[Tag] All About You and Around the Blogasphere

 

Greetings.

I was tagged in the All About You and Around the Blogasphere tag by the most Marvelous Mattie May of The Blossoming Writer, the lovely authoress who wrote and published the delightful  debut historical fiction novel Everlasting Gold. 

I am greatly in debt to Mattie for this, because as you can see I haven't posted in ages and really needed to get something out soon. Thanks to this tag, I can at last do that! Well I "could have" done it without the tag, but if I'm being honest, I would not have.



P.S. I would like to inform any bloggers who should happen to read this post that I am not going to be doing any blog tags that aren't themed around writing or reading, with some occasional exceptions. So if you by chance see this and stash away my blog name for future tags so you needn't go hunting later (it's okay, I do it too), please keep this in mind. Thank you!

Onto the tag!

Rules 

-Answer the following questions

-Tag at least a couple other bloggers

-Have them answer these questions

Questions

What's your favorite book/book series and why?

Wellwellwell, if it isn't the question I'm never capable of answering...
Alright I'm going to cheat and divide this up into very specific categories so as many of my favorites can fit into this as possible (if the NY Times can do it, so can I).

My favorite standalone would be The Last Dragon by Silvana De Mari. 

    I have loved this book since the very beginning of Bleeding Ink, and some time before it. I would say that it's the first book that showed me what my taste in books is.
I had read books that I loved before it (many a historical fiction novel and The Hunger Games trilogy being the ones that come to mind), but while I loved those books none of them were me. But in The Last Dragon, I really found myself in the voice of the book, in the world, in the characters. All of these things in ways which I really would not have expected. 
It also was one of the very first fantasies that I read, and so it also introduced much of my very favorite genre to me.
So many kudos and cookies are due to the translator who brought Mari's wonderful story to english-speaking readers such as myself.


My favorite MG fantasy series is The Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan. 

These books are so much fun. They're just loose adventures with endearing characters and a healthy amount of emotional issues. Halt and Will's mentor-mentee relationship is one of my favorite things ever, the horses are precious, the world is easy and fun, and the action is pretty good too.
I love them so much and I am delighted that they exist (though I am only in the third book so far). 

 
My favorite YA fantasy trilogy is the Dragons' Bane trilogy by Melody Jackson.

    This trilogy catches a lot of flack and is generally disliked by many people who read it. But it will forever hold a very near and dear place in my heart. There's so much depth to it, so much intention. It's easy to miss when you read it the first time, or even if you just read it without the willingness to see things a bit differently from how you're naturally inclined to. 
But once you see it, and once you follow the breadcrumbs of all the hidden amazingness, it is so, so cool. Not to mention, the emotion and humor and characters are just wonderful.
I have so much respect for what Jackson did with this trilogy, for the careful execution of the story and for one character and their arch in particular. 

My favorite adult fantasy series is The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson.

This series. It is phenomenal. 
 

My favorite YA sci-fi trilogy is The Fire Rain Chronicles by Miranda Marie.

    This trilogy was so. good. It's got a few things I really wasn't big on, but as a whole the characters, the overarching story, the prose - they were so solid. Marie did a great job on this trilogy and merged sci-fi, dystopia, and just a hint of fantasy together in such a delightful way.
This story is also very intense at times and I quite literally zoomed through all three books because of ye olden "I have to know what happens next" feelings in addition to the general fast-paced nature of it all.
Talking about this is making me feel that a re-read is due...

My favorite classic novel is  Great Expectations (I say, having not finished it even after five years)  or the Jane Eyre.

    But see this isn't even accurate because I read a lot of classics. So many. Because they're so easy to get a hold of in audiobook or physical copy, I probably read more classics than anything else. Besides that they're just so good, and have so much to offer that modern fiction doesn't.
I just really love classics.
Sherlock, Austen, Tolkien, Lewis, Twain, Montgomery, Alcott... I don't know, there's just so many books to love! Even getting into oddly specific categories won't fit everything in...

