Once Upon a Blog

I was looking for a particular post on the Kung Fu Monkey blog and found this review of the Star Trek 2009 movie, too, which does a nice job discussing transformative and revelatory arcs. John Rogers is a TV writer and he makes some fascinating points. There are some interesting comments, but most are focused on the merits or lack thereof, of the movie and not the writing points, and as expected from some folks in fandom, some of the comments get rather irksome. Still, this is a good springboard to thinking of the importance of heroes and character development.


And for the record, in the original Star Trek series, I thought Kirk was the hero, and the star of the show was the Enterprise, itself. :)

Ooo, a new style. I think I can add my own image to it. Will have to think about that.

Meanwhile, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to view my journal. All I see is the link to read my friends page. This site still needs a lot of work.

An aritcle in the June 22, 2009 issue of Publishers Weekly about the Catcher in the Rye case -- a Swedish writer wrote a book based on J. D. Salinger and his famous character, Holden Caulfield, at age 76, which he claims is not a sequel despite the publicity to the contrary. What the author, Fredrik Colting, says in the article:

"My only intention was to explore the relationship between Caulfield and Salinger." ... "I wanted to explore what happens to characters. When a book is finished, do the characters cease to exist, or do they live on somehow."

Isn't that what fan writers do? Isn't that the core issue for fanfic writers for tv shows no longer being produced, movies already made, books already written? The whole "further adventures" thing? Even if there are official sequels?

And is it realistic of Salinger, who, according to the article, has refused over the years to ever allow any adaptations of the book, because, as explained by his agent, Phyllis Westberg,

"He feels strongly that his fiction and his characters remain intact as he wrote them."

How does that reconcile with classroom discussions of Catcher in the Rye, which is a longstanding staple of school reading lists, and book discussions groups, where readers will bring their own interpretations of the characters? Who really "owns" the characters once they're released into the wild and find an audience? Legally, it's the author? But emotionally? Spiritually? The readers. Like it or not, the reality is that characters become a collaborative entity of the creators and the audience. Who I think Caulfield is and who Salinger thinks he is and who Colting thinks he is, and who any other reader thinks he is might be very different or similar yet subtly different characters. And for many in the audience, the character doesn't cease to exist when the book is already read, the movie or tv show viewed. They live on in our minds, our hearts, our imaginations. And some of us write about them.

It'll be up to the courts to decide if we have the right to distribute those works. In Colting's case, if he has the right to distribute them in the US.

I thought I'd use this as a regular writing blog, for the stuff more public than I put on my LJ. I have a Blogger blog for that, but don't use it much, so thought I'd just move that here. And I can't import from Blogger. So I might repost things here as time permits, while moving forward. Would be nice if Blogger import was supported, though.

Too curious for my own good, I paid for a year here, in a show of support and to see what I get for the money. I seem to now have 75 icon spaces available, but the theme selection remains at 4. And not very attractive ones at that. The paid accounts are discounted $10 until November, so I have just before that to renew at the current price, I assume, which means I'll need to see more bells and whistles before I pay again. I love icons, but that's not enough. I want a nice theme/design for this blog, let alone a good reason to have it, but that's another problem and my problem, alone.

So, we'll see, stay tuned, whatever.

Edited to add: Hmmm.... I don't see an edit icon on the actual posts. Very annoying. Took 2 or 3 steps to get to edit this as I forgot to add a mood.