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Thursday 11 October 2012

Everyone Has A Book Inside Them

Who takes the time to stare around a big, old library and really count the number of books piled up within? In a library you're bound to have more than 100,000 books stashed along the walls, and that's not even 1% of the total amount of books that exist in the world today. 

Literature has been one of the world's most popular and lasting art for thousands of years, preceded only by music. Every book must have an author and there are billions of names out there attached to the literary masterpieces. Some of these names are fake, of course, and many names have long since passed away, but their works live on.

Now I know I often go on about how much I hate it when celebrities come out with this or that book... For God's sake, who wants to read Justin Bieber's autobiography? I mean he's eighteen. Nothing's happened in his life yet worth noting! However for the most part, intellectual celebrities like Stephen Fry and David Attenborough come out with very interesting and entertaining books. Therefore, I shouldn't generalize celebrities into such a large category as many are educated and intelligent individuals who have the potential to write a startling and intriguing book. 

To be honest, anyone who has a story inside of them, who wants to write for the right reasons, who HAS to write for their own sanity should grab a laptop or a pad of paper and set to it. Everyone has two sides of the brain, the creative side and the logical side. Certainly there are people out there who neglect to use their logical side, but everyone has the means to produce a great art. Everyone has a book inside of them.

Candace Bushnell said that 'A writer must be fearless. A writer has to be like a clawed animal', and of course that is the same for anything you want to do in life. You have to fight for what you believe in, so you can't just sit back and imagine that if you dream about the possibility for long enough the story will write itself. You need to make your dream a reality. 

I've heard a lot of people say that they'd love to write a book, that they have the idea for something big, and a lot of the time I agree with them. Therefore I don't understand why they don't just go for it. Maybe its just not the right time at the moment; they're trying to get a new job, they have young kids, they're moving house, going on holiday, snowed under with work... The list is endless. To that I say 'enough'. If you work really hard, you can get about 700 words in half an hour. That's all it takes! If you're really dedicated to your ideas and you feel the need to write, then set aside half an hour a day for that. By the time you reach your 100th day, your manuscript can be considered a novella, and after that you just keep on trucking until it's done. 

One of my favorite quotes about writers is this: 
I spoke fire, laughed smoke,and madness
spilled forth from my inspiration.
Arthur Holitscher

In other news, I found this amazing clip on Youtube, which has absolutely nothing to do with writing or novels at all, but it touched my heart so deeply, and I've watched it about twenty times. It makes me really think about life, which is so rare in today's crazy society. I decided I just have to share this with you, so tell me what you think!
I'm listening to it again now... 

Thursday 4 October 2012

Where Do These Influences Come From?

I've been reading about people; their behavior, personality, accent. We are continually changing, continually improving ourselves. There is so much about us that we control, but how are influences involved? 

Our parents have a role in influencing us, and our families and the places we are from. Our friends give us feedback and our teachers help us to learn new information. Our character is built around the things we learn from the world around us, but it is also influenced these days by media, particularly books. 

As a first glance, this doesn't seem so bad. Having the inspiration of different authors with different points of view is great! We have a better understanding of others if we can accept their views and learn their ways. If a character is clever, hard working, kind, this can be a good influence on young people. This is generally the reason parents read bedtime stories with their children. 

I recently read a story to my little cousins called 'Grunter: The Story Of A Pig With Attitude' and it was about a malicious, selfish and overbearing pig who was not popular with the other animals on the farm. In fact, they hated him so much that on his birthday they blew him into outer space with a stick of TNT! These sorts of books are very good for teaching small children the difference between good traits and bad traits, particularly since no child wants to explode on their birthday. 

However, it is more difficult to find the bad traits in non-children's fiction. The boundaries aren't quite as clear  in adult fiction, and to emulate some characters would be downright dangerous. For example, to follow the interests of a certain Christian Grey or the tyrannical President Snow of the Capitol would make for a difficult life in our society. Even valiant Robin Hood is a hazardous influence. He's become a symbol of modern justice, a snub to the ruling class and a celebration of independence and fair play, but he is still a liar and a thief.

Fictional characters out of novels and folktales can also be troubling. The vast popularity of the Frankenstein story may well have triggered scientific horrors such as human experiments and mutations within concentration camps and prisons. However, it also may have inspired such medical advances as organ transplants, cardiac defibrillation and reattachment of severed limbs, saving millions of lives. 

In short, I feel that we our to each make our own decisions. With each novel I read I take in the character with a pinch of salt. If the author is not perfect, then how can his characters be? It is impossible not to be influenced by the goings on around us, but at the same time we should try to find the good rather than the bad in each aspect we build of ourselves.