Does serendipity exist?

I think I've realized that fantasy novels gave me a very clear idea of the kind of woman I would be:
Independent
Pursue a career in what I love
Not take crap from anyone
Somehow become amazing successful doing what I love (success to me is not measured in money btw)

Also it gave me a very clear idea of what kind of guy I wanted to end up with:
Passionate
Talented
Respects me for being who I am
Someone who loves me for me

Now... I think those are amazing things that I got out of reading what I did growing up. (Thanks Mercedes Lackey, I should invite you to my wedding. If I ever have one.) Also recently I've decided that I probably won't get married. I'm going to take a lover. (lol. I'm kidding but really I don't care so much about the wedding, more about finding the guy... eventually. I just think its fun to say taking a lover.)

Anyway that was an interesting side note. What I was getting to was inspired by a conversation with my roommate and the fact that I just watched the end of the movie Serendipity on tv. One thing that I think Fantasy novels doesn't make real enough if how people meet. Or how relationships start. Which is something I really want to do well in my novel. I was rereading a series I read when I was little. There were 8 books in the series and I loved all of them. (Back then when I read them.) Rereading them, there were things I still liked about them but how the people met/fell in love was SOOO unrealistic. A freak hurricane blew his ship off course and he landed on an island which just so happened to have a princess there, who was single and they were perfect for each other. What bull shit! Yes I'm being a cynic here, but really.

So I think that's something that's missing from most fantasy. I like the parody I'm reading right now. Even though again romantically... its very cliche still. Maybe they won't end up together... haha. How negative am I?

Ok I definitely don't want this to end up being a blog about my love life but since love lives in general are driving the sub plot of my novel thinking about this kind of stuff is good. lol. Anyway I'll stop rambling.

Has anyone noticed I might slightly have ADD? I'm very sorry for the side comments. If you've ever experienced me trying to tell a story in person, you totally understand how I write my blog entries.

I'll have a better post tonight

about feminine fairy tales and folk tales with strong female characters. However until I get home tonight and can look up the quotes I want to include.... I'll start off the day with this.

I've always thought that Disney movies are detrimental to little girls ideas of romance. I truly think that reading so many fantasy novels (especially Mercedes Lackey who has lots of strong female characters) is what made me into the independent woman I am today. However I think some of them still paint unrealistic ideas of romance. Not of women but of romances. Because the guy doesn't always get the girl and not every unique independent girl finds someone who loves her for her. At least I still haven't. Do I have this unrealistic idea that someday a guy will fall madly in love with my weird quirks because of what I've read? Of course it sex (and therefore romance) sells. But I really like the novel I'm working on right now because my main character's romances are so messed up. It's her friendships that really get her through it. I think this is more realistic. What made me think of this is I was skimming over a book I've read a long time ago by Jennifer Roberson it was Track of the White Wolf.

--> Sidenote I got this book yesterday at the Used Book store and I'm pretty sure it was my book to begin with. I donated a whole bunch of my paperbacks years ago and I keep ending up buying them back through this used bookstore. I feel pretty dumb about it. lol.

But Niall the main character just so happens to get ship wrecked on this island and the daughter of the ruler there is wild and carefree. They fall in love blah blah blah. It was all just too perfect for me. Love is anything but perfect. More fantasy novels should reflect this. Jacqueline Carey on the other hand is one that I think really does a good job of making her characters suffer for love. I mean Phedre and Jocelin hate each other at the beginning you have no clue how they're going to end up together. She's a brilliant one that Miss? Mrs? Carey. I hope I meet her someday. Anyway I better get a shower and drive back to College Station (oh shoot me now). Only 11 more months until I get out!!

WOOT! Finals are over.

So I just got back from my McDonald's comfort run after my last final for the first summer session. It's about RIDICULOUS that the next summer session starts tomorrow. What I'll do to be able to leave this place sooner astounds me.
Now I'm able to return to the rpg that misses me and write more (starting tomorrow morning at 7am!) as well as sleep. This weekend I didn't sleep much. But I'm about to go get my comments on the Merlin story. Edit it up and then send it off to apply for ArmadilloCon's writing workshop. Hopefully I will be able to continue cultivating my contacts with writers there for when I (hopefully) move to Austin in a year. Woot! Wouldn't that be sooooo much better than College Station? Yes I think so, too.

Also now I'm able to read again!!! Not stupid history books but all those books I couldn't read yet that I bought the other day. Right now I'm working on Mercedes Lackey's Ill Met By Moonlight. She's one of my standby good authors. I love all her stuff. But there's a lot of other stuff on my shelves too. Oh and last week I finally bit the bullet and talked to my adviser about wanting to go to graduate school. It didn't go as badly as I was afraid it would. Looks like me thinking about taking a year off might be a possibility. I think I want to do my masters at UT, that's what it's looking like now.... So if I don't get in, I doubt I can get in anywhere I want to do my PhD at, I think I'll just move to Austin, get a regular job and write full time for a year. I need to work on my second foreign language anyway and I think ACC offers Italian which is what I want to take. Or German.... Still haven't decided which to tackle next. Any opinions? lol. I love when I write these things like people read them. One day!!!! I'm a secret optimist trapped in a cynic's body. No denying it.

Brilliance has struck. BOO YA!!!

