Ronald MacDonald as he really is.

This is great but not for the faint hearted. I love the creepy music and the growling sounds. This is what I always imagined Ronald to really look like too

Book vs Film controversy

Ah a truer word was never said.  Well actually loads of truer words have been said but these particular true words are what this blog is about.

Ever since books have been made into movies people have been saying, including myself  “Ah but the book was so much better.”  Book purists will probably go to a movie, having read the book, expecting it to be substandard in comparison. There are many examples I can give where I truly believe the film adaption (and there’s a word I will be coming back to later) has not done the original book justice.

The Woman in Black for one. Susan Hill has written a fantastically dark, scary and atmospheric book and I was actually looking forward to seeing the movie. The film industry does dark and atmospheric pretty well, what could go wrong?

Daniel Radcliffe for a start. Now I have nothing against Mr Radcliffe; he is a pretty good actor but for the time being he is Harry Potter and will be until he gets some lines on his face and stops looking like a 12 year old wizard. The role of Arthur Kipps should have been played by a slightly older character and I kept expecting Kipps to yell “Avada Kedavra” at the ghostly woman.

Radcliffe aside, the film failed to truly scare me, unlike the book which had me leaving the light on by my bed all night (and I’m 42). Now I find this  strange as the film industry has all the props in the world to scare the bejesus out of me but only managed a mild hiccup of a jump.

However, my main problem with this, and many other films that fall into this category  is that they changed the ending. Why oh why oh why? When you know that thousands of movie goers will have read the book why change the ending? I’m willing to bet that 100% of those viewers will be disappointed. The ending is usually the reason they go to see the film in the first place.  If they had felt let down by the finale in the book then the film would not inspire excitement in the first place.

But hey, I didn’t set out to slate the Woman in Black in this blog, as I stated before, many films fall into this category this was just the first that came to mind. But my recommendation here would be, read Susan Hill’s books as she is a fantastic writer and you will never be disappointed.

So back then, to that little word I mentioned above, adaption. I think that this is where the movie makers think that they have us fooled.  As long as they use the words “adapted from the book by……” or “based on the book by…….” we have no cause for complaint because they never said we were getting the real thing anyway. So there! It looks like we will be disappointed movie watchers for a while yet then.

But ah ha!! There is another phenomenon that swings in and saves the day. The film into book version. Now this is more like it. I can go to watch a movie without any preconceptions and then if I like it I can read the book, which of course will be fabulous because it will have been written from the film. Happy bunnies all round. One example I can give of this is The Cabin in the Woods. I have yet to see this film but of my friends who have they all raved about it and then went out and bought the book; so far no one is disappointed.

I must add at the bottom here that of course there are exceptions. The Green Mile for one. This is a truly magnificent film with amazing actors playing their parts stupendously well. I have seen this film many times and cry every time. I have also read the book and it remains one of my favourites to this day.

So you see it can be done, just not often enough for my liking.

What do you think? Film or book or both?

See you next time

Julie 🙂

It’s not Potter.

 

 

So as we all know J K Rowling has brought out a new book to be released at the end of the month. It has been long awaited and reviews will definitely be varied. The Casual Vacancy is Rowling’s first foray into the word of writing for adults and it has been rumored that she is trying to move as far away from ‘Harry Potter’ as she can. Personally I think that is a bad move as it’s Mr Potter who has made her what she is today.

I still don’t know whether I am going to read the book. I think I probably will because I do like to have an opinion and I will then be able to see which reviewers are just jumping on the ‘I Hate JK’ bandwagon.

In the meantime here the first review you will probably read and to be honest it is not bad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/the-casual-vacancy-review_n_1917058.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Julie 🙂

Oh PS – I’m VERY disappointed in the cover. It’s horrible and boring and even though you shouldn’t judge a book etc etc it doesn’t inspire me in the slightest.

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month.

I have found this website that might be worth a look at if you want to start writing a novel and want to do it in a month.  The site offers encouragement, forums, advice and more.

Have a look and let me know what you think….

