While the movie was not the book, which I score as PHENOMENAL, it was definitely worth seeing if you like youth films or hot gods. I missed Ares and Clarisse, and there were some changes from the book, which always bugs me, I think the adaptation was better than most. I'm not positive a person who hadn't read the books would follow every step, though I think it's still clear, but it was a great adventure, and Sean Bean and Pierce Brosnan both took on personas the Tart will definitely be able to work into the fantasy cycle (in fact Pierce Brosnan to me, has typically been too clean cut... melikes him as Horsey Man... The hair in particularly is good, but I won't claim to be lacking in ideas for a centaur)
Shutter Island
Nature or Nurture
At ABNA we've had a GRAND debate over whether writers are BORN or whether anyone can gain the skill, and we are therefore MADE. Your Tart is a psychologist by training and inclination and so always offers up the uninformative... “erm,... both?” (be clear I
But I thought maybe you all could help me argue the point. I have some questions I hope EVERYBODY will answer.
1)How old were you when you had your first fantasy of writing novels?
2)How old were you when you began writing FOR FUN? (rather than assignments)
3)When did you start writing SERIOUSLY (like trying to be published)?
4)Where are you in your career? (HAVE you published? How many books have you written?)
I intend to summarize, should I have more than just a few responses, so if you CAN, pass this on.
18 comments:
1) 12 when I finished Gone With The Wind for the first time (the original Repressed Erotic Novel of the South)
2) 42 (if you are counting ad copy, brochures, press releases and actual news copy as "assignments" as I am)
3) 42
4) struggling, as you well know. I didn't read The Lightning Thief so can't speak to the veracity of the movie but I did finally see The Time Traveler's Wife with was a book that Changed My Life. I decided that some book concepts are simply too complex to translate well to the screen although DAMN is Eric Bana hot! (hmmm. Jack material? no, too Aussie sort of like Hugh Jackman)
#1. about eight years old.
#2. I was six and wrote a detective series in school.
#3. I got serious about writing for pub. at fifty-six.
#4. first pub. at 56. written three books, one pub. and two in submission process.
G.A. Endless, Author
1. Um...five or six? I was reading The Secret Garden.
2. Seven. I wrote a story about a dog whose love saved a dying girl. Melodramatic, even then.
3. Eighteen.
4. I've had a few essays and poems published. I've written one novel and am in the process of writing another one. Or two.
Or...um...three. And a screenplay. And...cough...a nonfiction thingy. sigh.
Ahahahahaha! My first wv was "afterds." Hee.
1. About 8 years old.
2. Ditto. I wrote long scenes with way too much drama. I acted out characters and dialects of my own spontaneous creation. Constantly.
3. I started to take my writing seriously 3-4 years ago.
4. I've had some magazine length pieces published and I've contributed to a Chicken Soup volume. I'm writing a historical fiction novel and sometimes I think I need to quit my day job in order to finish it.
1. I wrote my first book before I could write -- I was about five and it was a series of pictures.
2. Sometimes in high school. I had been too encouraged by teachers and was under the delusion that I was good at it.
3. In college. Shoulda been studying instead.
4. Got published in 1989/90 (Prophecies, on Bantam). Am now so burnt out on publishing business will henceforth pursue self-publishing. On the other hand, I also entered a manuscript in ABNA. Hope never dies.
One important observation:
Damn, Pierce Brosnan is hot in that poster!
1 - it had to be 1st or 2nd grade; I used to act out scenes using my dolls. It really cemented in 4th/5th grade when I had this one particular idea that I couldn't get out of my head. I made lists of characters, wrote up the setting, and even made an outline for a plot.
2 - sometime in high school. All of it was handwritten on loose leaf (during class), so I have none of it anymore.
3 - I've never tried to get published. Does that make me a closet author?
4 - not applicable.
Damn, you're brilliant: what a great idea for a poll. Pass it on, she says. I shall!!
1. 4. I was kinda precocious, or it was a hangover from my previous life
2. 4. Short story about a desert girl who wore a pink veil - you see I didn't even know the right word for 'shaylah'... so you can tell - I must have been reading 100l Nights...
3. 16 - magazine articles; eventually succumbed to journalism school...
4.still at it. Hell,your Tartship, number of MSS in drawers count? One history published (age 55); YEARS of journalist's columns, etc (age 21 onwards), society columnist Nassau Guardian, reportage Miami Herald, various contribs,The Observer, TLH, Leopard Mag; 3 novels in pipeline; 2 non-fic in drawers/on disk, one of which (megalithic trail) was so close to being publ it hurts to think....
