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Dec 15 2010

I Love The Hillywood Show!

If you have never heard of The Hillywood Show then

1:  you are probably not a Twilight fan

2:  you are probably not a teenager who spends any amount of time on YouTube

3:  you are not a writer

4:  you are totally missing out!

I cannot even remember how I came across this talented group of young actors & actresses.  While they were doing parodies long before Twilight came along (they did an awesome parody of The Dark Night that totally rocks!), it was their awesome music video parodies of these movies that really got them noticed.

Let me backtrack a little.  I do not claim to know the whole story behind the sister team of Hilly and Hannah Hindi.  What I do know is that when I saw their music video parody of the movie Twilight, I was an instant fan.  As a writer and a fan of the show, I would love to see what they could do with my own storyline The Red Fang.  If I ever get it finished, I might ask them if they would be so kind as to do a parody of it.  If they said no, however, I think I would be crushed!

If you have never heard of this dynamite duo and their supporting cast, I strongly encourage you to check out their website @  http://www.TheHillywoodShow.com  What I find most amazing about this bunch is that they are just a group of high schoolers who came up with these ideas and have since made some really amazing videos and clips.  All I can say is, if they are this good at writing, editing, and choreographing at this young age, then I think we might be in for some really awesome movies later on down the line.  That is if Hollywood is smart enough to snatch up The Hillywood Show before they are off to college and on with their lives.  In the meantime, check them out.  Even if you are not a Twilight fan, you will enjoy these parodies.  Personally, I think their portrayal of the characters and take on the whole storyline is much better than the actual movies.

NOTE:  these videos are pretty long, so I always pause them and let the videos load before I hit ‘play.’  If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s really getting into a music video and have the thing stall out on me!

Dec 5 2010

Keep It Simple, Stupid!

For anyone who has ever set foot inside an English composition class, you are probably pretty familiar with the K.I.S.S. acronym.  Today I’d like to discuss the two extremes of this very misleading, and often misunderstood, writing tool.

On the far end of the extreme are those writers who take this acronym literally and think that simple everything is better:  simple plotline, simple sentences, simple characters, simply dialogue.  This is all well and fine…if you are writing childrens books.  If you are aiming for anyone with more than a 5th grade education, you are going to have to get out of the “See Jane run” mentality.  A manuscript written for someone above the age of thirteen should not sound like it was written by an 11 year old unless:

1.  it actually was written by an 11 year old

2.  you are Stephanie Meyer

3.  you intended for it to sound this way because it is based around the view-point of an 11 year old

Most English instructors make the very grave mistake of telling their students to write everything on a 5th grade level.  Okay, unless you are writing for an audience who is 12 years or younger, then anyone else is going to have more than a 5th grade education.  I have always said that I have more than a 5th grade education, I think on a level higher than a 5th grader, therefore I write subject matter and in a style that is meant for those with more than a 5th grade education.  Most adults who read something as simply written as the Twilight saga are often bored to tears.  (I know I sure was.) They want something that will challenge their minds, intrigue their imagination, and totally engross them in the storyline.  “Here comes Edward” just isn’t going to cut it for the majority of the adult population.  Don’t be afraid to use a large vocabulary if you have one.  You are not the only adult in the world to know big words.  Just be careful to not use too many at one time, try to use more common words that a lot of people would know instead of just a few doctors or lawyers or those with a much higher education, and always look for new, if somewhat simpler words, to use in place of always saying the same thing.

