Squandered

Via: Daily Prompt – Instinct

Image: Pixabay

“Animals tend to demonstrate natural instincts of self-preservation. So why don’t women when it comes to philanderers?”

~ Zaireen Lupa, Still Falling for You, work-in-progress

Wednesday Reflections #11 – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Via: Daily Prompt – Immerse

Title     Jane Eyre

Author     Charlotte Brontë

Genre     Classic English Literature

Publisher      Penguin Classics | Originally by Smith, Elder & Co.

Publication Date      June 29, 2011 | Originally 16 October 1847

Format      Paperback

Setting     North England, late Georgian Era

ISBN     978-0-141-44114-6

Synopsis: With both parents deceased Jane Eyre lives with the brutish wife of his dead uncle Mrs. Reed and her equally self-serving three children. She suffers abuse until her aunt decides to place her in the austere orphan school of Lowood. There she utilizes her observant intellect to cultivate her mind for 06 years before spending another 02 years as a teacher. When all her friends and role models either pass away or move away, she advertises to become a governess and finds herself teaching the child ward of Mr. Rochester, a wealthy gentleman and owner of Thornfield Hall. Soon Thornfield Hall becomes her home, gaining her friends. She even learns to like the brusque, self-centered ways of Mr. Rochester, developing somewhat of an infatuation. When he brings a big party to the Hall, among which is a beautiful heiress playing for the role of his wife, she discovers she may even be in love with him. Following this, after Jane is called away for a month to take care of Mrs. Reed at her deathbed, upon her return, the two confess their love for one another and prepares to marry. On the wedding day, it is discovered Mr. Rochester is already married and is hiding his violently mad wife in the attic and the wedding is called off. Jane runs away since the only other choice of becoming his mistress is beyond her moral bounds and while begging door-to-door in a distant village, finds herself on the stoop of Mr. St. John Rivers and his sisters. There she finds new directions but she can’t seem to leave behind the concept of never being with Mr. Rochester.

Experience: I got into this novel as a self-imposed challenge, given my dislike for Charlotte Brontë the person (you can read more about that in my article on Jane Austen Vs Charlotte Brontë). To ensure that I remained completely objective in my reading, I decided to venture through the book the first time as I would any novel instead of holding it to the expectations of a classic. Once I got the story down, I immersed myself in the literary analysis. Both times, I enjoyed and disliked the same scenes and aspects so this should be a fairly unbiased review. 

That Old Dude

Via: Daily Prompt – Murmuration & Record

Image: Max Pixel CC

Over the past five years, more and more salt strands have been peeking out of my peppery tresses. I make a point not to hide my premature grays for two reasons: One, I truly do believe they are my wisdom highlights, and B, they help to ward off my archaic relatives’ not-so-subtle-hints on the long overdue marital status. I literally put in efforts toward getting too long in the tooth to become an on-the-shelf spinster. And just when I put my feet up and blow out that sigh of relief, believing that the years of danger have passed, someone ducks their head into our house and asks when am I going to settle down with a nice man. It’s like the record player is broken and plays the same tune over and over again regardless of which album is in the tray. Grr…

Enter That Old Dude. I have never met him before but, apparently, he is a distant cousin of Dad’s who was a big support during his college dorm days. This guy pays a visit yesterday evening (totally out of the blue), tells Mom he’s been hankering for some home cooked fish dish I never heard of (which Mom graciously obliges to prepare), and then presumes to give me a talk on how in his old age it’s a sincere wish to see grandchildren. Seriously, I never met the guy but he is of the mind that my kids (if I ever have any) will be his grandchildren.

I looked at Dad and he sort of shrunk away from my gaze. So I decided to take pity on the general male species for the day. I smiled and asked if the Old Dude did not have children of his own to place this request to. All politeness and murmurs, if you please.

WRITING CHRONICLES #11: Character Independence

Via: Daily Prompt – Abstract & Pattern

Image: Pixabay, CC

I recently came to learn that most of my fellow writers pick characters off real life. They sit around in coffee shops and roadside bistros, watching their neighbors and making up stories about them. This practice is, apparently, more common than when you watch TV on mute and try to feed dialogues to the people on the screen. Mind blowing, right? I always wondered how writers felt so comfortable tapping away at the keyboard in coffee shops. Turns out, they are really just describing their surroundings. Not a bad writing tip, I thought. Should speed up the process of character creation some.