But anyways, I'll at least talk about the two I mentioned. Just know that there are many, many more and these are only two of them all.

Great Expectations - I just love this book so much. The atmosphere, the foreshadowing, the characters, the prose, the meaning, the depth, Joe Gargery. One can't not love Great Expectations. Well, unless you hate it because of the pain it gives you, but even then, that's still loving it. 

Jane Eyre - Another one of my favorites that catches much flack! Why must my reading taste be so controversial... Anyways I love this one not for the gothic appeal (I didn't even know this book was paraded as a gothic romance until after I read it, and only picked up on the occasional gothic feeling when I was reading) nor the romance (though it is there, I didn't see it as the focus at all, and also don't find it to be problematic as so many readers seem to) but for Jane. Jane is so very precious. She's so strong and endearing and beautiful, an absolute treasure of a character. 
She stands for what she believes, she- ... oh wait that's a spoiler. Basically she sacrifices things she loves, things she wants, for what she knows is good and right. She is such a good role model and definetly one of those characters I can think back on and find comfort and courage in.

(slipping in an extra here because talking about controversial opinions reminded me...) Dracula - I loved Dracula by Bram Stoker. Loved it, I tell you. And I hate vampires. So why did I love this book so much? The CHARACTERS. Oh my word did I love these characters. The bond they all had for each other, the deep love and care they had as a group, the strength and endurance they all showed in such traumatic situations- AH I just LOVE IT. 

Now liking Dracula isn't the controversial part. The controversial part is me saying that I didn't find it to be a deep conversation on the role of womanhood. Granted, I haven't studied Bram as I have other writers, so I really wouldn't know. But I read the book just as the book, and found the ladies to be lovely and strong (though they weren't my favorite characters), and the way the men treated them made lots of sense given the story and also just seemed normal and sweet? They all cared for them in different ways, as people tend to. 
But that is, perhaps, a conversation for another post in which I can talk full spoilers. 

My favorite children's novel is either Peter Pan or Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

    I really love both of these books so much. They have two very different approaches to very similar topics. They're both about a child who goes into another world filled with magic and adventure.
But Peter Pan is a bit more dramatic when you think about it, and a bit tragic though in a good sort of way. It's full of fun and swashbuckling, little boy mischief and magic, and all sorts of wonderful things. But there's also quite a bit of deepness to it that hits every so often.
Peter Pan is definetly good just as a story, but it's also a very good conversation with young people about childhood and growing up (and even adults). 

Meanwhile, Alice In Wonderland is literal nonsense. Not in the romantic gothic way which people insist upon depicting it, but in a crazy, wacky, funny, absolutely perplexing way. Jam-in-a-watch sort of way. March-around-in-a-circle-while-water-washes-over-you-to-dry-off sort of way. Talk-to-a-stoner-caterpillar-and-take-his-advice-about-eating-mushrooms sort of way.  
Alice In Wonderland is pure fun nonsense. That is literally why Carroll came up with it - he was telling a story to a little girl named Alice, her sisters, and his friend, and Alice requested a story about complete nonsense. 
It's not a deep conversation, it's not got symbolism, it's just unhinged lunacy. It's funny and delightful, but it isn't deep (though you may say it's deep into madness). 

So I love both of these stories very much, for two very different reasons.



What is your favorite food?

Food is largely an unfortunate necessity for me and I don't really care for it as a whole (excluding chocolate. That does not count).  But I quite enjoy rice and various ways in which it is prepared, especially with bell peppers. 

Who is your favorite author?

I- I don't know.
I... don't know.
*returns to my crisis from earlier* 
I love so many authors. I have consistently enjoyed the majority of Jane Austen, Miranda Marie, Brandon Sanderson, and L.M. Montgomery. I know there's more but I'm just gonna cut it off there otherwise we really will be here forever.

What gives you inspiration for your books?

I always find this to be a bit of a silly question. What doesn't inspire me? A literal jar of soap inspired me once. Here I might actually have a picture...

Yeah that's poor quality but there it is. Literal cylinder of soap.
It inspired a mermaid story.

