What Do You See in Your Head? #ThinkyThursdays

What Do You See in Your Head?

It has come to my attention recently that not everyone visualises things in their head in the same way. I actually read an article about a woman who does not see images in her head at all, which got me thinking. So I talked to my husband about it.

Turns out we both have very different visualisations when we see things in our heads.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/JqCrXaE5V29McNfzzk/giphy.gif)

I have always been utterly crap at drawing from memory or drawing from something I have dreamed up, even though I would have no problem describing the thing I had dreamed up if I wanted it in a book. Turns out I can intellectualise what I want, but I don't think I'm actually seeing it in my head clearly.

It's like I recognise faces - I'm quite good at it when I see someone on TV or on the street (I can spot an actor under prosthetics easily just by the eyes), but if you ask me to describe them - nope, not got a clear image in my head at all. (At least not most of the time - occasionally things stick 😂).

(https://media.giphy.com/media/zguCz7DoNdTGg/giphy.gif)

And, for example, say I want a dragon. In my head I see a vague dragon. I know it's a dragon, it has four legs, wings and a head, it's reptilian, but I don't see any details until they become important to what I want to do with the dragon.

It's the same for people and places. If I'm planning a scene I vaguely see a person or people doing things, but I don't see faces or eye colour or hair colour or even what their wearing unless it is important to the moment. There's no clear visualisation in my head.

In fact, it's really hard for me to bring the mental image into sharp focus at all.

Turns out my husband is very good at visualising things. He can plan circuit boards or 3D models in his head before he puts them on paper. An idea which blows my mind, frankly.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/vvJ28s7IOINTVaoHo0/giphy.gif)

So this got me to wondering - is one of us an outlier, or is the world just divided into different types of visualisers? Considering I see so many people drawing or sculpting from memory on Youtube, it makes me think. Hence to my question:

What do you see in your head when your visualise something. Do you see details, or vague shapes? Can you bring something into sharp focus in your mind and see it all?

I am dying to know. 😂💖

Shower Stool. How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways... #ThinkyThursdays

Shower Stool. How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways...

Okay so I'm not actually going to wax lyrical about a shower stool for the whole post, but it got me thinking how sometimes we put off things that can helps us for no valid reason or from misconception.

This is my new shower stool, or at least as close a picture as I can find:

For those who are knew around here, I need a shower stool because I have bilateral talipes, in layman's terms, club feet. I was born with the condition and had several corrective surgeries as a child, but it only improved the condition, it didn't cure it. Unforunately the older I get the more trouble I have with my feet, making standing for long periods (especially on hard surfaces like showers stalls) and walking any distance probelmatic.

Hence I've been considering a shower stool for a few years now, but have always put it off. Mainly through a misconception that all shower stools looked like this:

Having looked into such things:

• most of them do not take a great deal of weight, 
• many of them seemed to be too close to the wall,
• most were expensive,
• and the installation sounded like it would be a royal pain.

Now knowing that I could have bought my sturdy, free standing, ajustable height little stool, I wish I had done it earlier. Showering is once again a joy rather than a chore. 

• No more foot pain, 
• no more weird balancing acts, 
• no more slipping and sliding.

Seriously, why don't all showers come with shower stools as standard?

Anyway, as I mentioned, all this led me to thinking how misconceptions or worry can stop us doing things that can actually really help us in the long run.

I also use walking aids when I am out and about - crutches to be precise. They make me so much more stable and allow me to keep going when before I would have just had to sit down. They don't take away all the pain, but they defintely reduce it.

Yet I know people who refuse to use walking aids because they somehow see it as giving up, or as a weakness. I've never given up in my life and I am a damn sight better off with my crutches than without. From the knee up my body works perfectly, but from the knee down it's pretty crocked. Choosing to start using the walking aids was quite a big moment for me (quite a few years in the past now), but it made my life so much better.

It's so sad that some poeple see disability aids as making a person lesser.

This includes things like glasses and hearing aids. I'm pretty sure my generation and those following mine are less likely to look on such things as bad (personally I think glasses are as sexy as hell ;)), but I know many from my parent's generation who do things like only put their glasses on when they really have to, or go out without their hearing aid, or even refuse to have their eyes and ears tested at all.

Technology is there to help people and it's getting better all the time. I think it's about time we banished the stigma. Be it a little thing like a sturdy shower stool or something more fundamental like a robotic limb, everyone should have a chance to get the best out of life.

So there you have it, how my brain went from shower stool to something a bit deeper :).

Are you having any thinky thoughts today? Would you like to share them?

The Marketing Blues aka Motivation, Where Art Thou?

The Marketing Blues aka Motivation, Where Art Thou?

I have to admit that I am finding it hard to get back in the swing of things now the holiday season is out of the way. It's been so nice not having to do anything to do with books and marketing for a while that I found myself staring at my twitter this morning wondering why I was bothering.

Logically I know why I'm bothering, but a big part of me just wants to eat chocolate and watch TV :).

It's not the writing part that is the problem - I have ideas coming out of my ears, its the whole trying to convince people to buy things that has me wistfully thinking of the relaxing days between Christmas and New Year. Truth be told, I hate marketing. It's not why I signed up to be an author, it just happens to be an integral part of the job these days.

Unfortunately its very necessary.

So now I must kick my posterior into gear and jump back on the horsey, as it were.

It's time to set my alarms that tell me what to do when. They were working really well last year until Windows updated and broke the application on my PC. They wold go off an hour out and then refuse to be turned off. Most off putting. I shall put them in my phone this time ... hopefully that won't decide to go bonkers as well :).

To all those with similar marketing blues, I wish you much luck (because we all know one retweet or one share in the right place can make all the difference :)) and the perseverance to march into the new year strong, with a smile on your face.

We can do this!

Do you have any tips to keep the motivation high and the marketing blues in the background? For that matter, any marketing tips that have worked for you?

~*~

As promised the 2nd chapter of my new Harry Potter fanfiction was published yesterday, but I totally forgot to mention it here - please forgive me.

