Beauty is a Beast

There is an obsession session with beauty which everyone seems to have these days and it makes for a complicated life.

A lot of people I know can't Actually cope without having false nails on all the time, but it looks to me like it makes life a lot more difficult. Anyway, bearing in mind that we have no concrete evidence to support the theory of reincarnation, I figure you should accept that you only live once and this week I am giving it a try. It's already proving difficult...

Running With It,

I'm starting to wonder if running in the mornings is detrimental to everything else I do in day, because it seems as though I'm so knackered that all I want to do is crash on the sofa watching television for the rest of the day. It's gruesome, because I spend only half an hour running and then it becomes something which takes up my entire day. I'm glad that I only go running once every two days, or I would get nothing done. 

I've just had a look over the old blogs, because I knew that when I had got through formatting the latest novel, I had put down a provisional date (two, in fact) as to when it would be released, the first of which was going to be on the two year anniversary of the CharliesWrite blog (7.3.13) the second being my 20th birthday (19.3.13) neither of which actually happened - obviously. Anyway, for those of you not connected on Twitter (@charlieswrite) or Facebook (search: Charlie Yarwood Author) I'm now not working to any sort of provisional dates, BUT the initial formatting is now done and so is the first edit where most of the problems have been ironed out. All that needs to happen now is a little bit of moving words around and then a proof read and then it will be arriving onto the Kindle AND Amazon.com AND Amazon.co.uk (+++all of the European Amazon sites!!) Everything is designed and ready to go when the content is ready! 

Anyway, I'm going to make myself another mug of tea and start work on something different, because I would rather avoid having a typo on the front page of the first edition this time, because that would upset me...

The Lone Ranger,

I meant to write this the day after seeing the preview, but things happen, don't they and I was editing a novel, so with my mind a little fugged with cava, I'm going to write it now. 

Apparently the critic reviews from this film haven't been amazing, but personally I don't understand that one bit!

Johnny Depp is, in my humble opinion, a phenomenal actor and I love the range which he has. Admittedly, the character whom he plays in The Lone Ranger is Jack Sparrow kind of crazy - he keeps trying to give bird seed to a long dead bird after all - he still plays the role in a different way. 

There is nothing serious about the film. It's exactly what it looks like - Pirates of the Caribbean do a Western - but it is hilarious. I genuinely don't think I have laughed so much at a film in a long time, and some of the detailing is just amazing. I was watching it thinking that the music and sound effects were pretty immaculate. 

The clever planning of some sections reminded me of the first (recent) Sherlock Holmes movie - the one before Game of Shadows which I still need to watch again as I slept through it... It's almost as though, you think you have it all worked out, but then you see something different and it all changes again. 

I was impressed with Helena Bonham Carter, and I think I prefer her in this to Sweeney Todd since, even though she is still that strong, quirky female character that she just can't help but be, there is definitely something stronger and less dependent about her and it just amazes me.

If you enjoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean, there is no way that you could hate it. In fact, the only way you could is if you take Westerns - and life - far too seriously. It's jovial, it's well put together and it's something I could easily go and see again without getting bored.


There is also a great moment where you can make a crude joke about the main character being able to find a cat in a whore house, but I'll leave that one to you guys to figure out...

The Freedom Writers,

Sometimes, you have to be really careful what you wish for...

After turning the TV off in aid of getting some writing done for the first time in God only bloody knows how long, I realised that I can be just as easily, if not more so, distracted by other things on the internet. The obvious thought is to wish there was a way in which to disable the internet to all other websites except Blogspot, to give me the way to make myself focus. Well, seconds later the internet went down completely, for no apparent reason. Obviously, if I have posted this then normal service has resumed, but for now, let's work offline.

After quitting my full time job, I suddenly have all this time to play with – it's kind of scary. The preference would be to get another part time job alongside my current one, and get some writing done in between, but what has actually happened has been:

*I took up running, and now go every second morning, or every morning when I can convince myself to get out of bed,

*I've rekindled my love for knitting – sad I know, but it's actually pretty calming and stops me biting my nails,

and *I've been watching far too many films, and a lot of them I have seen before. The thing is, I'm not a fan of uncertainty. If I don't know much about a film, ypu can bet your ass you'll have a hard time convincing me to watch it, as most of my friends already know.

After the failure of the blog/novel thing, which failed mainly because I write in fits and starts as opposed to short well timed bursts, the intention going forward is just to get into the habit of sitting down with Craptop and getting something written. Admittedly, film reviews aren't the most creative thing, but it's about the discipline of sitting and putting pen to paper or hands to keys.

Anyway, I'm going to start with Freedom Writers.

