Bart Westgeest

Kategori: Posts with Links

  • Nanowrimo 08

    This year I decided to join the group of about 100.000 people that each one of them will try to write a 50.000 words novel in the month of November.  Everything is allowed as long as it is fiction-novel and every one of the 50.000 words is written in this one month.  In order to reach the number of words one has to write 1667 words a day on average, so the idea is to have fun and just write and don’t look back. Editing and rewriting is for the month of December or for 2009.

    You can read all about it on the www.nanowrimo.org page.

    I worked out a plot and I am basically ready to start. It would be nice to be able to “win” the challenge and reach this magical number of words, but I am already enjoying the enthusiasm of the whole project.

  • Short Story Writing Articles

    http://www.literature-study-online.com/creativewriting/index.html is a useful overview of the basics of the technique of writing short stories. The 16+ articles, written by Ian Mackean, are short and to the point and form a good introduction.

  • Free Ebook: Time Management for Creative People

    A free PDF – ebook (1,6 MB) by Mark McGuinness can be downloaded at www.wishfulthinking.co.uk called Time Management for Creative People with the subtitle ‘Manage the Mundane – Create the Extraordinary’

  • Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch

    I profoundly disagree with those who equate ‘literary’ with ‘serious’ – unless ‘serious’ encompasses ‘po-faced’, ‘dull’, ‘indigestible’. Anyone who does anything that seems easy or light or which actually entertains people always tends to get overlooked – apart from by the reading public, the only people who really matter. I reserve the right to write the kinds of books I feel like writing’

    Nick Hornby on his style of writing. (source)

    I saw the movie “Fever Pitch” (UK 1997 – USA version 2005) some time ago that made a strong impression on me as the subject was recognizable and treated in a popular but yet well elaborated way. Nothing posh or literary indeed but an everyday life story with a lot in it.

    The original story is about a passionate fan of the English soccer club Arsenal who is an English teacher and gets acquainted with a female teacher at the same school. A relationship evolves that is very much influenced by the man’s relation to the soccer club. In fact it is often unclear in a clever play of words if he talks about the relation to the woman or to the club. It has a climax that touched me because of the recognizable emotions and situation.

    The thought-evoking theme in the story is whether or not it is acceptable to be passionate and to behave like a “12 year old kid who refuses to grow up” as I remember it being put in the movie. Or about the tension between the freedom of the by nature egocentric individual and the commitment to a loved one. And yes – it is about soccer.

    I was a pleasure to see the English version with good acting and well working conversations in a plain language and with music by such knows bands as The Pretenders, the Smiths and Lisa Stanfield.

    An inspiration for a writer.

    Links:

    The site of the book on the publisher’s site (Penguin)

    Info about the English movie (www.imdb.com)

    Info about the US movie (www.imdb.com)

    The book on Amazon.com

    An interesting BBC/British Council Site using the book as an entrance for English lessons. With a.o. an extract, Characterisation and “after reading questions”.