Novel…adding new chapters

I’m working on adding the last few chapters to my novel. I realized that I had instinctively placed in an idea that I have always carried with me:  there is beauty in the broken. After all we’re all broken. But even though we’re struggling, there is a piece of your heart wanting this to be better even if you’re thinking of doing something bad, or already in the moment. Occasionally we even escape our darkness and we are carried away to a part of ourselves we were never sure existed. However, we never forget what we’ve been through, or how we got there our struggle is a part of who we are, our darkness is a part of who we are.

I hope this novel turns out okay, but even if it doesn’t, knowing that I was able to collect that many ideas, and write that many words, way more than will ever be within the book after a thorough edit, it’s still amazing. It’s still a blessing.

New Book: The Body Finder

Check out the book trailer for ‘The Body Finder!’

Are we lowering our standards?

I have sat down with many of my friends and we all seem to agree on the fact that music, books and movies tend to not live up to the definition of ‘art’ and ‘creative works.’ Perhaps people are lowering their standards. As we have performers like Lady Gaga, Lil’Wayne, Chris Brown, Eminem hitting our radios. Along with Beyonce and TI and T.Pain (I used to think they were the same person), we hear their songs on repeat as each radio station shares the same playlist. We know their songs whether we like it or not. Now with the King of Pop having passed away recently his past music career was one that no one has topped or is even trying to top. Our standards have dropped as we take in crappy lyrics and loop beats. These musicians rarely play instruments, rarely write their own lyrics and their music videos are just junk.  There is not a backing behind them as performers.  Their lyrics are not only trashy but they are also filling the ears of our young people who are our future. And I’m not even in my thirties yet, so don’t assume I’m some ‘mature’ adult pissed MJ and Bryan Adams aren’t popping around the stages.

Now we have rap. Which is now mocked as it has nothing that it had in the past. It’s poetry. Telling the stories of difficult lives. But the rap we hear on the radio is nothing like that it’s rhyming titty with shitty.  Let’s qutoe L’il Wayne ” You know them hoes love Weezy/ Sticky, pimp small, long hair, big dick/Weezy bring to y’all /Don’t y’all lip quit/Put your lips on this dick /Call my hoes to get salami, ’cause they brush the balls/Let Weezy bust they jaws.” What?

And hmm lets try Lady Gaga ‘He cried, “Mother! What’d you do to me?”/I said, “Mother mother mother’s for babies Call me kitty.” ‘ Huh…

Now what about movies? It seems that directors, writers and actors do not have to work as hard to peoples attention. Toss in some R rated sex scenes (some ‘dick and kitty according to Gaga and Wayne’) a good chunk of violence, a few close ups on a bullet in the head, some cool explosions and a car race and they’ve just got their 30 million from all the ticket sales.

After seeing Transformers Revenge of the Fallen I am sure that that has happened.  Television and Movies were better in the past. But as time goes by all of those good Tv shows and movies disappear. It’s just a bunch of Junk. I can’t even find a comedy that doesn’t have a pale butt and two men kissing. Somehow that is humor and even after it’s been done over and over again. People ask why no other movie has beat Titanic, and that’s because they aren’t work half as hard. And yes, having a relationship and romance with some good explosions yes they’re entertaining. But why isn’t their a good plot? You know the layouts of writing? Where’d all that go?

Television. Reality tv seems to be what everyone wants to see. I’m sick of it, it’s all over the place. Good tv has vanished. I remember good television and all the shows I remember were booted off the air and the slots were filled with ‘I survived a Japanese Game Show’ and ‘Gossip Girl.’  Have you seen the Oscars? What is all that crap winning awards? I’m confused. And in the theatre I”m bored. I’m exhausted. And yet inspired to get in their and make some good television shows, and fantastic movies that deserve to be a runner up to Titanic. I’m redoing all of the superhero movies as the comic book world has some fantastic writers. But those darn writers who pick up the pen to write a script butcher it to death. And what the heck is wrong with Stan Lee? I’d never let them touch my master pieces. But I’m forgetting, MONEY! It’s all about the MONEY when it comes down to it. Although I like money, my art is more valuable than anything. I’d never give it up. So move over people…New Spiderman, and Tomb Raider (yuck, what happened) Superman…(how do yous crew up superman) Xmen, even Wolverine (crap again)! All redone. And if they don’t grant me that honor. Some new superheros are on the way.

I”ll write about the crap in books next time

A bet…regarding me liking James Patterson..

