I loved writing stories when I was younger. I’d fire up my IBM-compatible 486 desktop computer, my eyes straining at the wash of white characters on the screen’s black background. I’d write stories based on a TV movie series shown on HBO, inserting myself and my friends into that world (these days that’s known as Mary Sue-ing, but I digress). Later on I also wrote fanfiction about The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (you’ll find some of my work on Quest Enterprises) and had a short-lived stint as an aspiring fic writer for the anime Rurouni Kenshin (I’m on FanFiction.net for that).

Every time I tried to come up with an original story, however, I had problems with characterization and with location. Fanfiction lent itself to derivation because the groundwork for the characters had already been laid. An original work, however — one had to put a lot of work into who the characters are, what their motivations should be. As for location, most of the books I’d read took place in America or in Europe — places I’ve never been. Trying to set a story in the Philippines, I ran into language problems as well. How could I use English when most of what I knew passed for conversation took place in Tagalog? How much of Philippine social life did I know, anyway?

The more I thought about these issues, the more I couldn’t write. And the more I read novels that had been written with painstaking historical and technical accuracy (Michael Crichton, this means you!!), the more I felt my own incompetence. “Write what you know,” the ghost of Louisa May Alcott whispered gently to me. “I know nothing!” I cried, and clapped my hands over my ears. So I stopped writing, letting ideas fly over my head and leaving them to swarm elsewhere.

Lately though, the ideas have been buzzing like flies, landing, biting, whining in my ear, flying off and coming back again. The mere length of time an elevator took to reach my floor sent my brain into a creative tizzy about what could be causing its delay and whether a story could be written of it. Observing people around me, I began to create little stories about what kind of people they were and what kind of life they led. Reading more books only attracted more ideas, this time about building entire universes where the places, the people, the workings are strange so there would be no need to know much about the geography of the Earth, if I knew the landscape of my mind well enough to map it with my stories.

Now, my head is full of words. My notebook is empty of them. What’s stopping me from writing? I think I’m afraid of falling into the earlier trap, of being derivative and unoriginal or of not knowing enough about human nature to write about people. How can I know that my stories aren’t just some pastiche of the works of previous authors? Do I have a tale to tell uniquely my own creation? What about subtext, the tale between the lines? My imagination is bound by self-doubt and by my own education (or lack thereof). Simply put, I’m stuck.

So I’ll start with the smaller ideas. I’ll catch them and look at them and pin them onto the page with my pen and ink. I hope I’m onto something.

Dear Ms. Austen,

You may be astonished at my making such an abrupt introduction of myself, but I have known your writing far longer than you have known mine. It may then be merely my pleasure entirely to introduce myself.

Of late I have familiarised myself with your book Pride and Prejudice. My prior acquaintance with it came in the form of an excerpt in one of my children’s books. I am not now a child, but I was once one and I had many books with which to amuse myself. — But no more of this.

Permit me to express my sincerest adoration for the plot, the characters, and even the language of the aforementioned work. You have shewn the world a stile essentially your own, and if I were I would chuse to write in it, adapting your mannerisms of prose and turns of phrase — and perhaps even spelling. Though I would have liked it if the declarations of love had been shewn, not merely described. So prettily and wonderfully were the characters of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth thought out that no body would ever dare to hope for their ultimate separation. Rather, one would pray that their pride and prejudice would not hinder them from finding in each other a perfect match — and yourself being the master architect of every point and development, you deserve much praise.

In this connexion I heartily commend you and will recommend your book to my friends. I would also like to inform you of the existence of a most excellent film based on your novel. But I am sure the producers of the said film have already asked your permission to create it.

With warmest, deepest regard, &c.;

***

Had you there, didn’t I? In case you didn’t get it, all I was saying was that I’ve read Pride and Prejudice. If you can get past the whole intricate English language thing (fashionable in Austen’s time, which I was referencing in my letter), it’s actually a beautiful story. It does take some imagination to generate the images in my head because Austen sometimes describes what was said rather than having her character actually say it. The 2005 film version, which stars Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew MacFadyen as Mr. Darcy, is more explicit. Aside from some anachronisms in speech within the film (“she must snap him up,” says Charlotte Lucas), you get a better sense of the emotion, although the book offers you a better view of the workings of Elizabeth’s mind.