Defence, Pretence, Offence
Chapter 02/70 - Introductions 
by Beren (aka Tasha)

Summary: The threat of open war in on the horizon. The Order and the Ministry are of one accord and both know that where Harry Potter is, Voldemort will eventually be. Preparations are being made and this time the side of the light will not be caught unawares.

Summer classes, sabotage, revelations about Draco's father, teaching and the final showdown with Voldemort all await Harry and Draco in this exciting sequel to Gold Tinted Spectacles (LJ | AO3 | Wattpad).

Warnings: This story is canon compliant until the end of Order of the Phoenix and then goes AU. None of the HBP or Deathly Hallows plot will be used, or the Horcruxes for that matter since this story was planned before we knew the details about those things, and hence has it's own fanon. This includes birthdays and other information that have since been revealed on Pottermore and in further productions.

Links to CH02: LJ | DW | AO3 | Wattpad
Link to other parts: LJ | DW | AO3 | Wattpad 

New chapters will be posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Really Having a Blast With the New Book #ThinkyThursdays 24

Really Having a Blast With the New Book

Welcome to Thinky Thursdays and there's only one thing consuming my brain this week, so I'm going to be self indulgent. I am having such fun with "Dead Before Dawn: The Vampire Curse".

Y'know how sometimes something is just the most fun and then we don't want to stop doing whatever it is we are doing. I feel like that with this novel.

I actually thought the manuscript was almost done a week ago and was in the final edit stage. However, it's gained nearly 25K and there's barely a paragraph that I haven't edited in some way since then. I'm only up to chapter 16 and there are currently 29, probably will be 31 or 32 at least by the time I am done.

Each chapter is between 2K and 3K to make it digestible on Wattpad.

The novel is based on a Real Person AU Fanfic I wrote a few years ago, but I liked the premise so much I wanted to change it up for a wider audience. All the characters have changed, a whole background had been added and there's a completely new undercurrent as well as huge new sections. It's blossoming into something new and I am loving every second of taking it there.

Writers, do you find that you have the occasional story that seems to take no work, or rather, it engages you so much that it feels as if it takes no work, even though you're putting in hours and hours?

If you've not had one of those yet, I wish you one, because they are the best.

We all know writing is often hard and we sometimes have to kick ourselves in the behind to get moving on what we are working on. That's why this novel is such a joy. No doubt the final tweaks will still be a bit of a chore, but at the moment I'm having a blast. I very much hope it comes out in the writing.

Cannot wait to get it to a stage where it is ready to publish. I'm so very, very excited to share this one.

The Joy of Reading a Book #ThinkyThursdays 23

Hello, and welcome to my blog for Thinky Thurday. You know when we've been so wrapped up in doing things that we forget how much we enjoy something else? I've had one of those mornings, so I thought I would share.

The Joy of Reading a Book

I am going to be honest, I have been very bad this morning. If you saw my post yesterday, you know I am about to launch properly into the world of Wattpad. So this morning I was using some of my social media time to poke around.

I made a mistake...

I clicked on a story called The Ghost Files by Apryl Baker. I wanted to see what extras a popular author might have added to their story etc.

You can guess what I did then, can't you ... yep, I decided to take a quick peek at the actual story.

So that was about 4 hours ago and I just came up for air.

The book is superb, BTW, but I suspect you guessed that. It's first person (which I often don't get on with), with a plucky teenage heroine, and she's brilliant. She see ghosts, only it's so much more than that. There's suspense, great characters, a murder mystery and lots of excitement. I heartily recommend it. You can download it for free from Amazon as well and I just bought the second one from there too :) (I'll have to do a proper review).

We all do it, I suppose, get wrapped up in what we're doing that we forget some of the joys of life.

I've been so busy writing and doing all the publishing things that indie writers have to do, that I'd forgotten the simple joy of reading a book. The excitement of joining characters on their journey, of being whisked into their world.

This book reminded me of all that. It sucked me in and didn't let me go.

I will be the first to admit I'm a picky reader. It takes a lot to really drag me into a book. I read whenever I can and I usually like what I read, but books that demand not to be put down are rarer. These are the books that remind me why I have always loved to disappear into the written word.

So I would just like to take a moment to thank everyone who writes, be it high literature, genre or fanfiction. We are all different and we all find that magic that makes us keep reading no matter what in different things. To those who craft words, I salute you.

The Olympics and Dedication #ThinkyThursdays 22

Well our screens and feeds have been dominated by one thing over the past two weeks: the Olympics, and I have been amazed by some of the performances. Hence I thought it a good topic for Thinky Thursdays. Welcome to my blog.

The Olympics and Dedication

It is quite amazing the level of performance we see in the Olympics. Athletes jump higher, run faster, tumble better, swing better, swim better, aim better, hit things better, leap off things better and throw better than anyone else in the world. It's utterly stunning.

My favourite event to watch is the gymnastics and, boy, did it deliver this year. Never have I seen such amazing athleticism and sportsmanship. What was really heartwarming is how all the athletes seemed to congratulate and commiserate with their fellows. Of course they all wanted to win, but there was a camaraderie there that linked them all together.

Simone Biles is utterly amazing. During the gala the announcer said "Superwoman exists and her name is Simone Biles" and she is. She's simply fantastic. Watching her sometimes, it's as if she is made of different stuff to the rest. And yet even she proved she was human in the Beam final.

I'm very glad she got a medal, but in a way, I think it is good to be reminded that she isn't perfect. That way we are also reminded of all the hard work and dedication she puts in to her sport to be at the top. She is capable of not being spot on and the fact she is nearly all of the time is utterly incredible. A moment of weakness actually enhances her greatness.

I also have to mention Max Whitlock because, in the UK, we're just not used to our gymnasts taking gold twice at the Olympics. His performances on both the floor and the pommels were exemplary and he got bronze in the all around too. Utterly stunning.

The gymnastics this year has been utterly fantastic. Every event seemed to be won rather than lost, i.e. it was excellence that came through and not accident that ruled many out.

