One Story, Three Books - My Problem with The Hunger Games

So, I’ve recently read The Hunger Games. And I don’t just mean the first book, I mean I’ve read the whole trilogy.

For those of you who haven’t yet read The Hunger Games, this might not mean very much at all. Okay, sure, you might be saying, you read the whole trilogy. There are some assumptions you might go ahead and make from this.

First of all there could be something along the lines of, wow, that’s a lot of reading. Those of you who know me, however, might skip right past this because you’ll know that I read really super fast, so it’s irrelevant how much reading it took me to get through all three books (case in point: I read both book 2 and book 3 in the same day).

Anyway, the next, and more important assumption that you might make probably goes something like this: if Nancy has read the whole trilogy, I guess the first book (at the very least) must have been pretty good.

And there’s the rub. This is where we stumble across my problem with The Hunger Games - the first book and the rest of the series included. I’m not about to say that I didn’t enjoy The Hunger Games (the 1st book), because I did. However, enjoyment of the first book was not the reason that I read the second two books. Usually, as a reader, that’s how I roll (read?) - I read the first book in a series, and then I decide if I liked that story and want to continue onto the second, then third, and maybe even the fourth book and more if those books exist. But when it comes to The Hunger Games, I had no choice but to read the next two books. NO CHOICE. You cannot stop at just one.

With certain products - Pringles, for example - I’d count that as a good thing. For novels, this is not a quality that I like. And in this blog post I’m going to tell you all about why I don’t like it.

Imagine for a moment, that you have no plans for the evening, no responsibilities that need tending to. It’s the perfect time for you to curl up with a book. This book can be any genre and it can be by any author. It can be new and shiny, it can be old and falling to pieces, all that stuff is unimportant. What is important is that this is a novel.

You settle down in a comfortable book-reading setting. You open your book and you begin to read. You’ve just hit one of the most important parts of the book: the BEGINNING.

The BEGINNING of a novel is crucial. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on here. This is where you get introduced to most, if not all, of the principal characters of the story. The point-of-view of the story is revealed to you - are we god-like creatures reading third person narration, or are we intruding into a characters soul as we read their deepest thoughts in first person? We get a sense of where and when the story is happening. And of course we start to get an idea of what’s actually going on in this story. Basically, we get a sense of all the conventions of narrative. We even get a good sense of the language that’s being used here: the register, the use of “figures of speech” (to use a figure of speech!), the voice, the tone... the list goes on; this is all stuff that’s revealed to us in the BEGINNING of the novel. There’s some action, some exposition. Most importantly, however it is done, is the fact that it is here, right at the BEGINNING of the novel, that we get drawn into the story and decide whether we can stand to keep reading.

It might be a cool character that interests us. It might be sumptuous descriptions of a setting. It could even be that the set-up for the action keeps us reading - we’ve got to find out what happens next. Personally, I usually find that it’s character that draws me in, but then I do tend to prefer character-driven novels.

The Hunger Games drew me in. I judge its BEGINNING to be highly successful. I like the protagonist, Katniss; I’m fascinated by the post-apocalyptic setting and the way in which it is described so that it seems homely instead of terrifying (my pre-conceptions of post-apocalyptica may have affected this feeling). I felt that the action of the story was the most important part - it’s a plot-driven work rather than a character-driven work - and so what drew me in the most was, naturally, the events that were starting to play out.

Let’s move on. Imagine that you settle deeper into your chair, or your bath or into the grass of the picturesque meadow you’ve chosen for this novel-reading fantasy. You move through the BEGINNING of the novel, and this particular choice has caught your attention. Maybe you’ve found something similar to what I found whilst reading The Hunger Games or maybe it’s something else that’s got you intrigued. Either way, imagine that you decide this book is pretty okay and that you want to keep reading. Before long you’re going to make it to the next part of the novel: the MIDDLE.

There are sooooooo many different theories about what *should* constitute the MIDDLE of a novel. Most people agree that there needs to be some kind of character development and some, you know, actual action. As a general rule there’s usually some conflict. Maybe a minor conflict, or two or three, that gets resolved, and maybe a major conflict that it’s going to take a bit more work to, well, work out.

When it came to reading The Hunger Games, the first book I mean, the middle contained a whole lot of actual action. We had a bit of character development although I did feel that the protagonist maybe didn’t develop as much as she could have. There’s an explanation for that, I think, but it’s something that we’ll have to come to a little later, as I continue on my chronological journey through you imagining to read a novel. Anyway, Hunger Games, heck of a lot of action going on in there. It’s very exciting. I did find it to be a really captivating read, mostly because I was always wanting to know what was going to happen. I read it quite quickly.

Think about your imaginary book. This book is maybe not the best book you’ve ever read (The Hunger Games was good but it certainly doesn’t claim that title for me, and I don’t want to make you think that we’re reading some spectacular work of literature - the imaginary book you’re reading is just your average-Joe novel). The point is, you’re into the MIDDLE of the novel. The plot meanders along, or maybe roller-coasters along - pacing is irrelevant here, as long as it’s holding your attention.

Personally I’ve never seen the MIDDLE of a novel as being quite as important as the BEGINNING. Perhaps that’s because I really enjoy writing the BEGINNINGs of novels. I tend to get stuck at the MIDDLE and give up on the story. Perhaps a good MIDDLE is why The Hunger Games got published, and none of my work ever has. Perhaps that has more to do with the fact that I’ve never tried to get any work published.

Anyway, you read the MIDDLE of your imaginary novel. It’s good. It’s not the best, but it’s good enough to hold your attention, however it manages to do that.

So you read read read read until suddenly there’s only a few pages left. Now I’m going to tax your imagination because I need you to imagine two separate scenarios. Let’s start with the ideal: scenario one.

