Sometimes Writing Ins't Pretty

The other day I was talking with a group of my friends at dinner about poetry (yes we are all literary geeks).  Two of my friends are in a creative writing class where they are required to write and critique each other's works.  While we were talking about poetry my one friend brought up some of the comments related to her work.  One was especially interesting because it said that the poem started out warm but ended up being cold and unhappy.

Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion about writing and what someone might love I might hate.  However, to say that a piece of writing is too unhappy or cold makes me question what people want from writing.  Sure, poetry can be beautiful, with flowery details of the abstract but it can also be ugly or sad (or both).  Poems let us peek into the soul of the writer.  They allow us to see the hairline cracks in ourselves that make us human and this picture isn't always pretty.

I feel that writing is just like life, sometimes it is beautiful but many times it is ugly.  We have to wonder around in this world looking at everything (unless we are going to be completely ignorant) and finding the meaning in both.  Sometimes the more awful parts of our world teach us the best lessons.  In writing it is the same way.  In every story there is some form of trial or problem that must be resolved by the protagonist.  Many times the journey is difficult and the character overcomes horrible tests of character and/or physical ability.  In the end there is some great lesson to be learned but more importantly it show us that in order to see the beauty we must overcome the ugly.

Sometimes beauty is not all it is cracked up to be.  In my Gothic novel class we often discuss the trope of the sublime.  The best way I can describe the sublime is something that is painfully beautiful.  Personally this sounds incredibly uncomfortable and I cannot say that I have seen many things in my 19 years that are sublime.  I do think that the concept of the sublime definitely undercuts the standard view of beauty.  It demonstrates that sometimes beauty is not feel good, and happy.  It can have razor sharp edges that really should have "caution" signs all around.

In conclusion to this long winded post about beauty I just want to say that perhaps we need to look at the balance between the beautiful and the ugly in writing.  Only then can we really understand the world the author has created.  After all it is part of the human experience to see the beautiful and the ugly.

Arcadia Review (sort of)

So this post has been sitting, unpublished, in my post archives waiting to be finished off.  So what is a better time than when I have two essays to write!  Sometimes my priorities are not all the straight but oh well.  

Anyway, how many of you read plays?  Well if you do I was definitely not one of you.  Sure I have read Shakespeare and other plays for classes but I have never, once, read a play on my own.  For fun.  That was until last weekend.  I read Arcadia.

Before I get into the nitty gritty parts of this review-ish thing, I have some things to clear up.  I don't read plays outside of class, but my room mate this year is a theater geek.  She loves everything about theater and she has introduced me to so many other theater geeks.  A few weeks ago my they forced me to have the play Arcadia by Tom Stoddard.  Now I put off reading it for a while but this past weekend I sat down to read it and surprised myself by loving it.

The play takes place in a mansion during two time periods, the nineteenth and twentieth century.  It follows a group historians/scientists and the original owners of the house.  As the play unfolds it focuses on the intricacies of romance, mathematics, and sex within the universe.  Really it is quite profound but oh so lovely at the same time.

The reasons I love the play?  So many.  The characters are funny and the slowly meshing time periods is intriguing and unique.  I also love the setting.  It is set in an old mansion of which I have a slight obsession with.  At some point in my life I will see an actual castle and these kinds of stories remind me of how much I need to do that.  Can I also say that the play is funny.  You would not think that of something that deals with the meaning of life/reasoning or the universe but this play has a fair amount of humor in it.  It really balances out the sweetness of the ending.

Ah the ending got me.  It is the perfect, bittersweet moment.  I simply love how well it is all wrapped up in a nice tidy bow.  You will have to read it to know what I am talking about.

RTW: Best Book of September

Okay, it has been more than a week since I have posted and I am sorry.  I am not going to make excuses I just have not been on blogger lately.  All that aside, today is Road Trip Wednesday and if you don't know what this is I strongly urge you to check it out.  It is a blog hop over at YA Highway where a reading or writing related question is asked and bloggers answer and hop around to other blogs.

This week's question:

What was the best book you read in September?

Well, this shouldn't be that hard.  Yes, I did actually read things outside of class, thank goodness, because I really did not like any of the novels for my Gothic Novel class other than the Lee stories, which I posted about over the summer.  I read Arcadia which is a play by Tom Stoppard, and Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver.  I have also been slowly reading pieces of my room mates writing.  I am not going to say anything about it other than she is brilliant and I hope someday she is published. 

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Hands down Pandemonium was the best book I read this month.  I loved Delirium and was excited to read Pandemonium.  It proved to be very good and the ending had my heart in knots.  I don't think I will be able to wait for the third installment of the series.  

In the mean time I would love to hear your thoughts on this book or the ones you have read this month. What have been your favorites?

Feature Follow Friday

It's Feature Follow Friday!  If you don't know what this is you should go over and check out all the fun at Parajunkee's or Alison Can Read.  Basically it is another blog hop where you answer a question and meet a ton of new bloggers.  This weeks question is:

What hyped up book do you think was not worth all the talk?

