Latimer: Where am I now? I’m not too sure really, but I bet I am eating my own weight in noodles, at least I hope so or I will be so very disappointed in myself! (Don’t disappoint me future self!)
It’s also Paddy’s Day today (Lá Fhéile Pádraig) – the first one that I’ll be spending off of the auld sod! It’ll make me smile if I see some shamrocks and a bit of green in China today!
Hope you all have a good day 🙂
Latimer: I’m off on an adventure! Huzzah! I wonder where, can you guess? Yeah, not to subtle a hint there I think! For the next short while I’ll be posting from the past via scheduled posts!
I know it’s cheesy, but whenever I go on holidays, I keep singing this song for the days leading up to the holiday, so yeah – take it away John Denver via Mr Schuester 🙂
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius
So we were asked by our good twitter and writer friend, James T Kelly, to take part in the Writing Process Blog Hop. Last week, James posted his response to the same questions we have below, so make sure you check them out here. Also while you’re at it, why not pop on over to Smashwords and check out his great short stories, The Homeless Hero and You Are Just A Guest.
So on to the questions…..
What are we working on?
Well let’s see, we’ve the sequel to Legend Unleashed off with our editor at the moment, hopefully it’s being hacked and pruned and whipped into some sort of book shape by him. We look forward to the work that comes with it when we get it back, that’s always fun!! Though it’ll be very tiring, we generally look like we’re carrying massive suitcases under our eyes, not just little bags, by the end of it all. We are also currently in the middle of writing our third book in the Keeping Secrets series, and we’re near-ish the end of the that one, and once that’s finished it’s on to start the fourth book, so we’ve been keeping ourselves busy! Sure what else would we be doing in our spare time? 😛
How does work differ from others of its genre?
We like to think, like any writer I suppose, that we inject a little of ourselves into our books, whether it’s a quirky habit of ours that we give to a character, or our weird sense of humour, or generally just a slightly askew way of looking at the world, it all goes in. For any book, I think the part of the author that is infused throughout the pages of their novel, that piece of them that people are almost only unconsciously aware is present, is what makes each book unique and different from others in its genre.
Why do we write what we do?
We write what we love to read. We like fantasy, we like the young adult genre. At the back of everything we’ve written, there are two fangirls giggling and nodding, urging each other on and basically putting in everything we’ve always wanted to see in other books. Usually our plots begin with the words, ‘wouldn’t it be great if…’ When we were both younger, long before we ever knew each other or became friends, we both used to play the game of ‘what will happen now’, where after you were forced to put your book down and stop reading (usually to get some sleep before school), you were left to imagine what would happen next in the story, what the main character would say, or do, so writing the stories that we do, is probably just a natural progression of all of that for us.
How does our writing process work?
Well, this is a question that we get asked quite a lot, mainly as there are two of us and people wonder how two people can write a book together. We think up the book plot together over numerous pots of tea and not a small bit of mad cackling laughter. Generally this is the most free and creative part in the whole process, as we put in everything and anything we each want to see happen in the book. After this, the the plot is broken down into chapter summaries, then we divide them out evenly between us, we each get two chapters at a time and the book hops back and forth between us after each of our chapter stints are over. It also generally works out that where one of us starts the book, the other person ends it. There’s a nice symmetry to it all really!
So there’s some tiny insight into how we work! Needless to say, whether we were published or not, I’ve no doubt we’d still be writing stories together, it’s just too much fun to stop.
Now we pass the blog hop torch to another writer and blogger friend, Frankie Whelan:
“Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. Lifelong consumer of words. Writing is mostly fantasy fiction with occasional leanings towards journalism. Avid gamer and musician, when time allows.
Firmly believes that a mug of tea and a chocolate digestive can solve most of the world’s woes.”
Check out his website, he’ll be posting next week for the next stage in the Writing Process Blog Hop! 🙂
Latimer: I remember a while back I did a post about how I was struggling through a long read list – well, not struggling, because I like having a lot of books to read, but sometimes when you find yourself buying more than you’re reading you do feel like giving yourself a kick in the brain!
Back then, I had been reading (on and off) Bill Bryson’s At Home; I am so happy to say I finished reading it before 2013 ran out! Yes, the never-ending reading list is getting just a little bit shorter!
It really sickens me how long it took me to read such a great book. Bill Bryson has to be one of the best authors; I’ve only read two of his books, but they have both been so amazing (and they both took me forever to read). There’s just so much information in his books and so many funny, strange and sad stories, that you find yourself stopping to digest what you just read and staring into space shaking your head!