The same with all the other events I have been watching.

One thing all these athletes have in common is dedication. They put hours and hours into their sports day after day after day. How can we not be inspired.

Not all of us are sporty. I've just been watching the women's long jump and I remember at school, when we tried, I didn't even make it into the sand pit :). Yep, I can't jump at all. Not my forte, but there are other things I can do. I can write; I have something of an artistic streak  and I love science. These are the things I strive for, the things to which I am dedicated.

We all have something to which we can dedicate ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's artistic, academic, sporty, altruistic, a matter of faith or family, or something else. It is there in all of us. We may never be the next Simone Biles or Leonardo Da Vinci, but it's not about marking ourselves against other people. It's about striving to achieve what we want to achieve, of feeling good about ourselves.

I very much hope you all have something to which you can dedicate yourselves that makes you happy. We might not be superwoman or superman, but we can be the best of ourselves.

Have a great day!

When Does a Trope Becoming a Cliche? #ThinkyThursdays 21

So apparently I was talking in my sleep last night. I only remember dreaming about trying to cook vegetarian food for some friends - not overly exciting. However, I have been doing a lot of plotting lately (not to take over the world, well unless it's by book sales :)) and the Olympic gymnastics was rather exciting to watch just before going to sleep - so that could have been it :). Anyway, learning this got me thinking ...

When Does a Trope Becoming a Cliche?

trope - noun - a significant or recurrent theme; a motif.
cliche - noun - a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought.

What my little foray into chattering while comatose made me think about was how talking in ones sleep can be such a cliche in fiction. Which then led me on to thinking about lots of other tropes and how they can quickly become cliches.

We all think in cliches some times; it's how the human psyche works. However, we generally try to think in an original manner and that, I believe, is the key to using tropes and avoiding cliches.

I have seem lots of advice about how not to open a book, like, don't have a whole scene that turns out to be a dream as your protagonist wakes up. This is a cliche.

It's good advice; we don't want to alienate our readers with tired, uninteresting writing.

However, we also know that there are very few actual plots out there and that the key to exciting our readers is in the execution. I think this is the same divide between a trope and a cliche.

A cliche is a boring rehash or many things we have seen before.

A trope is an idea we have seen before presented in an exciting, grabbing way.

Sometimes it's a fine line, sometimes it's not. Let's have some fun. Here is a cliche riddled opening:

She looked at him from across the room. Her eyes said 'I love you' even as she mouthed the words 'help me'.

Sam struggled to free himself from the bonds holding him, but it was no use. They wanted him to learn a lesson. He was helpless. 

The gunshot ripped through him as surely as if it had been aimed at his heart, not hers. Blood bloomed on her white shirt even as she began to fall.

Sam sat up, gasping, a name he didn't know trying to make it to his lips. It had been the same dream for five nights now. Over and over again he saw the same woman dying and he had no idea who she was.

Throwing off the sheet he staggered to the bathroom. Bending over the sink he threw water on his face, coming back up to stare at himself in the mirror. The grey bags around his eyes were only growing bigger.

Shall we count the cliches?

1. Eyes that speak.
2. Female character who exists purely for male character.
3. A woman dying to further the story of a male character.
4. Blood on a white shirt.
5. Waking up gasping.
6. Staggering to the bathroom.
7. Throwing water on his face.
8. Staring at himself in the mirror.

And that's just from five paragraphs!

The writing is tired, it's uninteresting and it's been done a thousand times before. It does neither of the characters justice. It's not a beginning that is going to inspire may to keep reading.

So what should we do? Well, first, let's give the female character some agency of her own.

She glanced at him once, eyes only flicking from the gun for a moment. Her hands were shaking even as she tried to talk to their captor.

Then let's keep her death, this is a premonition after all, but give it more worth than simply being the love interest.

Sam pulled against the cuffs holding him to the pipe. The metal bit into his wrists without shifting at all. She was the key; they knew it, he knew it, and without her it was all over.

But, lets skip the gunshot; they really are very messy and make murder rather obvious.

She was still talking for her life when a woman stepped up behind her. Her eyes opened in shock and she gasped quietly, faltering, eyelids flickering as her words ceased. As she started to collapse forward, the other woman slid a syringe back in to a small container. The thud as she hit the floor was the only sound she made.

Now, how about we dump the cliche of waking up in bed?

Sam's head snapped up as he took a sharp breath, blinking. The first thing that made any sense was his haggard reflection in the dark screen of his computer. With a shudder he hit a key on his keyboard to bring up the spreadsheet he had been working on; he'd fallen asleep at his desk ... again.

The dreams were getting ridiculous.

Standing up he reached for his coffee mug. He had to stay awake or someone was going to start asking questions. Glancing through the window next to his office door, however, he completely forgot about caffeine. There she was, talking to Mike; the woman from his dream.

Now I'm not saying this is Shakespeare, I just created it off the top of my head, after all, but I think it's a lot better than it was. These paragraphs still have tropes, everything does, but, hopefully they're a little more exciting than the first version and less cliche.

The most important thing is that they ask questions, engage the reader and, with any luck, make them want to find out what's going on.

• Why is Sam dreaming? Is he psychic, or is he just putting together bits of information in his subconscious?
• Why is this woman the key? Who is she?
• How can spreadsheets become guns and intrigue?

Just with the Olympic diving (yay Team GB!), it's all in the execution. A character becomes a cliche when they a just a whole bunch of tropes strung together with nothing to make them interesting, and the same goes for a plot. 

We all love tropes, that's why they exist. What we have to be careful of is that they don't slip into overdone and cliche. If we read back our own work and it seems like we've read it a hundred times before, in lots of different places, it's probably time to change it up a bit. This can mean changing our choice of language or completely tearing something apart to give it more zing. Beta readers and editors can be very good at helping with this part, but I think we often know the truth in our heart before they ever tell us.

Sometimes a good writing exercise it to take a cliche we've seen in something else and see what we can do with it to make it more interesting and exciting.

