Movies and writing ideas

The other day we rented two dvd’s. Love & Other Drugs and Black Swan.

Love & Other Drugs was a brilliant movie. It had enough sex scenes to double as a soft porno and I loved her boobs, but I believe that Anne Hathaway as Maggie Murdock should have at least won some sort of prize. I would have even given her an Oscar for her performance. She wasn’t even nominated in last year’s category. Instead, she presented the Oscars. And did a poor job of it.

On the other hand, I loathed Black Swan. I truly do not believe that Natalie Portman should have won the Oscar. Some of you might disagree, but winning an Oscar for having one facial expression through-out a movie is not an achievement. Just ask Kirsten Stewart, as Bella Swan, Kirsten Stewart as Kirsten Stewart, and Kirsten Stewart in any other role she has ever played. A character needs some sort of emotion, other than being crazy.

Cue facial expression that doesn't change for almost 120 minutes

I found the story to be utterly disturbing. I didn’t even watch the end of it. It was perverse, to say the least. That's my two cents on it.

But speaking of stories, where do you normally get inspiration to write? Do you sit in a park and people watch, perhaps a restaurant? I found that people watching doesn’t inspire me as much. Yes, I do get a few character traits from people watching, but then I get lost in watching the leaves billowing in the wind, or the doves picking up some leftover crumbs from yesterday’s tuna-and-mayo sandwich a little boy might have so recklessly eaten.

I also get utterly distracted by the lovely smells of food. Which means that I will lose the plot of people watching completely.

I find my inspiration for writing in the shower. No, not on the little scripts on the conditioner bottles, not in the way I like to take my shampoo from my head and try and blow little bubbles with my index finger and thumb and not in the way the water swirls down the drain.

I find it with my head entirely covered by water. I don’t know why or how, but the ideas just seem to stream into my head as warm water pounds on me and trickles down past my ears. This morning, as I showered, I thought about my story that I am currently writing. Let’s dare call it a novel, shall we? And I nearly thought up two whole chapters.

The funny thing is that I didn’t shower long at all. Say fifteen minutes at the most. If I keep on getting ideas like this, I will have a novel before the end of the month.

Oh, one last thing. Do yourself a favour and google Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' Carries On. I love this song so much, it's on figgin repeat!! Let me know what you think of it.

Travel Tuesday: That time I rode an elephant

Last year we went to Phuket, Thailand for a two week vacation. It was an utterly amazing time, an experience I would never forget and something I want to do all over again. 

Even though the climate was stuffy, as a result of the humidity, not to mention the scorching heat, I loved every moment of it. I loved walking around in between the stalls of cheap clothing, I loved smelling the local cuisine, I loved playing with the local stray dogs, swimming in the clear, calm blue sea, going to all the different islands surrounding Phuket for cheaper than a new pair of shoes. The islands were spectacular. Breathtaking!

I wish I could go back there. And maybe this time I will go when Phuket is not having it's rainy season. I did not mention the amount of rain we had. But we still went out, in the rain. Drove our scooters around town, walked between stalls, went for a swim in the sea, went for a swim in the hotel pool. The rain couldn't stop us from exploring this amazing, unknown world.

Something we did not anticipate on doing, but ended up doing it for the experience, was an elephant ride. Gentle Giants. It was sad however to see that these elephants were scared of their trainers, and that they would make crying sounds if it looked like their trainers were about to hit them. In retrospect, I am very sad that I partook in this, as I only realised later, past the excitement of riding an elephant, that these poor beautiful creatures were being mistreated. They had food, yes. They had shelter, yes. But they didn't have proper shelter and they were not treated with respect, as they should have been.

To me it was an honour to walk with these tender beasts. They really are something precious. I just wish people would treat these animals better. I am a bit sad that I indulged in this silly tourist attraction, just for the sake of saying I rode an elephant. But it's something I can tick of my bucket list.

When inspiration strikes...

Three blankets

Two cups of coffee

One boyfriend

Endless hours of absolute cold!

This weekend was probably one of the coldest ones in my entire life. I really did not move from the couch (which was actually our bed in the livingroom, again), with the exception of grocery shopping on Sunday morning. I nearly did not survive it out there in the wilderness. The wild trolleys were hungry and snapped at our ankles.

A good thing did come from the weekend, however. The inspiration to write, and not actually blog, but write struck me again. I haven't really written anything since my Creative Writing classes at varsity. I have no idea where the story is going, but it starts with a girl, named Violet, who is about to turn 23 and about to quit smoking. I have envisioned her already, and she's a feisty little bitch.

She kind of reminds me of another 23-year old, who is also known as a feistly little bitch. But let's not point any fingers here.

I'm hoping that this will be a learning journey, that I will learn more about my writing and grow as a human being, enthralled by words and fired by the passion of  putting ideas into stories.

Wish me luck!

You can find me here...

Sheesh! Today is cold, it's -2 degrees! I want to crawl up in a little bundle and never get up again. To those in the Northern Hemisphere, I am jealous. I also want a summer! But you probably can't have all the good things all year long, then it wouldn't have been good in the first place and we would have nothing to look forward to. Right?

But just to show you how cold it is today, take a look at this.
This is our complex, earlier this morning. The water feature is literally frozen!
And again the Northen Hemisphere might be shaking it's head, because it gets snow and colder weather.
But that's just it! We never have cold winters like this. It's not called Sunny South Africa for nothing.

I blame all of  global warming.

Enough moaning about the weather now. Yes, half the world's conversation's wouldn't have existence without it, but I have something better to talk about. Do you guys remember that time I only ate tangerines, so Sweet and Joooocy! No? Because it never happened. That was Regina Spector.

Something that did happen was our trip to Durban in April. Something that also happened was my guest post at over at Jenna's blog Home away from Home. Right now. So you better go check it out. Ane be nice, it was my very first guest post.

Why are you still reading this? Ha! GO!

Love
Megs