Author: Kat

I have been writing stories since first grade. Speculative genres are my passion, although high fantasy and classic science fiction hold special favor. In my freshman year of college, I was introduced to anime, manga, and cosplay, and enjoy going to geek and anime conventions like (Re)Generation Who and Katsucon. I have a B.A. in English from Penn State and works as a public library assistant and freelance editor. From October 2012 to October 2013, I was a content contributor to Geek La Femme. I've also written several articles for the comic book e-newsletter Scoop. My various amateur talents include sketching, swimming, sword-fighting, and playing the ocarina. I post new entries on The Cat’s Cradle and upload a new chapter of fan fiction on alternating Mondays (unless otherwise stated on Twitter). I currently live and work in Pennsylvania with two brothers and six felines.

We Are Grammar Nazis

Have you ever gotten a message from someone via a text or e-mail or post on Facebook that was illegible?  One that you couldn’t understand, or one you misinterpreted because you couldn’t read it?  Or perhaps you receive messages like this on a regular basis.  “How is that possible?” some may ask.  After all, with the advent of typing, you don’t need to worry about translating bad handwriting, so how could you not read a typed message?

Easily.  If the person sending you the message failed to capitalize, punctuation, or write a grammatically correct sentence, you honestly may not be able to understand what they said, regardless of your intelligence.  I’m sure you’ve seen it all over the web, the decline of the capital letter, the lack of any punctuation beyond the exclamation point, the abysmal state of spelling.  More and more sentences are sent with net-speak abbreviations rather than complete thoughts.  And, what’s worse, nine times out of ten, if you correct any of these mistakes, you will be called “a grammar Nazi.”

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The Game of Thrones: A Review

Well.

I just finished watching the first season of The Game of Thrones…and, to be honest, I was not especially impressed.  I know I’ll probably catch hell for saying that, but it’s the truth.

Now you’re probably wondering, “But you’re a huge fantasy buff, Kat!  How could you NOT like it?”  So let me be clear:  I do not think that The Game of Thrones was a bad or poorly done adaptation.  I did enjoy watching it.  HBO did a wonderful job on locations, costuming, sets, music, cinematography…all of the technical details.  The level of visual detail is superb…even stunning.  And it is extremely faithful to the book, which is a mark in its favor.

That being said…the characters did not really engage my sympathies.  The thing that’s often overlooked when adapting fantasy is that fantasy is about people.  Take away the people and all you have left is fancy window-dressing.

Those were the generalities; now, on to the specifics.

This post may contain SPOILERS!  You have been warned.  Proceed at your own risk!

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Bonus Blog: The Liebster Award

Hey, it’s a bonus blog!  Yes, normally I’ll be posting every other Tuesday, but I was tagged by Pearl of Tyburn, author of “Longbows and Rosary Beads,” for the Liebster Award, so here are the questions she gave that I answered.  Thanks for the tag!  Feel free to answer them and post them on your own blog or website.

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Write This Down!

I recently read an article about how the average American goes for weeks without writing anything by hand. At first my brain rebelled at the idea, but, after giving it more thought, I realized that this was a reasonable assessment.  Aside from the occasional Post-It note or shopping list, most folks prefer to type rather than write.

So I’m curious to know:  do you prefer to write out scenes and notes by hand or with a keyboard?

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Modern Mythology

In case anyone missed the Twitter memo (and I’m sure some of you did), I will not longer be posting an entry here on The Cat’s Cradle every week.  Life has just gotten too insane for me to keep up that kind of pace. At least, not and maintain some quality control.  So, from now on, I’ll be posting every other week, roughly 2 entries per month.  I hope that you’ll all stick around and continue to enjoy them!

With things in my own life fluctuating madly, I thought it rather relevant to say that we live in an increasingly uncertain world.  As Don Henley says, “The more I know, the less I understand.”  Nihilism and existentialism isn’t new, but I personally feel it encroaching further and further into the human psyche.

What do we have to believe in?

If you watch the news, not much.  Every day there appears to be more death, destruction, and wanton waste of life.  Corruption and exploitation run rampant.  Ignorance and idiocy walk hand in hand as common sense becomes more precious than gold or diamonds.  The honest and the honorable are pushed to the sidelines, trampled on, or ridiculed.  And in an increasingly secular world, faith doesn’t seem to have a place anymore.

So, what can we believe in?  Who can be role models?  What can inspire us to become more than we are, better than we are?  Or to at least help us make some kind of sense of this insane world of ours?

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Distractions

I recently read a book called iDisorder, which was recommended to me by my onii-san, David Greenshell.  It’s about how the pervasive technology around us has encouraged the widespread development of behaviors that have the same symptoms as mental disorders, such as OCD, ADHD, addiction, narcissism, depression, and schizophrenia.  I highly recommend it because so many behaviors that seem “normal” now in relation to technology maybe shouldn’t be granted an exemption from concern.

Before I go any father, let me just say that I am not a naysayer to technology.  I have this blog, don’t I?  I also have numerous accounts all over the web, I own a cell phone (not a SmartPhone, thank God), and I probably spend more time than I should on Facebook and Twitter.  I suppose I am a little different from the majority of my generation because I do not have internet access at home, nor do I own a laptop, tablet, e-reader, or any other device that would allow me ubiquitous access to the world wide web.  Sometimes this is frustrating, even inhibiting.  It’s hard to look for, or even consider pursuing, an online job without a constant internet connection, and my friends can tell you just how furious I was to hear that Diablo 3 didn’t have an off-line option like its predecessors.

