I'm supposed to work now ...

Okay, I really should be working now. But instead, I found myself going to this blog, tuning things up, because a friend of mine gave a link of this blog to a mailing list full of friends. Talking about pressure.

Anyway, I'm excited to have borrowed another movie based on Jane Austen's book, Mansfield's Park. It would be interesting to compare it with Pride and Prejudice.

Okay, gotta get going :)

Lagging Behind

A recent unexpected event has thrown all of my schedule off. I got a promotion at work! :) Yay! Grateful, happy, hectic, nervous as I'm about to launch into the unknown-ness of the new position, all rolled into one. I can't wait to start though, this new job would be a combination of marketing, finance, operation, and web mastering. I'm sure I will learn a lot!

Because of the busyness of leaving the old job, having to tie all loose ends - and training for the new one, My NaNo writing would seriously suffer (it's at a pitiful 500+ word count now), as would blogging .. My friend recently complained that she would like 25 hours a day, instead of 24. How I echo her wish!

On the side note, in my perfect world, ALL jobs would pay the same, so everyone can be whatever they want to be.

On Resources

In case you haven't noticed, I love words. The website www.dictionary.reference.com used to be one of the sites that I regularly visited everyday. I'm a geek, what can I say?

That was then. Now, I just type "define ____" on Google to get the definition of any word that I need. And to think that I used to spend money buying those thick dictionaries! The technology has really spoiled us rotten, I know!

Here are some other writer's tools on the Internet that I find useful:

Rhyme Zone
http://www.rhymezone.com/
Especially helpful when creating poems or song lyrics, in this website you can find rhymes to any word based on its syllables, or letters.

Quotations Page
http://www.quotationspage.com
When I recalled something that I've read somewhere, but have no clue as to who had said it, I usually can find what I was looking for in this website. It's quite extensive and easy to navigate as well.

Phrases
http://www.phrases.org.uk
This is another site that I love. English is my second language, so every now and then I would come across phrases and figurative speeches that were just bizarre to me. This site wonderfully collects phrases and figurative speeches in alphabetical manner, with meaning and origin attached to each entry. That takes the cake!

And, for everything else, of course there would always be Wikipedia.

Of Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen
1775 - 1884
__________

I'm quite ashamed to confess that I've never read Jane Austen before. I recently stumbled into the movie Pride and Prejudice which is based on her book by the same title, and I was captured by the story line.

Jane Austen seems to be a master of telling regular, every day life with such details and reality, which would transport her readers into a believable world and believable characters - in and with whom readers could identify themselves.

Here are some personal take-aways from Austen's Pride and Prejudice (the movie):

1. Believability comes largely from first hand experience.

Many experts suggest that Jane Austen wrote largely from her own personal experience. Finding a husband was indeed a great deal for women back in those olden days, because it would mean their survival, and financial as well as physical securities.

Because she wrote from a real life experience, her story echoes very strongly with her readers and women in particular, who to some extent, even in the modern days of 20th century, can still identify with the concerns that she presented in her story.

2. Sub-plots that revolve around the main theme of the story can work together to enhance the main plot.

Austen created many sub-plots which layered throughout the story, all revolving around the concern of finding a husband or courtship.

As these sub-plots reached their various conclusions throughout the story, we were keeping tabs on the fate of our heroine Elizabeth Bennet, who, in a way, was having similar struggle just as the characters of the sub-plots. How we hoped that in the end, our heroine would emerge victoriously, and receive a fair reward for all she had gone through!

3. Create different tones of sub-plots and spread evenly throughout the story.

*spoiler alert*

The sub-plot with the main character's sister Jane is that of a happy one. We all sighed with happiness as Jane reunited with her beloved, Mr. Bingley.

With Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth's friend, the tone is that of pity. She married Mr. Collins merely for security and protection, rather than for love!

The tone of the sub-plot of Lydia and her marriage was more of a disgrace and disgust. These widely varied tones all contributed to a sense of dynamic as "unhappy" sub-plots are followed by the generally "happier" ones, and they all are leading up to the big conclusion of the main character's plot.

Now, if only I had the time to actually read the original work, not only watch the movie version, then maybe my comments would hold a little more weight. :)

What I've Been Up To

Associated Content Writer
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/662956/theresa_seniawati.html

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Aside from taking the NaNoWriMo challenge, which will need a special willpower to pull, I have been writing articles in Associated Content. It won't help paying the mortgage, and at the rate I'm at now, I would have to produce a hundred of articles in order to earn a meal.

But what it's giving me is a finish line and incentive, and that's what my writer mind currently needs. A carrot in a stick in front of my nose.

NaNoWriMo does that too, actually. It has a finish line, November 30th and 50,000 word count. It has a carrot too, CreateSpace, a free proof copy of the completed NaNoWriMo manuscript. But, producing 1,667 words per day, with a debt of 13,667 words that I still need to write? The time constraint alone automatically overrides the privilege to edit the work, and simply, the writer's perfectionist mind won't allow that. So I'm not sure if that's really going to work for me.

Sigh. The writer's mind is indeed at a procrastinating state right now.

Shoutout!

Blog: Restaurants-Happy Hour-Food
http://foodinseattle.blogspot.com/
________________

Just feel like giving a friend of mine, the owner of the blog: Restaurants-Happy Hour-Food, a quick shout-out, for inspiring me to revive my own blog which has been in coma for two years.

A food enthusiast who loves to connect with people, blogging about food comes like a natural thing for her to do. And in contrary to what she confesses in her blog, I don't think she has any problem whatsoever with grammar! Her pictures alone speak thousand words, and in particular will speak to your taste bud to go taste some of those good stuffs which she abundantly posted on her blog.

I've quite forgotten how exciting it was to keep a blog, and to write. In a way, writing, and any other talents for that matter, is kind of like growing a garden. You've gotta plant seeds; you've gotta water and prune whatever grow out of the seeds you sow. You've gotta start somewhere. The start may be humble and may seem little, but until you invest in it, you won't know what may come out of it.

This friend re-sparked the desire in me to continue growing this little writing garden. Here's to my dear friend in real life and in blogging world; may we have long and meaningful blogging years to come. :)

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo
November 2009
(http://www.nanowrimo.org/)
__________________

This is my first year joining the NaNoWriMo, stands for National Novel Writing Month, for which I'm very excited about! :)

The annual challenge of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in a 30-day span, every year in November from November 1 - November 30. The main keys are spontaneity and quantity, not necessarily of laborious thoughts and quality.

I was at 972 word count telling the experience of an extended family on their Christmas vacation and something awful was about to happen to them when I decided to write on an entirely different subject. I'm at 288 word count now, while I was supposed to be at 11,666.67 mark on the word count today. Aaarrgh!

On a random thought, how many blogs are the maximum that a person should be allowed to own, do you think?

It is human nature to wanting to be heard, and conveniently, creating a blog allows this to be easily achieved. But do you really have to create five blogs??

Well ... I do. But keeping up with them is an entirely different subject matter.