Black Swan

I went to see the Black Swan in theaters yesterday. Since I used to be a dancer I will always watch movies dealing with theater, music, and ballet. I had seen the trailers and I wanted to see this movie very badly. I actually really liked the premise for it. 

A ballet dancer for the New York City Ballet wants to be the best. The company is doing Swan Lake for their fall show, but the catch was there would be two dancer, one for the black swan, and one for the white swan, so the director puts it to where the dancer has to be able to do both roles. Nina works hard to achieve her goal in becoming the Swan Queen and trying to get the role drives her to insanity.

I loved this movie. What I really liked was the film portraying how everything in the performing arts is about competition. In this art your friends are your competition because everyone is vying for the same spot. I didn't like some of Natalie Portman's roles as Nina but when it got to the scenes of her going crazy I felt like those really stuck it to her. The only thing I didn't like was her taking credit for becoming a dancer in two years. There was a stunt double used, and yes it's true you really can't become a professional dancer in two years.

Here's the trailer for the movie.

I Failed

I tried to do NaNoWriMo for the first time and frankly I just failed badly. I only got 10,000 words written. I think that might be because I kept going back and editing what I had wrote before. Maybe I could take what I have written so far and later on try making it into something much more longer. I guess I will have to see what happens.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1

Part one of the epic finale to an amazing series. I went to see it in the movies, and I was really impressed that the screenwriter kept every essence of the last book close to the page as possible. The action scenes are just phenomenal. These are my lifelong favorite books. When part two comes out next year I'll be even more sad.

Advice to Writers: Stephen King

Never Look at a Reference Book While Doing a First Draft

Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft. You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

-STEPHEN KING

This is very wise advice. Stephen King is the man to go to for writing advice. He knows how to put the words on a document into a full fledged novel for everyone to enjoy. I remember when I was writing my first short story, it always took me forever to write the whole draft because I was always flipping through reference books because I never knew if I was making the punctuation right, or the dialogue right. What I learned from this quote is that I just write the whole darn thing, even if it's horrible, then go back and revise until it's perfect.

World All Around Champion

The first Russian to win the World All-Around since Svetlana Khorkina in 2003 is...

Aliya Mustafina

Aliya qualified first into the All-Around and qualified into all of the event finals. Bross was in the running for silver but an uncharacteristic fall on beam knocked her out, but a strong performance on floor got her a silver medal.

2010 World Championships Team Final

It was the Russian Renaissance, Russia has not won an Olympic title since they turned from the Soviet Union. Russian team was lead by Aliya Mustafina and they won the gold, and the U.S. won the silver.

Advice to Writers: Thomas Powers

Ask Yourself Repeatedly: What Is This About?

The most useful advice on writing I've ever received comes from Gil Rogin, who told me that he always uses his best thing in his lead, and his second best thing in his last paragraph; and from Dwight Macdonald, who wrote that the best advice he ever received was to put everything on the same subject in the same place. To these dictums I would add the advice to ask yourself repeatedly: what is this about?

-THOMAS POWERS

I like this quote most in particular, I like what it really means.  Writing should not be about just writing about a whole bunch of words on a page and calling it a novel. If you watched the New Moon movie premiere with Stephenie Meyer, her advice was to just write write write. Do not consider a novel just a bunch of words written on a page. A novel needs to have plot, interesting dialogue between the characters, twists in the storyline, and an ending depending on if your book is a series or not.

Advice to Writers: William Trevor

By the End, You Should Be Inside Your Character

By the end, you should be inside your character, actually operating from within somebody else, and knowing him pretty well, as that person knows himself or herself. You’re sort of a predator, an invader of people.

-WILLIAM TREVOR

The characters are the most important part of the book. You need to think like the character as you're writing them. This brings me to an article I saw on writer's digest. There was a writer who was a theater actor and he was able to do his characters much more easily because they have been accustomed to be someone else everyday of their life. I think this is where my minor in Theater comes in handy.