This is a small example; in At Home, I read about roof rats. Yup. Now every time I hear something skittering across the attic floor, I no longer think ‘birds’, I think… ‘roof rats’. No one else is buying what I’m selling, but in Bryson I trust, so yup… roof rats.
Apparently the modern home is a great environment for the roof rat. And the behaviour of the modern rat – wooh, it’s scary. They show no fear, ‘and will even deliberately approach and make contact with motionless persons. They are particularly emboldened in the presence of infants and the elderly’ (neither of which I am, so I’m fist punching the air, shouting “do you hear that roof rats! Fear me!”)
‘Rats have very sharp teeth and can become aggressive if cornered’ (won’t be doing that so!) ‘biting savagely and blindly, in the manner of mad dogs’ (holy moly!) ‘A motivated rat can leap as high as three feet’. Then they are also very, very smart; there was an incident where rats were stealing eggs from a farmer without breaking them (which even now as I type sounds like a cartoon); the rats worked together, where one rat would embrace an egg on all fours and roll over onto its back, and a second rat would then drag it by its tail to their burrow.
This image has stayed with me since I read the book. And there’s so much more in the book, that I kind of feel like I will have to re-read it a lot to remember most of it. But it’s such a good book.
I don’t have much of a feel for ‘special interest’ books. I just read what I’d like to know about; there are a few people though who seem to have a gift for reading really interesting sounding books.
I’m addicted to Smodcast, and Kevin Smith’s friend, Scott Mosier, reads some really interesting books! He’s always reading something and he mentions books so often that someone put together a list.
If you are looking for something out of the ordinary (maybe!); check out the list of books he’s mentioned! There’s some really interesting ones! http://smodbooks.wordpress.com/page/3/
I think my reading list is always going to be never-ending… 🙂
Latimer: After my study woes, I’m at last contemplating a holiday – and what’s one of the first things I dream about when I think of a holiday? Food, oh food; I am such a fan of food.
I’m not a good cook, I try sometimes and I make a mean Kedgeree if I do say so myself, but I don’t try often enough to be considered ‘a good cook’.
So it’s always a big thing for me, going on holidays and looking forward to eating some nice food!
When Ridley and I went to Tokyo, I was always putting out my hand before she could eat; “WAIT! I need to take a picture!” She got so used to this she’d actually wait sometimes, staring at me, holding her fork poised over the food… “Hurry up.”
I think the food-photo-taking started in Tokyo, but that trip was a major food event. There was so much yummy food to be had… and yes I have a food-porn collection as a result!
I also have nice photos of afternoon tea in London…
I love taking my own photos of food (because it’s like you can then remember how tasty the food was) but I also like seeing other people’s food photos!
There is an amazing artist from deviantart (Jo aka cartoongirl7), that we now follow on Instagram and she takes some amazing food pictures – so amazing – check out her foody photos (she has seriously good taste mwhaha)! http://instagram.com/myrollingstar
Seriously, after the joy of actually going on holidays, food-joy is definitely next on my holiday joy list. I can’t wait to take lots of food photos on my next holiday 🙂
Latimer: On Christmas Day, Spirited Away popped up on my television screen like the ghost of Christmas past. I paused in my chocolate-coma induced mindless channel hopping and smiled. It had been a long time since I saw Chihiro and Kohaku. Then I frowned remembering my fan-girl grudge against this movie.
It was the start of the movie and despite my grudge (which will become apparent), I decided this would be a nice movie to sit down and watch. On the first break, I went out to the kitchen to make some tea and about 30 minutes passed by – the Christmas Day time vortex appeared. It’s the weirdest day of the year where time speeds up; when even getting some tea manages to turn into twelve other things that zap all the time away.
I never got back to Spirited Away that day. But it popped up again recently, urging me to confront my grudge.
Jumping briefly into the ‘way-back machine’ of nostalgia, I remember when this movie came out (13 years ago this year). Spirited Away was the first anime I’d seen that had a proper Japanese feel to it; from the moment Chihiro and her family step into the spirit world town, you get immersed in the Japanese-ness of it all, the food, the mythology (radish spirit?! Really?! That’s cool…!)
Spirited Away was also the first anime I saw subbed (it was an extra on the DVD). I was a fool and turned up my nose and stuck with the English dubbed version at that point though (damn fool Latimer!).
I love the feel of Spirited Away, the view into Japanese culture and mythology.
The animation is wonderful too. There’s the wonderful, beauiful moment where Chihiro is crying, falling through the air with Kohaku, and her tears are breaking off the little mouse and bird.
