Not Quite Finished Yet

Kudos to whoever knows where I got the title for this post.

I decided I wanted to share a little list of novels, short stories, and poems that I find particularly inspiring and wonderful. They provide readers with entertainment and writers with some terrific examples of the writing we should all emulate. Obviously, this will be the first of many.

1. The Great Gatsby
    F. Scott Fitzgerald

No I could not have only posted ONE photo. That would not have been enough. Normally I am not a fan of novels being adapted into movies but there are some exceptions, and this is the greatest. Read this novel and then read about the life of the Fitzgerald's, both Scott and Zelda. It's a tragic love story much like The Great Gatsby and ironically enough, Fitzgerald penned them both. 

Aside from my crazy infatuation, this is a splendid novel that is a fairly frank depiction of the life that consumed America in the 1920's. Both sad and lovely this masterpiece gives all literature fanatics what we really want, one hell of a story. 

2. A Farewell to Arms

    Ernest Hemingway

Yes, I love the Jazz Age. No, all of my recommendations are not from this time period. 

A lot of Hemingway's work revolves around the same idea of war wounds man mentally or mentally and physically, there is a girl somewhere, the end is tragic and involves the rain. How then do you ask can I love this and suggest it? Because it's beautiful. It's two books in one. You get the love story between Henry and Catherine and the war novel where as a reader, you question humanity. As a writer, you question how a mere mortal created this dream of literature. 

That's Hemingway, clacking along on his typewriter. 

3. The Phantom Tollbooth

    Norton Juster

This book is the greatest manipulation of the English language ever. Milo is the central character and on a day when he decides he has nothing to do, a magical tollbooth arrives to show him the magic of every day. He travels through a magical land and, spoiler alert, realizes how amazing the world truly is. The manipulation mastery is found in every chapter of the book. My personal favorite is when Milo and his companion Tock, a watchdog (a dog with a watch for a stomach) who ticks because his parents misnamed he and his twin, are driving passed an island called Conclusions and the only way to get there is by jumping. Get it? This is pushed as a children's book but I think that's a little absurd. For example, there is a scene where everyone in Dictionopolis must speak kindly because they eat their words, literally. They feast on their words. See what I mean? 

That's Tock. Honestly, I don't even know if children today know that's what a clock can look like. They expect to see digital numbers. 

4. Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town

    E.E. Cummings

My absolute favorite poet ever. I have a lovely little anthology that have his poems separated by theme, so love, death, religion and it gives a little biography as to when and why these themes were particularly important. This poem is wonderful because it tells the love story of two people. But, it isn't in your face about their relationship, you have to put the pieces together. It's truly brilliant. 

And wasn't he attractive? 

5. The Veldt

    Ray Bradbury

For a lady who loves short stories I sure put a lot of novels, huh? Then I give a super random short story? Jeez! Well, read this short story then you'll know why I included it. I'm not saying it's the most important short story ever written, but it has some terrific qualities. First, this piece is still relevant despite being written over half a century ago. Find an author who says they don't want their writing to transcend time, and I'll show you a liar. Secondly, you know so much about this family and it only takes you about five pages depending on where you read it. It's amazing the way Bradbury introduces you to an entire world that you know so much about with relatively little information. It's minimalist writing at its best. 

A Month Later

And I'm back!

Between school and therapy I have been drained and I barely have time to bathe and breath yet alone do enjoyable activities. Thankfully, Spring Break has allowed me time to myself and with beautiful nails and a screwdriver I begin to type this post.

How freaking cute right? That's what's on my nails and it was 5 dollars! 

I'm visiting Prince Charming for the remainder of my break and since he works most of the day I worked on my still nameless novel. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm about fifty pages in and if I had it my way I would got through those fifty pages and add about ten more. I have almost the opposite problem of most writers and it is my sincere hope that there is someone else out there who is like me. I typically find I need to add to my writing.

Does this mean I never have to cut out anything that I write? Absolutely not, there are no absolutes, except for the Absolut in my beverage. No. I mean that as a writer who adores reading and writing short stories it is fairly difficult to commit and write a novel. I believe my longest short story was roughly five pages, rest its soul. It was lost to technology when my old computer, lovingly named Big Mac, journeyed into the great beyond.

Oh there I go getting sentimental. Perhaps some back tracking/flashbacking would be helpful.

Get the Delorean ready!

In high school I took accelerated courses in English so from eighth grade until tenth I was only required to take my English classes at the local community college. Eleventh grade I decided to pick up the English classes at the high school to
A. Torment a teacher.
B. Learn from this teacher because he's a literary genius.
C. Some academic reasons that have long been forgotten.

Anyway, at this point my writing and textual analysis skills were fairly superior to my peers because for all intents and purposes, they hadn't actually taken an English class ever. Since I had experience my teacher and I would have more in depth discussions on our reading and the rest of the class just listened to us argue back and forth. But on the days when he actually focused on the rest of the class I had fifty minutes to myself and on these days I just did some free writing. In my accelerated course my assignments included writing papers and some creative writing projects and I used this time to focus on them. You can't write a novel in fifty minutes so I wrote short stories.

Which brings us up to the present day. I consider myself a short story author and on my better days I very pretentiously say I write poetry. And a novel is nothing like either of these disciplines. In a novel I can get into the heart and soul of a character, they can change over time, they don't have this huge epiphany where their world flips on its axis. I can have more than a single character to focus on and I don't have to choose a single personality and likes and dislikes and speaking style and mannerisms. The essence of short story is the quickness with which the story conveys everything and the focused detail. The reader focuses on what the author wants you to focus on because it's relevant.* Often, you read a short story like a poem, slowly with the understanding that you will not be able to really experience the work the first time you read it. Novels have the luxury of having some leeway. Not to say you can vomit up some adjectives and call it a day, but a novel is like a television series where a short story is more like a movie.**

 THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

There are so many things I can put in this novel and, there is no harm in doing so because I can eventually just extract it if I find it more cumbersome than enabling to my story! Yet I still find myself thinking to myself, "I should explain that more if I want this to tie in.", "Does her dad really need a background story?" and "Do I actually want to kill that person? Do they work better alive rather than dead?"

But that's what I think about people I meet in real life and when we get down to it, writing is just describing the real life that doesn't exist.

Sincerely,
S. Darkly

* Hills Like White Elephants is a phenomenal example of the focus I described. Hemingway isn't actually just describing the terrain people.
**Yes, I understand that a movie is longer than a television show, but I said series. Series can last for years and can really travel into who a person is whereas a movie has to move it along.