Scenario one: the conflicts begin to be resolve, relationships are being tied up and the bad guys are starting to get their comeuppance. Yes indeedy, you’ve reach the END. And it feels kinda good. Maybe a little sad - you’re not ready to leave these characters behind, or maybe you feel that the plot has more to reveal. Maybe you’re not ready to drag yourself out of the fictional world you’re reading and plant yourself firmly back into an inevitably disappointing reality. Maybe it’s the opposite - you want to get out of the world of the novel; if the characters were disturbing and the events dark and scary, I don’t blame you. I’d want to rush to the finish too.

But what I always find when I reach the END of a novel, and I’m really hoping you can relate to this feeling, is a sense of fulfilment, contentment and maybe a little relief. I’m happy about it. The bad guys are getting what they deserved, so my sense of outrage and justice to be served is satiated. The good guys are all hooking up or getting married or playing with their pets at the seaside or baking a cake - feel good stuff, you know? Perhaps different genres experience different specifics, but you get the general idea.

Here’s the most important part, for me, at least. When I sat down and opened my book and let myself be drawn in at the BEGINNING, I did it some pre-conceptions and assumptions. Genre expectations, we might call them. I knew that I was reading a novel so I knew what to expect from the BEGINNING - it’s part of what’s helping you to imagine yourself comfortable with your imaginary novel, reading an imaginary BEGINNING. I knew, just as in your imaginary reading situation you also know, that after the BEGINNING we’re going to have a pretty good idea of character and setting, maybe even plot, and that then we’re going to move on to the MIDDLE. And then, because you’ve read novels before so you’ve seen the pattern for yourself and because you went to school and they taught you about the basic structure of novels, you know that the next thing you should be reading is the END. When you get there, your expectations are satisfied, there are no nasty surprises. In the one book you’ve experienced three crucial parts: BEGINNING MIDDLE END.

Let’s rewind a little and take your imagination through scenario two. Remember where we were?

And suddenly you’re a little confused, because it doesn’t seem like there are enough pages left in the novel for them to catch the bad guys. There’s no time for a wedding in the handful of thin sheets left, even if they suddenly change the font size to teeny tiny! None of these conflicts are resolving... uh oh.

That’s right, you have not reached the END. Sure, a few things might be wrapped up.

Let’s take a look at The Hunger Games. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Don’t worry, this is pretty predictable so it’s not a major spoiler, in my opinion, but I thought I ought to warn you.

***SPOILER ALERT***

At the “END” - if you can call it that! - of The Hunger Games (book 1) the Hunger Games that title the novel do come to a close. However, that’s about the only thing that gets wrapped up at the end of this novel. The Games end. Sure. Of course they have to, because this book is called The Hunger Games and the next one is called Catching Fire, so you know it’s about something at least a little bit different. But that’s about the only thing that comes to a conclusion, and even then I didn’t feel that it was a very good one.

***END SPOILERS***

And this, essentially, brings us to the crux of my problem with The Hunger Games. I’m not saying that it’s my only problem with the series; I’m also not saying that it made me entirely dislike the series. My main problem with The Hunger Games is this: the books end, without an END.

This does explain one thing: why did I feel that Katniss could have been developed more as a character? Because she was going to be developed more as a character, and does in fact go through quite a personal developmental journey over the course of all three books. She didn’t have to be fully developed in The Hunger Games because her development was going to continue in the later books.

Anyway, on with my complaint: I find this writing technique - or perhaps more aptly: money-making technique - utterly appalling. Novels have a BEGINNING a MIDDLE and then an END. They have this because it’s a convention of the genre of narrative. They have this because audiences expect it. They have it because, let’s be honest here, it’s actually not that difficult to fit one complete BEGINNING-MIDDLE-END story into one book. The Hunger Games is a series made up of three books. They’re pretty decent sized novels, too. But the print is big, so they’re not as long as they look.

A lot of people think that young adult readers (think: petulant teenagers) won’t read long books. Firstly, even if that’s true, I personally don’t think that it justifies the shameless act of marketing that is splitting a story over three books. Secondly, it’s not true. I mean really, think back to when you were a young adult reader. How many people reading this blog post right now hadn’t read a decent sized novel by the time they were into young adult texts? *crickets chirp* Exactly. I was reading novels before age six. I’m sure many of you experienced similar things, and I’m sure many of you were reading longer and more complex texts before I was. Children, teenagers and adults alike would still have read all three books of The Hunger Games even if the one story had been presented to them in one book.

There’s one pretty clear argument against what I’m saying (or at least, one that I can identify, so feel free to comment with more) and that is cliffhangers. Yes, cliffhangers are a valid narrative technique. We see them most commonly in television, when an episode of our favourite soap opera ends with the resident bad boy having the police raid his home, the cute teenager getting the results of her pregnancy test and the middle-aged woman walking into her bedroom to find her husband in bed with her evil step-sister. I’m not saying that cliffhangers are a bad thing, because they can be used extremely effectively. And they work, especially in the case of those ridiculous soap operas (which you should really stop watching because, come on now, you’re better than that).

Cliffhangers in novels are not something that I have an intrinsic problem with. After all, sometimes a clever cliffhanger is just the thing you need to keep you reading past chapter one and on into chapter two. And when it comes to cliffhangers in between chapters, I am absolutely for totally one hundred per cent okay with them.

When it comes to cliffhangers at the END of novels, I have mixed feelings. I don’t want to come right out and say that they’re a bad thing. They can be used quite cleverly, for one thing. And marketing is an important part of authorship, although I’ve always felt that it should be secondary to actually writing well. I suppose a plus-side is that it does get kids reading more books - they go from reading one book to reading three, even though it’s only one story. There are plus-sides, okay, I admit that. But overall I feel that the END of a novel, or at least the end, where the END should come, is the wrong place to put a cliffhanger.