Well I was scolded the other day for challanging the ideas of James Patterson and his novel When The Wind Blows. So out of a twisted kind heart I decided to take a bet and see f I’d like him ‘alittle’ after reading another one of his novels. I’m dreading this, having tor ead more of his work. But I suppose it should be fun if I get to do a nother write up on him. well stay tuned. I’ll let you know how far I get. 

Keep reading I have more reviews regarding tv and other great entertianment

When The Wind Blows by James Patterson – The Review… A little more technical than artistic??? What do you think?

I just finished reading When The Wind Blows by James Patterson. Now I have never picked up one of his books I’ve noticed them because they seem to stack shelves full of copies of his books and they’re also placed in multiple locations around the bookstore as if everyone is coming in for one of his books. And well I don’t doubt that they’re right. He’s popular. I never read his books knowing he was like every other ‘popular’ writer. Popular but not near the greatness the ‘common’ book buyer says that he is.  However, I had been writing a story about winged creatures (odd for me) and I decided to see how many people had similar ideas, so I dug through all shelves at the book store and James Patterson came up. I almost didn’t buy it due to his name on it, but I wanted to read as many books as I could with flying slightly human looking creatures.

I am one of those people who hate having my time wasted. That’s with books, music, television, movies, conversations…all of it. So as I began reading through the book which didn’t take me long to read it’s 300 something pages, as I found myself speed reading out of boredom and due to his writing style…if that’s what it can be called. People rave about this guy. So after reading and during my read I couldn’t understand why.  My compliment is that he has solid ideas, but he doesn’t have a solid way of executing the actual ideas onto paper. The story was predictable, and I found myself slightly disconnected from the characters. The character building did not please me what so ever, it was ineffective if it was even truly there at all.

The characters were also typical characters in addition to the story being predictable which made it all the worse. I found myself rolling my eyes as in the beginning when one of the male narrators (main character) went to do a little sniffing around in the area and of course just when he’s doing the sniffing around the leading female character is standing naked in the window in clean sight for him to see, and of course she’s beautiful and completely available for this mans eyes. It felt a little  more like some Brad Pitt hit for a moment…and then even more so as the story went on and they just had to strip down and do it out in the forest. I found myself raising my brow in confusion as I couldn’t find that ‘connection’ where the story comes full circle.

I will quote a great review  written by diogenes lamp “diogeneslamp” (Glenwood Springs, Colorado United States) on Amazon.ca. “The premise is tired. Genetic experimentations. A rogue agent that follows his conscience instead of the FBI bureau policy, who also happens to be really hunky. Crooked people in high places. A heroine, who happens to be beautiful and looks good through windows while naked, that hates then loves the good guy. A bad guy that cares nothing about anything but evil greed and power. Not one of these characters would be missed if they got shot or drowned, since they could easily be replaced by any number of other pop-fiction cliches.

The writing is poor. I say this honestly, not to be contrary. It is flat, staccato, and more technical than artistic.” You can read the full review here.(scroll to the bottom)

Now I must agree with this reviewer saying that the writing was more technical than artistc. He was right. The writing felt a little juvenile to my mind as well. I thought that the book was targeted for the wrong auidence. I wondered what he was thinking as he wrote for young teens or maybe even younger as Max in the story is eleven or twelve years old but then has such language and themes not suitable for those that you assume will read such a story. I wouldn’t recommend this book for your younger ones due to the language of sex and curse words. In addition to the language, well described sex scenes also pop up randomly where it took me off guard and felt that my time was wasted.  If Patterson had been as focused and as descriptive as he was for all of his sex scenes and put that throughout the book along with important scenes rather than what seemed a little useless or boring to reader the book may have had a chance.  His structure felt a little unintelligent. When I know the writer is obviously capable, but somehow tossed away the possible good product for a ‘bestseller’ how it became a bestseller…i’m still trying to figure out.  My hypothesis is that he did a rewrite and broke the two books up into smaller ones and added on to the story…in addition to that he made sure to target younger readers from 12+ so that the character grew with the audience.

The thing is…although I was able to get through the whole book a little curious to how it will end even though I already knew lol…I could see myself getting tired of the writer as I read. I knew that I have read better science fiction/thrillers. To sum it up I could see myself telling him exactly how to fix the book in a way to have it make a little more sense to the reader and to not waste the readers time.

Until Next Time…

Gene

What’s your opinion on this book or James Patterson?