My characters come completely out of my head – just as my stories come to me when a real life situation strikes me as though it didn’t pan out the way they should have. So I try to “fix” things, albeit in fiction, where my muddled heroes and heroines stumble around until they learn “the right way” of living. I’m a big fan of justice, and when justice is not to be found in the real world, I make up worlds of my own. I’m really a very balanced person.

The problem is if my characters come right out of my head, how do I allow them to become independent of who I am? When I already know the way I want my characters to behave at the end (to serve the moral I wish to convey), how do I let their journey become independent of mine? Also, it would be a terrible bore if every character turned out to be an extension of me. 

Just Add Salt

Via: Daily Prompt – Nuance

There’s a loaded word. I always felt that nuances exist on the precipice of stereotypes. You take the expectations cultural dogmas have conditioned in you and add a little something-something. Voila! You have nuanced characters for your stories. Personally, I use the following template to guide me when creating my characters. This should help a few writers.

 

Image: Someone on Tumblr

 

Letting Go

Via: Daily Prompt – Nervous

Lexi sat in silence on the edge of their bed. No, it was only her bed now, she realized as her eyes followed Michael around the bedroom while he collected things to pack. He picked up the Linkin Park CDs from beside the stereo and she stopped herself from pointing out that those belonged to her. Seemed a bit petty to do so. Besides, she had lost much bigger things in this relationship than that.

Like the baby. Now, there was a telltale sign that this relationship was doomed. He had failed to demonstrate an appropriate level of sympathy when she had been lying in the hospital bed after the miscarriage, his relief palpable. She never pointed that out to him either.

He was so used to taking things from her. To think she used to let him crawl into her skin. She couldn’t really blame him now after she had enabled the habit for four years with her shy silence.

“Those are mine.”

Happy endings came in all forms, she discovered.

 

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY !!!

WEDNESDAY REFLECTION #10: Lost in Austen

Via: Daily Prompt – Rumination

Title     Lost in Austen

Starring     Jemima Rooper and Elliot Cowan

Director     Dan Zeff

Writer(s)     Guy Andrews

Genre     Romance Fantasy Drama

Release Date     September 2008

Filming Location     United Kingdom

Parental Guidance     PG

IMDB Rating     7.5

Synopsis: Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper) laments her ordinary life and less-than-romantic boyfriend-trying-to-be-fiancé because she cannot get enough of Pride and Prejudice. She dreams of living in the courteous world of Jane Austen’s creation. And then Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton) stumbles through a portal in Amanda’s bathroom and they switch… realms. Somehow managing to pass off Elizabeth’s disappearance as an exchange program to the Bennets, Amanda finds allies among Elizabeth’s father Mr. “Claud” Bennet (Hugh Bonneville) and elder sister Jane Bennet (Morven Christie) even while feeding the suspicions of mother Mrs. Bennet (Alex Kingston) and best friend Charlotte Lucas (Michelle Duncan). Amanda bumbles her way through this world, trying to ensure Elizabeth’s absence does not ruin the rest of the novel’s plot. However, in her willingness to precipitate the story and through her very modernized manners, she makes a muck of things. Too soon, Mr. Darcy (Elliot Cowen) and Miss Caroline Bingley (Christina Cole) convinces Mr. Bingley (Tom Mison) to shed his love for Jane and Jane, not Charlotte, ends up marrying Mr. Collins (Guy Henry) and so forth. And Amanda is desperate to return Elizabeth to her rightful place in the story, too, because Mr. Darcy is very much in danger of falling in love with Amanda and Amanda also finds herself in equal danger of returning the affection.