Marian Youngblood, author
I passed it on! http://purple-hippie.blogspot.com/2010/02/writing-poll.html
Excellent! DATA!
Have I mentioned I am a FREAK for data? Did you notice EVERYONE was pre-High School. Not ONE PERSON fantasized for the first time as an adult. I don't know that we have to be born with any certain ability, but the DRIVE to write, we are born with (or at least it comes very early...) won't go into more though, as this is a BLOG....
Helena--yeah, right? Pierce is normally not my cuppa, but THIS Pierce... totally into it.
ooh i really want to see that movie. and read the book. but definitely not see shutter island. *shudders*
1. if not elementary school, then DEFINITELY middle school.
2. oh jeez, that was more than likely elementary school.
3. erm well, i'm not trying to be published, i don't think the quality is there yet.. but i'm certainly writing seriously.
4. still stuck halfway through writing that first thingy. my current goal is to finish this one in time to participate in the NEXT NaNo. :P
No, Tart, nothing new from my side. My answers are along the same lines as the data you have already gathered.
But I wonder if it may just be a question of birds of a feather....
1) I started dreaming about being a writer when I was about 8 or 9. But that was up there with all those I want to be an astronaut, I want to be an Olympic runner, kind of things
2)I think I wrote my first poem when I was about 9 or 10. My first short story I wrote at 14, and that was the last one I wrote for several years.
3)I started 'writing' when I was 33, and was quite obsessive about it. But even now, I am not sure I am good enough to be published :-(
4)One WiP that I want to trash, two shorts stories that got shortlisted in contests (both now published). Couple of pieces in Chicken Soup (but that's under a pseudonym, so please don't tell ;-) )
1) 7
2) 7
3) 18
4) So far all I've published is 3 articles in Strings magazine... but I pitched 2 more to the editor yesterday so I might have those in the pipeline. Yay. :-) Meanwhile, have 80ish pages of a sucky detective novel floating around somewhere, a more-or-less "finished" YA sci-fi/fantasy bit of weirdness, and a big messy WIP with sheet music and knitting pattern components. *sigh*
PS Shut up, Natasha, you are TOO good enough. :-)
1) Around 9th grade, I started writing a memoir about dating, LOL.
2) 5th grade, with poetry
3) last year, at 25
4) I'm just beginning. I'm a college student so my writing time is split between assignments and fun. I'm hoping to get *something* published in the next year and a half before I apply to my Master's program.
Interesting topic (and good movie recommendation -- I hadn't bothered to look at the cast for "Lightning Thief", but both Sean Bean and Pierce Brosnan are in the ranks of my favourite actors).
1) First fantasy of writing novels, probably around twelve. Of writing stories, too young to remember.
2) Likewise. I was scribbling stories on construction paper and stapling them into books before I knew that letters should all be roughly the same size. This may not help break the Born or Made question, though, as I went to an extremely arts-driven private (Waldorf) school, where story-telling was encouraged straight from pre-school.
3) If "seriously" covers being old enough to understand and appreciate all the work involved in getting published, then at about 25. I wrote a series of short stories to "establish author cred" for the novel I was working on; none of the stories sold, and the novel died about halfway through, but that's when I got serious.
4) My first novel, Stuff of Legends, comes out this summer from Ace Books. Where in my career does that put me? Ask me again when my career's over. ;)
1)I was in 2nd grade.
2)I was in 4th grade
3)I was 30
4)I've published and am writing my 5th book (2 out, 2 in production.)
Is Shutter Island really disturbing? I'm intrigued, but not sure it's up my alley...I'm definitely going to see the Percy Jackson (son is a huge fan of the books.)
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
I know I'm a day late and a dollar short (whatever that means) but I had to enter my data anyway and I haven't read any responses or your post today so I can be PURE!
1)before I knew they were called novels for sure. So probably seven.
2)Oh, I wrote some little books when I was in grade two - so seven again.
3)I wrote a play in 1977 for a Canada Council grant - I would have been 26. I know I wrote before that but just for myself.
4)I have had four plays that have hit the stage. I have two novels completed and out trying to find homes and have several in various stages. I have had poems published as well as opinion pieces.
Never too late! We are a wacky bunch, aren't we... sticking to our dreams for a lifetime (or coming back to them)
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