What are your favourite tropes? Do you have a favourite or least favourite example to share?

The Dangers of Virtual Rabbit Holes #ThinkyThursdays 20

Well this topic was easy to come up with because I just fell prey to a virtual rabbit hole - the internet is a dangerous place ;).

The Dangers of Virtual Rabbit Holes

We've all done it, haven't we. Clicked on that one link that has then led to another, and another, and another, until we look up two hours later and wonder why our eyes feel like they've been sandblasted.

For me this time I was looking for some traditional ghost stories to help inspire some short stories of my own. Unfortunately I found Listverse and it was downhill from there. Honestly, don't click on that link unless you want to lose a few hours :).

Sometimes its:

• simply curiosity
• research
• the need to find a source
• the need to dispute a fact
• a recommendation

Anything can lead us to the entrance to the rabbit hole that sucks us down.

It's not always a bad thing. I now have some really interesting ideas floating around in my brain, inspired by a mixture of everything I have been reading. This afternoon when I put my head down for some serious writing, I hope to put those ideas in to words.

However, there is line between usefulness and procrastination.

Often is is a very thin line.

The internet is set up to entice us to click that one more link. It's the whole idea of the place :). We can lose whole days on clicking if we are not careful. Most of us are sponges for information and the internet offers so much. We simply want more and more.

Personally, I don't think it's possible to over-research a subject until, that is, we reach the point where the research becomes a block to actually creating what the research was for. We can usually feel that balancing point as well. We just have to remember to take note of it.

Here are some techniques to make sure the rabbit hole isn't too deep:

• set a time limit for clicking
• set a limit on the number of new pages to visit
• make a mental agreement to stop when the same links start popping up as reference (because we all know they will)
• make a mental agreement to stop when we have enough information for the project, rather than keeping going until we know everything
• all of the above :).

I find the time limit the easiest, but the others also work if, when I started clicking, I didn't realise I was headed for a rabbit hole in the first place, like today. I stopped when I saw the same links popping up as suggested next visiting points. That's when I knew it was time to let my mouse rest a while.

In all honesty, virtual rabbit holes can be fun, that's the problem. We must be strong! ;)

What was the last virtual rabbit hole you vanished into? How did you drag yourself out?

The Much Maligned Vampire Genre #ThinkyThusrdays 19

Good day to one and all, I hope you are all well. My thoughts this week are not overly deep, but have turned to vampires ... as they do every now and then. I think it is a great shame the genre is so maligned in some quarters and this is why.

The Much Maligned Vampire Genre

If there is one genre that will induce scorn, even faster than the romance genre in general (and that's not deserved either) it's the vampire genre. Thanks to the media people equate everything with Twilight and dismiss it.

Now whether you love Twilight or hate it, you have to admit that not every vampire novel out there is the same.

I've had vampire stories, both fanfiction and original compared to Twilight and they have absolutely nothing to do with it. Just because a protagonist has fangs, they are not Edward Cullen. Tarring an entire genre with the same brush as one book series is silly, especially when it breaks down into so many sub-genres anyway.

There are so many to choose from:

• Paranormal Romance - the protagonist is usually gorgeous and sexy
• YA vampire - there is often romance in here as well, but more innocent
• Horror - the vampires tend to be nasty, nasty beasties
• New Adult vampire - similar to YA, but with older characters and slightly grittier plots
• Dark Fantasy - fantasy with elements of horror
• Urban Fantasy - contemporary fantasy in modern settings

And I am sure there are more and crossovers between each.

I'm not a Twilight fan, but if you are, I hope it brings you great pleasure, because that's what reading is all about.

When it comes to reading about vampires, I have found that I prefer them to be on the more blood thirsty side:

• Salem's Lot by Stephen King
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• They Thirst by Robet R. McCammon

I do enjoy a good paranormal romance as well, but it's the bloodier ones I always seem to come back to over and over again. Although another of my favourite series is Anita Blake Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton. They do start getting a little silly, but mostly I'm right with it up until book 12 or so.

Just like any genre, vampires and all their many sub-genres have some great books and some truly terrible ones. It is very likely that vampire fandom will never agree on which ones deserve to be at which end of the spectrum :).

Publishers and retailers like to have books packaged neatly into genres so they can flog them to their customers by saying 'come, look at this. if you like x you'll love y', but this seems to have given the media carte blanche to try and do the same thing, when they often don't know what they're talking about. And, of course, because the most famous recent vampire book series was popular mainly with teenage girls, it must be maligned - which is a whole other post - don't get me started :).

I have read and will continue to read vampire novels of all the sub-genres. Some are fun, some scary and some are just nice. This is a genre that covers many others with its net and deserves far more respect than it often gets.

Three cheers for vampires, is what I say!

What about you? Do you love vampires? Have you given up looking because there are so many bad vampire novels out there? What is your favourite vampire novel(s)?

---

My Vampire Books

Wittegen Press

$0.99 | £0.99
Amazon | Other

Wittegen Press

$3.98 | £2.98
Amazon | Other

The Controversy of the New Ghostbusters #ThinkyThursdays 18

Good day to one and all and welcome to my blog for Thinky Thursdays. Today I want to talk about something that I've seen popping up on my dash on various social media all week - the new Ghostbusters movie.

The Controversy of the New Ghostbusters

The first thing I will say is that I haven't had a chance to see the film yet. We intend to see it this weekend since we can no longer go on a week day because Rob works in London and doesn't get home in time. So this post is speculation, prior to viewing the movie.

However, I have seen the trailers and they make me laugh, which, I think is the point of a summer comedy. I've also seen it said that the trailers don't do it justice, which ups my expectations even more :).

All of my friends who have already seen it and have expressed an opinion said they enjoyed it. It's not perfect, but then most films aren't. All the reviews I have read said it was fun, even if some of them mentioned it had a few problems here and there. The overall response has been positive. It's not Shakespeare, but then is was never supposed to be. The original wasn't perfect either.

