal cruelty. However I can’t get by without my meat. (J)

We all need to have more understanding and kindness in our world. (S)

I’d love to learn tips and tricks to be more mindful about my food choices, how I impact the world with my consumables and to read more of your writings.

Listen to Buddhism for Meat Eaters, right now.

If you can’t wait for the paperback edition of Buddhism for Meat Eaters, you can listen to it right now through Audible, read by Kate Blakk.

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Publisher’s Summary

For many years Josephine Moon struggled with the question of eating meat, fervently wishing to live as a vegetarian yet requiring meat in her diet. From Josephine’s philosophical, spiritual and physical battle with eating meat came, Buddhism for Meat Eaters – a book for animal lovers, the environmentally and ethically conscious, and generally thoughtful people who eat meat but perhaps aren’t entirely comfortable doing so. 

Open, honest, and utterly without judgement, Buddhism for Meat Eaters encourages listeners to be more mindful about their choices, rather than berating themselves for them, and offers ways for people to live ethically, honestly and guilt-free, whether as a carnivore, vegetarian, or vegan. This highly practical guide also includes workbook-style activities and topics for consideration to guide you in your own journey to making wiser decisions on how you consume, how you live, and how to change the world around you.”

 

If you’re an Audile member, you can pick it up for just $14.95 or 1 credit. If you love audio books but you aren’t a member, I can highly recommend it. I am a huge fan of audio books and look forward to spending my credit each month.

Happy listening!

The Countdown is On!

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‘An engaging, challenging and ultimately uplifting guide on how to live a compassionate life in our consumerist times.’

 

My personal stock of Buddhism for Meat Eaters arrived today and they are gorgeous! I’m still so in love with the cover and the addition of sparkly gold highlights on the finished copies really make it irresistible.

Some stock will start appearing in bookshops over the next couple of weeks, though the official release day is July 1, where all good books are sold.

You can also pre-order and/or purchase it online at Booktopia, Amazon, Bookworld, Dymocks, and Book Depository (with FREE international shipping).

For your chance to win a copy from me, make sure you are signed up to my email newsletter to find out how.

I look forward to sharing ideas on compassionate living with you very soon.

 

 

Vale, Bucket, the Biggest Bucket of Love We’ve Known

[image error]These posts are never easy to write, but I need to write them. Although our animal’s lives cannot ever be adequately summarised, I still feel the need to write each pet’s eulogy, to try just a tiny bit, to honour what they gave us in life, and to honour the grief we feel. This one is for our cat Bucket, who passed away last week from a swift and aggressive illness, the cause of which heartbreakingly remains unknown. The unanswered questions about his death–and I have many–haunt me, but this piece is not about Bucket’s death, but his wonderful life.

Bucket was named such because from the moment I picked him up–a skinny, horribly flea-infested, unwanted kitten that was being all but given away on a cold morning in Kingaroy (his price was a mere $3) he proved himself to be the biggest bucket of love I’ve ever met in a cat. He was one of three, all brothers, and my hubby and I were torn as to whether to take one kitten or all three. We started by picking up each one, to get a vibe. The first one struggled to be put down, so we put him down. The second one pushed us away, so we let him go. The third one practically crawled up our arms and clung on for dear life. Take me home, right now! So we did. I took him to the bedroom and closed the door and sat down in the corner of the room to give him some space to investigate his new home. He didn’t want space, though, he wanted me. He climbed right back into my lap and made no efforts to leave.

Being utterly infested with fleas, I had to go to the local vet to see what to do. At his tender age, the only thing I could do was give him a medicated bath. He didn’t like that one bit, and I had to do it multiple times before all those awful fleas were gone, but finally he was relieved of them. We lived in a rural location at the time, on six acres, surrounded by other acreages. We already had another cat (Jasmine), two dogs, and three horses. He was my first kitten in ten years and I had forgotten how absolutely delightful kittens were. Pure joy. (Except for the amount of times he climbed up my legs! I wore nothing but jeans for a year to protect myself.)

Bucket’s first love was cuddling, but he didn’t just receive hugs, he actively hugged back.

