Dissertation prep - Month of July

A very, very late update on my dissertation process.

Over the past month I have been stressed and stuck for ideas and cannot seem to write anything down that I actually like.

Since I last updated I have read another book called "The Ocean At The End Of The Lane" by Neil Gaiman. I'm really not sure whether I liked this book or not. It was odd and I didn't really get the whole thing. I read it very quickly, I think because I wanted to get it over with.

However a few things did stick out to me. One of the characters - the stereotypical evil one was manipulative and I liked this. It added something to the story. I also liked how Gaiman used the evil character as a metaphor for the weather and feelings/emotion.

The next book I moved onto was Alice Hoffman's "Practical Magic". I have yet to finish this but so far I really like it. It is different from the average witch story. Last night I watched the film adaptation with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in and really enjoyed it. It had the element of love, sadness, heartbreak and everything most people go through. It was real yet had that strong element of magic throughout.

I particularly noted down the main plot at the beginning with all the girls in the family being cursed and how everyone fears the family. I also liked the symbol of the beetle, whenever it made a sound you knew a man close to the family was going to die. It was very clever and I will definitely be thinking about this when I write some more.

I also watched "Shawshank Redemption" as I initially wanted to write something to do with a prison and this did help a lot (I wrote 3 pages of notes). Yet still when I write nothing seems to be coming together.

Praying that over this next week I have something good to show and it all starts coming together!

Sian.X

Dissertation Prep Week 4/5

Today I finished Jane Yolen's novel Briar Rose. It is a retelling of the classic traditional fairy tale Sleeping Beauty where protagonist Becca goes on a journey to uncover her Grandmother's past. This novel also reveals an important part of the Holocaust about Chelmno - a concentration camp in Poland where 320,000 people died.

I'm so glad I read this book, although not the best I've read it gave me so much inspiration for my own story. What initially drew me to the book was a review by the Library Journal who said the novel "Showcases Yolen's skill at transforming the real world into a realm of fantasy". Mixing reality and fantasy interests me and from reading this book I have come up with an idea of choosing a fairy tale (at the moment I am thinking of Snow White) and intertwining this with real life events that are happening across the world today such as the all the awful terrorist attacks going on. 

I am not sure yet how I am going to do this but I think (I hope) once I start writing it will all fall into place and the idea will make sense. 

I liked the structure of the chapters as every other chapter was a flashback in Becca's life to when her Grandmother would tell her and her two sisters the story of Briar Rose. I thought this was clever as it allowed me to connect with the story as the flashbacks linked with what was happening in the present the chapter before. The story heavily focuses on the past and present but I'm not too sure if I want this to be an element of my own story. 

What I certainly will take from the book is the introduction. There were quotes from Jack Zipes and Ralph Harper that I found particularly interesting that I want to use in the critical essay following the creative piece. 

This week I hope to have started writing the intro to my story and having a good outline of what I want to do and also to continue reading adult fairy tales.

Sian. X