A (mostly) male fanbase has been complaining about the film since the moment it was announced, claiming it will destroy their childhood memories of the original film. This is childish in the extreme, if nothing else. Basing your dislike of something on the fact that it was recast with female characters is misogynistic and ridiculous. Voting the film down on IMDB before it is even released is plain stupid.

It is also, however, very wrong to declare that anyone who doesn't like the film is sexist. If they don't like it because all the principles have been made female, then they are sexist, if they don't like it because they just didn't enjoy it for other reasons, then that's perfectly okay and is bound to happen. Not everyone likes the same films.

I've also seen complaints about the way the male characters come off in the film.

Now, the only male character I've actually seen is Kevin as played by Chris Hemsworth in the trailers, and admittedly he is a bimbo. He's the walking embodiment of the bimbo secretary trope, which, frankly, I think is interesting to see played by a man rather than a woman for once. I'm also pretty sure Chris isn't overly desperate for work so he must have taken the part because he thought it was funny.

I'm not sure which of the other male characters are important in the movie, but if you look at the original it's the Ghostbusters against the world. Peck is a bureaucratic idiot that caused the whole end of the film. The Mayor sticks his head in the sand until he had no choice but to believe. And Tully is a socially inept accountant who becomes a victim.

Hence in a remake that is faithful to the feel of the original I would expect the Ghostbusters against the world again. Does this not automatically make all the male characters likely to be focus of ridicule in some form or another, since the major four characters now happen to be female? I haven't seen it so I don't know how it plays out, but that's what I would be expecting.

The only character I would expect not to be treated that way would be a gender swap Dana, if they've kept that trope in and decided gender swapping was a good idea. Again, I will state, I have no idea if they even kept an angle like this in the plot.

I've also seen the cry of 'how would you like it if we took all your favourite comedies and made them with men?'. There was an interesting response to this on Tumblr (I wish I could find it, but I can't) pointing out that it would be quite difficult because many female led comedies play into traditionally female roles, so to remake them you'd have to completely change the plot.

This got me thinking about female led comedy films and if they could be redone or not:

• The obvious one is Bridemaids since it shares some of the cast and the director - however, if that was remade with men, wouldn't it basically just be The Hangover?
• Legally Blonde - I supposed you could do a movie about a jock who ditches his sports scholarship to follow his sweetheart to law school. Not sure how you'd make it funny though. The whole trope is a woman being underestimated because she's blonde and I can't see it working with a guy.
• Miss Congeniality - might be fun to redo that one with a drag queen angle. Could be awesome actually, but it would need someone very clever to write it in a sensitive manner and still make it funny. It would also need RuPaul.
• Mean Girls - would it work with jocks? I've never seen it, so have no idea.
• Sister Act - singing monks ... possible, the brothers in Sister Act II were a hoot.
• The Heat - there are already a hundred and one male cop buddy, comedy movies anyway.
• Nanny McPhee - I'm only coming up with a ghastly costume version of The Pacifier :)
• Bring it On - hmm ... an all male cheerleading squad?
• The First Wives Club - not sure the trope can translate at all for this one. I just don't see the film being able to build the same sympathy for the characters if it's switched up.
• Spy - there are already Johnny English, Grimsby and many, many others, so it would be redundant.

So really, there are a few that could be tried, but many have been done, mostly more than once, or I'm not sure the tropes would translate. Since there are many, many, many more male led movies than there are female led ones it's not really a surprise. Now I kind of really want a Miss Congeniality set in a drag pageant though.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing the new Ghostbusters at the weekend. I love the original two - they are funny and enjoyable and that's what I am hoping for from the new one. Plus I love Melissa McCarthy so I'm on to a winner there anyway :). I'll let you all know what I think when I've actually seen the film.

[Edit: link to my review of the film: Ghostbusters ROCKS! (as you can tell from the title I wanted there to be no doubt what I thought of it :))]

If you've seen the new Ghostbusters, did you enjoy it? If not are you going to see it? What do you think of all the controversy?

Friends are Awesome #ThinkyThurdays 17

Welcome to Thinky Thursday - the day I get to blog about whatever happens to be on my mind. Today it's friends.

Friends are Awesome

Y'know how the rugged loner is a really popular trope on TV, in movies and in books? That is so not me.

I am not a stand alone kind of person - that is to say I do not function well when left alone for long periods of time. Friends are awesome and I'm including family in this, because it's good to be friends with members of your family too.

Back in the day, I remember when internet friends seemed not quite as real as local friends, but the world has shrunk a lot since then. These days I consider many of my online friends much closer friends than the ones who live down the road, even though we might only get to meet up once or twice or year, or even once every five years for those in other countries, or in some cases, not at all.

So I just wanted to say to those who have been my friend, are my friend and will be my friend:

Thank you; You're Awesome

The EU Referendum - #ThinkyThursdays 16

There is only one topic on everyone's lips today in the UK and that is:

The EU Referendum

For those outside the EU, who haven't had this thrust at them through lots of news sources, today the UK is voting on whether to remain in the European Union or the leave it. The feelings are so strong in certain areas that we've had an MP murdered over it, or at least murdered over issues brought up by it.

Now I don't often talk about voting on my blog, because I believe you have to go where your conscience takes you. However, in this case I am very much for

#REMAIN

I have already voted because my husband and I went down for when the polls opened so he could almost catch his normal train.

I urge every UK citizen to get your bottom down to your polling centre and cast your vote. At least if we all turn out it will be a representation of the whole country, not just those who have been worked up into a frenzy.

If you watch nothing else about the EU Referendum then I suggest you watch the following video from John Oliver. It actually talks the most sense of any I have seen from either side! It captures my feelings perfectly.

My Thoughts on Orlando and US Gun Control #ThinkyThursdays 15

My Thoughts on Orlando and US Gun Control

It's hard to think of anything this week without considering the terrible events that took place in Orlando. Too many lives were lost, too many people were hurt and too much hatred was vented.

We are supposed to be civilised human beings.