Experience: Some time ago, fellow blogger Ally asked me, in response to my ranting off in a post on Charlotte Brontë vs. Jane Austen, whether I am in Team Elizabeth or Team Darcy. My answer was, of course, Team Elizabeth because only by pretending to be Elizabeth, can I “make love to” Darcy. [It obviously has been a source of constant contemplation of mine] Some time later, I came across a blog that listed a few P&P inspired films and learned about Lost in Austen, a movie that depicts just what fantasizing about a fictitious hero could’ve led me to if my world was perfect.

Oh! Sweet Hell!

I think Austen fans do this to themselves all the time. There are those who create fanfictions because they cannot bear the idea that the novel had to come to an end (I do not include the zombie apocalypse in this, which could have only been contrived out of jealous spite); then there are those of us who cannot presume to work upon Austen’s masterpieces but keep seeking out these fanfictions because we too cannot get enough of the originals and are secretly masochists because the spin-offs are usually so baaaad. Lost in Austen is not bad at all.

Apart from a stellar cast, most of whom do their respective roles almost as great service as in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice adaptation, Guy Andrews wrote the story so plausibly that I hated for this TV movie to end. Truly, it has such believable plot twists – nay CHARACTER twists – that I, too, like Amanda would begin to wonder how Austen could have gotten all these details about everyone’s characters so wrong had I gotten stuck in Austen. [I almost expected Austen to materialize and smite me for this blasphemy] But, really, how could Austen ever be wrong? *laughs nervously while looking over her shoulder*

Thankfully, nothing in the movie really happened just like P&P is also a work of fiction. But this movie is a damn good alternate story. And Amanda’s character is just the gumptious replacement for Elizabeth’s in the story if ever the existence of the world as we know it depended on Elizabeth to be replaced. [I’m so confused right now; I don’t know what’s real and what’s fiction anymore]

Recommendation: I’m putting an abrupt halt to my analysis because I demand Austen-lovers watch this mini-series to find out exactly what has my bloomers in a bunch. See if it doesn’t leave YOU disoriented! *glares challengingly at the screen*

Also, if you enjoy feasting your eyes on beautiful men, look no further than this sumptuous banquet *drools*

The Teacher

Via: Daily Prompt – Swarm

I always loved the words. I was a voracious reader as a child. But it was Mrs. Anger, my ninth grade Language Arts teacher who taught me to keep a journal and start writing. We had to use those hardcover composition books, the Marble ones? Mrs. Anger was as volatile as her name. Or at least she affected to be. She once told me, pulling off her spectacles, that her eyes changed colors according to her moods. She meant to say her mood was capricious. All because I wore a mood ring and showed her how cool it was. Mrs. Anger was fabulous. 

WRITING CHRONICLES #10: Tellin’ It Like A Texan

Via: Daily Prompt – Vivid

 

Image: WhatleydudeWhatleydude, Flickr (CC)

 

While researching the Texan way of saying things for the characters of my novel I’ll Be True, there was one thing I realized: If there’s a roundabout phrase for a statement, you wouldn’t hear a Texan telling it to you straight.

The Texan talks in more shades than the spectrum. I love it!

Of course, I uploaded only the first draft of the novel on this blog, which, in my rush to get the story written, didn’t carry nearly as many Texan sayings as I would’ve liked. I’m doing additional research at the moment on this idiomatic turn of twang to present the dialogues of my cowboys and cowgirls in a manner more befitting their race. It isn’t easy-research when you are sitting oceans away on the other side of the world but the following websites are helping [some]:

Texas Saying & More Colorful Texas Sayings… | Texas Monthly

10 Texas Sayings That Are Quintessentially Texan | Coldwell Banker

Texan Sayings

25 Words That Have A Totally Different Meaning In Texas | BuzzFeed

Texasisms: A Glossary of Texan | Wander Wisdom

If y’all have any more suggestions, feel free t’holler!

 

Knowledge Sharing

Via: Daily Prompt – Parlay

Image: Pixabay

Imparting the knowledge and skills your work experience has gained you can pay great dividends. My career in marketing and brand communications was not very long compared to many, but it has been versatile. And what I learned, I have never hesitated to share with others. I believe in tough love. In my book, there is no excuse for anyone working with me, either directly or via, to not give their one-hundred percent to their undertaking. Let me tell you, I have been said to be very exacting.