For instance, writing “He exited the building” sounds much better than “He left the building.”  While ‘exited’ isn’t exactly a big word, it gives the illusion of a much more sophisticated sound.  Remember that having a large vocabulary doesn’t just mean knowing a lot of different words;  knowing a lot of different words that mean the same thing is not only included in that vocabulary count, but as a writer, it will help you tremendously.  Other ways to write that same sentence include:

**He departed from the building.

**He headed off into the unknown, leaving the building behind.

**He disappeared out the door, leaving the building behind.  

**He vanished out the door and down the steps.

As you can see, there are many ways to write “He left the building.”  All of the above examples are fairly simply stated, but the way they are written spices things up, uses different words to keep the reader interested, and is not so simple that it would make the reader want to bang their head on their desk in frustration.  That is not to say that using something as simple as “He left the building” should never be used.  But if you are having to write the same scenario over and over, learning new ways to state the same thing keeps the reader interested and keeps the writer from falling into a rut.

On the other end of the spectrum are those writers who write so far above the regular Joe’s head that no one without a Ph. D. would be able to understand what was going on.  This, of course, is fine if the work in question was being written specifically for doctors.  However, if the work is supposed to be for regular, everyday people, it is only going to infuriate the reader and make them feel like an idiot.  Most people, myself included, have the mentality that people use big words to make themselves sound smarter than they actually are.  This means that you, by default, are not as smart as they.  And trust me, no one likes to feel like an idiot.  Not to mention that no one is going to continue to read something that requires them to look up the definition of every other word in a sentence.   

When it comes to writing, a very important first step is deciding who your target audience is.  If you are aiming for children, then you are naturally going to have to write in very simple terms.  If you are writing for adults, however, you are going to have to find a happy medium.  Write things too simply and your audience will die from boredom before they hit the second chapter.  Write too far above their heads and they will quickly tire of trying to figure out what all the fancy words mean.  No one really needs to know that you secretly have a vocabulary that rivals Merriam-Webster.  What does matter is that you can choose the correct words from your vast vocabulary that will appeal to the most people.

Dec 1 2010

Tearing Down the Walls – Privacy in Writing

A reader of mine, who is also a writer, brought up a very interesting point.  He said, “When I tell someone that I am a writer, there is an instantaneous loss of privacy.”  Those words really struck home for me.  As a writer of erotic fantasy, there is a reason why I do not tell people that I am an author.  (see article “Why People Don’t Know that I am an Author” )  For me, it is really hard trying to explain to people exactly what I write about (mostly taboo fantasy fiction) and how/why I got started in this particular genre.  Reading those words of a fellow writer made me start thinking about all the reasons why people don’t want to confess their profession/hobby/passion, and why, once they do, they no longer have any type of privacy when it comes to their writing lives.

I cannot speak for all writers, but I can give you the rundown on how I lose privacy when I admit that I write.  First off, for some reason, people have a tendency to look at me funny when I say, “Yeah, I write.”  It’s almost like they are sizing me up.  I can almost see the gears turning in their heads.  What does she write about?  Does she do freelance from home?  How come I have never heard of her?  Is she any good?  It’s like they are trying to decide if they want to ask me anything about it or not.  If they are genuinely interested, then they usually ask.  It is these people who end up knowing a lot more about how my mind works than they really wanted to know, or that I wanted them to know.

The first question out of a person’s mouth is, “What do you write about?”  Well, if you happen to write news articles or fashion articles or articles on money or just about anything in the nonfiction genre then you will not likely have the scenario I am about to describe.  But as soon as I tell them, “I write fantasy fiction” they look at me like I had not gotten the memo that I was an adult.  In other words, people seem to associate “fantasy” stories with children and teenagers so obviously anyone who writes about fantasy is nothing more than an overgrown child.  They may be thinking that I am not that smart since I write about things that are not based in reality.  Now if I had told them I wrote children’s books they would want to know where they could pick up my latest creation.  But as soon as they heard the word “fantasy” they started making the following associations:

1.  She’s not very smart since she writes about things that do not actually exist.

2.  If she’s writing about make-believe things then she’s obviously immature and acts/thinks like a child.

3.  She’s not that talented because if she were then she would have a respectable job at a magazine or newspaper.

Already I have people making judgments about me based solely on the genre I choose to explore.  Now imagine the looks on their faces when I tell them the rest of the story, “Um, yeah, I don’t just write fantasy fiction, I actually write erotic fantasy fiction.”

