love, read, write

Hello, all. It has been a long time since I made a post in my own normal voice. I wanted to speak into the general void about a new discovery I made in the past few months -- film.

As I've made it pretty clear on this blog, I have been deeply interested in literature and writing for as far back as I can remember, from storytelling journal entries I wrote in first grade to the "chapter book" I wrote in third grade to the various little stepping stones I've crossed to get to this point in time. There's no doubt that writing has drastically changed who I am, how I think, and how I view the world. In fact the word "drastic" isn't even the right word because it implies a sudden change. Writing, for me, has never been a novelty. It has been a lifelong companion.

Recently, however, a friend of mine introduced me to a YouTube channel called nerdwriter. Run by Evan Puschak, nerdwriter is a video essay channel that investigates film, creative arts, and history with a very evidence-driven lens. From there I learned about the detailed eye with which one can watch movies, such as through his analyses of "Arrival," a movie I really enjoyed but didn't specifically know why, among many other video essay film analyses. Although I knew film was an old (albeit much younger than writing) art form which has created many beautiful and life-shaping artworks, I don't think I fully understood the impact and artistic significance of the medium until I began watching these videos. Immediately intrigued, I looked into more film analysis channels and to my delight found some awesome channels like "Every Frame a Painting," "Lessons from the Screenplay," "Cinefix," and many others.

While writing is my most comfortable art form in which I feel able to express myself with the least resignation, I found myself utterly drawn and obsessed with the versatility, expressiveness, subtlety, and power of film. In freshman year of college I took a course about the relationship between visual arts and written arts and learned that each medium is suited for different expressive purposes, so I was primed to the concept of "X art medium is probably better fit to express Y idea." In fact, after taking that course, my story ideas began morphing into new dimensions. Sometimes I would come up with a concept and realize that it was probably better suited as a sculpture than as a poem, or think of yet another idea and wish I could realize it into a movie rather than a short story. Learning more about cinematography, screenwriting, and other aspects of film made me understand even more what film could really do to both well-read and casual audiences.

Since then I've been captivated by the art of film. It combines so fantastically the poignancy and power of photography, the descriptiveness of writing, the subtlety of music, and so many other disciplines. Isolating just one aspect of a movie already yields so much material to learn and analyze. While writing is able to endure time and use language to encourage readers to draw an idea in their head, film lets its watchers experience another life at a set pace with set visuals. It feels much more real and allows for much more subtlety that otherwise has to be buried very deeply in literature. This is not to say that one form is better than the other; just that they are vastly different in their strengths yet both so uniquely powerful.

I just wanted to express this newfound love on this blog and encourage people to look into the aforementioned YouTube channels. They're wonderfully educational and have opened my eyes to the great world of film! If you are interested in seeing me gush even more about movies, I have created a secondary blog here on film reviews and analyses.

Thanks again and happy reading/writing!

It's been a while since I've actually written out a post in my own voice. Here I am. Lots of great (and also terrible) things have happened to me (and the world, sadly) since I have last posted as Celine. But I'm not going to go into that because that's a lot of words and emotional anguish and complications that I'm sure we've met with enough of (or at least, I have). Certain things do need to be said, but here on this blog isn't really the place for it.

Vague gesturing aside, I've decided to set forth for myself several loose goals for the year. On the personal level, I'll be focusing on my self-image and self-confidence (but pah, nobody's really interested in that here). With respect to literature and writing, I've decided to (1) continue writing (wow, shocker), but hopefully consistently, and (2) resume reading.

Over the years, my reading has decreased immensely. As much as I still love good writing, I can't confidently say I'm an "avid reader" anymore because of the infrequency with which I actually read books. Articles and short stories don't quite count to me. I haven't done "the curling up with a book and forgetting about time" kind of thing in a very long time. So hopefully, I'll pick that habit up again this year. Maybe that way I'll turn to a good book instead of the Internet when I'm stressed (bad habits of a millennial).

On the creation side of things, I have been dabbling in comic art for the past few weeks. I can't say I'm very good at drawing, though. I don't think I'm abysmally/helplessly terrible, but I definitely have a long ways to go until I can actually draw full on comics without feeling like they are lacking in sufficient publishable quality.