In particular, I feel that The Hunger Games gave us too much cliffhanging and not enough resolution to tide us over. I read the next book because I felt like I had no choice. Because I felt like the story wasn’t finished (which it wasn’t). But I read on with a certain amount of resentment. I felt trapped by the money-grabbing author. I did not feel like I was reading those second two books out of enjoyment.

In some cases, I don’t mind this force-you-forwards type of cliffhanger. Soap operas, of course, are one place where I expect them. Here’s a more specific situation: I don’t mind so much when there’s a force-you-forwards cliffhanger between part two and three if part one was a stand-alone text. I still don’t really like it, but I’m a little more forgiving. You’ll recognise this sort of situation in The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. After you’ve seen film numero uno, you get an END, and it’s pretty satisfying, in my opinion. At the end of film numero two-oh, you don’t get an END. The story is spread over movies two-oh and three-oh. The END that we expected in two-oh and are deeply craving by the time the third movie comes out, is finally served up at the end of that third movie. It’s not an ideal situation. I’d rather that they’d made three stand-alone films instead of a first film, half a sequel and then the other half of the sequel. But at least you got two stories over three films, instead of The Hunger Games which gave me one story over three novels.

Let’s take a look at marketing. How much do books cost these days? A quick check at the bookstore tells me that they’re mostly around $30. There was a time when books were cheaper but that’s beside the point right now.

Let’s return quickly to our imaginary book. Imagine that it’s the day before you sat down with your novel. You’re at the bookstore. You look at the books and at the prices, and if you’re anything like me you either sigh or wince at the fact that you’re about to shell out $30 for a novel. But you really need something to read. So you choose your novel, through any method you prefer, and you pay your $30 and you take it home. Then you start to read and we’re back to the earlier situation that I had you imagine. BEGINNING? Check. MIDDLE? Check. END? Nuh-uh, not for you. You experience the shock and anger of having your expectations shot right through the brain. You feel furious because you didn’t get that END. Your bank account starts to cry as it realises what’s to come. Yes, you have to traipse back to the bookstore and fork out another $30 for book two.

If you’re reading The Hunger Games, you’re about to pay a total of $90 to read one story. Interestingly, movies cost about $15 for uni students (which most of my readers here are). You could go watch The Hunger Games - all three movies, when all three are finally released - twice each for that kind of money. Or you can take your partner/friend/cat and together you can watch each movie once. Whatever.

The point is, $90 for one story.

That’s great if you own a book store or a publishing company or if you’re Suzanne Collins and collecting royalties from every Hunger Games book that they sell. It’s less great if you’re a starving uni student or a minimum-wage teenager or a parent who just wants his/her kid to read something.

So the reason for my problem clearly stems from a number of places. Firstly, personal outrage because DAMN IT books should END at the end. Secondly, a more academic sort of outrage, because I started reading The Hunger Games with certain expectations of the genre of narrative, and they were thrown right back in my face when I reached the end, but found myself reading nothing that actually constituted an END to the narrative. And thirdly, a somewhat anti-materialism, financial kind of outrage, accompanied with a certain amount of confusion - because if you want kids to read, why are you making them pay $90 to read one story?

And that, in way more words than it really needed to be put, was my problem with The Hunger Games.

All that said, it’s actually a pretty great series and if you can stand between-novel-cliffhangers then I really recommend it.

At the very least, be sure to read it before the movie comes out!

... But perhaps that’s a rant for another time.

♥Nancy♬

An Impossibly Long Sewing Post

Hi everyone!!

Here I am blogging twice in the same month! I *may* have made a New Year's Resolution that was something along the lines of "I will blog twice every month."

What this means is a) more blog posts from your favourite blogger (perhaps it is presumptuous to assume that I am your favourite blogger, but in response to that I say: shush!) and b) less awesome creative writing posts and more posts that are a bit rambly and/or about gossip/SCA events/sewing (probably).

This one, today, is about sewing.

So sometime last year I blogged a little about my current sewing projects. Now I'm going to update you on those and tell you about my plans for the future as well!

My sewing project over the last few months has been Practise Kirtles.

Yup, Practise Kirtles are officially a thing.

What they are, is kirtles that look like, you know, kirtles, except that they are made out of cotton drill, because it's nice and cheap, and they are a little bit shonky because they're my first attempt at actually sewing anything :P

Actually, if you don't know kirtles, here are some places you can see pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Orazio_Gentileschi.jpg

http://www.gelfling.dds.nl/kirtle.html

http://www.uvm.edu/%7Ehag/sca/15th/weycold1.jpg

http://bjws.blogspot.com/2011/01/finding-cooking-food-in-16th-century_28.html (in particular the 8th pic down)

http://www.lepg.org/cook.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bruegel/dance.jpg

Aaaaaand that's probably enough for you to be getting on with :P the kirtle is the (relatively simple) dress that women wore from the 15th century right through the 16th century. There are many different styles, as you probably noticed if you looked at some of those pictures! A difference between the 15th C. and 16th C. kirtles seems to be that in the 15th C. they were mostly cut all in one piece of fabric! In the 16th C. they usually look like they are a clear bodice and skirt (sewn together though, not separate pieces).

My personal preference is for the slightly later kirtles. I love the look of the simple bodice & skirt (must be worn with a belt, too) especially with a cute hat and maybe an apron.

The time period is from about 1500 to I guess 1550. Maybe a bit before or after that cut-off. Fashion got weird for everyone in 1558 when Queen Elizabeth took the throne. She was such a snappy dresser as a teenager (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_bieta_I_lat_13.jpg) and then she got old and wore ugly stuff (my apologies to those who actually *like* Elizabethan garb, I do mean this all tongue-in-cheek, of course). Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_I._Procession_portrait_(detail).jpg yeah, she wore that in public...

The kirtles I've been looking at were mostly worn by the middle class people, or maybe lower class. The upper class people dressed pretty spectacularly too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Tudor_and_Charles_Brandon.jpg) but clearly it takes someone who can actually sew to make something that cool, so I'm saving that for a later time when I have furthered my sewing skills.