Freedom Writers is a documentary film about a young teacher and her first group of students. It's set in a place called Long Beach in America and follows the troubles an problems caused by America introducing integration into their schools. Looking back on it from now, we see all the reasons why it was done, but seeing this film and the way the pupils interact with each other at first, it's easy to understand why many were resistant to the idea, even after it had been enforced.

I admit that I am always going to have a bias towards this film, because it shows how the teacher uses writing as a way to get the kids to open up, to her and to each other. Using novels such as Anne Frank's Diary she brings them together and shows them what is happening in their lives within a wider context. At the beginning, most of these kids had never heard about the Holocaust, they are members of gangs, and almost every member of the class has been shot at, and has lost a friend because of gang violence.

Within a broader field, Freedom Writers can be used to help us question our education system, because of the purpose which it is meant to serve and the way I'm which it works. It questions whether we really force people to stay in school for the sake of them getting an education, or if it just becomes a holding room for them until they reach an age where we can do something else with them, such as put them into a job or throw them into jail. It asks what we are teaching people – are we actually giving people anything which helps them in their lives. Personally, I can't remember the last time I analysed a poem or used Pythagoras' Theorem, and when it comes to things like loans and bills and such, I only have a vague idea of what APR is and what it means for me, and I can't budget to save my life. Surely, even from a young age, these are the skills we ought to be instilling into people, not necessarily in place of the theories currently being taught, but maybe alongside of?

I will admit though, my favourite line of the whole film comes from a discussion between the teacher and two pupils. One student is explaining to the other how impressed he was by Anne Frank's Diary, so much so that he got a few more books from the library, about the lady who hid the Frank family. Of course, this provokes the question - “You used your library card?” a bright smile on the teacher's face until the student answers … “Nah.”

The diaries of the Freedom Writers were published as one book in 1999, and they helped to change the education system in America, after spending 4 years with the teacher who brought them together. She also moved to a new position within a college where some of them chose to attend.

The film shows one woman's heart felt determination to make a difference, and how much of a change she really caused in the lives of the teenagers. It's inspiring, because it can be seen as such a small drop in the ocean – it was one class, in one school, in one city in America, and it didn't change the situation these teens were living, not really – but they knew someone cared, and they knew they had a voice. The Freedom Writers class was a start, and it moved onto something bigger. Kids that wouldn't have graduated became the first in their family to finish high school, and as I mentioned, some even went to college. That's massive.

The fact that it's a true story – okay, maybe parts of it have been changed for dramatic/cinematic effect or whatever – but the fact that it came from a true story of what one person actually did makes me happy every time I watch it, because nothing could stand in her way.

Also, having Doctor Dreamy from Grey's Anatomy kind of helps. Every film needs some eye candy...

Bored on the Train

The only reason I pick up The Metro on the way to work is because of the feature called The Good Deed Feed.

If you've never read it, I feel I should tell you that it quite literally makes my morning, because it is a collection of anecdotal thank you's to people in the general public of Britain who have offered another almost perfect stranger some level of assistance in getting where they were going or what they were trying and struggling/failing to do. 

I have my own actually: Thank you to the man in Barnes who lent Will his Mac so that he could find me. I think both of us owe you a pint. :)

Anyway, yes, keeping up the news is currently of little interest to me, because everything in the paper is 'this will kill you' or 'coalition split approaching' to be honest, we could have predicted that since next year or the year after is meant to be an election year. Here's the other thing: after a loss in their major voting base (students) Clegg and Lib Dems have got to do something to try and find the level of support they were meant to have at the last election before voters quite frankly bottled it and went for a safe option in an effort not to waste their vote.

I like not having to take life overly seriously. It's a nice change from worrying about things all the time. The ultimate expression of that recently was going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends in full costume. Walking through Richmond in stockings and suspenders with a mini skirt and corset is not something I would ever consider myself to do, however it was hilarious. Good night all round.

Dear Sunday

I've met my dream guy...(will's description of himself...) 

Brainless

Okay, so we are going to bipass the usual sorry i have not been posting in a while and since this is being written on my so called smart phone the result is going to be something like unintelligent badly punctuated drivel, but ah well, we will survive. unfortunately it appears i can neither capitalise anything nor separate things into paragraphs on here so apologies. im only using this because what i want to say is too long for twitter. cody wilson, the man responsible for making three dimensional guns available to anyone with a three dimensional printer, described calls for tougher gun laws against weapons usable to be detected by a walk through metal detector as an archaic way of thinking. who wants to point out that actually, gun control laws are the fairly recent point of view and his contraversial right to bear arms is the view that was written into the american constitution when the founding fathers originally compiled the document? surely the idea of needing a gun to protect yourself is more the archaic view? maybe im just archaic as well...