Anything and everything has the potential to inspire me. Once I heard a lady's name, and that sparked a whole story. Sometimes a random phrase will pop into my head and I'll turn it into something. Sometimes I'll hear a song and get a story out of it. 
There's no exact source, it's just life itself, really.

Though I suppose visuals are something that tend to generally inspire me. I have a collection of pictures of things that just sparked something in me, but those things haven't been turned into stories. 


If we want to be more specific, what inspired the stories I already have established and am working on, then that's still a wide variety of answers. The original spark for Roslyn was a prompt that said something about a character being turned into an inanimate object, the example being a chair or something. "Well that's weird," thought I, "and sounds like it'd be the makings of a comedy."
Then I paused and was like "WAIT." as the story of Roslyn was born in my mind.

The Rising was sparked into existence via the Bible. I have long stood on the perspective that the Bible is a high-fantasy story that is real. There's a magic system - it's God. There's dragons. There's battles and wars. There's kings and queens and princes and princesses. Rival kingdoms. Blessings, curses. Angels, demons. Swords.  Mountains. Sacrifice. Love. Passion. Honor. Duty. All that good stuff. 
And now I'm working on a story all about that. Using these amazing people as characters, using this amazing story as inspiration. It's not a re-telling nor is it a novelization. It isn't allegory. I don't know how to explain it. It's kind of its own thing, but it would be nowhere without the Bible.

Unnamed (yes that's its actual name) was inspired by a game called "Off," and a few personal things.

The Experiment was initially inspired by a song.

The Little People of Their Place was inspired by the true story of the girls who "invented" fairies (they didn't actually invent them, but they're credited for it. They're two sisters who basically faked photos and stuff. Long story) as well as the novel The Silver Donkey. 


So once again, anything and everything has the potential to inspire me.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Like Mattie, I will say the mountains. Mountains or tucked away in Ireland's countryside, surrounded by trees and possibly a marsh not too far away. Basically somewhere green and cool with privacy, away from roads and man-made noises, and somewhere that I can keep a garden. Preferably in a cabin or cottage.




Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

I dislike these terms as people use them for their identities, which is silly. But I am indeed an introvert; I introspect and gain energy from time apart from people via reading, creating, and praying. 
As all introverts are required to say (similarly to how all extroverts are required to say they do like time to themselves), I do love people and quite enjoy spending time with them. I also often "borrow" the energy of other people (an interesting survival tactic that comes naturally to quite a few people), but have a warm up period and can grow tired fairly easily depending on the time of social interaction I am having.

If you had a warning label, what would yours say?

I do not know. I live with me 24/7,  you see, and am desensitized to my own ways. Based off of my dear sister Liana's descriptions of me, perhaps something along these lines, "Caution: Appears to be a regular human. Is in fact a goblin. Goblin side will only come out after you have gotten to know the human very well with plenty of face-to-face interaction. To avoid exposure to the goblin tendencies, refrain from becoming close with this creature. Goblin is not inherently dangerous but can behave in spontaneous and occasionally hazardous ways." 




Ye Whom I Tag:

Julia from Julia's Creative Corner

Allie from Of Rainy Days and Stardust Veins

Libby from Thoughts from a Stumbling Saint

Alright my inky friends, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the post. If you're a blogger, please feel free to tag yourself and write out your answers on your own website. If you're just a reader but have your own answers you'd like to give, please feel free to do so in the comments below.


Until next time.

- E.P.

CC: The Intentions of Classical Fiction

 

Hello reader,

Today I want to talk to you about classics. 
On my very aesthetic adventure, I realized for what may have been the first time how much I really do love classics. A few days ago, I was catching up with a friend who read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen for the first time and was pleasantly surprised to find it not as romance-based as the movie. We discussed why that is, and that sparked a post idea.
Recently, I was talking with some fellow writers about Peter Pan and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, and quickly found myself gushing about the latter (this is not because I do not also love Peter Pan, but rather is the result of the direction which the conversation went). 
I then thought I should write to you about my thoughts on Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

With all of the above in mind, you can expect more posts regarding classics, all which will be tagged as the "Concerning Classics" (or "CC") series. And for today, we're going to talk about how classics compare to modern fiction.