Ok. So I was randomly looking up writers like Mercedes Lackey and Neil Gaiman not that I was planning on using the treadmill journal alternative but I just wanted to do some research. Ursula Le Guin and Jacqueline Carey had talked about inspiration. Le Guin talked about writing about things she was passionate about like when she found out taoism had almost been wiped out in China under one regime. She said she didn't know hardly anything about the Chinese but she wanted to say something about it so she put it in a world she created herself with the same setup where a very old religion had been almost stamped out. And I can't remember if it was Lackey or Carey but someone said they just write about things they know about like animals and something else I can't think of. But anyway so I was chewing over all these things... what issues are important to me? what kinds of things do I know about? Which has kind of given me hope to really tell the world about all of those things I know and care about in my own way. Through my novels. Ok but that's besides the point. The story idea I came up with is this:

something that's always bothered me is the way the job market doesn't care as much about experience (like YEARS of it) than having a college degree. neither of my parents do and that's why my mom got fired when I was little and decided to become a housewife instead. (for which I'm forever grateful, but still.) also when I was around 12 I guess, middle school aged, my dad lost his job with a company he'd worked for for almost 20 years because of a merger then he went from one job to the next all of them way below the level he deserved to be working at. (at the other job my dad had been the chief safety inspector and in charge of that whole department. they got rid of the whole department during the merger, which is kind of funny for an oil company to not care about safety. lol.)
so this is an issue that's always bothered me (I wrote an essay in high school for u.i.l. ready writing about it actually). how could I turn it into a story? well the idea for the story and the idea of turning it into a story came almost simultaneously.
what if a court wizard got fired and replaced with a much younger wizard that had just graduated from wizarding college or whatever. I could imagine the scene perfectly with a "your services are no longer needed" and then this wizard trying to find a new job and meeting with more rejection until he ended up at some ridiculous job not worthy of his abilities. it would be funny right?
then I was telling my friend amanda about the idea and it struck me what if the wizard was MERLIN! because he's like the most iconic wizard figure of all. and then merlin tries to find another job somewhere else and gets rejected, it makes it 10 tens more ridiculous because he's friggin' Merlin! who wouldn't hire Merlin?
ok so that's all I have so far but I think it's damn good. it'll have humor but also really SAY something. and about something that matters to me. plus it's a one shot. just one story no continuation or anything. it'll be great. I'm super excited to get started. I almost don't want to go home tonight and stay here and write instead.

A Few(Well maybe a little more) Words About Fantasy Literature

(Yes it's literature too! Well at least some of it is.) This is where I'm going to step atop my trusty future Fantasy Critic soap box and tell you that Fantasy Literature is important to you. (Contrary to popular belief, my life's work will be to change this.) If anyone in class or in the greater online community would ever like to discuss this with me in greater detail, be my guest! I love talking about it but warning I get a light in my eyes, turn all vivacious(someone else's term not mine) and am hard to shut up.

Short Disclaimer: I know that some fantasy literature is purely fluff for girls mixed with a little war/fighting for the boys, however some is the key word there. Truly they're not all on the same level as romance novels, so please don't group them with those worn tomes on your mother's bedside table. (At least within earshot of me.) Learn to at least appreciate that a little more effort is required to write a combo romance/adventure novel in a completely different world.

Also Fantasy and Science Fiction are as completely different genres as Crime Fiction and Mysteries. Although related perhaps, they are definitely not the same.

So why is Fantasy literature important? Why is it worth more than a child's drawing on the refrigerator? Actually... perhaps it's just as important as that drawing. Anyway... Fantasy is a genre that combines all other genres and well! Romance, adventure, political intrigue, poetry, mystery, crime fiction, pyscho-analytic conflicts, family drama, etc all rolled up into a compelling novel set in a world pulled completely out of one person's imagination. These writers have to be versatile, well versed, and well read. Because let me tell you Fantasy readers are most likely very well read and we're also very picky(some may say snobby but since I'm also describing myself I'll euphem-ize) making us happy is not an easy job. Fantasy is something that can touch everyone because of this element of multi valency.

The reason I'm still going to submit my Fantasy stories for this class is because I firmly believe that Fantasy should still be a well crafted novel if you took out all the magic and mayhem. So although there won't be any of the fantastic elements in what I submit it doesn't mean it's not Fantasy writing. I'll be developing characters and writing scenes I plan on using for my future novels.

The world already secretly knows that Fantasy literature is important they just won't let themselves believe it so much. I mean look at the craze over Harry Potter and the revival of Lord of the Rings. Fantasy is a literature of hope. It shows us that if we were at our best this is what we could accomplish, saving nations, leading armies, escaping enemies with the help of a little luck, logic and good friends. Because if you look closely a main theme behind Fantasy is that it's not the characters' special powers or what have you that helps them overcome obstacles but how they use their resources and the strength of their character. Which we can all do ourselves! This is what I think is great about kids reading Fantasy literature it helps them escape the turmoil of growing up and most often shows them how characters going through their own set of problems(often quite like our own) deal with the good and the bad. You are blind and utterly wrong if you think this is a bad thing OR an easy thing to write.

I think one day after I become a semi-famous Fantasy writer and critic I'm going to write a book called How Fantasy Will Save the World. It'll make the best seller list and change how the whole world thinks about this genre. I'm starting with you though. :D Keep a look out for that book one day. You'll see it on the Amazon list and remember this first little speech from my trusty Fantasy soap box. Again I love discussing this stuff and I have a MILLION more examples, hit me up and we'll get coffee while I discuss the higher points of Tolkien's Medieval allusions or Lackey's portrayal of a feminine view of the struggle of woman taking a non-traditional role in society. (The latter is actually a paper I'm writing right now.) Yes Fantasy literature analysis can get that deep!