BubbaMack

Dear Hollywood,

While I fully understand that you think you’re doing something great by taking books we love and turning them into movies, I respectfully ask you to stop. No, I don’t care how many readers beg you and provide casting suggestions, it just needs to stop.

Do you know the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing time and time again and expecting a different result. You’ve had years to figure out how to take an amazing work of literature and turn it into a big-screen blockbuster and you’re just not able to do it. Well, you are, but far too often at the expense of the original story.

Think I’m kidding? Let’s take a look at one of the most hyped series of the past few years. I avoided Twilight like the plague for a long time because of said hype. After reading the first book, I was scared to watch the movie because I wasn’t sure you could do it justice. Sorrily, you managed to meet my expectations.

1. The truck - It didn’t even take you five minutes to deviate from the original story. I suppose it worked out well that Jacob and his dad brought the truck to the house so they could meet rather than having the truck sitting there waiting for it. And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t all jazzed when she first found out that her dad bought her a truck.
   
2. Killing humans - Unless I’m mistaken, and I really don’t think I am, Laurent, James and Vicki didn’t kill humans in the book. Yes, I understand that a vampire movie without killing humans isn’t the same, but Stephanie Meyer did a good job with the families meeting and Laurent saying they wouldn’t jeopardize the Cullen’s safety. Kind of hard to do that when they’ve already killed two people.
3. Tension at school - Where was Tyler asking Bella to the dance and then saying he was going to take her to prom? Oh yeah, you pulled out the first dance and he never did ask her to prom. That was a really good bit of tension there. In fact, you seemed to remove just about all tension between Bella/Edward/anyone else except Jacob.
4. Alice - This was, by far, my biggest disappointment in the book to movie butchering. I love Alice. There was so much tension in the airport hotel that wasn’t touched on. Alice never sketched Bella’s mom’s house. Bella didn’t know that James was going to be there. Oh, who am I kidding? That whole sub-plot sucked in the movie. You could have done so much with Bella trying to escape Alice and Jasper in the airport. But back to Alice… when James revealed the reason Alice didn’t remember her life before she was turned was brilliant in the book. It explained so much, including adding a layer of motivation for James hunting a member of the family. You pulled it all out. Hell, if I had watched the movie first, I wouldn’t even know that Alice had that pain within her.

Now, because I’m not wholly evil, you did do a couple of things well. First, the fight scene in the ballet studio was entertaining. I think that’s just because stuff was breaking, bodies were flying and eventually the bad guy had his head ripped off, but it was good. Second, Edward and Bella dancing in the gazebo? Well played, Edward!

Two good things aren’t enough to make me forget that you have completely bastardized a good story. I had been looking forward to a few movie adaptations of books that I’ve read recently, but now, I’m almost scared for what you will do to the characters that I love.

Please, do the world a favor and stop trying to make a buck off amazing novels. Screenwriters and novelists are different creatures. What works for one may not work for the other.

ps, if you’re a reader reading this, please stop begging Hollywood to make your favorite book into a movie. You’re setting yourself up for failure even more than if you think the hero of the book is going to step out of the pages and rescue you from your mundane life.

kthxbai

Apparently, if you don’t touch your blog for almost a month, people will start to notice. Okay, so I’m not saying I’m cool enough that my email was blowing up with thousands of people demanding that I start posting again but I did have a few people ask. There are a few things that pulled me away from this little corner of the world. Now I’m trying to resolve those issues so life makes sense again.

NaNoWriMo

I finally did it! After one failed attempt and many years of being too much of a chicken to try, I finally won NaNoWriMo! What does that have to do with the fact that we’re over halfway through December and my butt still isn’t back to posting? Well, it’s not going to do anyone any good, least of all me, if I waste the nearly 60,000 words I wrote in November.

Now my days are filled with trying to finish my novel. I won in the sense that I wrote over 50,000 words. That doesn’t mean I finished my book. It’s a story that can’t be told in 50,000 words without feeling like I’m cheating the characters so I continue to write. After that, it will be time to edit. After that, it will be time to edit some more.

If you want to see where I’m at now with the novel, feel free to read it on FictionPress! It’s not complete (as of writing this) and there will be plenty of edits, but this is where I’m posting as I write so my friends who ask me about it can read. I don’t think that the title will stay the same when it’s done. Trying on titles is like trying on wedding dresses; there are a lot that seem okay, but when you find “the one” you know it!

Listening to Others

Blogging is a tricky business. I can sit down at this computer and write what I think is an amazing post and no one reads it. I can write a post that I think people will like and they hate it. I can write about things that I love and I get to listen to people tell me how certain things have no place on my blog.

I was an idiot. I listened to them. When I started posting book reviews, I started getting emails telling me that people didn’t appreciate having to read about “smut” on my blog. So, I did the same thing I’ve done several times and I tried to put my love of romance novels into a neat little box. Now, it’s stacked with the box that holds my (sometimes failed) attempts at healthier living, going green, being content with being a plus-sized woman, crafting and many others.

Hopefully by writing this I will remember it… This is my blog. This is my life. I live a life that is not compartmentalized at all. I live a life that, to those not living it, seems like it is filled with contradictions. In many ways, it is. But isn’t that part of the joy of life? We are all gems with many facets. I’m not going to keep fighting to only write about what I think “fits” on a site that was started as an outlet for myself.

If you like that, awesome. If you don’t, I can respect that. But as we move into the new year, I need to find a balance in my life and that balance is going to start with being true to myself and my family. If I feel it’s important or interesting enough to blog, it will be here.

Filter Modifications

There are people out there who buy perfectly functional vehicles and then take off the muffler only to replace it with a high-performance muffler that muffles nothing? Yeah, let’s just say I’m going into high performance mode. I’ve struggled for a long time with trying to censor what I say on my blog. It has resulted in many of my blogging friends telling me that I’m much different here than I am on Facebook, over the phone or wherever else we meet.

I kind of like being me. I like making people laugh. I like pissing people off if it forces them to stop and think about their side of the argument. I’m done pushing those parts of me back into the cellar. If you like the real, more raw me, welcome to my world! If not, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out!

So, there you have it. I’m not saying I’m going to make sense all of the time. I’m not going to promise any sort of consistency. Those are things that don’t work for me in my world….