Hey#comments

Hey#comments


Thought this was a cool tool.

Parlez-vous français ?

French… my next feat. Why am I doing this to myself - learning another language and taking a class. Once I graduated last year with my Bachelors in Anthropology, I vowed I would never ever sit in another formal classroom again. I guess that I have failed but its a good kind of failure. I feel like to fully embrace my book, learning French is a must (its set in Paris so what better thing to do than learn the language).
I figure if I can learn Mandarin Chinese then I can do anything. Seven years ago, I lived in Taiwan for some time and was able to learn the language. I swear Chinese took 10 years off of my life. It was incredibly difficult. How many years will French take off of my life, I wonder?
Funny story, a few years back, there was an ASL class straight after the one I attended. They would only sign when they were in the class. Automatically, my mind thought, “If you want to communicate with them then you should speak Chinese. They will understand you for sure!” At that point, Chinese almost came out of my mouth (once it actually did).
The same thing happened last year when I traveled to France and Italy. There was numerous times where I almost caught myself trying to communicate with the natives in Chinese. Of course, I thought, they for sure will understand me. It made me laugh every time that Chinese did come out of my mouth.
Hopefully, learning French will help me to communicate with French speaking people instead of whipping out my Chinese to them. The problem now is not to speak FreChinglish while learning.

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Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent: Do You Suffer From One of These Writing Maladies?

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Get This Song Out of my Head before I go Crazy Song

Over this last weekend, I discovered a song by Shakira called "Waka Waka". I loved, loved, and loved it. I use the past tense due to the fact that I listened to it so much yesterday (over and over and over) that I arduously had to try to fall asleep last night because the song kept running through my head. I finally resorted to using my "get this song out of my head before I go crazy song", "Hakuna Matata" from the "Lion King", to push the song out of my head. Oui, the only song that will push any other out of my head is “Hakuna Matata.” The good thing is that “Hakuna Matata” does not get stuck in my head and it is rather good. J

At any rate, "Hakuna Matata" worked its magic, boda bing boda boom, the song was out of my head. Phew, I was about to go crazy! I like my sleep and that song was keeping me from it. Grrr. I fell asleep shortly thereafter. Any who, I still like the song and would love to listen to it but fear that doing so will ultimately get the song stuck in my head again. What am I to do? Such a dilemma, silly as it may sound. I will not listen to it for at least another couple of weeks but when that happens, I will only listen to it once, or at least I will try. I have the issue that when I really enjoy a song, I fall into the trap that I listen to it over and over and over again. Sometimes the song sticks but other times it doesn't.

To get to the point, I will pose two questions:

1. What is your "Get This Song Out of my Head before I go Crazy Song"? If you don’t have one, find one. It will be your saving grace one day. Make sure that it is a song that won’t get stuck in your head.

And

2. What is the most annoying song that has ever been stuck in your head and for how long? Perhaps, you still have a song stuck in your head that tragically has been in your head for a decade. That would be terrible, don't you think? My apologies if that is your case.

Now for a "Felicite Comes" related topic: I have been irresponsible for the past week or so. I have not touched any editing at all. I must repent, move on, and edit. Life just gets a wee bit too busy sometimes and in the way for that matter. I really just want to get past this stage so that I can move on to bigger and better things like finding my agent! He or she will come (maybe riding a white horse too. My knight in shining, “I am going to get your book published”, armor)!

Interesting Little Tidbit about Paris

A little background to today's post... The past two days, I went hiking in Southern Utah with some friends. I realized with the time driving there and spent enjoying nature that I really think about my book a lot. I ponder how I can make it better and, of course, how I can promote it. Any who, with that said, during the hiking adventure, me and a friend talked about Paris. The setting of "Felicite Comes" (my novel). Hehe! Recently, she spent some time in the "City of Love" or you could say the "City of Lights". Emphasis added. She expressed how much she enjoyed going to the catacombs. I did not know that Paris had catacombs. I went there last year and was completely ignorant of the elaborate system of catacombs that lay beneath my feet. I should probably say far beneath my feet. It intrigued me enough that when I arrived home, I decided to do some Internet research about the said catacombs. Of course, I got cleaned up and took notice to the sunburn that accompanied me home and sighed because the sun always gets the better of me. Enough with the tangents, Julia! Hmm, where was I? Oh, yes, it is simply amazing that underneath that city, millions of bones are deposited and, most excitingly, they are on display.

It takes me back to my trip to Rome, Italy last year. I went on a tour of some of the catacombs there. With the tour, they said that most if not all of the bones or remains have been relocated or else many hundreds of years ago were unfortunately robbed. With the catacombs in Paris, the bones are still there. They are even used for elaborate designs on the walls. I am going to post some links for you to feast your eyes on. That sounds sort of gross, doesn't it? Well, at any rate, on my trip that I am planning to take next year to Paris for research, I am most certainly going to take an afternoon off to enjoy the underground world of Paris, the catacombs.

http://www.catacombes-de-paris.fr/english.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Editing with Icecream

The other night I tried to eat a bowl of Cookies and Cream ice cream (my fav) while editing my book. Not the best of ideas. First of all, I was distracted from editing because of the tasty, sweet goodness. Secondly, it got all over my shirt because I wasn't paying attention to the spoon dripping the tasty, sweet goodness onto my shirt. And thirdly, it was hard to read aloud to get a good edit of the book. Word to the wise, don't eat ice cream while editing. hehe. I love myself!

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Books made into Movies: What say you?

It seems to me like it has become a global phenomenon to produce movies from books. The Harry Potter books were so well received that developing them into movies was the natural course of action. This fall, part one to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be entering the theater and I can only assume that it will be huge. Right now, the Twilight Saga: Eclipse is in theaters and making big big big bucks. According to boxofficemojo.com it made $64,832,191 in just the opening weekend alone. Worldwide to date, it has grossed $645, 548,358 and that is only for being in the theaters for a little over a month. Crazy! Just as a side note, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is in third spot for one of the highest grossing films for opening weekend with $152,839,137.

Within the top 10 grossing films of all time, five of those films were literary inspired. Those being, LOTR: The Return of the King, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, HP and Order of the Phoenix, and HP and the Half Blood Prince. (boxofficemojo.com)

Over the past ten years, there have been multiple movies that were derived from literature. Here are a some of them:

The Kite Runner, Shutter Island, Dear John, The Davinci Code, Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Road, Sherlock Holmes, The Devil Wears Prada, Secret Window, Chronicles of Narnia, & Bridget Jones’s Diary among many many many others.

Is it just me thinking this, or has this become the way to make movies? Are book writers becoming the new movie writers? I pose the question, what is your opinion on books made into movies? Do you think that producers should be able to use their creative license and change the story completely to the point where the book no longer stands in its originality? Do you ever get mad when your favorite book is slaughtered on the big screen or do you think it is alright for the movie to be tweaked? What do you think of making a profit off of merchandising off of a film made from a book (ie: t-shirt)?

Books made into Movies: What say you?

Some photos from my trip to Paris, France last year. Paris, the catalyst of inspiration for "Felicite Comes". I plan to go back soon to do some research.

Top: Me at Musee du Louvre

2 &3: Self explanatory

Bottom: Me taking a photo of a bust of a man (can't remember who). If you look carefully, you can see my image in the mirror. I did that on purpose.

Kiersten Writes: IT IS A REAL BOOK

Congratulations! That is so exciting! Hopefully I will be following suit one day with my book, Felicite Comes!