Two things will now happen.  First, I went from being an addle-brained nitwit without any talent and a Peter Pan complex to being a sexual deviant who needs to be locked away in a jail cell for the next fifty years.  Now they really think that I have no talent because no one in their right minds with any talent what-so-ever would ever voluntarily write anything erotic, right?  Next they are going to start telling everyone who will listen to keep their kids away from my kids and to stay away from me because obviously anyone who writes about that stuff thinks about it all the time.  So now I’m not just a no-talented nitwit, but I’m a perverted, sexually deviated no-talented nitwit. 

Second, if the person who finds this out is male, the first thing that pops into his mind is that I must be a slut and will want to have sex with anyone at anytime.  After all, anyone who writes about it must think about it all the time and obviously must want it all the time as well.  Not to mention that anyone with that kind of imagination must be into some really kinky stuff.  Cue the stares, the propositions, the “accidental” brushing against of parts of my body that I will not mention.  For some reason, when men hear the words ‘erotic writer’ they seem to think they are getting a green light to hit on me.

Well obviously people are idiots.  Okay, so not really.  But what they are is very judgmental.  It’s only natural for them to fear or avoid what they do not understand.  And unless you are a writer, you will not understand that writing erotica is like writing any other form of creative literature.  I’m always so wrapped up in trying to get the wording just right that I cannot just sit down and just enjoy the story for what it is.  Because, what it is, for me at least, is a piece of literary art. 

I think this bothers me the most.  If someone goes to a museum and looks at a nude painting, they recognize it as “art.”  The same cannot be said if that same person then reads an erotic fantasy story.  They do not recognize, or understand that, for the writer, what was created was art.  To put it into everyday terms, an OB-GYN stares at female genitalia every day, but they certainly don’t go around being sexually aroused 24-7.  Why?  Because they look at it not from a sexual point of view but from a scientific point of view.  The same can be said for a photographer or painter who is capturing the nude form.  They look at it from an artist’s perspective.  Writers are no different.  Our medium of creation is just a little bit different from a painter or a photographer.

Letting others know that you are a writer means you have to let them into your world.  You have to try to explain to them that writing is an art form.  Then you will be judged based not only on what genre you choose to explore, but also on the simple fact that you are a writer.  They will gain insight into how your mind works and how you view the literary world.  They will almost certainly see you in a new light.  For better or worse, once people know you are a writer, your writing world and the creativity behind it will no longer be a private thing shared between you and your fans. 

If the person in question should happen to actually read something that you wrote, then they will have even more information about how your mind and creativity work.  Which is scary for me, actually.  On second thought, them thinking that I am a no-talented nitwit is preferable than what they may think of me after reading the filth that I have created.

And then again, they may become my new best friend.

Nov 30 2010

But You are not REALLY a Writer

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes a writer as someone who writes.  Whether that be stories, articles, blogs, novels, poetry, or the like, if you write then you are a writer.   In order to continue to call yourself a writer, however, you will have to keep on writing.  If you use to write but haven’t in a really long while, then you use to be a writer.  If you have never actually written down any part of that next bestseller that has been bouncing around in your head then sorry, you are not a writer.  In order to be a writer, you have to actually write.  That’s in the presence tense.  “Use to” doesn’t make you a writer any more.  “Going to” doesn’t make you one either.

Now you will notice that the definition did not say that in order to be a writer you had to actually do it full-time or get paid for it or for it to be your actual  job description or contribute to your income in any way.  Which brings me to another one of my pet peeves:  writers who seem to think that because we have not yet gotten a book deal, do not write full-time, or do not hold some type of “writing” job as our career that we are not really writers.  Sorry, that is just wrong.  And it’s also disturbing.  Someone who considers themselves a writer and is actually getting paid for it but does not know the definition of the word “writer” is an insult to writers everywhere.  Saying that someone isn’t a writer simply because he/she doesn’t get paid to write is like saying a woman is not female because she has not yet had children.

