Monday, March 25, 2013

Sucked In AGAIN, and SO JEALOUS


Know how it's all confessions all the time around here? Well here goes.

I wasted my entire weekend...
reading fan forums of theories predicting the sixth and seventh books...
parsing apart scenes (or more accurately, watching the experts do it)


Art by Kinky-ChiChi
And you see... I've done this BEFORE... Between Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I kept THINKING about those darned books I loved and my BRAIN went into overdrive and I kept coming up with THEORIES about where the stories would go...

And it drove me online to find a community of like-minded people to talk about it with...

They were wonderful people. I STILL love those people. They got me writing. They got me laughing. I'm sure you can see what a mopey, depressed person I normally am *shifty*  But seriously, it SUITS me to get into really deep discussions over less deep things (like books). I love to THINK, but I don't want to be all sad about it when I'm done... and If I meet a couple simpaticos, well, heck, that's even better. We were silly and had fun, but it really was THRILLING to parse apart books and see how REALLY WELL DONE they actually WERE...


Jon Snow/Daenerys Targarian/??Ned Stark?? source
So now... eight years later (also MARCH, by the way—that gives me some pause), between the fifth and sixth book, I've fallen in love with another world... this one, the one of WESTEROS, where the politics, character complexity and plotting brought me in, but it is the brilliance of the writing complexity that has driven me to talk to people.

You see... in anticipation of the start of season 3 on HBO, I decided to RE-read. And I loved the plot and had some predictions the first time, but the SECOND time, I am spotting all the foreshadowing and hints, and it makes me want to guess farther ahead than there are books yet available...

And THAT caused me to FIND all this stuff written by others of the THEMATIC stuff, and the SYMBOLISM, and the stuff drawn from MYTHOLOGY, and *gasp * (only my Harry Potter peeps will get why I had to gasp there) the ELEMENTS associated with the Stark children!!! The PARALLELS between Daenerys Targarian and Jon Snow. OHMYGAWD, I'M IN HEAVEN!!!


But You Know What is Depressing?

I can't look at myself and my writing and think I will EVER achieve this level of brilliance. It is humbling to the Nth degree. Yet this is what I CRAVE. I want to be AMAZING like this!!!


Anybody else get thoroughly immersed in a fandom?
Have fantasies of people getting immersed in YOURS?

Anybody looking for all this stuff for A Song of Fire and Ice, I've been at Westeros.org. They have forums for people on the first time read through and forums for re-readers. (and forums that look like they are for the SHOW) (I called myself Snark_Tamer)

And I know NOTHING. Just like Jon Snow. It doesn't feel as 'communityish' as my Harry Potter days, but it is definitely satisfying for the part of me that just loves to be buried in a book world.

16 comments:

Trisha said...

Aww, cute little fangirl squee! hehe. Yes, I have been here - for the WHEEL OF TIME series which finally ended this year at book #14 (not counting book #0, the prequel). It's finally over but since mid-high school I've been reading these books, and since the year 2000 I've been involved in WoT communities. It's how I met some of my very bestest friends in the whole wide world! I've visited over 50 of them around the world too ;)

I Must Be Off said...

Hey! I really really envy your ability to join in and talk to people. I'm so shy and very rarely find a group online that I feel comfortable with.

Old Kitty said...

Jon Snow? He reads the news for Channel 4! :-)

Awww lovely TART! you are amazing already - more so you are NAKED and amazing! Yay! Take care
x

Amber T. Smith said...

*stepping away from the GoT sites* Nope. Not going there. Can't let myself get sucked in...

*wavers*

No!! Bad Tara!!

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Sounds like a great book/show! I've never checked the fanfic community out, but I've frequently felt a little sad when reading great books! Now I've gotten so it just motivates me to try harder.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Heck no - I'll never achieve that level of depth or brilliance!

Hart Johnson said...

Trisha-I think getting pulled in at that age makes it all that more likely. A number of my Harry Potter friends were in high school at the time.

Christopher-you rock online--I totally have no idea what you're talking about! But at this point, I am READING far more than I'm saying ANYTHING.

Kitty-HA! Lucky!

Tara-oh, chica, it will wear you down...

Elizabeth-I TRY to get inspired, but mostly I just feel unworthy!

Alex-HA! Yeah, what you said!

Tina said...

Wish I'd known about the Harry Potter forum. But I had plenty of friends to discuss them with. And I was right. I kept telling one particular friend that Harry HAD to DIE for the series to make any sense, and she said, "She can't kill Harry. A world of children will mourn and be traumatized." But as you well know, I was right, AND she was right. I continue to be impressed with her ending. And I miss my Hogwarts friends immensely.
Haven't heard of the series you're talking about here...but I do know this: I can't get hooked on anything else until The Challenge is over...egads I'm running around like crazy getting stuff ready...

Tina @ Life is Good
Co-host, April 2013 A-Z Challenge Blog
@TinaLifeisGood, #atozchallenge

Luanne G. Smith said...

That's pretty cool to get sucked in that deep into another author's fantasy world. I do like Martin's writing a lot, but I've only gotten through the first two books. I'm a really slow reader, so a book of his can take me two months to get through. Not even kidding.

Mark Means said...

I think we all have things we 'geek out' about, which makes the whole process of writing so amazing.

What you may think is a small story, someone else might absolutely love it. I'm sure fame and fortune were just as much a surprise to Rowling and Martin as they will be to you, if you keep at it :)

Sarah Ahiers said...

Yep, was definitely fanish like you over HP (I was a bookseller during most of it and man, we had some great talks) and also Lost. Good times when you can get so excited about something like that

Alison DeLuca said...

Can so, SO relate to the jealousy thing, especially after reading Wool by Hugh Howey. That book is brilliant and exciting - using plain, very straightforward language. It's as though he wrote it with me in mind.

And I'm completely envious of his talent. And I wish I could do it, but I'm pretty certain I'd need twenty more IQ points and double my creativity quotient.

Ah, well... back to writing pulp fiction... :)

L. Diane Wolfe said...

But did you have fun?

I've never visited a fan site, but then, I've never looked.

H.B.Markor said...

After i read the first four books, and was waiting for the fifth, i wandered around the web looking for the same community feel that HPANA had in the ASOIF fandom and signed up for Westeros under the name warg_seer, and then never actually went back to the site. I spent a few hours looking through all the theories, but i just couldn't bring myself up to the same level of devotion to ASOIF as HP.
I will probably go back when it gets closer to the next book to come out just to remind myself all that has already happened instead of rereading.

Helena said...

I haven't gotten into any serious fan sites yet, though that day is probably coming. Lately I've been hooked on Modesty Blaise books -- very 60's and 70's, and I wish I'd gotten into them years ago when the author was still alive. I've read that Quentin Tarantino is an avid fan, but we're a small group with no forum that I know of. Ah, but maybe we'll grow...

And yes, reading a brilliant books both thrills and depresses me. Maybe that's why I've been reading mostly non-fiction lately.

dolorah said...

That is my aspiration, but I haven't participated in fandom. I see the lure though. My work friends and I discuss movies, TV series, and books like the world actually exists and we know these people personally.

It gets you out of your own world and sparks creative ideas.

......dhole