James Joyce. I've not read him in any knowledgeable way. Cried through "Portrait of the Artist"
in school and was like "Words! Pretty!" with Ulysses. It's like how I know classical music
from Bugs Bunny cartoons. I'm not dissing Molly Bloom; I love her, I love the book, I get drunk reading Joyce and anyway, she has the best unpunctuated orgasm in history.
I caved in to the Potter phenomenon a couple of weeks ago (much to the horror of certain friends of mine, who I suspect, once they figure out that absolutely everyone has taken to this 'breathing' thing like fish to water, will soon die a sad un-oxygenated death).
I don't like Hardy, although it's not that I can't read him. I just want to feed him Prozac
and give him puppies. Which, when you're at that stage that your psychoanalysis of the author
gets in the way of your reading his book? Is an issue.
Hemingway....yuck. I had to read "Old Man and The Sea" over the summer once. Though it was short, I'm apparently still quite bitter about it. I remember thinking "If I wrote that, I'd shoot myself too,"
IIRC, The Knight's Tale involves two knights who both fall in love with the same girl. I seem to remember that they were imprisoned in a tower, or something, and they both saw her and fell in love with her. And one of them escaped and one of them didn't. And it all went a bit pear-shaped, or something. Huh. But maybe I'm mixing it up with one of the other tales. Hmm.
The Miller's Tale, however, I remember quite vividly - the business of the love-struck geekboy kissing her nether lips 'full savourly' in the mistaken belief that it was her mouth, and then gradually thinking "Hmm... hang on, girls don't have beards....eeew! Eeeew! Nether kissage!" She got to have lots of great sex and not get punished for it at all, although Handy Nicholas, the student/lodger she was shagging, did get a red hot poker up the arse. But then he did fart in someone's face, which is jolly rude in the Skyzy Book of Etiquette, so hot pokers were only to be expected. Um...from which we learn that in terms of memorability it's Cheap Pube Jokes 1, Tragic Tales of Courtly Love 0.
the lifestyle level.
They always say that stories take on a life of their own. Mine is apparently a big slut and
will run away with whoever wants to throw their favorite hunky guy in it. It makes writing very depressing. But here I am now, doing an obscene amount of writing like I never took a month
off to conquer Germany. Might have something to do with how bad the books have been sucking lately. Nobody is ever kidnapped with chloroform any more. I feel this is an important plot trope that should appear in more popular novels. Also white slavery. And duels. And what happened to the laudanum? What, it's not fashionable enough for your modern druggers? (Is druggers a real word? No. Look! Shiny thing!)
Of course, I have rules for my writing. It generally tends to be "Please edit more. Seriously. No, I'm not kidding even a bit. Less words." Harsh on myself, but then again, nothing says Happy Author like hanging your main character. Second rule? Never use more than two adjectives to describe a body part. Unless, of course, it's papery, vibrating, and bright green. And that's generally it for rules....But, anybody, no matter how distinguished, who tells you "If you don't X, you can't write" is wrong. Unless "X" is "write".
I never do any writing in journals. My handwriting is schizophrenic. It starts off okay, it's taking the lithium and pressing neatly along, but then it forgets a pill or two, starts hearing voices, gets paranoid and cramped, then scrawls off into oblivion. But, I live like I type: fast, with a lot of mistakes. I feel the loss of motor function adds character, and anyway I want to build my alibi for when I start accidentally whacking people who piss me off upside the head.
OrigTurtle: I won't let you forget to bring it
Skyzy88: sure, wake me up at 2:00 am "skyzy. bring. the. sticker."
OrigTurtle: do you want me to call you at 8
Skyzy88: not like i'd be asleep or anything
Skyzy88: wait, 8 am or pm?
OrigTurtle: am
Skyzy88: no! I'll be asleep by then
OrigTurtle: 8:15 ?
Skyzy88: eh, i might have woken up
OrigTurtle: 8:17
Skyzy88: okay, my cell phone snooze goes off in incriments of 6 minutes
Skyzy88: if it's set to go off at 7:30 am, and i snooze it, what time will it go off the closest to 8:20?
OrigTurtle: 8:18
Skyzy88: past that
OrigTurtle: 8:24
Skyzy88: now, we also got to calculate that my other alarm clock goes off in increments of 9 minutes
Skyzy88: and i set that to start going off at 7:30 am
Skyzy88: however, the clock is also fast by an hour and 45 minutes
OrigTurtle: We don't have a math item about that ?
Skyzy88: don't we? i should mention this to WW