I had often thought that the majority of writers who thought this way were those who only wrote articles and other nonfiction.  My reasoning behind this is that a lot of writers who defend so whole-heartedly that writers who are not getting paid are not really writers come off sounding like jealous children who are angry that they do not possess the creativity to write something fictitious and must therefore stay in the nonfiction genre.  Recently I have come across a slew of mercenary writers who write fantasy fiction who seem to also have the warped perception that non-paid writers are not really writers.  So my observations lead me to think that, yes, they are all jealous of the creativity that others possess and are striking out at other writers for being better at the writing process than they are.  What I have discovered is that it is not just nonfiction writers who seem so jealous, but other fiction writers as well. 

Which brings me to my next point.  Why do writers get jealous of each other at all?  What I have come to understand is that it is not just writers who get jealous of others in their field.  Jealousy is just a natural human emotion.  It is only natural for humans to be envious of those whom they deem to be better at something than they are.  What I would like to see is more understanding and support of each other.  Writing is a very lonely and solitary activity.  No one understands a writer and their obstacles better than another writer.  We should be congratulating each other on our successes and encouraging each other to never give up, no matter what our ultimate dream or desire may be in our writing endeavors.   Instead, some writers will be little each other, call each other names, and try to convince each other that they either have no talent or that they are not really writers because it is not their evil day job. 

It makes me wonder if the reason why writers don’t want to confess to their profession is not because they are afraid of what others may think, but because they are afraid that the person they are talking to is a writer too.  Why would you want to confess to being a writer if the person you are talking to is also a writer and insists upon telling you all the reasons why you are not really a writer and all the reasons why they are really a writer.  We get enough people from the outside world staring down their noses at us.  We don’t need to snub each other as well.

Nov 19 2010

Bret Michaels: A Little Girl’s Hero

The following article originally appeared on Hub Pages as a sit-down interview with yours truly. 

The following is an article based on an interview with the little known underground erotic writer Nicola Matthews. Nicola talks about her life, her work, and her personal hero, singer/songwriter Bret Michaels.

In the Beginning:

“I first heard the song Every Rose has its Thorn way back in 1989 when I was only twelve years old. Back then I had never heard of Bret Michaels or Poison. But there was something in Bret’s voice that spoke to me, a hidden sorrow that suggested that even though he may have lived a charmed life compared to most, that he still knew what it meant to suffer emotionally. It didn’t take me long to dig up everything I could about the band. I came to think of them as “my guys,” like they were part of the family or something. Stupid, I know, but that’s the way I felt about them. I felt a kinship with Bret more than any of the other band members. It’s hard to explain, but there was just something about him, about his voice….he could speak volumes by singing just a few lines. I think it’s that way with a lot of his fans. A lot of people will come across that certain singer or musician that they feel some sort of ethereal connection to. For me, it has always been Bret Michaels.”

“Bret saved my life.”

“I grew up in a broken home.  These days having divorced parents or parents that have never even been married is nothing unusual.  In fact, it seems that me and my husband are in the minority, having been married for fifteen years now.  But back then, people just didn’t get divorced.  My parents didn’t just divorce.  My mom up and left when I was eleven years old.  My father had just had a triple bypass done on his heart and hadn’t been home but like maybe two months when she left.  I remember my dad telling me, ‘If you go with your mom then I’ll blow my brains out!  I will, I swear I will!  Don’t you go with her!”  At the age of eleven all I could think about was who was supposed to take care of my dad if I left?  So I stayed.

