The Fictional Tortoise

I'm Ashley. A recent English/Creative Writing graduate. I'm a writer with the dream of being an author. 

[fictionaltortoise]

How many times have you read a book, only to find out it was being turned into a movie?

 These days it’s not uncommon. In fact, usually the book is hyped up with an alternate cover in hopes of grabbing more fans.

 I HATE THESE COVERS! But, that’s irrelevant right now.

 I’m the type of person that reads the book and is easily persuaded to watch the movie. There is something about the idea of bringing the characters to life in a way that makes them seem more real (at least in theory).

 What I have a hard time doing is watching the movie, and then reading the book. In this situation, I will likely never read the book. I don’t know why. That’s just the way it’s always been for me.

 Recently, I read two (now very popular) books in a trilogy series, called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I loved the inspiration behind them. Essentially, author, Ransom Riggs was inspired by his frequent visits to thrift stores and pawn shops, where he found himself buying interesting photos. Pictures are a memento of life, and are held in high regard as special (or even normal) moments were captured and can be remembered for a life time. I’m guessing what made him curious was the fact that these pictures had been given up in the first place.

 Would you donate your memories, or even sell them (for albeit a very small amount of money), to a stranger?

 Anyways, he would rummage through stacks and stacks of discarded photos and buy them in stacks, with change. Why? He’d given himself the task of writing their stories.

 This was genius to me. This was something I was already doing. Using pictures as story starters.

 Ransom Riggs took it to another level, and turned into a book trilogy.

 If I’m being honest, the books were alright. The characters were the best factor, each unique and well thought out. It was the rest of the story that was slightly generic. I ignored this and read the second one, because every story starts from a cliché, and it had piqued my interest. Riggs had created a specifically unique world, in which the misfit children were frozen in a single day of time. A time trap was what kept them from dying, and their “timekeeper,” made sure that each day was reset before the deadly destruction destroyed their world.

 This concept (the infinite loop) was the part that fell short for me. I didn’t connect with any of the characters because I never felt a sense of vulnerability. Each and every child seemed perfectly content to live the same day over and over, if it meant they could live forever.

 I’m not sure it would be quite so simple for me? Is it really worth it? To exist, but have no real impact on the world?

 Around the time I’d finished the second book, I began to hear the whispers of a movie in the making. Of course I knew I would watch it.

 In fact, I watched it before I finished the trilogy, even though a tiny voice echoed to me that I shouldn’t do it. You’ll never finish the series now, screamed my brain.

 I didn’t. I haven’t.

 I didn’t even finish the movie.

 The movie was THAT bad. To me, it screamed parody. And I was not interested in something that made fun of the world I’d invested my time in.

 The funny thing is: if I’d finished the book series first it probably wouldn’t have fractured my opinion of it. I could have held the two separately.

 Maybe my expectations were too high. It was Tim Burton, and that sealed the deal for me. Burton is, if anything, a brilliant creator of worlds.

 Trust me, I was fully aware that this was based on a series that houses some pretty extreme characters (ie: a girl that wear weighted boots because she will float into oblivion if she doesn’t, a girl whose mouth in on the back of her head, obscured by piles of hair, and a boy that is essentially a human beehive). But again, Tim Burton. This was right up his alley.

 I loved the books for these twisted features.

 The movie though, was far too exaggerated. The acting was stiff, and the dialogue monotone. Not to mention the typical movie adaptation in which it flew through the best parts of the book. I felt like I was watching the cliff notes version. And honestly, had I not read the books, this movie would not have piqued my interest in the world itself.

 I’ll give the movie this: the graphics were intense and generally high quality. Though I often sensed the presence of a green screen.

 I made it thirty minutes in, and the movie shattered my vision of the world. It was nothing like I’d expected, and was sub-par for the hype that had been built around it.

 Since then, I’ve never bothered with buying the last book.

 And this is a problem, because it is a disservice to the author.

 So, creatives (or even book & movie lovers), can a movie ruin a book for you, or vice versa?

 And what is it?

Expectations vs. Reality?

Lack of story in the movie version (exclusion of details)?

Actors/Actresses chosen to portray roles?

(All of these have been factors for me personally in many cases.)

 And, although we are told, many times over that the two should not be mutually exclusive: do the creators of the movie have a certain responsibility to uphold the book? Or should they feel free to express it in any way they see fit, since it is in a different media?

  At the end of the day, it is my personal opinion that the two should be separated, but I still have trouble setting my mind to it.

 We should adapt, and accept, and enjoy one, or the other, or even both.

[fictionaltortoise]

For Best Results ...