By the way, the version of the film I watched didn’t have any kissing, quite different from the version screened in the US. I guess I like understatement best as it seems more in tune with the era in which the film is set. The film itself already takes liberties with the expression of love towards the ending; I don’t think anyone need be whacked over the head by Mr. Darcy calling Elizabeth missus several times.

Pride and Prejudice is my new favorite romantic film. I love Mr. Darcy!

P.S. I took this quiz about the book and I got 7 out of 10 right. If I hadn’t second-guessed myself about some of the answers I think I might have gotten 9 out of 10. Ah well, I’m reading the book again anyway.

Also, Christianity Today has a positive review on the film and lists it as one of the Ten Most Redeeming Films of 2005. (Links via AustenBlog: She’s everywhere.)

Tags: Pride and Prejudice, Books, Movies, Jane Austen

Today I took a little time to start re-organizing my room, and I realized the defining characteristic of my room is: BOOKS. Piles of them lying on every hard flat surface, inside my cabinets and drawers, and most recently piling up on my bed.

Rummaging through just one drawer, I rediscovered books I had forgotten I owned. If that isn’t a sign of a serious bookrat problem, then I don’t know what else is. A huge selection of the books in the upstairs family bookcase belongs to me. Also, when we moved to this house I didn’t bother to unpack a big box of books, so I have another cache of books sitting in the attic storeroom collecting dust.

I really should start cataloguing my stuff. Do you think I can actually start using the Dewey decimal system? Ü Wait, that’s only for non-fiction books. Most of my “collection” (if you can call it that) is composed of fiction, the gems of which are fantasy and science fiction. I also seem to like spy thrillers, murder mysteries, and classic children’s books.

Two weeks ago I was in absolute book heaven when I discovered Libreria, a bookstore/cafe on Tomas Morato Avenue. I’ve also spent a little under P2,000 at Powerbooks over the last three weeks because their 20% discount chopped off 100 pesos from the price of each hardbound Sherlock Holmes novel. After I got successful feedback on my thesis a month ago, I blew some bucks at a nearby Books For Less to celebrate.

I need help. Ü

I do ego searches of my name when I’m bored, and usually the results show websites I’ve worked on or guestbooks I’ve signed. When I used Google’s Blog Search, however, I found something I hadn’t been aware of at all.

Some of you may be aware of a post I wrote concerning my past exploits in the Philippine cosplay world, particularly with regard to creating and naming the Pinoy Cosplay Mailing List and the use of the name “Pinoy Cosplay” by an unrelated forum website owned by a certain Mike Abundo. I resolved the issue by stating that Pinoy Cosplay ML would remain a separate and unrelated entity from PinoyCosplay.com. I thought the matter was settled; little did I know that my own name would become further embroiled in this issue.

Google’s Blog Search alerted me to posts on other blogs (particularly LiveJournals) that reproduced the text written by LJ user keiohwai warning Philippine-based fandom groups about the name-stealing activities of Mike Abundo, the guy who coopted the name “Pinoy Cosplay” for his forum website. I’m not really involved in the fandoms concerned here, but I was disturbed by the use of my name without my knowledge in what has become a forwarded email propagated to God-knows-where. I’ll quote part of the text below:

When NOELLE DE GUZMAN, founder of the pinoycosplay ML, spoke with Mike Abundo, he admitted that he did not, in fact, make a google search for the keyword term “pinoycosplay” before buying the .com domain and creating the forum.

Mike Abundo, in the latter part of the conversation with Noelle de Guzman, proposed that the pinoycosplay ML merge with his pinoycosplay.com forum, saying the mailing list would benefit from the boost of traffic that would soon visit his pinoycosplay.com site, claiming that his .com site was far more accessible to people everywhere.

Noelle De Guzman rejected the offer and said the Pinoycosplay ML will not be affiliated with Pinoycosplay.com under any circumstance. Mike Abundo chose to keep the name of his .com site, saying that he has already invested his monetary resources into the creation of his forums which, in reality, uses the format given by the invision.net service providers on the creation of an online bulletin board/forum. (emphasis mine)

This was posted to the Pinoy Cosplay ML as well earlier this month, but since I don’t regularly read the messages from there, I was unable to voice an objection to the use of my name in this context. Since then it appears to have been spread all over the Internet.