Click here to go to NaNoWriMo

 

Let’s Eat Grandma

 

 

I lot of you will know exactly where I am going with this post. Yep that’s right grammar and spelling. I have to say that it is my biggest gripe. Bad spelling and grammar set my teeth on edge and if my father was still alive his blood would boil. My friends know how much of a stickler I am for correct English and take the mickey out of me relentlessly. The trouble with setting yourself up as a grammar Nazi is that should you make one tiny mistake the whole world comes down on you like a ton of bricks. No longer can I make a simple typo without hearing my own rantings reflected back at me. No longer can I shorten words in text speak without fingers pointing and heads shaking. But you know what? I can deal with all that as long as people take more care over their own English. I saw a picture on Facebook today and it tickled me. The quality of the photo was not very good so I will give you the gist;

————————————————————————————————-

Girl – I hate peeple who talk rubbish

Boy – *people

Girl – Shut up Danel I’m cross, I’m not looking at my spell check.

Boy – *Daniel

Girl – Stop! Just get of my page

Boy – *off

Girl’s mum – Daniel please stop, she is having a hard time and we are helping her threw something right now

Boy – *through

Girl – Daniel now your messing with my family, just stop.

Boy – You’re as in you’re making this too easy for me

————————————————————————————————-

Now if this was a true conversation I love that boy. I would be proud to call him my son but he is a pedant and I am not ashamed to say that so I am.

One of my catchphrases that I seem to use a lot with my Facebook chums is “The comma is your friend”.

Unfortunately with the advent of texting and social media, brevity seems to be the most important thing now rather than the correct use of the language. Everyone knows that ‘yr’ covers your, and you’re so there is no need to know the difference any more, numbers count as letters ‘c u l8r’ is ‘see you later’. Even ‘OK’ has been shortened to ‘K’.

So is the English language dying? Some would say that it is always evolving and changing and ‘thou would not be erroneous in that supposition’, but is this evolution or just laziness? My feeling is that it is laziness and I do have to admit my guilt with regard to the text situation but I would not dream of using these shortened words in my ‘real’ life. My emails and letters are always written using correct English with commas, semi colons and everything and I for one and proud of that fact.

English is a beautiful language and I just hope and pray that the future generations don’t destroy it.

Anyway it’s lunch time so ‘Lets eat, Grandma’.

J 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Releases

I have heard from my publishers today that two new books containing stories I have written are to be released in October.

They are:- The Egg which is in Spring Fever

and Brotherly Love which is in Sleep Walkin’ & Pick Lockin’

I’ll keep you update and post links where you can buy them.

Very excited.

Julie 🙂

A worrying article

I just came across this article from the Huffington Post.

I know that over the years my children have read less despite encouragement from me and their dad. I do think that TV, and video games etc are partly to blame but I also think that society places less importance on reading as a whole.

Have a read and tell me what you think.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/07/children-reading-rates-down_n_1863582.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-books#

Beginner’s Guide to Police Harassment | Police Association

This is great. Read to the end.

Julie 🙂

 

Beginner’s Guide to Police Harassment | Police Association.

The Mysteries of Book Shop Customers #1

Welcome back.

While thinking about what to write for this blog I found my mind wandering (see previous blog ha ha) to my time working in Waterstones, a job I loved more than any other and which I was sadly only there for 7 months. I was initially employed as a Christmas temp to work for about 6 weeks but once the festive season was over they extended my contract for another month. 7 months later my lovely manager, Emma, told me that head office had decreed that hours had to be cut and unfortunately I was the casualty of that decision.  As sad as I was to be leaving such a fantastic place with amazing staff it did leave me with some lovely and sometimes funny memories, particularly of customers and the things they say.

So I thought you might like to read about some of them here.

I had not worked in retail for almost 30 years when I join the staff at Waterstones so to say I was a little unprepared for the diversity of customers is an understatement. Little old ladies who are rude and shout at you to groups of teenage pierced, tattooed boys who are incredibly polite and funny. Leave your stereotypes at the door and walk into a book shop.

I remember once a man came in with his child and took him into the children’s section. The shop was pretty quiet so the whines of this little boy, who was no more than 5, filled the silence.  I watched the man try to control his son with little to no success, offering him various books or toys to amuse him. The child only became more fractious and loud. Eventually the man chose a couple of books and came to the till.  He was trying to search through his pockets for some change while holding onto his son’s hand and the little boy started to screech and pull away from his dad. In desperation the man handed the child the only thing he had in his hand, his credit card. The boy immediately stopped screaming and looked at the card.  I breathed a sigh of relief that my hearing may not be permanently damaged and smiled at the little  boy only to watch him bend the credit card in two resulting in the card snapping in half. I don’t know how strong the little boy was but I have tried to snap my cards when they expire and end up blunting 3 pairs of scissors before they are in enough pieces to dispose of. Anyway, the man looked at his son shocked, apologised to me and ran out of the shop, dragging his son behind him. He left the books as he had not found the cash in his pockets after all. So almost deaf with no sale made I put the books back on the shelf and went to help my next customer.