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and here is proof: 

*The image that inspired this is posted beneath the piece*

“They don’t mean it,” said Grandmother, “You father’s a stubborn one.”

            Blaine dropped the last name into the jar, and Grandmother added the Roses, Lavender and Sweet Pea. The scientific name of each spilled from her lips like that of an auctioneer, and she sprinkled it in sugar. Her hand shook as she gripped the jar of honey and began to pour. When it was filled to the rim, she sat the jar down, and screwed on the lid. “Three days in the sun,” she said, “And we bury it beneath the Willow.” It stood in the corner at the edge of the garden, sheltering the ground foliage. Blaine stood from his chair, and eyed the garden. He’d helped her expand it last summer, digging into the dirt that made up the backyard. Plastic spoons stuck from the ground, Grandmother’s cursive script labeling each and every plant.

 Bring peace and harmony to a squabbling family, read the piece of paper containing the recipe. Patience wasn’t in Blaine's vocabulary, and he smiled weakly at his grandmother.

 Three days later:

 They walked through the maze of the garden, Grandmother cooing at each flower, and touching the heads of the new blooms. It was the morning of the fourth day, and Blaine had barely slept. He stifled a yawn, and followed close on his Grandmother’s heels, his pajama pants dragging the Earth. The Mason jar was tight in his hands and he cradled it like a delicate artifact. Grandmother stopped at the trunk of the tree, swiping the hanging willow branches out of the way, and motioned Blaine beneath. “Give me the jar, and start digging,” she said.

It had rained overnight, and the ground was damp with it. Blaine clawed into it, like a frantic puppy digging for a bone, and pushed the dirt to the side. He unearthed several night crawlers, and they wriggled in panicked bursts.  “That’s deep enough,” said Grandmother. She pushed the jar into Blaine's raised hands, and Blaine tucked it snugly into the ground. He covered it in dirt, and rose, wiping his hands on his pants; mud packed beneath his fingernails.

“Now we wait,” said Grandmother, and grasped Blaine's hand. “How does breakfast sound,” she said. 

“As long as there’s coffee,” he said, a rough laugh escaping his throat.

The days passed slowly, and since he’d been caught at the tree once already, he avoided it like a plague. Grandmother said it wouldn’t do any good, but he caught her watching it from the kitchen window each morning as she steeped her tea. “Mother Nature will take care of it she said,” and winked. She didn’t have any doubt, but Blaine had never put much stock into spells.

On the eighth day, Grandmother entered the kitchen and began shooing Blaine from the kitchen. He was hovering over the coffee pot, waiting for the last drops to fall into the pot. “It’s time, she said, and ushered him out the back door. They approached the tree, and from a distance, it didn’t look any different, perhaps it had wilted a little, but Blaine couldn’t be positive. He found himself paying more attention to the rhythmic hum that pulsed like a heartbeat. Up close, it was a different story. The small buds that had marked the Willow’s branches had shriveled into black notches, and Blaine pressed one tight between his fingers. It burst, seeping a syrupy, black liquid that stung his skin. He spit on his hands and rubbed it away, but the flesh had already turned a light shade of red. The foliage that had been tucked beneath was gone, and the roots of the tree had shredded the earth, and sat nearly atop it. Night crawlers streamed from the dirt, carving trenches, as they fled.

“Peace and harmony should grow day by day,” said his grandmother in a hushed tone. 

She screwed up her face, and touched one of the branches as Blaine had. The pods were growing bigger by the minute, and had begun to burst without being disturbed. The inky liquid rained to ground, and what landed on the exposed roots stained it, and traveled up the trunk in veins.    

“Something’s gone wrong,” said Grandmother.

She wiped her hands on the bottom half of her dress and took a step back. Blaine had taken to the dirt, his knees tight to the earth, and had begun digging at it furiously. After several raking motions, the brassy lid of the jar was visible, and Blaine dug his fingers around it until it began to unhinge.

The contents of the jar had gone black; the flowers released a rotten sweetness even though the lid was still tightly in place. Blaine ran his hand around it in a circular motion, and pulled it close to his face. Hair line fractures had begun to accumulate on the jar, and he could feel the roughness beneath his fingertips. Grandmother had extracted the weathered piece of paper from the pocket in her dress, and studied it with her glasses balancing on her nose. “Did you bother the jar, Blain,” she said, but didn’t bother looking him in the face. He pulled the jar from his face, and thumbed at the lid.

“I added your name,” he said. His tone had dropped, and he side-eyed his grandmother. “After it was placed in the ground?” She’d moved her eyes to stare at Blaine, and pushed a shaking hand to his shoulder. “You dug it up?”