The Orlando atrocity was both a hate crime against LGBTA people and an act of terrorism. The loss of life is simply horrendous and my heart goes out to the families of the victims and to those who survived and now have to live with the mental and physical scars of the actions of one man.

Homophobia is wrong. Transphobia is wrong. It's time love really was the answer.

I don't care which religion you subscribe to or what you think your religious books say. Every single one of them has been interpreted by a human being and human beings get things wrong. Usually because they want something out of the interpretation, often to stop something they are frightened of. Well it's time to grow up and realise that we're all human beings.

That goes for bigoted governments, homophobic organisations and general arseholes too - they only want to give you someone to hate so you might not see everything they're doing.

LGBTA people deserve the same rights, privileges and love the rest of us do.

Just in case you're wondering, I'm a practising Christian and totally willing to call out my own faith for its homophobic views. I think the Church of England's bigotry when it comes to LGBTA issues is reprehensible. If God is Love we should damn well be standing up for everyone and telling the Anglican communion it can go jump with its homophobia.

~*~

Then of course there is the whole issue of gun control in the USA. I'm British, I look at US gun control, or lack there of, and think it's insane. Not just a little bit nuts, but totally and utterly barking!

There is only one reason I can think of for using an assault rifle and that is to kill people. It's not a hunting weapon, it's a killing weapon. They are designed for use on the battlefield to create maximum damage. Letting a civilian own one is sheer madness.

In the UK we had a school shooting incident involving a hand gun, the Dunblane Massacre - you know what we did? We banned them. Here's a whole article on Firearms policy in the UK. Our politicians might be full of sh*t about other things, but at least they have that one right.

Then there is Australia; a guiding light when it comes to the implementation of gun control.

I've lost count of the number of mass shootings in the US that I've seen in the news over the last few years. It's like they've become the norm not the exception. For heaven's sake - the US needs gun control and the NRA needs castrating. There's a line and it's been crossed way too many times.

~*~

My prayers are with the victims of the Orlando atrocity, their families, the LGBTA community, the US people and all other victims of such terrible crimes. I wish you peace and hope and love for the future.

The 5 Stages of Writing #ThinkyThursdays 14

Hello, and welcome to my blog today. So I am just coming up to finishing the first draft of my new novel, so all I seem to be thinking about at the moment is writing. Hence my choice for Thinky Thursdays 14:

The 5 Stages of Writing

We all know there are five stages of grief, but there are five stages of writing too - I kid you not. Well, at least according to me there are ;). This is how I see them.

1) Oh hell, what am I going to write now?

This is what I mentally refer to as the "brain freeze" moment. It's when we writers sit down at a keyboard to begin to compose our new great work and every thought we have ever had flies out of out minds.

• That epic space opera with the weird spindly aliens - GONE!
• The perfect romance with the capable heroine and the dashing hero who needs rescuing - SKEDADDLED!
• The YA with the feisty protagonist not in a hopeless love triangle - EATEN BY EDWARD CULLEN'S WORST NIGHTMARE!

It's like a bad dream as the tumble weeds bounce across our brains. Will it never end?

2) This is awesome!

Of course stage one doesn't last forever - we're writers! We're doing this because if we don't write things our brains overflow and we do strange things like wander around muttering random bits of dialogue. That can scare people - especially if it happens to be "I will kill you".

Stage 2 is often the most fun, at least I think so. It's when the creative juices are really flowing and we're churning out words like there is no tomorrow. JK Rowling and Stephen King have nothing on us!

3) OMG - how am I suppose write this?

Stage 3 is often the worst. This is where the story seems to have turned into a black hole. No matter what we throw into it, nothing comes back to us.

• Scenes just laugh at us as we cannot figure out how to move the plot from A to B.
• Chapters stare at us with words like "need more information in here - it doesn't make sense".
• Housework suddenly looks incredibly inviting.

This is where procrastination can get us. Where a black hole not even Stephen Hawking can save us from, wants to eat us alive. Our only choice is to push on and endure.

4) Yay, the finish line is in sight!

Now stages 2 and 3 can repeat and mingle for some time, but eventually we get to stage 4. This is where the end is in sight. Just that last chapter for us to write or that final scene to go. We know that editing and rewriting come next, but who cares?! There is light at the end of the tunnel!

The feeling of accomplishment starts to set in and that big smile begins to take over our faces. We've done it and we're allowed our little dance of joy.

5) Oh, it's done, what do I do now?

Then finally we have stage 5. We have struggled, we have procrastinated, we have searched our souls ... and now it's done.

This thing that had eaten our life is finished. It is whole. We have birthed a new creation ... well at least until we pick it up again to read it after a few weeks and have to rip it to pieces before our editor does the same.

Our creative drive is spent and we must ask, what do we do now?

Of course there's always stage 1 waiting for us after we've had a nice cup of tea ;).

Do you have stages of writing? Which is your favourite and which the worst?

"But you're too old for that." Really?!!! #ThinkyThursdays 13

Good morning/afternoon/evening and welcome to my blog. Thinky Thurdays is the day I just let my brain pick a random topic and run with it. I hope you enjoy my choice for today.

"But you're too old for that."
Really?!!! 

I have been in fandom most of my life and if there is one question that comes up time and again when I mention this to people who consider themselves "normal" it's:

"But aren't you too old for that?"

They don't mean it in a bad way, but it has some very negative connotations.

I firmly believe that if you enjoy something that enriches your life, you are never too old for it.

We live in a very bizarre world where it is okay to stand around a football field until you drop dead watching your favourite team playing, but hit 25 and we're no longer allowed to be fans of popular music or popular films or comics or YA books or so many things.

Collecting stamps is okay, so is antiques, but not action figures or autographs - unless they are antique too.

There seems to be an invisible line that we cross and are supposed to no longer enjoy the things we enjoy.

This is all balderdash.

I do agree that when you have adults in a fandom designed for children, for example, My Little Pony, you have to be careful to protect the children. Sooner of later, when adults are involved, parts of a fandom will become sexualised. I don't have a problem with this, but adult do have to be careful to protect younger fans from content they should not be viewing.

