Late night opinions

In reading the article “Film of the book: top 50 adaptations revealed” right off the bat I agreed with the author that a great book almost always does not make a good film all the time, sometimes but not all the time. Also I was surprised to see that there were no JK Rowling books on the list and Lord of the Rings either. These are good movies in my opinion. What I am not surprised that is on the list is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I like the original), Fight Club, The Godfather, and Alice in Wonderland.
“Novel Adaptations: How Close Should They be?” I attempted to read the Harry Potter books and literally got lost a few pages into the book and never picked up one of those since, but I do like the movies. So my opinion is if you are going to see the movies do not read the books and if you are going to read the books don’t go see the movie plain and simple. But we have to have people that want exact copies and it just does not work. I love the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” and I had no idea that there was a book, I do now, but I’m not going to go read the book because it just would ruin either or the book or the movie but I will never know.
Reading “Adapting a Novel Into a Screenplay” I totally get step number one because when reading a book you create this character in your mind and then when you see the movie its so not what you had pictured the whole time reading the book. when reading the book you are left to make your own screenplay if you will rather than if you see the movie and then read the book ( I don’t recommend ) then it just ruins the book, because things are there that are supposed to be and things that are not.
“True Blood Book Adaptation Sucks” I never even watched one part of that show so I have no way to relate to the article.
“A Clockwork Orange By Anthony Burgess” This article I do agree that the imagery could be powerful. I find it weird that the 21st chapter was not included but included everywhere else. I still agree that you should read the book or see the movie not do both it just ruins one or the other.

Comics

In reading “Writing Comics: A Guide” I thought to myself about the topic for a second, when reading comics one does not think of what exactly goes into making this a piece of art in the Sunday paper, the reader just enjoys the little blip of work and goes about their day. For some this is something they do not do, they actually think about what goes into writing a comic. The word that cracked me up that I came by that was in a sentence all by its self was, Practice. I love that this was mentioned because it is the root to everybody’s problem in sports, writing, composing, in almost everything a person is involved in. Also some of the steps can be used for “normal” writing for example, check for spelling grammar etc. and format, all the basics that every writer of all kinds should be doing with every piece they compose. Something else that was interesting that I thought was something people knew and would not do was submitting an original art work. That is a no no, and if you actually become big someday that can be worth a lot of money.

While reading “VISUAL LANGUAGE: WRITING FOR COMICS” I do fall under the stereotype of thinking comic books are bout heroes and villains and this is where the good always triumphs comes from. I also thought they were always classified under the “art” category. But when reading this article I realized that it is a “medium of expression”, I stand corrected. I liked how when I was reading this article I really got the idea of what’s involved in making a comic and the legality side, also the writing, and art side. It really got me thinking of what actually goes into my favorite comic “MUTTS”. I realize now it is a lot more then I originally thought.

Just the title of the next one made me wonder “Women in Refrigerators” what is this going to be about. I was kind of weirded out by the first paragraph for a while then I realized it was part of someone’s weird comic. But also the character list and the alarming amount of characters that have (dead) next to the name, little strange. But on the other hand I liked how the author had the respondents and the reactions posted in links right there on their page.

“Not Just a Comic Book, Graphic Novels Teach us History”, I have no idea what to think on this one, I hope it is as interesting as the rest. I am more confused than anything I thought we were discussing comic books, but maybe there is a correlation I am missing here ,between graphic novels and comic books, I’m not so sure.

Composing with a twist

There are many types of composing that exist in on this planet we inhabit and to some individuals it can be considered writing and to others it can be considered whatever the common name that is given to that particular activity. For example composing could be considered writing, poetry, painting, drawing, dancing, music, texting, twittering, facebook comments, post etc. and so many more. What people might not consider composing is a anything to do with horses. But what non equestrian individuals consider composing us equestrians consider boring, we take the composing aspect and give it a twist.
Equestrians have many types of composing, reining, dressage, jumping (cross country and stadium), cow penning, horse vaulting, and carriage driving just to name a few. Almost every aspect of the mentioned equestrian involved activities involves some sort of pattern that is executed by the team of rider and horse. Reining, jumping (cross country and stadium) and dressage involves a specific pattern that is judged on the riders use of leg aids, memory to remember the pattern, posture, seat, and overall appearance and execution of the pattern. Dressage is one of the sports that can qualify under many categories I believe that the horse is absolutely dancing when executing a correct dressage pattern. Cow penning and horse vaulting are the dancing type of the equestrian world I am sure many equestrians could argue with me but, for cow penning the cow and the horse are basically dancing with each other, and in vaulting there are many humans involved doing the “dancing”.
As an equestrian myself there are certain things that are involved in creating any pattern that involves the equine counterpart. The amount of space the rider has to work with, agility of the equine, and in the case of dressage where the letters on the rail are placed. Being so involved in the equestrian world for many years of my life the things that I do while in the saddle I do not even begin to realize I do automatically until someone asks for a pattern of some sort. Now all these normal functions that take no thought what so ever now have to be brought into the conscious part of the brain to be put to work. For some this takes a pen an paper and for others this just takes a few minutes to think up a pattern in their head and then perform it with the upmost accurate precision possible.
I submitted two pieces of composing; they were both videos of me and my equine counterpart My Spartans Heir, Sparky for all intense purposes. As a team we go about six or so years back. This is one of the benefits and being able to make up a pattern on the spot knowing the ins and outs of your partner. But as any equestrian should know that they are animals and are unpredictable as seen in the video he does break the canter in a few instances, this I was not expecting, it was the last class of the day a long one in his defense. In video one, this is the real class that I was actually judged on, one important aspect of the class that is not videoed was the courtesy circle, this is something I was taught to do before beginning a jumping course. It is like a nod in a dressage test or a bow in dancing, it is just polite. This also helps with the straight in the middle approach to jump one. My jump one was very well executed due to this technique, now because of the size of the heated indoor arena there was no way that if I took jump two in the middle I would have been able to make the turn, so I chose to take the jump way to the left to avoid the issue of a hoof slipping. Jumps three and four is a very easy four stride line combination along the long side, to finish up with jump five is jump one only coming from the opposite side. I would have attempted a courtesy circle at a canter but again the space was small so I opted to bring Sparky down to a trot and then a flat footed walk to complete my circle.
I also submitted a second piece of composing; this was one that was written by me in my head, in all of a few minutes. I walked around the course thinking of how I could make the transitions smoother and not so choppy. My answer came by approaching jump one from the other way just like jump five on the previous course. The video starts in the middle or tail end of my courtesy circle and then my jump one to two goes a lot smoother than before. I decide to take the outer jumps one time around; the X jump’s and then taking jump one again to make it jump three. I decide to change it up a few and take the first of the X combination and then go to the other rail and do lead change take the diagonal vertical in the middle, then do the X combination again to end the course. Also I did not do a courtesy circle to end my course because I was not being judged, lazy out I know.
But all in my entire composed jumping course and my jumping class are just one of the many types of equestrian composing out there. I personally think that one could gather much inspiration from just watching any of the listed equestrian sports, reining, dressage, jumping (cross country and stadium), cow penning, horse vaulting, and carriage driving. I hope everyone enjoyed the rendition of composing by a equestrian with a twist.