Working in a specialist shop means that customers believe that you know everything about the product you sell. Now this may be true if you are selling TV’s or phones where there are a few products but in a book shop it is damn near impossible to know everything about every book.  However this does not deter them from asking for books using the most obscure information. We do have a couple of systems we can search on the computer but obviously the more you put in the more you get out.

I had one lovely little old lady come in and and say,

“I’m looking for a book about a man”.

I asked who it was but she couldn’t remember. I asked if it was a fiction book and she didn’t think so but wasn’t sure. I asked when it was released but again she wasn’t sure. I asked her if she knew anything else about the book and her face lit up;

“He’s wearing a flat cap”.

Soooo, we have a book, about a man, possibly non fiction, wearing  flat cap.  I really didn’t want to disappoint the lady who was so sweet and kept apologising for wasting my time. I told her that I love a challenge and if she would hang on for a while I’d do my best to find it.

So I searched my systems using any number of keywords without success. I was just about to give up when one of my colleagues came up and asked me what I was looking for. I told her and after laughing at my misfortune said,

“Ooh it might be the Terry Wogan book”. She went to the biography section and picked up the book “Wogan’s Ireland” where he was indeed wearing a flat cap on the cover.  When I called the lady back she was over the moon that we had found what she was after with so little information. So maybe I was wrong, maybe we can remember everything about our products.

There are many more customers for me to tell you about but I’ll leave them for a later blog. Something to look forward to I hope.

Oh just one last thing. When I was looking for pictures to put into this posting I came across this wonderful photo of my favourite vegetable. Too good not to share. YUM.

See you soon.

Julie 🙂

Procrastination

So, I promised you a blog about procrastination and as you can see, this is it. What you won’t know however is how long it took to write due to all the stops and starts I made. Cups of coffee, dog walks, kids wants, tv catch-up, girly lunches all demand pieces of me and my time, and, I have to say they are all important. What they do however is take me away from my writing.

Facebook, Twitter, emails are all things that I absolutely have to look at before I start my writing for the day. But why? Are my friends going to say anything so important that it cannot wait for a few hours? I highly doubt it. But still I feel compelled to check every half an hour or so.

Social networking is a valuable tool for those who are trying to promote themselves and their work but they can be just as destructive in those writers (like me) whose minds are prone to wander.

So what is the solution? Is there a solution? Some would say that as long as you are writing you are honing your craft, whether that be drafting pages of your latest masterpiece or penning a quick reply to a comment on Twitter, and to some degree I would concur. But is this all just an excuse to stop you from the real task of finishing your work? I think so. Maybe for me it is a little bit of insecurity and because of that I tend to put my writing last. I must get the housework and shopping etc done first because they are more important than my scribbling. This is a mindset I have yet to break, but believe me I am determined to do it.  It would be pretty hypocritical of me to post this blog without confessing my own guilt around the subject. One of the things I would do well to remember, says my ever supportive husband, is that I have had many stories published in anthologies so my writing can hardly be called scribbling. Fair point Mr Kendrick.

Wikipedia cites the definition of procrastinaton as;

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. In accordance with Freud, the Pleasure principle may be responsible for procrastination; humans do not prefer negative emotions, and handing off a stressful task until a further date is enjoyable. The concept that humans work best under pressure provides additional enjoyment and motivation to postponing a task. Some psychologists cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. Other psychologists indicate that anxiety is just as likely to get people to start working early as late and the focus should be impulsiveness. That is, anxiety will cause people to delay only if they are impulsive.

Interesting huh? Note that the very first line says replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority.  So there is the nub. How important is your work to you? More important than Facebook, Twitter and emails?

The definition above also mentions the stress of the higher priority task, which we have now decided is our writing. Many people, to whom I have mentioned that I am a writer have exclaimed that I have it easy, and in some respects I do. But that does not mean that writing isn’t stressful. Deadlines, plot lines, characters, and themes all make for an anxious time for a writer. But hey, don’t get me wrong I love what I do but to say it is not stressful is erroneous.

So reading back my post I think I will find it hard to justify my procrastination now. I have the solution. Check Facebook, Twitter etc before you start work and then shut down your internet (unless you need it for your work of course) and do not check it until you have reached your writing goal for that day.

Simple huh?

Now why didn’t I think of that. 😉

Julie 😀