We always did it in Harry Potter fandom - all adult material was so marked and we made sure no one could stumble on it without realising what it was. This is not to say you lock it away so you have to know someone who knows someone who has the secret handshake, like in the old days :) , but care is required so no one is traumatised.

Oh and I kid you not. Once upon a time there were archives and mailing lists where the only way you could get on them was to know someone who would recommend you to the group and you would be invited in. It was almost as if we were doing something illegal!

The is no age limit on enjoyment.

I will cheerfully tell anyone who will listen that I love cartoons, I love Avengers memorabilia, I love Chorlton and the Wheelies, I love Harry Potter, I love Anime, I love Fanfiction and so much more. I don't care how old I am or who the stuff was originally aimed at. I STILL LOVE IT! :D

It applies outside fandom as well - if I was "a responsible adult" I wouldn't be a writer :). I'd be doing something "sensible". But I'm not and I'm doing something as ridiculous as trying to make a living with words. The very idea, eh? :)

What do you love? Have you ever been told you were too old for what you enjoy?

Single Use Kitchen Utensils - Yes or No? #ThinkyThursdays 12

Yes, I know, random topic is most random, but that's what Thinky Thursdays are for - they are all about my random brain :) Welcome to this week's instalment.

Single Use Kitchen Utensils - Yes or No?

Egg Slicer

So I just bought myself one of these *points to the picture of the egg slicer*.

I have wanted one for ages, but all the ones I saw were too expensive, but then Morissons had one for £2.99 and I was sold. I used it for the first time on Monday for an egg salad and I love it.

It started me thinking about single use Kitchen Utensils and how some people think they are a waste of space. I can't remember who, but I recall watching a cooking program where someone went on and on about how they were pointless. (Feel relieved, my other possible topic was underwear, and not the sexy kind).

In this case I think they are wrong. Yes I can use a knife to slice an egg. In fact I have been doing that most of my life.

BUT...

The egg slicer does it better and quicker.

The knife sticks to the yolk and makes the egg fall apart. Not once when using the slicer on 3 eggs did this happen on Monday. I ended up with three perfectly sliced eggs ready to lay out neatly on our salads.

You could probably use the slicer to slice other soft things, but really, it's only real function is to divide eggs into nice even bits. I think it is worth it's place.

I love my multi-tools like my knives, my mandolin and my mouli, but sometimes you just need a specific tool for a specific job.

I think this principle spans out into other areas too, not just kitchen utensils. I can even link it to books - watch me! :)

Sometimes authors try too hard to please everyone. This is IMPOSSIBLE. Not everyone is going to like you choice of topic or your genre or even your writing style. Pick up any book, even the most famous ones, and you'll find someone who doesn't like it.

The secret is finding your niche, because if you don't love what you write no one else will either. Then investigate your genre and tailor what you love to your market to attract as many people as you can. Strive to be the best you can be, but remember you are not a multi-tool - you cannot do everything for everybody.

Do you own single use kitchen utensils? Are they pointless? Do you strive to be too many things at the same time, stretching yourself too thin? Did you like my segue?

Modern Social Media - the Good and the Bad #ThinkyThursdays 11

I can't believe it's Thursday already, can you? Where did the week go? Anyway, welcome to Thinky Thursdays, this is where I create a blog post about something that just happens to be on my mind. This week I have chosen Social Media and how I see the various platforms available. Just my opinion :)

Modern Social Media - the Good and the Bad

I'm an Indie Author, I have social media accounts all over the place through necessity. I've been online since the mid 90s so I've seen all sorts and I don't think we're necessarily headed to good things.

This is going to make me sound old, but when I first came online most things were done on mailing lists or bulletin boards. There were many, many rules about how to communicate because everyone had to consider things like the fact some people paid to download information by the byte. Formatting was important too, because you couldn't guarantee how someone was going to view your plain text.

We got by, but it wasn't the best :).

Then came the more sophisticated era, which is what I want to talk about with the following:

• Livejournal (and Dreamwidth)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Tumblr

Livejournal (and Dreamwidth)

I started using Livejournal (LJ) in 2002 - in fact I have two permanent accounts: tasha27 (my 1st - very old and never used) and beren_writes (still current and I use it at least once a week).

When my friend Al started to try and convince me to use LJ, I remember thinking why on earth would I want that. Then I made one and never looked back. It's kind of a cross between a blog and a platform like Facebook for communal interacting. 

Dreamwidth is the same engine, but run by fandom people rather than a corporation. It came later when fandom started to distrust LJ. My account for DW is here: beren_writes.

Reasons I still love LJ:

• the userpics/icons - for each post you can choose one of your selection of icons and depending on your account you can have between 6 and 208. Userpics can be fan-ish, or used to show mood or anything.
• communication - LJ is set up specifically to talk - the comments mean you can have long and meaningful conversations if you want to, or you can squee about fan-ish things if is makes you happy.
• communities - LJ makes it very easy to create groups of friends with their communities and it always has, right from the start. Communities are why fandom thrived for years and in some cases still does.
• profile pages - every account, including communities has a profile page which makes it easy to have rules, info and that kind of thing in one place.
• levels of privacy - when you post you can post to your journal or a comm, you can post to everyone, your friends, or groups of your friends that you set up in advance. This has always been an option.
• no variable feed - if someone posts and you have friended them, you will see there post in your feed. There is none of this, oh, we'll decide which posts you see based on some algorithm that makes us more money.
• levels of account - you only see adverts with the plus account (the default), on all others you either give them money or you can have a basic account which limits some of the perks, but still lets you use the place ad-free.

Reasons I don't always love LJ:

• TPTB - it's run by Russians who bought out the original founder and they have tried to police fandom on occasion (fandom mostly won though) - my advice, make a Dreamwidth account as well and they let you crosspost, so you can put posts on bother DW and LJ at the same time :).
• Media - You can't upload media easily. In most cases it's better to load it somewhere else and link it (I often use my blogger account for this :)).
• reformatting the front end - sometimes TPTB try to change the way the interface works and they always, but always bugger it up.