Blaine nodded. “I forgot to add your name,” he said.

“You weren’t supposed to touch it boy. It’s turned into a damned curse!”

Blaine stooped to the ground once more, shoved the jar into the hole, and began frantically covering it in dirt.

“It’s too late,” said Grandmother, and she moved from the tree, and towards the table. Blain ignored her, and packed the dirt firm beneath his palm. He held his breath tight in the pit of his stomach and had begun to go dizzy when he realized she was no longer there. Grandmother sat in her favorite chair, the one that was facing the garden, and watched as the rot stretched across it in tendrils. It grabbed at the flowers, encircling them in thin, black veins.

“Spells aren’t meant to be messed with,” she said.

[fictionaltortoise]

Never. Ever. Quit! #inspiration #dontquit #theidealist #dontstop #words #creativity #creativityfound

[fictionaltortoise]

Inspiration In All Places

My problem: I get an idea, and before I’ve even attempted it, I talk myself out of it.            

It’s probably been done before:

True, it likely has. Has it been done by you though?            

It’s stupid, no one will like it:

No one? That’s a lot of ground to cover, isn’t it?            

It won’t be perfect:

You’re right. It won’t, because it can never be perfect.

The idea for this blog hit me when I was supposed to be writing, but instead, found myself in the black hole that is You Tube. (Also see: Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, or even Google Search.) What I’m getting at is this: When it’s time to sit down and write, suddenly anything can become entertaining.  Cat videos ü Makeup Tutorials üWhat I eat in a day üIt gets pretty ridiculous, quickly. (Reasons, besides the obvious that this is a waste of time: My cats are cuter than any on the internet, I barely wear makeup, and I’m assuming it’s some sort of food, like any normal human would eat.)

It’s not that I don’t want to do it. Write. I do. I just don’t think I can do it justice. My grand ideas suddenly become mediocre and I’ve already deemed myself unworthy before the first letter hits the page.

Words are intimidating. Or in my case, the lack of them is intimidating. That bright white, close to blinding, far too empty Word Document (yes, I capitalize it, because it is that important and daunting, much like a final boss in a video game).

I was watching a music video of a song that had come up several times on my Pandora station, and it hit me how far inspiration can reach.

Was this the best song I’d ever heard?

No.

Did it have an effect on me?

Yes, for whatever reason it did. (I’m not getting into the justification of it. Just trust me when I say, that at the time, it affected me.)

I was prepared. I knew what I was going to do. I had my own story to tell. It wasn’t the lyrics in this case, but the visuals, the actual video itself.  I don’t know what the artist’s story was. It didn’t seem clear to me (probably drugs), but there was something there. And I was going to write it.

Wasn’t I?

With my best intentions, the answer is

Yes.

I failed myself five minutes later, when I was staring at the aforementioned Word Document, and my parasitic worry took over.

What if people found the idea stupid? Or worse, what if they found the song stupid? What if they couldn’t understand what I saw in it in the first place? What if, my taste in music turned people off, and they refused to read another thing I wrote ever?

First off, I’m not going to flatter myself. I’m not that powerful: to turn droves of people off with one post? Who do I think I am?

Secondly, who cares? All of these questions didn’t need to be answered, and really didn’t even need to be explored, or brought up in the first place.

I’m not going to pretend it’s the best or most clever idea.

The most important thing is that it hasn’t been done by me.

My weakest point is no follow through. And I’m ending that cycle now.

Another long night and sleep had eluded her. Lyla sat in bed, cross legged. Her body ached, and the four walls of her bedroom no longer felt safe. Disappear, she whispered, wishing for a moment that it was only her in the world. The television at the side of her bed, alive with static, swallowed her words, camouflaging them in the gray, and went black. Silence blanketed the room and an ear popping pulse took over. The door of her bedroom was closed, but the house rumbled with the buzz of her roommates and friends. The television came alive in a quick flicker, the tail end of a used car commercial. “Here, you get exactly what you want,” said the man, with a wink. The volume reached max, and a din of music took over.  Lyla inhaled, and held the breath in the pit of her stomach, willing the silence to return. The room was too small, claustrophobic, and her body vibrated with noise and panic.  Across the room, the curtains fluttered, and streams of light flickered through. The beige walls were bare, and bulged with moisture, slowly becoming marred in cracks as she stared at them. She pushed herself from bed, and crossed the room, her heartbeat a hammer in her chest.

