Orbis Writings

I’ve started writing my third short story yesterday.  I wrote another one a few days ago that I never posted.  But I was thinking, what if I write a novel as a bunch of short stories where every short story is a part of a larger story.  Something like the movie Crash where a whole bunch of people’s lives are interconnected through relationships and haphazard meetings.  Sin City is another example.
The reason I’m thinking about doing this is that I was thinking of using the evil characters from a short story I posted a week back into my two other short stories that I’ve written.  Each short story would be a story on its own with different points of view and different characters, but with one underlying connection.

There’s no teacher better than experience.  I’m going to keep writing my short stories.  And see what comes of it.

Yes, finally, I have found my doomsday cult. They believe that credit cards are evil; I was just thinking that last week. Well really that’s all I like about them. I’m not sure about the doomsday part. Or the part where they think bar codes are evil.

Oh and this nut gave himself a window for the doomsday to occur:

Around 30 followers, including four children, from across Russia and neighboring Belarus met last October and barricaded themselves into a hillside to escape an apocalypse their preacher says is looming in either April or May.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL3151294120080331

My god. I really need to improve my English. Everything that I write seems to be readable by 6 year olds; if they could read that is.

I’m starting to think that perhaps my first novel should be an anthology of my short stories.  I’ve written half a short story tonight that I think will be pretty good.  And there is one I posted a few days ago that I got some good criticism for that I’ll need to edit.

If I do about 20 to 30 of those, and hopefully get one or two published, then that would be just as good, no?  They’ll be short enough that I can re-edit as my writing gets better.  But I think I can write a couple more short stories based on the characters of the short story I posted last week.

I’m still writing which counts and I think that my goal of having a novel to submit by end of year would still be achieved by an anthology. All the great authors write short stories, so why can’t I.

Every single author that I read should have a blog.  I want to know what these people’s lives are like day-in and day-out that provides them with the imagination to write the stories they write.  I read Meg Gardiner’s blog regularly and I love it.  Her blog reflects the personality of the main character in her Delaney series, same wit and smart ass attitude, as far as I know her.  That is why I started reading her books, read a style I never read before and I love it.

Who else out there has a blog worth reading?  If anyone knows of any good POD author blogs, let me know.  I need to expand my literary knowledge.

I just bought a novel by Kim Harrison and  I checked out her website and she is definitely a smart cookie.  And check out this video interview here.  Stephen King doesn’t have an active blog which is really disappointing, although I think everyone knows pretty much everything there is to know about King that’s worth knowing, but still.  What about Clive Barker, the creator of Hell Raiser.  What’s he up to?

I was just looking at the Mont Royal Cemetery website to do some quick research for a short story that I’m writing and was appalled at the fact that you can order your services and packages online, add them to your shopping cart and then check out, literally.

So, if you’re about to go from cancer or a bullet wound and have access to the Internet and still have a credit card, you can place your order within 5 minutes then just call a cab and your worries are gone.   I wonder if they do pick-up as well.  And who’s gonna pay for the credit card bill?

Well at least it’s not the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery where there was a strike last summer and bodies were literally stacking up waiting for burial.

How does a writer go about getting into the proper emotional state to be able to write an emotional scene or any kind of scene where experience is the only way to know how to write it.

I know how it feels to hit your head on a concrete floor; I felt it once or twice when I was young.  I know how it feels when you think the cops are after you, when you’re young enough to think that picking up a dollar bill on the floor in a convenience store warranted the police to put an APB out on you.

But how would I go about portraying an emotion that’s never been felt before, that probably not many people have felt before without putting yourself in that situation?  I can use the experience I gained from reading and watching movies, but is that the same?

I just saw the movie Cloverfield.  I really liked it; I actually loved it.  The ending was abrupt.  But the story line really pulls you in.  The use of the camcorder was an ingenious idea.  The one question that I have is, should there be a second part?

Sure the original characters are gone, but the story really is about the monster, not the people.  In the second movie they could turn things around and try to make the viewer feel for the monster.  The reason I say that is that in one scene in the movie, the monster seemed to be contemplating its next move.  I really want to know where the monster’s from. What the monster is thinking.

The first movie really stands on its own, but they did such a good job with the movie, that I want more.

I did have another thought about the movie.  What was the point of view used? Would it be considered 3^rd person limited since it was from the point of view of the camera?  Or is it first person due to the character holding the camera?