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His second love was mischief. At these times, our ‘bucket of love’ became a ‘bucket of trouble’. He loved the dogs, love being very much a verb, an action. He would sneak up behind them and grab onto their tails, swinging off them in a rollicking jaunt while they ran around trying to dislodge him. He would come out to the lawn with us while we threw tennis balls for the retrievers. He raced them down the hill and always got to the ball first, but as he couldn’t pick it up in his mouth, he let them pick it up and then he raced them back up the hill, where we got the ball back and threw it again and the game would start anew. When he was still less than a year old, my stepmother visited us with her poodle puppy, and Bucket and Cocoa spent an hour chasing each other up and down the hallway before locking onto each other, somersaulting over one another, wrestling enthusiastically until they both collapsed, panting with exhaustion and happiness.

These days, all our cats are one hundred per cent indoor cats, but back when Bucket was younger, he got some time to range outside on the property during the day. We started to rethink this idea when two days in a row he discovered a baby hare, killed it and brought it back into the house, happily devouring its intestines. Not long after that, our third cat Sapphy, a stray who walked in off the street not long after Bucket arrived, was bitten by a brown snake and spent a week in hospital, and we closed the door to outdoor excursions.

Because we have so many animals, it’s difficult for us to go away, but on the odd occasion it’s happened, we’ve had to have house sitters come to look after our furry family, and everyone reported that Bucket struggled with our absence the most. He was a cat who needed his cuddles.

He was a generous soul, and over his life with us he accepted into the home two more dogs, four more cats and a human baby with maturity and grace. He was one of those magnanimous animals, with love to spare for all. He was our biggest cat (part Manx, was always my suspicion)–very long from nose to tail, a hefty seven kilos at his peak, a ball of muscle beneath all that soft fur, the kind of cat you could sling over your shoulder, fireman style–with a huge heart inside.

For ten years, he was our most loving, affectionate, cuddly boy, a ginormous bucket of love. He’s gone too soon and we miss him terribly, but we know we were so blessed to have had him in our home and life. I am proud to say he had a good life, a really good one. He gave joy and he received it and I know he knew he was loved hard till the very end.

His ashes will be back soon, and he will go in the garden next to Daisy, his most favourite canine friend.

Buddhism for Meat Eaters… Why I Wrote It

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In just over a month, my second non-fiction title will be on the shelf (2 July). The dilemmas, struggles and answers included in Buddhism for Meat Eaters were ones that had been brewing for around thirty years. I always wanted to be vegetarian (preferably vegan) but my physical body did not agree. I was left with a constant sense of guilt, shame and grief over this struggle–my spirit was willing but my body wasn’t.

For years I kept a journal, thinking I could wrestle out this conflict on the page, until years later I had to accept that I had no answers. I put the journal away, and carried on with my life, never have found the peace I craved.

Then one day, I was lying awake in the middle of the night. It was a full moon and I often struggle to sleep during that lunar phase. I can’t even remember what I was thinking about specifically, but somewhere between midnight and two am, it was like the decades of struggle finally made sense. All the threads came together, and I’d finally begun to find peace in the last place I expected to uncover it: Buddhism.

I jumped up and grabbed by laptop and wrote out a page, then sent it to my agent. This! I wrote. This is what I want to write about! For the record, I don’t actually recommend you send your agent/publisher wild ramblings at two o’clock in the morning as a way of pitching an idea, but in this case, it worked. Haylee said she loved it, asked me to write out some sample chapters, began pitching it before I’d finished writing it, and I was blown away to find that it sold so quickly. Clearly, my struggles with eating meat were not unique to me. There was a market for this book. Certainly, by the number of you who have left me comments saying things like This book was written for me or I need this so much or I can’t wait to read this, I am absolutely not alone in this quandary.

Ultimately, this book is one of hope, of healing and making peace with your body, mind, plate and world. If you are drawn to it, I hope it brings you as much encouragement as it did me.

Jo x

p.s. I love this cover so much. It was designed by Lisa White, who also designed the cover for my first novel, The Tea Chest. I think Lisa truly gets my vibe.