The released “Warning to Philippine-based fandom groups” is supposed to be about the activities of Mike Abundo. The gravity of his actions as described in the text speaks to what kind of person he is; I see no need to use my proper name (and use it repeatedly) when the term “the founder of the Pinoy Cosplay ML” would have been sufficient in describing who the person interacting with Abundo is.

Well-intentioned the warning may be, I feel that I need to say that I have nothing to do with the “Warning to Philippine-based fandom groups.” Next time, folks, do what the journalists do and ask first before using someone’s name in something you write. Thanks.

One of the main concerns people have when one of their favorite books gets turned into a movie is, “Will it still be essentially the same?” There’s a general trend of thought that in order to adapt a book to screen, you have to make certain changes or certain compromises to make the movie version flow better.

I’ve rarely been one of those people who’d read the book years ago and then went to see its adaptation. For me it’s mostly been the other way around: the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, the Legends of Earthsea miniseries–I watched them before I picked up the original books. This could probably explain why I never felt strongly against the Lothlorien Elves coming to Helm’s Deep or red-skinned Ged being played by fair-skinned actor Shawn Ashmore.

I’d read the Chronicles of Narnia books back in my rosy youth, however (AKA when I was seven years old). I wondered how I’d react upon watching the 2005 film adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Would I be a purist, arguing that this or that wasn’t in the book, that this or that was contrary to the spirit of the book? I didn’t want to be disappointed.

Thankfully, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was an enjoyable experience. Its portrayal of Aslan was particularly powerful; I absolutely had goosebumps when Aslan was revealed for the first time halfway through the film and almost cried when he gave himself up as Edmund’s ransom. The child actors did well as the Pevensies; Edmund’s treachery and bewitching didn’t seem contrived, Peter grew from harsh older brother to noble king, Susan developed from unbeliever to faithful supporter.

The weak link in this film’s performance was the acting of the actress who played Lucy; her facial expression for wonderment was equally her expression for sorrow, or surprise, or happiness… The character of Lucy being a pivotal part in how readers experienced the wonder of Narnia, this was the only thing that nagged at me throughout the film.

Overall, though, it did bring the world of Narnia to life, though I’m not sure how people who had never read the book could have kept up with the story. (I think this is the reason why the bookstores say “Read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe before watching the movie!”)

My family loves dogs. In fact, I don’t remember a single year of my life when we didn’t have a dog in the household. Now, they weren’t always pedigreed, but they were always loved.

For the past few years, we’ve had the Dalmatian named Shaolin guarding our perimeter and warding off intruders whether big or small. (He’s also very handy when you’re feeling low and need someone who accepts you even if you have eyebags the depth of the Marianas Trench…) Now, in a development that seems all too sudden, we have a Labrador Retriever puppy we’ve named Ashton. Yes, Ashton like the actor–but I’m quite positive he’ll grow up to be better-looking. Ü

It feels like we’ve had him for a while, but we only took him home with us yesterday. Glossy black from nose to tail, bigger than his siblings, Ashton was the dominant pup in his litter. He pooped and threw up in the car as we drove home, but I’d already fallen for him and didn’t faint from disgust. Marielle is sitting outside with him right now; she absolutely adores him. Despite his barking and howling every time we leave him, he’s a gift from God. I hope we train him well.

When my family moved to this house two years ago, we left behind a very dear home in Parañaque City. It was the site of my childhood games, teenage daydreams, and passage into my twenties. For a whole year after our move, some extended family members lived there in our stead so I never felt that the house had passed beyond my care.

This year, my relatives moved out of that old house, and my dad put it up for rent. Yesterday, we met the tenants who would be renting the place and I realized the house was no longer purely mine. No furnishings of ours occupied space in the rooms. The walls had begun to be festooned with pictures of these people, not us, of places we’d never been and of interests we’d never shared.

The tenants seem nice enough. The husband is a British writer and the wife a Filipina; their child takes after his mother in looks but has his father’s forehead and lips. They seem to like plants because they asked us if they could plant some Indian trees on the lawn; this is good news for the house’s badly overgrown grounds. Also, rather than absolutely hating the extremely tall eucalyptus tree that we had planted to mark our property’s boundary (our neighbors like to encroach on our land), Mr. Tenant says he finds the tree’s trunk “noble”!

