Alledria Hurt's Blog, page 26

Thinking about "Maleficent"

So took the time to go see "Maleficent" starring Angelina Jolie. I'm a little bit of a fairy tale junkie though I tend to avoid the Disney versions as much as possible so I was interested to see how they were going to change the story.
Before I got there, I had my suspicions that Maleficent was going to be turned into an anti-hero. That seemed the most logical way to make her a somewhat likable character. It can be difficult to create a story centering on a villain that people will actually like. The only downside was, as I internally predicted, they gave her a tragic backstory to facilitate her turn to bitter and evil. I had been hoping they would find a better way to do that, but why fix what isn't broken, the trope works. It automatically makes the character at least somewhat sympathetic, a necessary quality.
One thing I did find very interesting was how Maleficent seems it have fallen victim to one of the pixies' gifts to Aurora, the gift of being beloved. Despite her desire to hate her, and her sometimes impatience with her, Maleficent finds herself just as charmed by the girl as everyone else. It gives her a chance to grow as a character, so much so that she wants to take away the curse and feels bad when it comes to fruition.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie with its good points and its flaws. They took a lesser used fairy tale (there are how many different versions of Cinderella and Snow White) and refreshed it. 

Looking at Transcendence

I went to see "Transcendence" (starring Johnny Depp) and found myself immediately seeing it as a cautionary tale about the overreaching of technology. However, after some consideration, that might be too easy because the technology itself doesn't necessarily cause a problem. Instead, it is the movement of technology without limitations that causes the problem.

Several times in the movie, Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is characterized as someone who had no real interest in changing the world. Yet when he becomes the computer, he suddenly has this desire to change everything for the better. If he didn't have that desire before, where did it come from considering that him as a computer is supposed to be a direct copy of the man himself? However, when you add his wife, Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall), you find out where this desire comes from. She wants to change the world for the better. She is the one who sees technology as a way to erase the damage done by human beings.

Therefore, it is not necessarily the technology itself, but the connection of technology with human drive that causes the problem. Am I saying we shouldn't want to change the world for the better? No, but this comments on Ian Malcolm's old saying, "They were so busy seeing if they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." Pinn, the computer program used to underpin Dr. Caster's electronic self, was said to be unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. One of the things about right and wrong is knowing when you've moved from one to the other. Sometimes the line is very thin and easily missed.

So is this a cautionary tale about technological drive or human drive?

The Music In Our Heads

It's generally understood writers take in stimulus from every direction in order to build our own worlds. One of the primary stimuli is music, or the lack thereof. It informs our process. I personally end up with specific portions of a work or even certain characters finding their theme song on my IPod or the radio. (If it's the radio, I am compelled to own the song fairly soon in order to recapture the moment of bliss that comes from knowing this song evokes something specific.)

In my writing group, it has become generally understood, to a degree, we are all music junkies. Whether it is with words or without words, we have to have some kind of musical accompaniment to make the magic happen. Honestly, whether it is with or without words becomes a matter of debate because one section of the book may be written to one song while another is written to something else entirely.

Right now, I'm under the spell of the original soundtrack for "Pacific Rim". It's big, very big, considering it's the soundtrack to a movie about SAVING THE WORLD, which is what my main character is currently having to deal with (along with a few side quests), it really needed to be. That and the movie needed to fit with the giant robots and epic monster battles.

What do you listen to when you're writing? Do your characters fall in love with a certain song playing in the background?

After the Project

Yesterday, I sent my novel, "Dark King Rising", out to a publisher. Immediately after I hit SEND a wave of relief washed over me and inside a sense of contentment whispered, "It is done". I was riding high on the sense of accomplishment of having not only completed something, but having begun the logical next step of putting it out there for a possible audience. To quote a TV show, I felt like "King Kong on cocaine". Judge my tastes how you will. Today is different.

Today, I look with longing at a file I no longer have to open and find myself wondering about the lives of people who have never existed anywhere but in my mind. Today, I feel let down and a little broken, the first few steps into a self-imposed exile. Today, I'm depressed. From King Kong to a field mouse and the tractor's coming.

I've been told, by artists wiser and more experienced, this is not unusual. There is first the elation, then the deflation. Like Icarus you marvel at the sun and then seconds later are choking on the waves. This is the artist's life. In a way, I guess you could say, we (artists in general) spend our lives chasing that high. The knife's edge of done before the full recognition of being done sets in. The moment of marveling at Narnia before you realize you're once more in England and have to go to school.

I don't know that I'm ready to start on something else yet. Not that I don't have enough projects to keep me quite busy, but I don't feel quite closed with this one yet. As if I need a mourning period before I can fling myself fully into the next thing, the next world, the next villain, the next protagonist, the next problem. So for now, I putter. I flirt with a book (or three). I watch bad television. And I wait for the tears to pass. I have a standing appointment with friends who write this evening and will try to stir myself to the next project.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Before I typed the ominous words "THE END" on the final page of "Dark King Rising" other characters were clamoring for my attention like children when Momma has finally come home from being long away. They badly want to escape their infancy and live their lives on the page, but I've been so busy raising one, the others have simply had to wait. Now they sense THE END of their waiting, that one lucky one of them will be next. So they tug at my attention and whisper in my inner ear of things we could do together, of empires we can make and break, of adventures unstarted, and they seek to lure me onward no matter how tired I may seem. I'm almost ready to hear them. Maybe later today.



"King Kong on Cocaine" comes from an episode of CSI. :P

On Banning Bossy

I'll be honest, the first I saw of the "Ban Bossy" movement was on a friend's Facebook page where she had a knee jerk, antagonized reaction to the idea. I'll sum up her thoughts by saying, her opinions were unfounded at best. Either way, she brought "Ban Bossy" to my attention since immediately after reading her comments, I had to look it up and find out why she was ranting. This lead me to Ban Bossy's Official Page. I was not surprised by the connection to the Girl Scouts, they generally seem to be interested in what is good for the majority of up and coming young ladies.

My personal interaction with the Girl Scouts has left some indelible marks on me.

The next day, Sunday, I mentioned the whole thing to my mother before going out to run errands only to come home to a copy of the March 9th 2014 Parade sitting on my writing desk. It featured the article, "3 Influential Women, One Powerful Message: What Condoleezza Rice, Sheryl Sandberg, and Girl Scouts CEO Anna Maria Chavez want girls everywhere to know". Other than Condoleezza Rice, I had no idea who either of these other women were.

For those who don't know what "Ban Bossy" is about, here's the short version: The word "bossy" is a word which, unfortunately, is often used against young women in an attempt to remind them that they are not to be leading. Therefore, it disproportionately discourages young women from being willing to lead or speak up. Thus, the word needs to go.

This is a laudable goal, but I have to wonder how well this strategy is going to work. Consider the history of prohibition in this country. We have a day devoted to Banned Books. Prohibition as an actual law didn't do all that well. Words we are told not to use, regardless of the reason why, become the words with an unhealthy draw (e.g. Fuck, Nigger, or Bitch). We don't really seem to like being told what to do. So I have to wonder what the backlash of this will be. However, I fully intend to support the movement regardless. I'm an aunt watching several little girls grow up and I want them to grow up as strong as they possibly can.