This will be very rambley as I am writing this in the very early hours. 

One thing that I think really separates classic books from modern books is the intention of the story. 
In the modern day, we tend to write fictional stories just for entertainment. But often times, classical fiction has some kind of meaning or intent. Sometimes it's tucked away, an underlying theme that affects  the atmosphere. Sometimes it's blatantly direct. And yes, sometimes perhaps there is no real intent behind a classic story. But it is something that largely sets the older works apart from the current ones. 

May I give you some examples? 

Look at Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. This is a story about a woman whose constants in life are loss and mistreatment as she embarks on the path of life, striving to be an honorable and Godly woman and to always do right. 
In that case, the theme of staying true to your convictions, to staying true to the standards you have set and to the God which you have devoted yourself to, is quite obvious.

The intent, then, is much the same. 

In the case of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens... well, there are many themes (another trend within classical literature). One, though, is contrast. Contrast between who we are and who we become. Throughout the story we follow Pip, who starts as a young and poor boy but later receives an income from an unnamed benefactor or benefactress. 
He grows in many ways throughout the story. The best way I can think to describe this (forgive me if this makes no sense, as I said it is the wee hours of the morning when I am writing this) is that there can be severe contrast between shades of the same color. Baby blue and navy blue contrast against each other extremely, but they are both still blue. 
Pip in the beginning and Pip throughout the story are both still Pip, he is recognizable all the way through as such, and yet who he becomes and who he was is still contrasted so extremely (it's really very fascinating, perhaps I will do a discussion post dedicated to Great Expectations). 

The intent of this story could be a great many things, but I believe that one of the intentions is indeed to show the contrast of a person's individual growth. 

And what of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen? The theme is largely showing that both sides of a story are faulted. "Pride" and "prejudice" could refer to either Elizabeth or Darcy, for they both have pride and prejudice, which is something made clearer the more you advance in the story. 

The intent is the same. 



Even Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll has an underlying theme. 
Now before my fellow Alice fans get riled up about how Carroll literally made this story to be stuff and nonsense, please, read on.
I do not deny that this story was originally told to be pure lunacy (if you do not know how the story came to be, please do check back for another post later, for I have every intention of doing an Alice In Wonderland post which will go over that). In fact, just the opposite. 
Because you see, that is the theme: Nonsense. 
The meaning of this story, of the majority of Carroll's fictional work as far as I am aware, is that not everything needs to make sense. Not everything needs to be logical, factual, smart. Some things can just be pure fun. 

And that is the intent of the story Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, to remind you that you do not always need to make sense. 

And there are so many other examples, such as Peter Pan's conversation regarding childhood and growing up, Frankenstein's discussion about monstrosities and what makes them, To Kill A Mockingbird's general life discussion, Tuck Everlasting's moral of mortality and living, Lord of The Ring's moral of hope and doing what is right... The list could go on and on.

 

Something you may be thinking about all this is the fact that modern fiction has themes as well. To which I say yes, it does. But the thing that I believe truly draws a line between modern work and classic work is that classical literature's theme and intent are the same thing. 

For example, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collin's main theme is a girl who no one expected anything from standing against oppression and tyranny. 
While that is a very inspiring thing, and I am sure Suzanne Collins was hoping for it to be, the difference is that it was written more to tell a story than it was to have a conversation with the reader. 
This isn't at all a bad thing, so please do not think I'm bringing down modern fiction, but it is an interesting thing.

If you're not sure of what I mean, consider the differences between how stories were written then and now. 
Jane Eyre is also a story about a girl who no one expected anything from, and while she isn't causing wars and all that she is still taking many hits in a more realistic way. 
Because of this (as well as the writing style of that particular novel), we're going to use it in comparison with The Hunger Games. 