My inspiration comes partly from pictures like the ones I listed above (the kirtle ones, in this case) but mostly it comes from Sophie. Her blog is way better than mine and here are some of her posts with pictures of the sort of clothes she has that have inspired me: http://scananigans.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-scadventure.html and http://scananigans.blogspot.com/2010/03/festival-garb-update.html and http://scananigans.blogspot.com/2010/08/banner.html

She has some very good pictures on facebook so if you know her then I would encourage some stalking to find the outfits that I'm thinking of. I just figured it would be best not to post links to her facebook all over my blog. (Also I'm linking to her blog entirely without any permissions whatsoever so... hope you don't mind, Spoh!)

Oh also, the kirtle/petticote distinction is really complicated and tbh I don't understand what is a kirtle and what is a petticote at which time and class etc. so I'm just calling everything a kirtle but be aware that technically some of these things *may* actually be petticotes. But whatever and on we go...

Anyway, now that we're past all that informative preliminary stuff, let me tell you about my Practise Kirtle project.

Step 1: get fitted for a kirtle (Pattern Mark 1)

Big thanks to Rosie who fitted my first kirtle pattern. We did it a very long time ago, maybe December 2010? I'm pretty sure I was still in a relationship with Luke at that point, wow! Anyway, it was a long time ago. It was a really good pattern.

Unfortunately, since it was such a long time ago, I kind of changed in weight over the course of time passing... and no longer fit the pattern. D:

Which I was not at all happy about.

Step 2: get fitted for a kirtle (Pattern Mark 2)

So I had grown out of my original pattern (*epic sad*) so of course I needed another one now.

Using the beautiful pattern that Rosie had made for me as a template, we cut out the bits and mum & I set out to make a new pattern.

I'd never patterned anything before and neither had mum, but I'd been patterned in the past for my black Italian dress, my corset and of course the kirtle pattern that Rosie did.

Using my limited knowledge and mum's useful skill of being good at everything, we managed to achieve a pattern.

It was a bit of a gamble, I'll admit, using a pattern that mum & I had made. Let me tell you though, it actually did pay off in the end.

Step 3: make a bodice (Fail Bodice)

I have a copy of The Tudor Tailor and I've had it for quite a while now. In it, there are specific and relatively simple instructions on how to make a kirtle.

I did not follow these instructions.

Instead, I chatted to mum about general sewing stuff and I made up my bodice based on a general sewing principal of "sew right sides together; turn inside out; voila."

OH GOD I FAILED.

Like, you have no idea how much I failed, it was actually the worst thing ever in the whole world. I felt pretty bad about it... I was a disgrace to the noble art of sewing. And I disgrace to the entire Tudor era.

Seriously. FAIL.

In the end, mum fixed it up. It doesn't look like your average Tudor kirtle bodice but it looks like a slightly-non-fail bodice now. Thanks mum! It took someone who has been sewing for, like, her whole life to mend my epic fail. D:

*waaaaaaaaaaaa*

And now onto...!

Step 4: ask Aimee and Ellen - who have been taking sewing classes with Sophie and making these fancy medieval clothes properly for longer than me - how to do this properly. Also cross-reference with the Tudor Tailor. Also ask Sophie. (The Learning Stage)

Okay, so asking the experts may have seemed like the obvious thing to do, but I guess a part of me had wanted to just suddenly be brilliant all by myself. But I really wasn't brilliant at all (cf: FAIL).

So I chatted to Aimee and Ellen, because Aimee makes lovely kirtles and Ellen had been doing sewing with Sophie, so they were both pretty much experts. I even drew pictures and made notes. In bright texta colours, too. It was a phase. I also took all my STATS notes in bright texta colour, so there you go.

Anyway, they gave me some good advice. Then I read the Tudor Tailor and talked to mum about it some more, and we started to work out more and more what I was *meant* to be doing.

And *then* I spoke to Sophie, and that was just so much better than everything else tbh because, really, she's a genius at sewing and especially at the sort of kirtles that I wanted to make, so hearing her take on it all made me a) way more confident and b) feeling informed enough to actually get on with the sewing.

Step 5: make a bodice and attach a skirt (Front-Lacing Kirtle)

So, following the instructions that Aimee and Ellen and Sophie had given me and cross-referencing with instructions in the Tudor Tailor and also what mum thought, I began the process of constructing my kirtle bodice - properly this time!

Here's how I did it:

1. cut out approximate bodice shapes (no straps; front panels only) in buckram - I was using buckram because it's a) cheap and b) a good stiff fabric to make a supportive bodice

2. cut out same shapes in calico

3. cut out entire bodice shape (seam allowance at seams only) in calico

Oh I should mention that this bodice is made in three pieces: a back piece, a left front and a right front. There are scenes at the sides and lacing down the front.

4. the layers go like this: the calico panel with straps, then the buckram, and then the other piece to go over the top of the buckram (because buckram is spiky at the edges and I don't want it to poke me)

5. sew channels in which to put boning. Basically at this step I sewed along the bottom and up the sides, leaving it so that the top part was opening. I didn't have to do anything with the back panel btw. On the front panels, it was the calico piece with straps now attached at the bottom and sides to the other pieces. Then I sewed lines down the pieces, wide enough to fit cable ties (I'll explain that soon).

6. put in cable ties - in period they would have used whale bone or maybe cane rods to bone their dresses but today cable ties are a great substitute. I just slotted them into the channels that I'd sewn. Then I had to cut them off at the top because they were too long. Of course, cable ties are a rectangle and you get sharp corners when you just cut them straight, so then I used fire (woo!) to melt the corners into rounded bits so that they wouldn't poke anything. Then I sewed over the top part to seal in the cable ties and voila! Two front-pieces done.