Previously, I thought of comics in a sort of condescending way, like a kids' medium for storytelling. Picture books for people who don't have the attention span to read "real books," if you will. Upon taking a writing seminar class at my college, however, I learned very quickly that comic art is just another form of artistic expression. Just as movies convey emotions and information through the visual and spoken form, so do comics express those same emotions and information through writing and visual art. There is a lot of theory behind what goes on between panels, what certain panel placements mean, to even the frequency of speech bubbles.

Sometimes, you have an idea that you think is best expressed in not just writing or art in isolation but together, as a sort of fusion. Writing supplies us with the rich, sensuous words that we call language. It allows readers to open up their own imagination to create a world of their own after being prompted by words strewn together by an "author." Visual art, however, supplies the viewer with the imagined world but gives the viewer to imagine the events surrounding the image. Art forces the viewer to expand a visual moment into a timeline, whereas writing forces the reader to expand a timeline into a series of visual moments. Beyond the superficial level, both media, in their different ways, require the spectator to extrapolate given facts to the emotional level. We speculate the intangibles, such as a character's nature, their personality, their voice, etc.

When combined, the two can create a really powerful medium. The amount of writing vs. art included in "comic art" really depends on the author/artist. It's almost like a spectrum. While we may think of the classic DC or Marvel comics as the "be all, end all" form of comic art, graphic novels can take on so many different forms. From picture books like The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick to the Nancy comics by Ernie Bushmiller, artists and authors can communicate so much through the fusion of art and writing. To think that I overlooked "comics" as a little kid's book makes me a little embarrassed. There's so much more to it than it seems, which I think is awesome.

I have a few story ideas that I think would be best expressed in comic form. Hopefully, I can practice my art skills to the point that I can comfortably draw people and settings, because I think the story ideas that I have are actually worth something (?). It's been a while since I've come up with a decent idea, so my comic plot sketches make me very excited. I'll just have to wait for my art skills to catch up, though. When they do, I might post them here as well. Yay for discovering new forms of artistic expression!

One of my ideas for a comic was a story which I now call "burden." After a long while of contemplation, I became impatient and decided to instead write burden as a prose short story. Because I am a busy student with lots of other responsibilities and the attention span of maybe a small squirrel, I am going to be posting "burden" in pieces. Kind of like a webcomic but a web-story? I don't know if that's a thing, but I'll be posting them in "chapters." Hopefully that will keep me writing (because I actually have a plot planned out for this one).

Eventually, I might rewrite "burden" as a webcomic, as I originally intended. I suppose it's never too late to pick up a new hobby and try to improve oneself (art, for me)!

Stay safe and happy, everyone!
And as always, happy reading/writing.

Hello, friends of the Earth. I hope you have not been worrying about me, for I have been well. I know it's been a while since I've posted regularly on this blog, but my fondness for it has certainly not dwindled. It's just that there are lots of things going on in my life that prevent me from focusing on posting frequently. I hope you all understand.

I was reading through my old posts today (even the ones with multiple exclamation points, emojis, and lots of other ridiculously embarrassing tidbits) and I am, once again, reminded of the good memories that this blog has brought to me. I am already a senior in high school now (the common application is open--time to stress some more, haha), and it's near unbelievable that the administrator of this blog, at one point, was a silly fifth grader.

As you can see, most of my posts are now writing-focused. I am sad to say that my reading has decreased over the years; I am no longer poring over books as I was in elementary or middle school. But no worries -- I still love reading. I still love good writing.

I will try to update you all a little more frequently on my life and my writing and my reading. Now that it is senior year of high school, I hope that I will be able to manage my time more wisely. Of course, throughout the four years I've gone slightly MIA, I've always been writing (I can never give that up). Posting is the difficulty, really.

I hope to submit to a literary magazine before school starts--I really want to be published in some way or other. I have found some good literary magazines that I like. The writings in their publications are phenomenal, and I cannot help but feel a little intimidated. But I'll try my best.

For now, please see the spectacle that is the new layout of this blog! I have changed it something more clean and neat. I now have quite some knowledge in mark-up language, so customizing the layout was not much of a hassle at all (I remember when I spent hours trying to fix drop-down menus back in sixth grade; at one point I'm pretty sure I asked my father to help me).

Happy reading and writing, as always!

Love, Celine.