The story between Kohaku and Chihiro is so sweet and lovely… and well, that’s where my ‘grudge’ comes in….I always have this moment of sighing sadly at the end, when Chihiro leaves Kohaku…. I am a fan-girl, so of course I would be frowning at this!
The ending is a bit ambiguous; you can read what you like into it. Hayao Miyazaki (the creator of Spirited Away) said that Chihiro has lost her memories after leaving the spirit world.
This time, I watched it I came to my own conclusion (after, what 10 years or so? ha). When Chihiro leaves Kohaku, she asks, ‘will we meet again?’ and he promises that they will. And then she’s gone. I block out having read once that there’s one way of looking at this; Kohaku is a spirit and so, Chihiro will meet him again when she dies and becomes a spirit…
Okay, that’s too sad, so this is the way I choose to look at it! Kohaku also says in the subbed version that, ‘I’ll go back to my world’ – which means that the spirit world might not be his world after all. He saved Chihiro when she fell into the river when she was a child, so to me, it means he’s going back to being a river god – and where are the rivers – in Chihiro’s world (if he saved her before in her own world, then that’s the world he belongs in).
As to memory loss… hmm, well she still has her magical hair tie in the end (which holds ‘everyone’s feelings’) – so I’m not worried about that 🙂 Thinking of this as the ending makes this ending nicer to me after all these years; I think I’m letting go of my grudge at last!
Ah, ambiguous endings – are they a pain or a pleasure?
Latimer: I’m so behind the times! Like Ridley, I recently started watching Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan).Being a newbie to the show, I thought it’d be fun to document my initial thoughts as I watched the first 2 episodes!
Okay let’s go-go….!!
I just imagine the massive Titan looking over the wall and saying – “Hello dere!” All the Titans have faces that suggest they are about to say; “Hello dere!” instead of eating you. But in all seriousness, hell no would I still be alive in that world – as with zombie apocalypse I’m in the ‘first wave of non-survivors’!
I want one of the weapon rigs! Ah they’d be great – but I know I couldn’t use it properly!
They have such a cool opening song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHfz6TwD3T0
This world looks very German, style-wise – I think it would be really cool to see this anime dubbed in German!
It really is suicide being a soldier in ‘Attack on Titan’!
Eren (the main character) said living behind the wall is like; “living like livestock for the Titans” – hmm, yup, that about sums it up all right!
Okay so there’s different soldier ‘corps’, with different crests – like Hogwarts houses… err… not really… well sort of; survey corps = Gryffindor (bravery); military police = Slytherin (smart, stay inside, let the Gryffindors do the hard graft :))… and garrison = Hufflepuff (who knows what you really do – who knows?!).
So the survey corps came back after their ‘trip’ (ha, their mini-break!) beyond the wall. There’s a guy with bandages around his mouth, ekk! Lots of soldiers were eaten; oh… one of the commanding officers is handing a bundle back to a crying mother…
Jaysus… it’s…. an arm?! What…!
God Eren, I’ve been here in your world 5 minutes and I don’t want to leave the walls (the outside world be damned I tell you, it’s not worth it! Sand and the sea, it’s not that impressive!). Why do you want to go outside Eren, you’re crazy!
Whooh, a big Titan just appeared (looking over the wall… ‘hello dere’)
Oh noo, he destroyed the wall, other Titans are coming in and eating people….. oh it’s on! IT’S ON!
My immediate thought to describe Titans – “leering grins and naked arses!” I know all you people looked, they are giant naked people (where do your eyes go first?)!
I love how in animes (this used to happen in Bleach too) there’s always cool-looking baddies (the big Colossal and Armoured Titans in this case; they are the important ones), and then there are the weirdest, oddest, bubble-headed, comical-looking strange ones, that you know the artist was like; “Bored now! Bring on the weird!”
Ah, Eren’s house was crushed by stone from the wall – his mam is stuck under the house!
She told them to run away and save themselves (a Titan is coming!). I’d have asked them to kill me before they ran away – “I’m doing you guys a solid by letting you go; the least you could do is kill me before you run away!” (I don’t want to be eaten by a giant).
I wonder will Eren eventually befriend a Titan and that’ll be the turning point… – Oh holy hell… no he won’t!
Hannes the soldier – running away from the Titan instead of engaging – I feel you Hannes, you’re a soldier, but you’re afraid. Of course I never would have become a soldier because I’m afraid. Just sayin’
“Hurry if you don’t want to be eaten…” I never want to hear someone screaming those words at me. Ever.