7. cut out pretty fabric (with seam allowance and also plenty of edge allowance) - cut all 3 pieces

8. baste calico bits (with cable ties now!) onto pretty fabric - basting is just running stitch. It can be pretty loose, it's just used to hold the bits together before you seal them together some other way.

9. sew side seams and also shoulder seams (I hope I'm not getting these steps that I did out of order)

10. use herringbone stitch to sew the edge allowance down; this seals the inner part to the pretty fabric. Herringbone stitch looks like this: http://www.embroiderersguild.com/stitch/stitches/herringbone.html and it's actually pretty fun and easy. IMHO I got pretty good at it. Sometimes to get round corners you have to do clipping, where you cut the pretty fabric to make it fold down smoothly. It's all on the inside in the end so that's cool.

11. cut out lining fabric (with edge & seam allowance); sew side seams

12. baste lining to combined inner & pretty fabric piece

13. use hemming stitch (I actually used slip stitch, which is like this: http://www.wikihow.com/Slip-Stitch) to sew down the lining. This process hides the herringbone stitch and the entire inner parts, so that all you can see at the end is the pretty fabric on the outside and the lining on the inside

14. I did the arm-holes with bias. This was pretty complicated and not fun so I'm not going to detail it all here. It's what the Tudor Tailor says to do but in future I will just keep herringbone stitching and clipping around the corners (I think this step actually came before #13, btw)

At this point, the bodice was complete. Here's how I turned it into a dress:

15. take skirt fabric: pleat. Pleating is actually pretty easy, but I got mum & dad involved and they got all calculator-brained and I ended up having to measure every single fold. Learn about pleating here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleat I used knife pleats with one single box pleat at the centre back, because Aimee sometimes does box pleats and they look really cute :3

16. keeping pleats pinned, sew (right sides together) the skirt to the bodice

17. OH NO I forgot to mention earlier that you don't sew down the lining along the bottom of the bodice and now I can't be bothered going back to edit it...

18. sew down the lining so that it finishes off the bodice and covers up where the skirt is sewn on

19. hem

20. wear and look awesome!!

And that is how it all happened.

Oh wait:

21. make lacing holes, which involves poking the hole (although we punched out the holes) and whip-stitching to make it strong and prevent fraying

Okay now it's done and wearable :P

This blog post ended up REALLY long. I am so sorry guys.

If you read all this way then you are AWESOME and I LOVE YOU.

I wanted to blog about both my Practise Kirtles in this post but you know what? I think I might post again soon with details of the second Practise Kirtle, because this is just ridiculous, and now I'm going to let you go.

♥Nancy♬

Woollen Picnic Rug

Hi everyone!!

I apologise for the long time between blog posts! (Although of course it's way less than the huge break-from-blogging I've been having all year, but anyway...)

I meant to post this last week because I wrote it last Thursday during my Creative Writing workshop, but obviously I never got around to blogging.

For those of you (and I think *maybe* I have at least one...?) anyway, for those of you who are doing the Theory and Practice of Creative Writing workshop, you'll have read the story in the Artifice chapter of the course reader that's about a girl who kills herself at a dinner party.

Our writing task was to write something that's based on any of the pieces in the course reader and that's the piece I chose. Some people chose that piece and then wrote something with similar subject matter, but I chose to change (significantly change, you'll see) the subject. The inspiration that I took from the original piece was the levels of description and the factual tone of the writing. If you comment, I'd be interested to know if you feel I've achieved this, even if you haven't read the original piece.

Anyway, here it is, I hope you enjoy it and please consider commenting to make me feel good about myself (or even perhaps because you love the piece)!

♥Nancy♬

On a woollen picnic rug, two teenagers relaxed under the hot sun. A wicker picnic basket lay beside them with the remains of sandwiches and chocolate cake dumped  carelessly into its bowels. The teenager, the boy, stroked his girlfriend’s hair. She smiled and sat up and kissed him.

On a leisurely stroll with Delilah the Corgi, Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane entered the park. It was a lovely sunny day. She’d made sure to cover up and wear sunblock and a hat. The grass smelt dirty and was uncut. Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane shortened the leash on Delilah the Corgi so that she could keep a closer eye on where her precious puppy was walking. As she passed by a patch of soft grass, she saw the young couple on their woollen picnic rug. The boy lay down and pulled his girlfriend to lay next to him. And there they were, legs entwined and mouths locked in the middle of the park. Mrs. Peters would tell her friends later that she’d nearly had a heart attack at the indecency of it all. She coughed loudly. And coughed loudly again. The teenagers did not stop their kissing. Muttering about the state of society, Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane walked Delilah the Corgi right back out of the park. She was going home to write a letter to the council.

Two little girls in bright pink dresses held hands and skipped barefoot around the park. One was blonde and the other was brunette, but they were sisters, you could see it clearly in their faces. They skipped across the expanse of grass where people often sat for lunch. A woollen picnic rug felt cuddly warm against the blonde girls feet. She stopped and then her sister stopped. They both looked down at the rug. Both girls made a noise of distaste and disgust. Then they held hands again and ran all the way to the playground, to slide down the slide. The teenagers on the woollen picnic rug looked up from their kiss. They smiled and made comments about how cute the little kids were. He kissed her again.

The chains of the swing creaked as the swing swung back and forth. The child on the swing was oblivious to this fact, concentrating pointedly on his goal of swinging his feet high into the clear blue sky, above the treetops beyond. His mother stood behind him. She was slumped to the side with all her weight on one hip. A mobile phone in her hand beeped obnoxiously with every key she pressed. She was texting her friend. Her other hand occasionally pushed the child, but he knew how to swing without someone pushing and was getting higher without her help anyway. They were both entirely ignorant of the kissing teenagers.