My outlook on the readings

In reading “Getting Started Writing Science Fiction” I was a little confused and I had and still have no idea who James Gunn is. I even Goggled him, I don’t relate to him and I don’t know how to really interoperate his work. Still after reading it I still am getting out of it that it was about writing fiction and how the authors point of view and what or who motivates them. And about where the author mentioned “Still with me?” I am so not and I am still lost.
While I read the second article “Descriptive Writing” it sort of tied in the first piece but did not fill in all the blanks I still have. But I did like the way the writer mentioned that one must not over do the descriptiveness of their writing. I for one can sometimes get lost if there is too much description going on where the audience/reader cannot imagine or figure out things for themselves. I being a horse person could think of so many other words to use instead of horse. Yes when a reader uses something I can relate to I usually remember it more and it clicks. Now the article clicked in my head of what everything is suppose to be about. I think??
The piece “How to Write a Novel: The Snowflake Method” was really long but interesting to me I enjoyed how the author compared writing a novel to a snowflake. Also I liked how right off the bat the author mentioned that writing a novel is easy but a good one, well that’s a another story (no pun intended). I also enjoyed reading the authors perspective on how to write a novel as I have never written one myself I leave that to the more eccentric and creative people. Not saying that I am not creative it is just my creative writing skills are not up to par as compared to others. I liked (for a lack of a better word) that the author gave tips at the end of how to use the snowflake method if need be.
Just the title of the next piece of writing intrigued me “Secrets of book publishing I wish I had known” this would not only draw my attention but probably keep me reading just to see what the secrets are. The first secret I read about was that the publishers do not do what they do for the sheer love of books. I personally know this and I am not a writer, it is silly to think so, but that’s just my opinion. Also the other secret I found interesting is that if you write a book for money then you have no business writing a book because then you are writing for other reasons then yourself and in writing I have been told that you always should write for yourself and yourself only.

oopsi :/

First of I completely forgot that I had to do a blog about my groups reading choices. Well that’s my fault, so here it goes.
In reading “Writing for Children” I liked the way that it was set up into a 1,2,3 steps, for example this is what it is, this is how you can write it towards children, and this is why it works. Also the way the author describes word choice, point of view and weeding wordy words just made sense. The reason is that one that is not writing for children can also take what they read and adapt that to their writing in moderation. In writing for children the weeding of wordy words makes a lot of sense because the attention span of children is minimal.
When reading “knowing your Audience” I really do agree with the author that the writer must determine many things about the audience. This is also one of the most important steps a writer can take. Also I was taught this in one way or another amongst my years of high school, it might not have been directly called audience but it was more or less referred to as “think about who you are writing to”. Also the article made a good point in the end “don’t dumb down your paper” and always gives the reader the benefit of the doubt. There are many reasons why audience is chosen but one always needs to choose wisely otherwise there is a chance of offending a particular group of individuals.
As for the article “Responding to content” I thought it was an interesting because it gave a teachers point of view. Also the using questions is one of the parts of the article that I can see myself using in my most of my papers, blog post, and many more forms of writing. I think more of teachers should follow the first bullet “always say something positive” of the talking to students about their writing because some of my teachers/professors absolutely tore up my writing and sometimes students need this and sometimes they don’t. Teachers should really learn to take this into account.
In reading the “Audience” article I realized that you do have to keep your professor as well as your intended audience in mind when writing a paper. In reading these articles I am hoping that I can use it to improve my writing skills. Over all most of these articles helped me out in understanding more about my audience and how to write towards them.