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Two Movies, One Verdict

Okay, time for another rant about movies.  I know, this is a writing blog and I keep talking about films.  But really, if you want to learn how to write tight, self-contained, highly visual stories, then study screen writing.  Good screen writing, that is.  And there seems to be less and less of that out there these days, at least in the realm of Hollywood.

CAUTION!  THIS ENTRY MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I recently had the dubious pleasure of viewing John Carter and Green Lantern.  Aside from having a pulp fiction background and a male protagonist sent into space, these two movies might appear to have little in common.  But actually, they have a lot in common.  They suck.  They don’t suck so bad that they are unwatchable, but with such rich source material it’s almost a crime how not-good they turned out.  The visuals are excellent (as always, with the benefits of CGI) and the acting wasn’t horrible (although Carter and Dejah Thoris had no chemistry whatsoever, which made their romantic scenes laughable), but the screen plays were unfocused and muddled, like no one could decide exactly what movie they wanted to make.  There were actually several similarities between John Carter and Green Lantern that probably contributed to their dramatic failure:

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Literature — Larger Than Life

I have been reading, which is always a dangerous thing.

No, really, reading is dangerous.  It challenges the twin conditions of Status Quo and Ignorance.  Which is probably why is has been encouraged to decline.  I do not know what the current literacy rates are, but I see what people check out in libraries, what students come slouching sullenly to the desk to request, hear the verbal banalities pour, not just from the mouths of other babes, but my own, and it makes me weep.

In case you have not noticed, I’ve been reading classic literature and essays by Ray Bradbury.  Both put me in a maudlin kind of mood where I hover between ecstasy and madness.  Because when I read them, if I’m lucky, I get the sensation that there are great truths hidden within them, sentences and paragraphs that resonate with me, but I have no means of expressing them.  The sheer abundance of creativity makes me want to simultaneously shout my joy to the heavens and slink back home and tear up the pages of my manuscripts that aren’t nearly as beautiful or insightful.  (So far I rarely express the former in public and I’ve resisted the urge to perform the latter.)

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Memory of a Master: Ray Bradbury

Last Tuesday, one of the most prolific and talented writers of speculative fiction died at the age of 91.  That writer was Ray Bradbury.  I call him an author of speculative fiction because his work can’t be defined strictly along the lines of sci-fi or fantasy or horror or mystery.  A lot of the time, his work is very like sci-fi.  There are spaceships and aliens and other worlds…but there’s something different.  Something almost…dreamlike, something vaguely Gaiman-esque about his tales.  Even though he predates Neil Gaiman, they share similar dream-states in their writing where things aren’t always what they seem and never what you would expect.

About a year ago, I was reading a book called Dwellers in the Mirage by A. Merritt and I told a friend:

“For some reason, books from the 1940s and 50s, the ones with the cheap, thin card-like covers and aged-tan pages and that tiny font that looks like Times New Roman but somehow subtly isn’t…they always give me a feeling of dreamlike detachment, like the book is a hallucination, or a flock of cleverly disguised birds about to fly away.”

The book responsible for this impression is my dad’s 1953 copy of Fahrenheit 451.  I don’t remember if this was the first Ray Bradbury book I ever read, or if it was just the first one I can remember reading.  I know there was a copy of The Martian Chronicles in the house that I read around the same time, but I suppose it doesn’t matter which came first.  I think I read Fahrenheit 451 when I was 9 or 10, years before I ended up reading it in middle school for English class.  I’ll admit that, at the time, I didn’t understand a lot of the subtly and finesse of the book, but I got the basic idea.  Fahrenheit 451 sparked my distrust of authority, public institutions, and the government.  The idea that a government would outlaw books and then burn those books along with anyone possessing them terrified me.  The idea of outlawing reading was unthinkable!  It also sparked my sometimes uncontrollable desire to hoard books, especially old ones, because you never know when they might just “disappear” from record.  I am fanatical about having hard copies of everything, thanks to Fahrenheit 451.  I still have the same copy I read all those years ago, and every now and then, I’ll flip through the pages and experience the wonder and fear again, as a reminder of the importance of the tangible.

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A Taste of Travel & Geography

I don’t like to travel.

Let me elaborate:  I like being new places, but I really don’t enjoy the process of getting there.  The thought of arranging for a place to stay, paying for it, packing, getting up, driving six billion hours, and paying more money for gas, food, etc…it’s enough to make me want to cancel the trip entirely and hide under the covers.  I actually get nauseous thinking about it and going through with any travel plans is a struggle.  And I consider anything farther away than one and a half hours “a trip.”

Perhaps its because I like comfort and convenience.  I’ve been heavily spoiled by this age of cars, trains, and airplanes.  Traveling has never been easier, and it takes a lot less time and money than it used to.  I’ve never known anything else, so I often forget how lucky I am to have a car that makes a trip that would have taken me a week by horse only a few hours.  Still, I despise going to an area I don’t know well that is far away from anything I recognize as a safe haven.  Trying to take everything you might need and plan for contingencies while still being mobile is very stressful.

I was reminded of all of these things when I drove up to New York State this weekend to attend the wedding of two of my friends.  I was reminded of all the anxiety and hassle that comes with travelling.  But, I was also reminded of something else:  the power and beauty of geography.

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