The hallway light was on, although dim and she wrestled with the door for a moment, refusing to remove the sweatshirt she’d tucked beneath it the day before. She looked to the ceiling, and realized the cracks were ripping through the house. The palm of her hand was pressed to the hallway wall, a guide as she walked its length, not taking her eyes off the trailing crack. It stopped at the kitchen’s edge, and she dropped her gaze. A throng of people hovered near the kitchen, the heat of the day obvious with the cluster of bodies. Lyla pushed her way through, to arrive at the its center. The refrigerator was askew, and one side had been painted aqua, the image of a squid drawn on in thick black lines. On the ceiling, the erosion had gathered and begun to eat a hole, revealing blue sky and heavy clouds. The kitchen came alive with movement, every item lifting and tilting towards it like a magnet. Lyla felt the uncomfortable shift as the house began to unearth itself. An image of the television, and the used car salesman flashed in her mind, the toothy grin of the man seared behind her eyes. She pushed herself through the screened door, letting it slam in the frame behind her, her gaze locked on the floating bodies of her friends being gently tugged through the gaping hole. They were complacent, their bodies relaxed as if they’d known their purpose was sacrifice.

Every nerve in her body ached to run, but Lyla stood in place, her feet planted firmly in the gravel. Her pores sucked up the humidity and her skin beaded with sweat. “Here, you get exactly what you want,” came the voice from the unplugged television, before it shattered midair. Lyla spun on her heel, and moved forward several feet. The house, at her back had ripped from the ground, severed cleanly from the foundation, levitating around her. She stared in awe as it scattered, without making a sound, the contents of her world spilling like a bag of sugar. It dissolved in the air, turning into a fine mist that pricked her skin and bounced off in waves. Lyla pushed herself forward, each step steady and traveled through the alley, aware that the long line of fence was still firmly in place. The ground beneath her was motionless, but an old car began to shiver and rise into the air. It rocked in place for a moment, but was quickly slung upwards and disappeared. Everything around her burst and popped into tiny shards, and were quickly absorbed by something above. The buzz of the city had dispersed, and Lyla stood alone, at the end of the neighborhood. She was standing amongst nothing, fog rising from the ground. The entire neighborhood leveled, and the city beyond had begun to fracture. Lyla sat to the ground, her knees beneath her, and she pushed her face to the sky. The slightest hint of moisture hung in the air, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the downpour. “What you want,” said the man from the television, his voice a staccato drop from above.

Below is the video I got the idea from. For this one particular, its not the words that are important, but the visuals, so if you don't like it, just mute and enjoy!

[fictionaltortoise]

Today's writing prompt : 07/24/2017 The rule is to stay creative and HAVE FUN Artist: Aaron Griffin . . . . . . #writersontumblr #writingcommunity #turtleprompt #turtlewrites #dailyprompt #prompt #amwriting #writingprompts #storystarter #creativity #writingdesk #inspiration #art #arte #kunst #konst #amworking #arthabit #cyberpunk #illustration

[fictionaltortoise]

A snip of my current work in progress. Want to read more? Check out my blog: fictionaltortoise.blogspot.com. Follow me on both and never miss my newest imaginings!! . . . . . . #writersontumblr #writingcommunity #turtlewrites #writing #story #words #amwriting #creativity #writingdesk #inspiration #amworking #dark #writersofinstagram #ashleywebb

[fictionaltortoise]

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Artist: mist XG

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Artist: Jakub Rebelka

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Artist: Derrick Chew

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Artist: Helen Norcott

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Artist: Adrian Mihai Marchidan

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Artist: Fred Augis

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[fictionaltortoise]

I’ve seen the ‘#Inktober’ challenge going around, and I always get excited to see the art people come up with. I’m also always looking for a way to involve myself in an artistic community. This year I got to thinking of all the different forms of artist out there. I am an artist of words, which I pull from my head and onto the screen or on a piece of paper … ink. It’s also said that artists are thieves, taking what we enjoy and putting our own spin on it. Every piece of art you see is essentially recycled and has evolved from someone else’s ideas. This year I will be participating in #Inktober2016, and this is what I’ve come up with: Recycled words.

[fictionaltortoise]

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Artist: Mohammed Al Dabi

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[fictionaltortoise]

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Artist: Atey Ghailan

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[fictionaltortoise]

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Artist: Mandy Jurgens

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[fictionaltortoise]

Part 22: The Meeting

(Note: I know it has been two or more weeks since I posted, but I’m proud to say it is back on! Normal human things got in the way for a bit, and all I can do is move forward. So, I hope you enjoy! Leave a like and share with your friends!) 

Thanks!