Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Characters are talking! - S.M. Bjarnson 07/07/14



The Characters Are Talking!
By, S.M. Bjarnson

The characters are talking, I can see them now waiting by the rippling waves for the next line in their wonderful love story to be written. I am the author and editor making remarks and additions into their simple lives, that I bring complex and unsettling feelings, because true love deserves to be tested. 
They hold hands waiting for the sunset to clear to see the next page or chapter in each other's life, in one another's future history. So we wait, because as we wait I am struck not by grief of making them feel pain, but stuck in a rut of possibilities of the people they could become, they whimsical destiny they so long to live up too. 
They are patient like no other person could be, not only are they understanding but they neither neglect or accept your judgments they merely nod and they deal with the forthcoming tides of a raging storm or the end to a beautiful sunny day. 
There are more words to be shared and rather to be heard. They wait with anxious excitement to hear the next revealing course in which their lives must take! So please be kind and witty as well, your characters are starting to talk! Talk they will and so it will be about you if you don't finish their own words exiting their fictional mouths! 


Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Beliefs or Barriers? - S.M. Bjarnson



Beliefs or Barriers?
S.M. Bjarnson 


As writer, bloggers, authors, readers, all of the above, we have restrictions on our minds we may not even realize. Our belief system put into place at a very young age brought up to believe and orientate one certain function or way. I have read many books, books that lie, cheat, steal, kill, swear, sweat, you know real life story books. It seems highly unnecessary to grant the submission of banning a book when the great writers of today were moved if not inspired by these works of literature. 

Rowell was, according to her blog, absolutely devastated by this treatment. She wrote “When these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible. That if you grow up in an ugly situation, your story isn’t even fit for good people’s ears. That ugly things cancel out everything beautiful.” 

Not necessarily a negative aspect, but also may not be a positive one. You limit yourself to read things because you are advised not too! Just so you know this may get a little philosophical so beware! I recently saw a picture of books that have now since been banned from libraries and school media centers, why, because they have to far out ideas. I mean we grew up with these books people! Winnie the pooh-My all time favorite as a kid. Was taken away from young readers minds because talking animals offend God. By the way I have found a perfect explain of the list of banned books! Here on this website! http://www.pajiba.com/station_agents/30-banned-and-challenged-kids-books-that-will-make-you-feel-terrible-about-humanity.php#.U3EeJPldUZw
Also on this undermined list of books, there is the historical, if not educational autobiography by none other than Anne Franks. Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Girl: This year (THIS YEAR) in New Hampshire, the Holocaust classic was challenged in Michigan for the following reasons: “It’s pretty graphic, and it’s pretty pornographic for seventh-grade boys and girls to be reading. It’s inappropriate for a teacher to be giving this material out to the kids when its really the parents’ job to give the students this information.” Though the book wasn’t banned in Michigan, it was briefly banned in Virginia in, wait for it, 2010. 
I just would like to ask one question about this and I will move right along to other charades of enterprise; are we idiots? Let's talk about this Anne Frank was a key role in one of the biggest monumental times, for her diary we are engulfed in the Holocaust. If it were not for her being there and writing those journal entries we would have veered off into someone else words, maybe not the right words. I am saying is that she was alive and her book was published for a reason, to teach us if not educate us. 

The Giving Tree: Because the tree is overly compliant and, yes, giving and the boy is demanding and selfish this book has been called sexist. 

Tell me are we that bored with reality we have to ruin the childhood of young adults everywhere to prove some mythical point of beliefs brand new. You can not please everyone, but I wonder, if these people ever get tired of themselves, these individuals that fight everyone on every little detail. 
What is a world we are not able to read freely? What is a planet without books? Our imaginations dried and starving for literature. What makes others think they can choose and pick the ideas we want to believe in or expose ourselves too?

His Dark Materials: Much like Harry Potter, the objection here is a religious one. Though I strongly disagree with the complaint, it is, in this instance, far more justified. Phillip Pullman’s beautiful trilogy does, yes yes, involve some kids on a mission to kill God (aka The Authority). So I can see how that might make some parents look askance. Though Pullman is vocally, frankly anti-organized religion, I don’t think he’s anti-faith. He’s said: “[I]n my view, belief in God seems to be a very good excuse, on the part of those who claim to believe, for doing many wicked things that they wouldn’t feel justified in doing without such a belief.”
Tell me are we fools?

Harriet The Spy: This book was challenged in the 1980s in Ohio for teaching “children to lie, spy, back-talk and curse.”

 Are they our beliefs 
or are they barriers? 


All quotes on books banning are from this blog: http://www.pajiba.com/station_agents/30-banned-and-challenged-kids-books-that-will-make-you-feel-terrible-about-humanity.php#.U3EeJPldUZw


Photo Credit: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Foakconsult.co.uk%2Fwp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F11%2Fmind-barriers.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Foakconsult.co.uk%2Fwhy-not-or-why-not-removing-personal-barriers-to-success%2F&h=350&w=318&tbnid=F7-iogPRdLvDdM%3A&zoom=1&docid=oqCjGPoq8WsL-M&ei=dxxxU5fCCYL3oASajoDwAQ&tbm=isch&ved=0CIsBEDMoLjAu&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=481&page=2&start=30&ndsp=35

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Shifting Your Belief - S.M. Bjarnson

"Simply changing your belief can shift your internal conversation from thinking of your dream as impossible to seeing it's possibilities." -Unknown

I am greatly inspired today! Hopefully I can get April's blogging chaos out of the way and am determined to edit at least to page 120 in The Circus in Me. Definite hard work, struggling with characters and all that melancholy drama. So here is a quote I found along with other clever spurts of wisdom as I missed out on Wednesday! :) SO there you go!

S.M. Bjarnson

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Five Beats of Successful Storytelling, by Jenn Godbout


Another Great article for Storytelling.http://99u.com/articles/17652/the-five-beats-of-successful-storytelling-how-it-can-help-you-land-your-next-job 



The Five Beats of Successful Storytelling & How They Can Help You Land Your Next Job 




Author Philip Pullman wrote, “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Whether we’re talking about life, business, or art, storytelling is an essential skill. Maybe even THE most essential skill. But that doesn’t mean it comes naturally.
S.M. Bjarnson Comments:
I found this wonderful website where I have been getting most of the Wednesday Wisdom from. I believe this explains so much for us as gifted storytelling. People can't help but be captivated in the way words flow and move around in their minds. I know this article is based on a job interview, but it also displays quite extraordinary potential for us, to sen dour a query letter, making a pitch to an agency. We can make them fall in love with the story we are writing as we sing it to them. 
Give it a try! 
I surely am! 
:)