The old man on the bench waited until Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane had left the park before getting his binoculars out of his satchel. She’d had more than one good rant at him because bird-watching wasn’t an appropriate sport for an old man. She thought he ought to take up reading newspapers and writing to the council. His only response to that was that his lovely wife Milly would find it awfully boring, and if she were watching him from Heaven like he thought she was then he ought to do things that she’d find interesting. In a scan around the park through his binoculars, he saw two young teenagers laying on what looked to be a woollen picnic rug. They were kissing. He smiled first because he knew that would have outraged Mrs. Peters if she’d seen it. He smiled again when he remembered kissing his lovely wife Milly on a woollen picnic rug one day when they’d been as young as those teenagers.

All of a sudden all the heads turned. A tan-coloured canine raced across the park, bouncing across the long soft grass. It ran under a grove of trees, sniffing everything in its path. An old man who sat on the park bench put down his binoculars and laughed, greeting Delilah the Corgi by name. Delilah the Corgi barked as loudly as she could and then turned and raced off again.

This time she ran until there was a big metal pole in the way and she found that the ground under her feet was no longer soft grass but was now brown wood-chips and she looked up to see a child flying through the sky! He made a long creaking noise as he did so. Delilah the Corgi barked as the child began to plummet back towards the earth and then barked again as the child flew back up in the other direction. A grumpy voice behind the child shooed Delilah the Corgi away from her son. The child managed to swing so high that his feet were above the trees.

As Delilah the Corgi sped across the park again, she saw a blur of pink and blonde and brunette and ran back to turn circles around it. The two little girls yelled and giggled as Delilah the Corgi raced around their legs and jumped up at their knees and licked their ankles. They both fell to the ground in hysterics so the little dog could slobber all over their faces.

A scream wailed across the park as skinny old Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane also raced across the park, in pursuit of Delilah the Corgi. She couldn’t run half as fast as her dog but she certainly tried. Her purple handbag flapped around comically. Delilah the Corgi heard the infuriated scream of her master and raced off again across the park.

She revelled in the feel of soft warm grass beneath her doggy feet. All of a sudden there wasn’t soft warm grass but a hot-from-the-sun woollen picnic rug. Surprised, Delilah the Corgi leapt into the air, intending to jump over the unfamiliar feeling beneath her feet. Being a Corgi, however, she couldn’t jump very high, and found herself tumbling down a hill made of teenage boy to land in between two teenagers. The teenagers stopped kissing to laugh and pat Delilah the Corgi.

Purple shoes belonging to Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane appeared at the edge of the woollen picnic rug. Delilah the Corgi stopped licking the face of the teenage girl to look up at her owner and bark. Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane faced a conundrum. Here was her precious Corgi Delilah in the middle of a picnic rug of debauchery. But out of the corner of her eye, she could see the old man watching her through his binoculars, the young mother looking up from her mobile phone and the two little girls in pink dresses staring at her. Mrs. Peters from number 4 Snickety Lane bent down stiffly and picked up Delilah the Corgi. With her nose in the air, and the dogs nose still sniffing all about in excitement, she walked out of the park. This time she kept a fierce hold on her mischievous dog. The teenagers laughed, and started kissing again.

The Morning Show

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS

I did some writing. And you get to read it. Trufax, guys. :D

So here is a story that I wrote during a writing exercise in my creative writing workshop today:

(P.S. can has constructive comments plz?) ♥Nancy♬

The rain is ice cold on his face as he walks through the city. With a shrug, he snuggles deeper into his not-warm-enough overcoat. He steadfastly ignores the crowd of people cheering, yelling, waving signs despite the weather, all for the chance to get a sliver of themselves filmed on the show being filmed behind the window. It is morning, bright and early, but the sun is nowhere to be seen behind the clouds. He hurries on, wishing and hoping for that daytime star to appear and warm the world.

She twirls in the street, rainbow skirts flying up and out. She feels like a rhythmic gymnast (even though she knows that those flipping twisting twirling dancers would never perform their art out here in the street). She doesn’t notice that the crowd draws aside. She doesn’t realise that they have decided, an unspoken, unanimous decision, that she should be the one to be filmed on the show. Perfectly made-up D-grade celebrities turn in their comfy couch to look out the window behind them. She cannot hear them behind the window, but they are almost certainly talking about her.

Perhaps one immaculately dressed presenter might say, “looks like someone’s enjoying this rainy weather, anyway.”

And then the other one would say, “she’s our ray of sunshine under all this cloud cover.”

Then the other, “and on that note, let’s go to the weather.”

His wet black nose wiggles as he sniffs at the overflowing trash can in the street. He doesn’t hide from the rain like the cold man in his overcoat. He doesn’t dance or twirl like the rain-dancer in her rainbow skirt. Instead, he eats a piece of stale bread (it’s hiding place under a brown paper bag is the only reason the birds haven’t reached it first) and then runs over to the crowd of people outside the window to see if some kind soul will pat him.

 “Oh, look at that dog!”

The presenters look out the window at him, both smiling, then turn back to the cameras.

The weatherman has just finished telling the world that the weather is rainy.

Myself & The Mediocre Writing

Okay, so, I know I promised something new for whenever I next blogged but technically what I’m sharing today isn’t new.

I did a spot of room-tidying today and finally went through the rest of my notes etc. from my classes last semester. One of those classes was a creative writing unit (Myself & The Aliens). Now you’d think that creative writing classes would be really interesting but the workshops went on for 3 hours straight and oftentimes it was a little dull - especially because there was this one guy in my group who talked on and on in circles and was really annoying!!!!

So anyway, what that means for you is that there are some random and mildly amusing bits and pieces written in my book that I am now going to type out here for you to read.

Most of it’s pretty lame, sorry! Except the very last piece, it kinda rocks.

(Maybe you’ll get genuine new stuff to read next time!)