All those people living in that city are traumatized. The gate’s closed, leaving them behind to die by Titan, that’s horrible. But, well, maybe it’s for the best; like everyone in Game of Thrones… maybe it’s better to go out now, happy one day, eaten the next! I mean the soldiers are happy, then traumatized, then eaten!
Hannes, the soldier, is screaming at Eren that his mother died because he’s weak. In fairness the mother’s not gone because anyone’s weak, she’s gone because a massive man-eating monster ate her!
Eren’s having all these flashbacks of his Dad injecting him with something (he’s been acting the maggot!). I wonder… that dark-haired titan I’ve seen around on pictures and tumblr… is he a genetically engineered titan – from Eren’s DNA?
And… end 🙂
Update: I finished the series, I won’t ruin anything – only to say it’s as good as everyone says it is!
I noticed that… well, a lot of the Titans run… a little like I do…? (the fat, or short ones, not the cool ones) it’s sad, disturbing, but true… I run like a Titan… wow, wow… ah geez…
And then, Just to say, my favourite character is Jean Kirstein… and I leave you with this epic gif of him fighting a Titan…
‘Death comes to Pemberly… This is the story of how I died… Who am I? I’m Denny… What do you mean ‘Denny who?’? You know… Lydia said my name once – no? Okay, so I told Elizabeth that Wickham wasn’t coming to the Netherfield ball because of a certain person…? Yeah, that Denny!’
Latimer: Okay admission time, I have a major addiction to Pride and Prejudice (P&P).
Yup…! I also have a minor addiction to Pride and Prejudice variations and sequels.. ahem, yes…
Basically these (variations really) are self-published stories where people use the P&P the storyline but tweek it; for example, say there’s a storm after Darcy proposes to Elizabeth for the first time and he gets stranded at the parsonage and the story just continues onward, with parts changing due to that incident… yup.
The reason I like them, is because I love Darcy and Elizabeth. As long as Darcy and Elizabeth fall in love, then it’s all good.
My love of all things P&P meant I was really happy to see a three-part drama, ‘Death comes to Pemberly’ advertised on BBC over Christmas. It’s a P&P sequel (not quite a variation, but someone’s take on ‘what happened next’). It’s a murder mystery story. We meet the characters six years after P&P. Darcy and Elizabeth are hosting the annual Pemberly ball and Wickham and Lydia (not actually invited) arrive in Pemberly causing all sorts of trouble.
On the way to Pemberly, Wickham and Corporal Denny (Denny NOoo!) have a fight in the carriage as it clip-clops through Pemberly forest. Denny jumps out of the carriage and angrily storms into the forest, Wickham following after him. Denny is then found dead in the woods with Wickham as the prime suspect.
These were roughly my thoughts on watching the series…
Miss Elizabeth doesn’t have very many gowns considering Darcy’s 10,000 a year, what’s going on?This was a fun period drama that fills the period drama void!
I love the BBC P&P with Colin Firth (its epic)… but you know *whispering for fear of being attacked by inner fan-girl*… it might now be time for the BBC to make another adaptation of P&P!
There is always room in the world for another …. always!
Latimer: I don’t think a Christmas holiday is complete without watching at least one of the Indiana Jones movies! They are all shown on television over the holidays.
This year I noticed that the fourth Indiana Jones movie (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) has been added to the marathon. To me, there are only really three Indiana Jones movies.
I’ve been watching Indiana Jones since as far back as I can remember. It started my obsession about wanting to be an archaeologist. I thought being an archaeologist was being Indiana Jones. For most of my childhood that’s what I was going to be, an archaeologist/Indiana Jones.
I was definitely going to go on adventures and find artefacts stuck in booby-trapped tombs. Yet, in spite of all the ways I would definitely die adventuring through Indiana Jones style tombs, I was convinced that was the life for me! I would have needed a lifetime of parkour, self-defence and weapons training for that career path.
I’m now convinced I would have died trekking to my first tomb!
Thankfully, I’ve grown out of considering that life (for my own health and safety!), but still love Indiana Jones! Out of the three movies (yup three!), my favourite has always been Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I watch it once every Christmas. I’m always happy to see it; I know it’s Christmas and it never fails to make me smile.
I love that movie because it’s just so much fun and not serious, and so 80’s – it’s pure nostalgia!
It has the never-ageing Sean Connery, the zeppelin, the quick detour to Berlin, tombs, the leap of faith I never would have taken, the old knight of the crusade, the face melting scene (that always scared the crap out of me)… and you learn that Indy’s named after the dog 🙂
I think everyone has a favourite Indiana Jones movie – Ridley’s is Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom! What an epic movie series it is… cue music…
Also Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you all have a great 2014! MLR 🙂
Carwicky 