Livejournal has a much more mature atmosphere than any other social media I've used. It is a place to communicate above all. Everyone has always seemed to respect each other much more than in any other social media outlet I have employed regularly.

It was the major fandom hub for so many fandoms over the years, including Harry Potter. Many fandoms still use it and the legacy of fic on site is phenomenal. It's not just fandom either - LJ has everything else as well.

It's not as easy to show the pretty, but if you love words, LJ will love you. Come over and join us, we're still there :).

Facebook

I have a rather hate/hate relationship with Facebook. I have a Facebook because it's useful to track down old friends and to communicate with current ones, but I don't trust it and I dislike it. I post mostly about what I post here and my books and I have an author page: My FB Account | My Author Page

Reasons I use Facebook:

• number of people on it - the whole world seems to use Facebook, so it makes sense to have an account.
• finding friends and family - I have found friends and family that I have been out of contact with for years, simply by searching Facebook
• author communities - there are a lot of groups on Facebook for authors

Reasons I dislike Facebook:

• big brother is watching all the time - Facebook has a nasty habit of banning the wrong people and not banning those it should. It's all about money and I wouldn't trust TPTB as far as I could throw their corporate lawyers.
• they choose what I see - I hate the fact that even though I have friended or followed the accounts I want to see, their posts might not show up in my timeline. This is all about making money for Facebook and I hate it. It's all about screwing the little guy and letting those with money get to everyone - even those who aren't interested in them.
• they change the goal posts all the time - things get added to the Ts&Cs all the time and there is no recourse for the user. I wouldn't put anything on Facebook that I really cared about, for all I know it will vanish or be shown to the world when I least expect it.

It basically all comes down to the fact that I don't trust Facebook about anything. Too many times it has been shown to be about money, not about people and I will never trust them. Many people use Facebook all the time without trouble, but I can't bring myself to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Twitter

I like Twitter, but I use it for very specific things and it's not really a platform of communication. The limit of 140 chars makes it a place to draw attention to things, not really to talk about them. My account is here: @beren_writes . I mostly use it to alert people to things I have posted elsewhere, like this, to randomly talk about things my cats have done, and to share useful links and info I happen to see, often about writing and publishing, but sometimes about other things too.

Reasons I like Twitter:

• Visibility - millions of people use Twitter and connecting with them is really easy.
• Concise Information - with the character limit Twitter is all about packets of concise information, making it very easy to slip in and out quickly. It also makes you think about how to use it.
• Links - Twitter makes is amazingly easy to share links to interesting things.
• Pictures - Twitter also makes it easy to share the odd piccie
• Lists - you can make lists of the people you are following so you don't have to see everything all the time. This is good because I follow over 4.5K of people and seeing all their messages at the same time makes me go 'wibble' :) I reorganised my listed recently and it was most helpful.
• Tweetdeck - this makes viewing my timelines so much easier.
• Buffer - this is so useful for scheduling all the retweets and interesting links I find when wandering around the internet.

Reasons I dislike Twitter:

• It's like shouting into a void - there is little sense of community on Twitter and I never expect a response (it's fun when I get one, but I never expect anything)
• No levels of communication - everything is public, it's all about telling everyone. It's like having a conversation on a crowded bus and heaven help you if you say something and the wrong person overhears and dislikes it.
• It's full of arseholes - I think that probably speaks for itself :)

Tumblr

You can't really mention social media today and not talk about Tumblr. This is where a lot of fandom went, but there is also a lot of other information on there as well. If you want to know about social justice, this is a hub for it too. My account is berenwrites and I mostly just reblog the pretty or the interesting. Tumblr does not inspire me to make much original content and I will go into why below.

Reasons I like Tumblr:

• The pretty - honestly the main reason I use Tumblr is because it makes sharing images and vids so easy. I go there because that's where all the interesting pretty shows up.
• The finger on the pulse - Tumblr nearly always has the information first. I kid you not, if you want to know what's going on, just follow a few accounts for the right thing on Tumblr. It shows up there days before I see anything on Facebook.
• They don't give a stuff about the moral majority - what I mean by this is, if you want to post risqué material, they won't delete your account. They don't police like that unless it's illegal, unlike every other platform except Twitter. This makes it a safe fandom place, because every other platform has banned fandom at least once because of things it has deemed wrong, which were perfectly legal.

Reasons I dislike Tumblr:

• lack of communication - this is not a site designed to communicate well with anyone. It's a nightmare if you want to hold a sensible conversation.
• It's toxic and volatile - don't expect love and understanding, or even civility on Tumblr, you won't get it. It's one of the reason I don't feel inclined to create much new content for it.
• It really is a void - you see posts that have thousands of reshares - don't expect yours to get the same. I honestly have no idea how to build a following on Tumblr, it seems to me you have to give away valuable things and be willing to sell your soul to the devil :). That or have a direct line to things no one else has.

So, there you have it, my thoughts on social media. I didn't mention Pinterest (tashaddrake), simply because I have never really looked into how it works. I use it, but mostly I just throw things at it, I have not investigated the community within it. I also haven't mentioned G+ (NatashaDuncanDrake) because mostly I have no great feelings about it :). I'm on it and there are some greats author comms, but it does not inspire the same thoughts as the ones I have mentioned.

These are all my own opinions and I'm not trying to tell everyone what is good and what isn't. This is my personal experience and what I happen to have been thinking about recently. I still love Livejournal and I wish it's heyday wasn't over. I'm an author, I love words and it was all about the words, so it will always be my favourite.

I find much of the newer platforms to be less civilised. Tumblr often feels like being back in Primary school - only with much more adult topics. Twitter makes me feel like it's nothing personal. Facebook makes me shudder - you may have noticed I really don't like it :).

In the end though I do have one thing to say - thank god we're not still stuck on mailing lists ;)

What is your favourite social media? Why and how do you use it?