Things were okay for a while.  But soon it became apparent why my mom had split.  Without her there, there was no one to protect me from tirade of verbal abuse that came from my father.  I know I’m not the only one to have ever been emotionally and physically abused as a child, but unless you have been there, you honestly don’t know what kind of mental and emotional scars it can leave on a person, especially a young child.  I was told so many times that I was ‘useless’ and ‘worthless’ that I began to shut people out.  I was very lonely growing up.  Every time I made a close friend my father would find some reason to forbid me to see that person outside of school.  It got to the point that I was too embarrassed to have anyone over any way.  The beatings and verbal abuse didn’t stop just because I had a friend over.  It was just easier to be by myself and pretend everything was fine.  But it takes a toll, you know?  By the time I was twelve I had already attempted suicide twice.

And then I heard Bret’s voice.  As corny as it sounds, I decided at the age of twelve that I was not going to leave this earth until I had met Bret Michaels.  In his own way, Bret saved my life.”

A Funny Story…

“When I was in eighth grade I had a very close friend named April.  She, like me, had a horrible home life.  Her mom was a nurse who worked four days a week at a hospital in New Orleans.  Now the story of how I got a backstage pass and ticket to a Poison concert was told to me like this:

While the band was playing in New Orleans one of the techies fell off a catwalk and broke his leg or his hip or something like that.  April’s mom was one of the nurses assigned to take care of this guy.  When she found out that he worked for Poison she told him about her daughter and her friend who were these huge fans of the band.  So this guy, who was nicknamed Studs, got her two tickets and two backstage passes for us for an upcoming show scheduled to be held on the Gulf Coast.  April, being the wonderful friend that she was, gave me the other ticket and backstage pass.  I was fourteen years old and might as well just have won a $100 million lottery.

Well, my life being what it was and my dad being the kind of person that he was, refused to let me go to the concert.  I had to give the ticket and backstage pass to April’s boyfriend at the time, Brian.  However, Brian was nice enough to get C.C. DeVille to autograph a shirt for me.  I had wanted a pair of Bret’s undies, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Music Spawns Creativity

“I started writing when I was about six years old.  I can remember as a child that I loved to make up stories.  As soon as I learned how to write, I began to write down stories to amuse myself.  I was an only child, so I learned to read at a very early age.  Once my parents split up, I escaped my world of sorrow for adventures across the globe in books of all kinds.  I tried my own hand at writing and attempted my very first novel when I was eight years old.  By the age of ten I had tried to write two additional novels, without much success.  At thirteen, I began writing on a romance/mystery that I entitled Big Dreams and Nightmares.  It took me my entire seventh grade year to complete.  I would sit in front of my stereo with headphones on and listen to Poison’s Open Up and Say…Ahh album over and over again while I wrote.  The guys inspired me to do more than merely jot down my random ideas and thoughts.  It was then that I realized that deep down, no matter how smart I was or how good my grades were, I would always be a writer.  It was the one God-given talent that I had been granted, and I wanted to share it with the world.

You asked me why Bret was my hero.  It’s because no matter what life has thrown at him, no matter how dismal things may have seemed,  no matter how much people told him that he “couldn’t” he looked life straight in the face and said, ‘Oh yes I can!’  I guess Bret reminds me of myself.  I have been to the depths of hell and back over the years, and no matter what, I have always crawled back out of the hole that life had dug for me.   Bret Michaels is my hero, and I still refuse to leave this earth until I have met him.”

Personal Message for Bret:

 We caught up with Nicola on April 23, 2010 in regards to the brain hemorrhage suffered by Bret Michaels on April 21.

“My husband and I had went out to eat Friday night.  When we got home he got on the internet and saw the news banner on Yahoo!  He was the one who told me about it.  After reading the article I went into the bathroom and cried like a baby.  I was terrified for him, for his family, for his two girls.  I didn’t even want to fathom a world without Bret in it.”

MS:  Do you have any personal words for Bret?

“Bret, we are all standing behind you and praying for your recovery.  You hang in there, and fight.  And always remember that little girls, even when they are all grown up, will always need their hero.”

Original article appeared here:  http://hubpages.com/hub/Bret-Michaels-A-Little-Girls-Hero