♥Nancy♬ 

A story (from the introductory lecture):

As she walked into the mouth of the cavern, she heard a dripping: drip-drop, drip-drop. But it wasn’t just a mere drip-drop. It was a drip-drop-fizzle. So she knew it was acidic. And from that, from the sound, from her location, from why she was there, she knew that it wasn’t water that she could hear dripping. It was dragon’s blood. Imarin shivered, then froze still on the spot, trying to ensure silence in her movement, her breath, the frantic beating of her heart. She counted in her head. One, two, three... eleven, twelve... twenty-seven... Surely someone would have come by now, to find her, if they’d heard her. 

Imarin took another tentative step forward, nervous and quiet. She began to make her way deeper into the cave. It seemed to be ballooning out, growing bigger, scarier and deeper as she moved through it. The dripping noise grew louder, she was moving toward it. Drip-drop-sizzle, drip-drop-fizzle. The cave grew darker; Imarin couldn’t see her feet when she looked down. Instinctively she stretched a hand out, groping for a cave wall to guide her as she continued through the thick blackness. When she found none, she left her arms outstretched to act as a blind person’s cane, or the whiskers of a cat.

[I apologise for the terrible quality of that piece.]

Apparently some guy in my class wore a shirt that said this:

“Your skill in Reading has increased by 1 point.”

Things I Would Sound Stupid If I Said

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Like ice cream. Om nom nom.

But I like babies! They can’t be evil! =(

Evil cowboy baby! Oh my!

The baby’s soul is the one in limbo yelling “GTFO my lawn!”

From Halo to Star Trek. I can’t decide if this discussion is going uphill or downhill.

Time travel really shouldn’t be this complicated. All you need is a TARDIS.

Ursula le Guin is relevant today.

Radioactive Time Travel Spider

“logistics” is a funny kind of word, don’t you think?

It was totally the snake’s fault. And snakes are a phallic symbol. Blame the men! *feminazi*

I would have made apple pie.

I are take nap now.

A story (from Workshop 6):

[Note: this is a continuation of one of the pieces I wrote when I was in Melbourne! I think...]

For three months before they conceived, everyone that Nat drew was pregnant. She drew pregnant women having a spa day, pregnant pigs snuffling for truffles, a pregnant doctor doing an ultrasound on a pregnant teenager. Her final painting, before they conceived, was of a couple making love while the baby slept peacefully in her womb. And then, pregnant at last, she stopped drawing other women pregnant.

“They’re good,” he said, “you should send them to the gallery. It’s been ages since you did an exhibition.”

“They’re not good,” she said, sadly. “They feel wrong.” She shook her head. “A real pregnant woman wouldn’t believe them.”

But she sent them to the gallery anyway, and ended up in a meeting with the director discussing an entire conception-to-birth exhibition. Reluctantly, she agreed. She needed a reason to keep painting, after all.

“You’re up late,” he said, arriving home at two a.m. and finding Nat still awake. “Painting?” he asked.

She snapped at him, “no! I don’t always have to be painting.”

Taken aback, he said, “I just wondered, Nat. Usually you’re asleep or painting at this time.”

“Well I don’t always have to be! I don’t always have to be painting or drawing or anything like that. You don’t cook all the time!”

“Don’t yell at my Nat!” He raised his voice. “At least I’m still cooking. You don’t pain anymore!”

“I don’t have to!” she yelled back.

“You have an exhibition to paint, Nat. And even if you’re not going to paint that you said you’d paint for our baby.”

“Don’t try to guilt trip me!” Nat yelled, and then she began to cry, and suddenly he had his arms around her, kissing her and forgiving her.

“I don’t love you because you paint,” he said, quietly, and she loved him just for that.

[Further notes: #random - I have no idea where my mind was that I wrote that...]

In case you were wondering:

Trance: if you’re Eladrin then you can meditate in a trance for four hours as your extended rest.

A story (from Workshop 8, although I started it at training one night which is why one of the characters is called Marcus, although he’s not based on the real Marcus):

The crystal moon rose at midday, sparkling down at the earth and glinting its glitter-light off the copper leaves of the metal trees in the city centre. In one of the gardens, a child sat in the shade of a copper-leaf tree, sticky with juice as he ate a red-pink kerzump fruit. His mother, glowing with pregnancy once more, stood nearby in the arms of her husband.

“Don’t eat the seeds, Peter,” she warned; her little boy grinned up at her and threw the pillar-box-red, star-shaped seeds away. “That’s my boy.” His mother smiled back down at him.

“So, Esmerelda, choose a name,” the husband said.

“How about Henry, if it’s a boy?”

“We already have a boy! She’ll be a girl, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” Esmerelda said, with a knowing smile.

Marcus leaned down to kiss Esmerelda, feeling her sigh and turn her face to the sun as he nuzzled her neck. They were warm, happy and entirely peaceful.

And then the earth trembled.

It was just a gentle shake, at first, and then the earth stood still again. Peter dropped the remains of his kerzump fruit and turned to his mother as his eyes filled with tears.

“Mam?” he whimpered.

Esmerelda pulled away from Marcus’s arms and dropped to her knees next to her son.

“Shh, it’s all right,” she comforted, but she looked up at Marcus quizzically.

Before either of them had a chance to speak, the ground trembled once more.

“Marcus what’s happening?” Esmerelda cuddled her son close.

“I don’t know,” Marcus replied, “but I think we should move.”

The earth shook, harder than before, as Marcus helped his wife to her feet and swung his song up into his arms. He was putting on a brave face, much more nervous than he looked. He’d heard enough stories about earthshakes to know what was happening but he didn’t understand why. Here in the north, the earth stood still, always, especially in the ever-peaceful Metal City.

“Let’s get home.” he said, and helped his wife to hurry across the garden and down the path that led to their house.

The next shake was harder, enough that they heard screams from the city.

“We don’t want to stay near the trees, copper is heavy.”