I think we’re leaving the old house in capable hands, but I’m starting to miss it badly.

Anybody heard of Wikipedia? It’s a freely-editable compendium of articles submitted by, uh, almost anyone. Though it isn’t yet regarded as a reliable source of information due to its fluid nature (I did say freely editable and submitted by anyone), it’s an enjoyable exercise in writing.

So enjoyable have I found it, in fact, that today I found myself at work on articles I initially had no inclination of doing anything about. I spent the entire morning turning lists of Binibining Pilipinas winners into table format. Tonight I spent the last two hours researching and rewriting the article on the Mercy Me song “I Can Only Imagine.” I’m turning into a Wiki-addict.

I blame the Andy Roddick article. It referred to a Wikipedia article on his coach Dean Goldfine, but that article hadn’t been written yet so I took it upon myself to complete the task. I completed the initial draft on Saturday night. Then, it seems I couldn’t get enough of filling in blanks because I wrote the article about the Andy Roddick Foundation as well.

After those articles related to a fandom were completed, I began surfing Wikipedia’s random articles and made minor grammatical edits to a number of articles. This Wiki thing, it’s like a new toy: I can’t stop playing. But it does make me realize that I know nothing about a lot of things. Was it Plato, Socrates, or the Apostle Paul who professed to know nothing? Ü

I ran my legs off this morning in UP Diliman, which is a haven for joggers these days. They’ve shut down the entire Academic Oval from today until Thursday because student organizations have set up food and merchandise stalls along the circumference of the Oval in anticipation of this year’s Lantern Parade.

When I say “shut down” and “entire Academic Oval,” though, I don’t really mean it. Apparently the people who are conducting this closure of the road don’t really mean it, either. Instead of being fully carless, it was not so carless. At various closed streets feeding into the Oval, the road blocks were set too far apart, allowing cars to squeeze through and gain entry. I’m not sure if these vehicles had any legitimate business within the Oval, since the stalls were being stocked by small delivery trucks. In any case, I couldn’t exactly jog on the road itself without worrying about a rampaging car careening out of nowhere into me.

After much research and some reluctance resulting from laziness at having to download an executable file, I’ve done it. I’ve clicked off my Internet Explorer and am now using Opera as my default browser. Ü

A couple of websites I’d been to in the last two weeks had little reminders on them saying that they were optimized for Firefox (another competitor of IE). What was this Firefox? I wondered. I had never seriously considered not using IE; it came with the operating system, it was easy to operate, it was familiar. I had always had the niggling feeling that there might be something more, something I was missing. I once looked at Opera as an alternative, but its file size seemed huge to me when I wasn’t on unlimited dial-up.

Then, yesterday, I Googled for a comparison between IE and Firefox and stumbled across Browse Happy, a website dedicated to spreading the bad news about IE (security holes, non-compliance with W3C standards, etc.) and the good news about alternative browsers like Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and Camino. Intrigued but a little fazed by the unfamiliarity of Firefox, I decided instead to download Opera. Its file size was a piddling 3.66 MB compared to Firefox’s 5MB, anyway…

I’ve found that Opera renders pages much faster than IE, which sometimes displays only white space after 30 seconds of loading the page. Opera, in stark contrast, begins to show the content even before it has loaded the page’s embedded and linked media (like CSS style sheets and Shockwave Flash files).

Opera is also very strict when it comes to HTML and CSS mark-up; when I tried to view my websites through Opera’s eyes, I realized that IE had been letting me get away with a lot. My nested divs weren’t showing up correctly, the page body wasn’t centered like how I had written the CSS to do… Everything was a mess and I had to recode the CSS and HTML to correct the problem. It was a lot of work involving trial and error. Maybe some would say I should have just stuck to IE since over 90% of Internet surfers use IE. This way, though, I’m now comfortable knowing that my sites are written with valid HTML and CSS and will show in other people’s browsers (not just IE) the way I intended them to look.

I don’t think there’ll be any going back for me. I’m already loving Opera’s tabbed browsing. At the very least it gives me a clutter-free taskbar. Ü