THG is first person present tense. This means that you're "there" with Katniss through it all. You're seeing it as it happens and you're seeing it from her perspective. 
Katniss is focused on what is happening around her, and as far as she is concerned there is no reader, there is only the here and now and the people right in front of her.

Jane Eyre is first person past tense. This means that Jane is recounting her story to you, the reader, and this narrative choice opens up the ability for her to talk directly to you about what is happening in the story with the hindsight she now has (this is literally how the story is written).

The former is written to be an experience, the latter is written to be more of a conversation. 

While The Hunger Games has great themes, it's intention is to be entertainment. 
Jane Eyre is entertaining, and indeed Charlotte Brontë surely intended it to be so, but it's intention is also largely to convey its themes. 

The reason I don't say THG is trying to convey something and be entertainment in equal parts, but that Jane Eyre is, is because of the difference between society back then and society today. 


As I said, the majority of classics have an intent. Through my rather basic understanding of the time in which most of these classics were written, and through my knowledge of the authors and the stories themselves, I have come to believe that making social commentary in your book is just what you did back then. 
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass are all classics which have at some point had letters from the authors included in the printed copies. 
These letters were each public statements regarding the author's opinions on something to do with society. 
Oliver Twist's I cannot remember clearly (it has been some time since I read the letter), but I seem to recall that it had several letters in which Mr. Dickens called out society for numerous things regarding his story. 

Northanger Abbey had a letter saying that the opinions expressed in the story did not necessarily still represent the author's opinions in the present day.

Tom Sawyer's note expressed Mark Twain's desire that his story, while intended for young boys, would be enjoyed by all men and women and that it would bring them back to the days when they themselves were youths.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass had an Easter letter encouraging children who were fans of the story to enjoy Easter Sunday, because one just shouldn't be solemn on such a wonderful day. 

These letters all express further what the authors have expressed in the narration of their books (although in Austen's case, it was to say she once did express her opinions in her work and now did not necessarily still hold to those opinions). 
These, as well as the many other examples of this, show that social commentary in a narrative was just the norm. 

Whereas today, we are more entertainment based. Once more, this doesn't mean that authors don't hope a reader will be inspired or that they don't represent their own opinions in their work. But the focus is different. 
Even an author who is just telling the story the way it goes (I am a writer of this sort) isn't necessarily inserting a moral, intent, theme, meaning, or social commentary to their story, but are rather just following the path the story naturally would take. 

To conclude the post, I think the main intention of every classic at the end of the day is to cause the reader to think. I don't think I've ever walked away from a classic without having thought deeply at some point during the reading process. 
Due to all of the above, classics bring so much to the conversation. From topics as heavy as death itself or as light as literal nonsense, they are written so strongly from their author's perspective that something new, something intriguing, is always presented. Maybe not throughout the story, maybe it's just one sentence, but it's always there. 

I think that this is a goal of the authors' for the same reason I think the social commentary is intentional. And I think that is often is for modern authors as well. But again, in the modern day stories are written to be experienced. In the classical era(s), it seems they were written more to be heard. 
So while one makes you think as if its happening to you, the other allows you to think as an outsider but with all the inside knowledge.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Some days later, though I do not recall how many.**

That is all for this rambled discussion regarding the intentions of classical fiction and how said intentions set classical work apart from modern. 

I know that this was rather messy and I'm sure I failed to correct paragraph breaks and odd grammar, but I did attempt to make it more readable than it was when I wrote this at a time in which the sun and moon were both asleep, while maintaining the character of it. 

That is to say, I tried, but I didn't try all that hard. 

I do so hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, and that it caused to be to interested in some classics if you were not previously. And if you were, or if this post brings you to pick up a piece of classical literature, please do tell me what you think on this matter. 

In a coming post (not sure when it will be coming) I will be discussions classical book-to-film adaptions, which will further go into the social commentary and writing style that were mentioned in this post. 

Do you have any particular things concerning classics which you would like my thoughts on? Please do let me know.

Kind regards,

- E.P.