A Different Perspective

I’ve never written stories where the main character is a male, as I’ve always stuck to female protagonists. So does this matter? And what does it say about my writing?

I began thinking about this after reading a prompt that suggested writing a first person narrative, assuming the voice of someone from the opposite gender. The prompt’s suggestion began by stating the following:

“As a writer of fiction you’re seriously handicapped if you can’t write convincingly about people unlike yourself.”

Getting Back On the Road

For almost two years now, I’ve been ignoring a young adult book I’d started writing. The printed out pages of critiqued chapters lay on the corner of my desk, haunting me, reminding me that there’s story which is far from finished.

I’m not really sure why I stopped writing it. I could blame the circumstances in my personal life (ie I had a baby) but that would be lying. It probably had more to do with the fact that I knew I was coming to a point where I didn’t know how to continue. I had the plot of three more chapters planned out in my head. As for the rest, I only know how I want the novel to end. I haven’t got a clue how to get my characters there.

The Magazine Website Is Up

We are one step closer to publishing our first edition of Cecile’s Writers. The road has been longer than anticipated, but today we are ready to show you our website, home of our upcoming literary magazine this summer: www.cecileswriters.com.

Sign Up

Of course we will let you know when we publish our first edition. Although you can already sign up to our magazine and receive each edition in your inbox for free. This can be done directly on the website at the bottom of the page.

The Website

There are already some interviews, prompts and news on the website. We have stories that we are currently revising and preparing to publish. We are, however, always looking for new submissions. Curious? Please check out our revised Submission Guidelines.

The CW Team

Enjoying a Book Twice

A while ago I wrote a post about reading a book twice: was it fun, healthy or just a waste of time?. I began reading “The Devil and Miss Prym” for the second time but switched to another book a few pages into it. I’m not sure why. Later when I finally did get back to reading it, I finished it in a few days. And loved it.

The book is a fable, which deals with the struggle between good and evil. A stranger arrives in an isolated mountain village and he brings with him a devilish offer. I don’t want to tell what the offer is, as I think the surprise of it is what gives the book its strength. I think it would a shame to know this before reading. (It’s one of the reasons I avoid book covers when a friend lends me a book to read). Anyway, the stranger’s instigation throws the townspeople into a moral tailspin and everyone tries to find moral excuses for doing something evil.

The Classics Set to Music

Sometimes when you’re searching for something online you come across something completely different. I can’t even remember what I was looking for when I came across a list of songs that retell a work of literature.

Before I knew it, I’d spend way too much time going through the list. There were a few that I knew. The most famous, I think, was “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush which was a re-telling of Emily Brontë’s novel.

Seeing the Good in the Wicked Witch of the West

I’ve just finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I decided to read it immediately after seeing the musical which was surprisingly good, even though I had to see it in Dutch.

It’s a revisionist look at the characters and the land of Oz from L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. In the book I get to know the Wicked Witch of the West as the passionate and scarred Elphaba fighting against the Wizard who is portrayed as a ruthless dictator of Oz.

Avoiding Dunglish and other Foreign English

Being bilingual has many advantages but also a few disadvantages. The most prevalent one is thinking of a word in the wrong language and not being able to translate it in your head fast enough. When talking to someone who doesn’t know I’m bilingual, I always get the feeling that they think I’m slightly dim-witted.

Connected to this, is having two sets of grammatical rules in your head. Writing as much as I do, I’m constantly confronted with the question of which rules apply to which language.

Creative Book Porn

A fellow writer recommended I take a look at a blog called Book Porn. Apparently it’s a blog with pictures of the most beautiful bookstores and libraries in the world. As I’d already written a blog post on this (The Seduction of Bookstores), I was curious what more this site had to offer.

However, she didn’t remember what the url was and just told me to google it. So, when I got home, I googled ‘Book Porn’. I didn’t find the blog, but I did find a lot of other great things on Pinterest, a digital pinboard. If you type ‘Book Porn’ there you’ll get an array of creative ideas on how you can use books as art. Before I knew it, I lost track of  time looking at how creative some people are.