I don't have very many books that I have read but haven't liked.  Maybe it is because I mostly stay within the genre I enjoy  (*cough* dystopian *cough*).  The only book that really comes to mind when I think about this question is Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer. 

Now before all you Twilight fans jump all over me, I have to tell you that I was one of you...when I read them in eighth grade.  I think they were good during that particular part of my life.  I had yet to really get into the dystopian craze and I had just begun writing myself.  My standards for writing were low.  By the time I read Breaking Dawn, though, I realized the difference between good writing and not so good writing.  For me Breaking Dawn fell into the second category.  The biggest problem I had with it?  I could guess most of the major plot points before reading them.  I was fairly sure what was going to happen halfway through the book which made the last 300 pages incredibly boring. 

Oh well, we cannot love everything.  Still, it is upsetting when a book you cannot wait to get your hands on ends up letting you down.  It is a disappointing topic, but what are your feelings about this question?

Pandemonium Review

I have done it!  I have read my first book that is completely unrelated to school or college or Shakespeare or any other class I am taking this semester.  What book, you may ask, has captured my attention from my ever growing pile of chemistry homework?  That is Pandemonium!

Goodreads

For those of you who do not know, Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver is the second book in the trilogy of Delirium.  It follows the life of Lena after she has left Portland, Maine and the cure for the wild's of the North Eastern United States.  It is written in two parts.  There is the "Now" chapters and the "Then" chapters alternating throughout the book.  Each recalls what has happened in her life from the time she first left Portland to her time in New York city working for the Resistance.

Let me first say that this is an amazing book!  Like Delirium I could not put it down if my life depended on it.  (This is probably why I am behind on my homework).  I might even like this book a little better than Delirium because Lena seemed more real.  Maybe this is why I have grown to love her so much.  If you have read Delirium, you know that Lena has gone through a TON of stuff.  Oliver writes Lena's emotions brilliantly and you believe everything that she is doing.  Overall, I think Lena is one of the more developed dystopian heroines.

It can also be said that this book is an eye opener.  It is sad and you cannot help but feel for the people trying to make their lives happy in a world where love is a disease.  Let's face it, love is hard and when you are shunned from society it only gets harder.  There is also the fact that Lena continually brings up Alex which seemed to stab me every single time.  I really liked Alex and missed him in this book.

The one part of the book I had mixed feelings about was the alternating chapters.  I do not always like this because I usually end up liking one point of view over the other.  This makes me want to skip over parts that I know are important (uggg).  I stuck with it though, and without reading the "Then" chapters it would have been difficult to understand the "Now" chapters.

Okay, one last thing before I stop rambling on about how much I loved this book.  Then ending is amazing and horrible at the same time.  It was so kick ass (pardon the language) but I hate how Oliver fell into a classic young adult novel cliche.  I will let you figure out what that cliche is if you haven't read the book but if you have, what did you think about the ending?

RTW: What Program do You Write With?

So, this week's RTW is fairly self explanatory and I have to say I am not entirely excited about it.  As many of you know I am a writer of many things but I have yet to finish anything substantial.  I have ADD when it comes to story ideas so thus my computer is filled with many great beginnings but few endings.  On to the question though.

What do you use to write?

Like I said the topic is not very exciting but to answer it I use a mixture of Word and Pages.  I am one of the few people who use both Macs and PC.  I grew up with a PC and learned to use word but in high school we were all given Macs so I learned to use both.  As of right now I am writing this on a Macbook Pro but I would be just as happy to use a PC.  

I think Pages is a pretty simple word processing program but there are few things that it cannot do.  Word, I think, is used by pretty much everyone and I have nothing to wrong with this program.  Now, I really do not have any helpful hints for using this programs.  Just type away I guess!  Sometimes I feel as though there should be a better organized way to keep WiP but as of now I am not interested enough to want to relearn something new.  

Well, I am sorry if that was a little boring, but my best advise for writing no matter what program you are using is to occasionally look back at old pieces of work.  You never know what your past self wrote that your current self has forgotten and your future self can rework. 

Feature Follow Friday

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this blog hop and wanted to try it out but simply did not have the time at that moment.  Well, now I have finally done it.  Here is my post for Feature and Follow Friday!  For those of you who do not know, this is a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.  Basically you jump from blog to blog making new friends and gaining followers on the way.  (Oh and there is also a weekly question!).   So let's get right into things!

This week's questions is:  What book are you currently reading?

This is an interesting question because as of now I should probably be reading my chemistry book rather than writing this post (oops).  As a side note, we are only two weeks into the semester and chemistry has taken over my life completely.  

Putting that aside, I am currently reading and enjoying some other books for classes.  For my amazing Shakespeare class I just finished reading Antigone by Sophocles, as an introduction to the tragedy.  I am currently reading Romeo and Juliet which I am excited about because I haven't read this play since high school.  I love a good love story and Romeo and Juliet is the most perfect of the tragic love stories.  It really makes me swoon and cry at the same time.

Other than books for school, I haven't read many books that I brought from home.  I think once I have gotten into the swing of college life again I will start posting more reviews.  In the mean time I would love to hear what you are reading right now, so post a comment and I will go check it out.