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Two, since I missed a day!
Day 04 → Your favorite book
I have said it before and I will say it again, damn it: GOOD OMENS BY TERRY PRATCHETT AND NEIL GAIMAN.
This book is like the epitome of maximum cleverness packed into a fluffy, enjoyable read. The narrative and dialogue are just so sharp; there's witticism practically exploding out of every line but it never at any point feels like Pratchett and Gaiman are trying to show off how smart they are (which is a problem I personally had with Maguire's Wicked. This is the one book of mine and the s.o.'s that has been passed around from person to person to person, and it's rarely in our possession for a day before it's in someone else's hands. (Currently the "lending" copy hasn't physically been in the house for almost four years; I made a hardcover purchase as a V-day gift just so we could truly have our own.) It was the first book my s.o. lent me, and since then so many people have borrowed it that all the other books on our shelf are telling it to get checked for STD's. That's how good it is.
If you want to know what it's about, it's basically about the Apocalypse and the demon and angel who team up to stop it, bantering like an old married couple all the way. It's fantastic. I love it.
Great if you are a fan of either writer, though I will say I have a hard time picking out Gaiman's voice here; it reads much more like a Pratchett novel. However, I'm not very well-read in Gaiman's work (not a huge fan, honestly: I simply don't find his storytelling very engaging), so there may be Gaiman elements here that I'm just not picking up on.
CROWLEY IS AWESOME. I knew it was meant to be when I discovered his Bentley plays nothing but Queen. ♥.
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
... is, incidentally, from my other favorite book. See, Good Omens is the book I recommend to people when I want to give them something good to read; The Little Prince is the book I wish I could give to every person that has ever meant something to me. (We will not discuss the movie. Let's pretend the movie does not exist.)
I think it's only natural for everyone's favorite part in this book to be the bit with the fox who begs to be tamed by the Little Prince - at least, that has been the truth for almost everyone I've met who is familiar with the story, and the fox's advice to the Little Prince is probably the most famous quote from this book. As lovely as the line is, that actually isn't my favorite quote. It would be this passage, below, that never fails to make me cry. Emphasis mine.
"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...
... (I)f you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
Weeping. Damn it. The fox conveys so perfectly what it feels like to be in love, how significant it is that this one person means so much to you. And when you are writing two characters falling in love, that's the part you need to figure out. What is it about Character A that makes Character B love her so much? What is it that makes B so special to A? It isn't necessarily something that needs to be explicitly stated, but at the very least, it must be felt. What is it about him that makes him unique in all the world?
Of course, IMO, this is better accomplished if you have strong characters to begin with. Character first. The rest will follow.
Day 04 → Your favorite book
I have said it before and I will say it again, damn it: GOOD OMENS BY TERRY PRATCHETT AND NEIL GAIMAN.
This book is like the epitome of maximum cleverness packed into a fluffy, enjoyable read. The narrative and dialogue are just so sharp; there's witticism practically exploding out of every line but it never at any point feels like Pratchett and Gaiman are trying to show off how smart they are (which is a problem I personally had with Maguire's Wicked. This is the one book of mine and the s.o.'s that has been passed around from person to person to person, and it's rarely in our possession for a day before it's in someone else's hands. (Currently the "lending" copy hasn't physically been in the house for almost four years; I made a hardcover purchase as a V-day gift just so we could truly have our own.) It was the first book my s.o. lent me, and since then so many people have borrowed it that all the other books on our shelf are telling it to get checked for STD's. That's how good it is.
If you want to know what it's about, it's basically about the Apocalypse and the demon and angel who team up to stop it, bantering like an old married couple all the way. It's fantastic. I love it.
Great if you are a fan of either writer, though I will say I have a hard time picking out Gaiman's voice here; it reads much more like a Pratchett novel. However, I'm not very well-read in Gaiman's work (not a huge fan, honestly: I simply don't find his storytelling very engaging), so there may be Gaiman elements here that I'm just not picking up on.
CROWLEY IS AWESOME. I knew it was meant to be when I discovered his Bentley plays nothing but Queen. ♥.
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
... is, incidentally, from my other favorite book. See, Good Omens is the book I recommend to people when I want to give them something good to read; The Little Prince is the book I wish I could give to every person that has ever meant something to me. (We will not discuss the movie. Let's pretend the movie does not exist.)
I think it's only natural for everyone's favorite part in this book to be the bit with the fox who begs to be tamed by the Little Prince - at least, that has been the truth for almost everyone I've met who is familiar with the story, and the fox's advice to the Little Prince is probably the most famous quote from this book. As lovely as the line is, that actually isn't my favorite quote. It would be this passage, below, that never fails to make me cry. Emphasis mine.
"To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...
... (I)f you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."
Weeping. Damn it. The fox conveys so perfectly what it feels like to be in love, how significant it is that this one person means so much to you. And when you are writing two characters falling in love, that's the part you need to figure out. What is it about Character A that makes Character B love her so much? What is it that makes B so special to A? It isn't necessarily something that needs to be explicitly stated, but at the very least, it must be felt. What is it about him that makes him unique in all the world?
Of course, IMO, this is better accomplished if you have strong characters to begin with. Character first. The rest will follow.