“Is the house safe?”

“We’ll stand in the doorframe, I’m sure that’s the safest place.” Marcus hoped he was correct about that fact.

They reached the house and stood in the doorway. Marcus worked quickly to unhinge the door and lay it flat. His mind was racing to remember how to keep his family safe. They pressed against the wooden doorframe, Peter clutching his mother’s skirts and crying.

The sound of a whistle pierced the air. It was high-pitched, trilling in their ears.

“No!” breathed Esmerelda. Marcus felt his heart sink.

She grabbed his wrist, digging in her nails so taht the couldn’t pull away.

“I have to, you know I do.”

“Please, you can’t leave us. We need you - I need you.”

He untangled his arm from her grasp and ducked through the doorway to retrieve his belt with his sheathed sword attached.

“Marcus don’t go,” Esmerelda begged one last time.

“I love you, Esmerelda. And I promise to return to you, to our son.”

He ruffled Peter’s hair and kissed Esmerelda.

“Stay in the doorway or out in the open if anything happens here. Keep him safe.”

With a last kiss goodbye, Marcus rushed off towards the city, the source of the whistle-blowing, to join the King’s Guard and face whichever threat their city was up against.

[Note: if I’d written any more of this, Esmerelda would have gone into labour in the middle of the earthquake.]

Three random stories (from Workshop 9):

“Bye!” called Becca, as the heavy front door slammed shut behind her parents. She stood silent for a moment, listening to footsteps, to the car doors, to the engine starting and the sound of her dad leaving down the street. She turned to her right, brushed her hand against a silver knob and watched and heard the music volume jump from a quiet 8 to an ear-busting 17.

“They’re gone!” she yelled back into the house.

“Good, let’s get dressed!” yelled her best friend, from in the kitchen.

[Note: clearly there’s a lack of context there so to avoid awkward misinterpretations I’d just like to say that it was going to be a short story about two girls who get drunk and go partying in Northbridge or wherever.]

“You will not come any closer,” ordered the 18-inch tall fairy. She stretched out an arm and pointed a tiny finger at the target of her words.

He suddenly found himself unable to advance, feet glued to the woodchip-scattered path. He’d been magic-touched before and hated it just as much now as he had then.

He felt her hands running down his cheeks, nails running across his throat - it was sexy, the pressure and the danger. Then white hot pain flashed through him as those nails broke the skin of his neck. Lines of blood appeared, following the path of her nails. He tried to scream but no sound left his throat.

Possibly also from Workshop 9?:

The radar blipped, scanning the space around the ship and finally finding something, for the first time since they’d passed by the outer asteroid belt in the Second-Sun Solar System. The elderly astronaut sitting by the radar jerked awake.

“Wah?” he mumbled, looking around the room, befuddled. Then his eyes settled on the radar, saw the blinking light, and he jumped into action.

“All crew to the flight deck!” he cried into the speaker system.

The blip blipped closer.

The flight deck flooded with people in official uniforms. They fiddled with machines, twisted knobs, flicked switches and tried to figure out what the blip on the radar could be.

About an hour later, someone finally had the good sense to look out of a window, and they realised what the blip on the radar was.

“Is that... a giraffe?”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“A giraffe?”

“In space?”

GIRAFFES: IN SPACE!

Scrabble

Oh hai guys!

First off, apologies for not having blogged all year! It's been a while since I skipped an entire month I think. =S

Anyway, I've been going through some of my old writing (ugh, it sucks) and I found the piece of writing that I'm going to share with you today.

I'm not sure exactly what it is or the circumstances in which I wrote it but it seems to be some kind of plan. I think maybe it is a plan for a screen-play rather than a novel. Anyway I thought it was kinda cute so you get to read it!

It's a bit random and silly but I'd still appreciate comments or whatever, thanks!

♥Nancy♬

(P.S. I plan to write something new for whenever I next blog. Keep an eye out just in case it's good!)
EDIT: OMG you guys I just thought of the coolest idea! Once you've read this story, leave me a comment with a witty comment about Scrabble! I know no one will really do this but I thought it would be cool to ask anyway...

Scrabble

A girl (the main character) asks a guy to come and play Scrabble with her friends that weekend. He accepts.

At her house, they finish the game of Scrabble. The guy wins the game, and the others invite him to join their regular game.

They play Scrabble again and again, with a different person winning each time. The other boy and girl grow closer together.

One game they are not there, and it is just the girl and the guy playing alone. During their conversation, they say that this is because the others are on a date together.

The next game they are both there again, being all cute-couple-y and looking at each others letters.

Then the next game the girl storms in late angry with the guy because he cheated on her, forgot her birthday, dumped her or something else equally bad. He follows her in and they are both yelling at each other.

The others watch, and the girl says ‘promise me that we won’t ruin our friendship by getting romantically involved’ or something like that. The boy looks shocked and a bit disappointed because he loves her. ‘Promise me’ she says, and he agrees.

Then the next time they play Scrabble, on their own again because the other girl and guy refuse to be together, he asks her to marry him.

She gets very angry and storms off.

He comes to play Scrabble again, but on the board is spelled out ‘I HATE YOU’ in Scrabble letters.

It is her wedding and she receives a card. It is blank, but then she opens it and there is a photograph of a Scrabble board with ‘I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU’ spelled out. She rips it in half.

Then it is Christmas and her children open a package that turns out to be a game of Scrabble. ‘You got them Scrabble?’ she says to her husband. He says ‘yes, it’s a present for you as well.’

She goes to another room and opens a drawer, and there is the ripped up card from her wedding day, as well as a whole pile of ripped up Scrabble-picture cards.

She says ‘I have to go’ to her family, and leaves the house. Then she goes and finds the man and shows him all the ripped up cards and says something witty about Scrabble.

And then they are in love, live happily ever after, and play lots of Scrabble together.