So I lent my friend my mainland Chinese copy of Good Omens, and she’s been commenting on various stuff in the book to me as she read along. One day she messaged, “Crowley’s so cute, chasing after the hedgehogs like that.”
And I said, “……………..what?????!?”
So she told me where in the book it was, and it was the part after Cr&Az realized that Warlock isn’t the kid, talked to the nun, and got out of the hospital. It did say that Crowley was “trying to hit a hedgehog and missing”, but I soon realized that the “second line” she told me that’s about the hedgehog is, “The angel stared out at the rushing hedgerows.” Apparently the Chinese translator read “hedgerows” and thought it was “hedgehogs” again. Obviously it didn’t make a huge change to the plot line, but basically, in the Chinese version of Good Omens, Crowley chased a hedgehog while convincing Aziraphale, “drove in silence for a while”, and then chatted with Aziraphale some more. Meanwhile Aziraphale saw everything but decided to let Crowley do his thing.
So…yeah.
You know, between life and what’s happening in politics and work and too much travel and missing my baby son (he and Amanda are at a conference in Canada and I am hiding to try and make a deadline) it’s been a rotten week.
This, for the record, suddenly made everything really good. It may be my favourite ever Tumblr post.
It takes creativity. It is the act of putting something on paper, that when others see it, a unique picture is drawn in their mind. All guided by the author. I definitely call that an art.
Wait, there are poeple who don’t think writing is a form of art??
The post was practically perfect in every way, and then somebody went and added Julie Andrews, thus shooting it into the realm of utter and absolute perfection.
And it isn’t just as simple as ‘putting an image into text form’. You can look at an image and just tell a person what’s there - ‘Susan looked at the fluffy dog’, it just tells you what’s happening. And sometimes that’s all that’s needed.
But art is turning that into something that can make people feel, that they know what Susan is like emotionally when she sees this dog - if she loves it or if she’s afraid of dogs - and it tells you what kind of dog, and how soft the fur is, and the feeling of safety or danger Susan gets when she looks at said dog.
It’s choosing the right words, because you’ve used that word already a few times in the past paragraphs, so something else would work better. It’s knowing when to use ‘(Name) did this’ again and when to describe the action in another way, not because it’s the second time you’ve used it, but because it’s easy to see by skimming the page, and the ‘image’ of the words on the page makes it obvious.
It’s knowing when to break apart the paragraphs so that people who are put off by a wall of text aren’t scared by it, and feel that it’s surmountable to read. It’s dividing things so that there’s a flow, as well. It’s making it so that you can see a person’s thoughts, how quickly they come and how detailed they are, how calm or panicked or emotional, just by looking at a page.
It’s knowing the way a character thinks, and getting inside their head, so well that you can get other people inside their head, so that other people can feel the same way as this character that they may even have never heard of before.
Writing, no matter what kind it is, makes people think. It makes people look at themselves, and think ‘is this something I’d do? What would I do in this situation? It makes people feel. It makes you go through things with these characters that you will never be able to go through in real life.
A writer chooses words in the same way that an artist chooses their paintbrushes.
shapeshifting is the best super power because you can have any haircut any time you want, you can turn into a hotter version of yourself, you can turn into a dragon, you can turn into a robot, you can turn into a shambling mound of abstract shapes and sulk outside your estranged father’s house at night while chanting ominously about his sins,
There is a petition to try and call another referendum about the EU, with a rule asking for a 60% majority before a decision is made. Yes this is a shitty time, but hopefully there’s still a chance to fix things. The Leave campaign have already gone back on some of their promises before the referendum, so please, if you can, can you sign this? If we get 100 000 signatures parliament have to debate it, so please. Even if you’re not in the UK if you can share this to try and get it out there, that would be fantastic. Here’s the link:
I just realized the first cars movie and the first thor movie have the same exact plot
I want an explanation
A man on the road to greatness ends up lost in a small desert town with seemingly no hope of getting back to the life he knows, over time he falls in love with someone there and learns to be humble. With this character development complete he’s able to return to his life never forgetting the people in that desert town.
