on recycling stories, fairytales and the future

On Writing: Recycled means getting something that has outlived its use, and either thinking up a new use for it, or turning it into rawer material that would be more useful than that something's original state. In essence, it is putting something back into the cycle of use and disuse (hence, re-cycling).

Recycling, then, in the context of writing and telling stories, is much more comparable to "revising" than "getting a random high school or early college writing project from my archives and pretending that it is a recent piece of story work". But of course, who would find out if you did the latter, right? Certainly not a bunch of people pretending to be writers and critics who appear to be way too trusting for their own good. And the problem arises then and there. It becomes an issue of trust, of whether or not you can bare your most honest efforts to a bunch of people that, no matter how snooty or how big of an ass they are, still do what they do because of nothing more than the purest desire to help a fellow writer out. No matter if the effort is below the acceptable page minimum, not everything is a writing contest after all.

Submitting an unrevised story to a writing workshop, no matter how informal, is something that wastes not only your, but other peoples' time as well: people get together and bare their souls for the benefit a soul that was never bared anyway. Truth is, it doesn't even deserve to be called "recycling". To think that it is being done in an attempt to enter an organization that thrives on having people bare their souls on a weekly basis only appears to add insult to injury.

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On Fairytale: For some reason, I'm really, really happy I finally got to watch Enchanted. Karize was right, James Marsden does have a good singing voice, and "That's How You Know" is THAT LSS-worthy (even more so when you watch that part of the movie over and over again). Funny, too, that the recent crop of animated princess-y fairytale flicks feels so women empowerment-ish (and to think The Princess and the Frog is coming), while the Prince Charmings are now demoted to narcissistic airheads. I blame Gaston for starting the trend, and Shrek's Charming for bringing it over the bordering-on-gay-metrosexuality edge.

Who can resist a Disney movie marathon, after all? If I didn't have to cook dinner and all, I would've probably sat through Ratatouille (all over again) and Bolt. I've gotten sick of High School Musical though, one can only hear "Breaking Free" so many times before people start getting Pokemon-worthy seizures.

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On Future: In the silence of what could be called lunch, Dad asked me if I ever considered working at GMA. Just like that, out of the blue. I ask why he asks, and he spouts all sorts of crap about him having friends in high places, needing to think about the future, and if I even know how to make a resume, the latter to which I reply by saying that I had to submit mine for every writing contest and freelance job I did. Moral of the story: when it's hard enough to listen to you, don't make things even harder by sounding like you're spouting off a sermon every time you break the silence.