"Sell your heart"

"Selling" your heart is another step in the               writer's journey.

Today I've listened to the next creative writing "lesson". In this episode the host talked about a very important problem common for many writers. The issue is about difficulty of finding your own voice as a writer, to create something that would truly express how y o u feel and what y o u think, not the artists that you are reading.For example there was mentioned an interview with Ray Bradbury, an author of f.ex.: "Martian Chronicles" or "October Country". The interviewer asked him about his past situation when he had been trying to write something good for 10 years and then suddenly wrote a short story in 1 hour that he was happy about for the first time in his writing career. Bradbury explained that after a long time of trying to be like the authors he admired, he finally found his own style, his own true voice.

I enjoyed listening to this podcast because the problem is very relatable for me. I think that finding that unique and irreplaceable "voice" is probably one of the most difficult struggles you have to overcome if you want to be a good writer. Because it's always easy to try recreate what has been written once, but it's much harder to create something completely diferrent and new. Something that would be truly  y o u r s. In order to do so, you will need to do one thing - sell your soul.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p053dy4h 

"Jane"

    
    A documentary about Jane Goodall's                     life in Africa

  

On October 18th this year a new National Geographic's documentary was released. It's considered to be very special because the film consists of the footage (never shown before)from 1960s when Jane Goodall started observing chimpanzees in Africa. It tells a story about how Jane,as a young woman, overcame other people's discouragement and travelled all the way to Africa to observe chimpanzees. It's also the story about Jane and the cameraman - Hugo falling in love with eachother.
  I was truly happy to see that a documentary  about Jane Goodall has been released because I think she is an inspiration to many, many people. What's also very attractive about this movie is the fact that it's so beautifully filmed, with such a sensitivity and carefulness. I hope the film will be shown in polish cinemas as well because I can't wait to see it!
  



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/movies/jane-goodall-documentary-marriage.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

Stranger Things phenomenon

         Stranger Things phenomenon

  Matt and Ross Duffer are probably the most famous brothers in tv industry right now. Last summer they released their fisrt tv show "Stranger Things" which to their suprise has become a worldwide phenomenon. Duffer Brothers who are big 80s movies fans themselves wanted to create a tv show/film that would somehow bring back that 80s nostalgia but they never imagined that their show would attract so many young people as well. As they were writing the script they took inspiration from Stephen King's novels and classic 80s movies such as "The Goonies", "Stand by me", "E.T." etc.
  Since I've watched Stranger Things for the first time last year it's become my all time favourite tv show and I've watched plenty of times ever since, but what really makes it so good that you feel that you could spend the rest of your life watching it? Firstly I think it's the incredible recreation of that times. It doesn't seem exaggerated in any way. The characters are realistically created and the story is a perfect mix of drama/Sci-Fi/romance/comedy/coming of age story which I think is the reason why people from many generations are obsessed with it.

Season Two premiers 27 October people!




https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/ng-interactive/2017/oct/14/duffer-brothers-spielberg-80s-stranger-things

Kazuo Ishiguro

 The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature has recently been awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro, an english-japanese novelist who has published seven books so far and is still working on some new ones. There are a few movies that are based on his novels, as well as some japanese tv series. His prize is considered to be special because in recent years the Swedish Academy seemed to be using the award for making political statements and this year they tried to focus only on the artist's literary value.
  I came across Kazui Ishiguro two years ago when I was reading his novel "Never Let Me go" which has remained in my memory ever since. I remeber this book as a very interesting and well written. I was touched by the meaning presented in it and by how vivid and developed the characters were. Even though I wasn't expecting to hear that Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel Prize ,it didn't suprise suprise that much, because after reading his novel I had no doubts the author was an intelligent, creative and sensitive writer. 

The importance of reading

      "If you want to write - read!"

  I've listened to a podcast which is actually a bit like a creative writing class. In the first episode the presenter focused on the very begging of the writing process which is reading a lot books of our own choice. By giving a few examples of writers that value reading almost the most in their lives she also explained why it's so important to spend a lot of time reading before you start writing your own novels/poems/plays etc.

  I've found this podcast very interesting and inspirational. When I've heard how those people talked about developing writing craft by reading so much, I immediately felt inspired to spend the rest of my evening reading. In my opinion poeople (including myself) tend to forget that the best way to learn how to write good content is to first know a lot about the world of literature and to surround yourself with a lot of different kinds of books.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p053dxt7#play