Advice to Writers: Paul Auster

Becoming a Writer is Not a “Career Decision”

Becoming a writer is not a “career decision” like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

-PAUL AUSTER

I really liked this quote, it has some facts, being a writer is not something that should be made into a career full of money and power. A person should be a writer because they want to tell stories and entertain people with the universes they make up. I love writing because I love writing stories and I want people to read them.

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life -- a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter. With The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult offers her most powerful chronicle yet as she explores the unbreakable bond between parent and child, and questions whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime -- or if your mistakes are carried forever.

No one knows how much I love it when I am on spring break! It gives me time to read more books. This is another one of Picoult's wonderful books. I also saw it's a lifetime movie as well, which sparked my interest to read it. As usual, Picoult's writing was simply fabulous and it makes me so happy to see that all her wonderful books are being made into film! The film changed things from the ending. I liked the book better! I always prefer the book.  I am looking forward to more of Jodi's books.

Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

Picoult now explores the complex choices of the heart for a young Amish woman -- the compelling journey of discovery for an urban lawyer who befriends and protects her. The small town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, is a jewel in Lancaster County -- known for its picture-postcard landscapes and bucolic lifestyle. But that peace is shattered by the discovery of a dead infant in the barn of an Amish farmer. A police investigation quickly leads to two startling disclosures: the newborn's mother is an unmarried Amish woman, eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher. And the infant did not die of natural causes. Although Katie denies the medical proof that she gave birth to the child, circumstantial evidence leads to her arrest for the murder of her baby. One hundred miles away, Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway has achieved an enviable, high-profile career. But her latest court "victory" has set the sands shifting beneath her. Single at thirty-nine and unsatisfied with her relationship, Ellie doesn't look back when she turns down her chance to make partner and takes off for an open-ended stay at her great-aunt's home in Paradise. Fate brings her to Katie Fisher. Suddenly, Ellie sees the chance to defend a client who truly needs her, not just one who can afford her. But taking on this case challenges Ellie in more ways than one. She finds herself not only in a clash of wills with a client who does not want to be defended but also in a clash of cultures with a people whose channels ofjustice are markedly different from her own. Immersing herself in Katie Fisher's life -- and in a world founded on faith, humility, duty, and honesty -- Ellie begins to understand the pressures and sacrifices of those who to live "plain." As she peels away the layers of fact and fantasy, Ellie calls on an old friend for guidance. Now, just as this man from Ellie's past reenters her life, she must uncover the truth about a complex case, a tragic loss, the bonds of love -- and her own deepest fears and desires.

This is one of my absolute favorite books! I was also happy when Lifetime made it into a movie! I found the idea of this novel to be intriguing mostly because the Amish don't commit murder, and the fact that an Amish teenager was convicted for murder is such an interesting plot. I also liked how in the the film the casting director chose Mariska from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (my favorite show) she nailed the part to the core. This was an intriguing book.

Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

When the marriage of Mariah White and her cheating husband, Colin, turns ugly and disintegrates, their seven-year-old daughter, Faith, is there to witness it all. In the aftermath of a rapid divorce, Mariah falls into a deep depression -- and suddenly Faith, a child with no religious background whatsoever, hears divine voices, starts reciting biblical passages, and develops stigmata. And when the miraculous healings begin, mother and daughter are thrust into the volatile center of controversy and into the heat of a custody battle -- trapped in a mad media circus that threatens what little stability the family has left








I just enjoy Jodi's books so much, I'm now trying to read every single one I can get my hands on. I found this one to be very capturing. It's almost as if God had touched Faith's heart and was trying to help Faith see past other things that were a mess in her life. I found Mariah's husband Colin to be a douche. He cheats on his wife with his mistress in their home. UGH I wanted to smack him. I think this is a book people who are very religious would enjoy curling up to this book.

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty-- they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet-- a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described.



This was such a dramatic book. I did like the way the book was in present then flopped back to the times when Chris and Emily first met, and how they became with a couple. I also found myself drawn to the how the family who was very close friends became torn apart over the fact that the Golds believed that Chris was responsible for Emily's death because she was pregnant. The thoughts in Chris's mind when he found out Emily was pregnant is truly remarkable. Picoult's writing is simply thrilling and I urge many to read it.