Crappy Movie Renditions of Good Novels

Yay, I get to do a grumpy post! Still keeping with my movie theme. I've talked about the good ones and shall discuss many more, but today I'm gonna talk about some stinkers.

1.) DOLORES CLAIBORNE: The book was awesome but the film was so boring that even Kathy Bates couldn't save it.

Even Kathy Bates.

2.) CUJO: And this one was even more boring. The only good thing going for it was at least the little boy lived at the end.

Whereas in the book he died of heatstroke right after the dog was vanquished...just to torture the reader.

3.) THE SHINING (The TV miniseries) This was a rare case in which following the book proved to be a big mistake. Those hedge animals were the corniest thing I'd seen.

And this dude has nothing on Jack Nicholson.

4.) DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT: Though there was a fair attempt to follow the story, it was ruined by the substandard animation amalgamated with random substandard 3d computer effects. Also revealing spoilers which were meant for later books was unforgivable.

And Kiefer Sutherland as Raistlin....seriously?

5.) HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE: I'm a fan of the movies, but this one was a bit disappointing in what they cut and what they chose to leave in. It was my favorite of the novels and I feel they didn't do it justice.

Granted, it was still pretty badass.

6.) FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC: This was one of the darkest YA novels of its time and they could have made the movie into one disturbing mind- f*ck, yet instead they went for disjointed and over the top cheesy.

One major plot issue: Why would they eat donuts from such an obviously evil grandma?

7.) THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED: First off, this was one of the best vampire novels ever written, so I'm gonna be extra harsh. THE MOVIE HAD ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BOOK!!! INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE was awesome incarnate and then we get this mess of crap. Also, this was the 3rd in the series. Why did they skip THE VAMPIRE LESTAT? Having the actor lip-sync to Jonathan Davis's voice was beyond ludicrous. And though Aaliya made a beautiful Akasha, the character motivation was completely omitted. If I ever win the lottery, I'm gonna pay someone to do right by this book.

They should have left it with David Geffen.

What about you? What movies were such bad renditions they bordered on blasphemy?

Oh, Long Johnson

Hee hee, it's not what you think, my fellow smut lovers. It's....
Another cat trivia post!

Cats, especially toms, can make the freakiest noises, especially when approached by a rival.
Isuzu, my seal point Siamese once barked like a coyote, successfully scaring the crap out of another tom.

Another time just when I was about to tell the kids to knock it off and go to sleep, I saw that it was Isuzu going, "La la la la la la" out the window at another cat. But none of this comes close to this cat:

When the Movie's Better Than the Book

Yeah, it DOES happen, though it's a rare phenomenon. So rare that I don't think I'll be able to make 10 in my list....but I'm gonna try.

1.) THE PRINCESS BRIDE. Not only is it the first to come to mind, it's an undisputed classic. I pity anyone who hasn't seen it. Not only did the book lack the humor that makes the film timeless, it was flat out boring.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father. Prepare to die

2.) FIGHT CLUB. Yes, I said it, but please allow me to defend my position. Fight Club was an excellent novel and the film follows it almost exactly. But the novel was so vivid and visceral that it was made for the screen. The  visual effect makes the story so much more intense. ALSO::: TOPLESS BRAD PITT. Need I say more?

Yum.

3.) THE SHINING: (the original) The book was great but it focused a lot more on alcoholism, thus making it more depressing than creepy. Throw in Jack Nicholson with a cast almost as scary as him and put Stanley Kubric in charge? You get a spine-tingling good time. REDRUM!!!

Yes, it's true Jack Nicholson is scarier than Stephen King

4.) THE FIRST WIVES CLUB: The book was kinda bitter and depressing and the hijinks weren't enough to make up for that. The movie, on the other hand, was hilarious, inspiring and had an ending that gave me happy tears.

My mom and I exchanged high fives every other second in this movie.

5.) THE COUNT OF MONTE CHRISTO (newest version): Excellent novel, but the film actually was successful with changing things. I loved the warden of Chateau d'Eif and the ending was SO much better.

This was the most evil character...but he wasn't in the book.

6.) THE THREE MUSKETEERS: I'm picking on Alexandre Dumas again, but damn, the movie was so much more fun. Also, Tim Curry as Cardinal Richlieu was EPIC.

He always gets the fun roles.

7.) THE LORD OF THE RINGS: Loved the novels, but Tolkien's writing style got a bit dry at times.

And that was one hot elf.

 See, I only got seven. Does anyone have any more?

Movies Based on Books

M'kay, I'm gonna warn you all that Fall is when I watch a crap-load of movies so you'll be getting a lot of movie posts.

First topic of the season: Movies based on books. Sometimes they nail it, sometimes it's an epic fail. Why do they change things unnecessarily? But sometimes the changes can be good.

Anyway, here's 10 I love in no particular order:

1.) The Count of Monte Christo... I like the HEA of this one better.

2.) Interview With the Vampire... Had one of the hottest casts ever....and Louis. ::sigh::

3.) Lord of The Rings Trilogy:.. Best quote ever: "And I smote his ruin upon the mountainside."

4.) The Shawshank Redemption. Excellent novella, excellent  film.

5.) The Green Mile. Made me cry a few times.

6.) Stand by Me (The original title was The Body). One of the best coming of age stories ever.

7.) The Color Purple: Makes me cry through the whole thing.

8.) Pillars of The Earth: One of the greatest novels ever written, finally on the screen in an awesome miniseries.

9.) The Feast of all Saints. A novel about the "free people of color," a topic ignored by most history classes. It was brought to the screen in a miniseries and for once the casting was done right.

10.) The Harry Potter series. Need I say more?

One thing all of these have in common is that they all follow the books quite well. Also, most are longer than the average movie, some made in installments and others done as a made for TV miniseries.

What movies based on books are your favorite? I don't know about you, but I can't wait for the first Hunger Games movie!

WASTELAND WINNER!!!

Drumroll please......AND the Winner of an e-copy of WASTELAND by the lovely Lynn Rush is....

THE CAUTIONARY TALE!!!

...who was also the last to comment, I see. LOL, good job sneaking in there!

Lynn Rush Talks About Editing with a REAL Editor

Thanks so much Lynn, for giving me an excuse to use this pic!

When I was a newbie writer, I used to read about how authors were deep in edits and had deadlines. I wondered if I’d ever get to do something like that. Would it really be as hard as they wrote about? Would I really disappear for days on end from the social media world to get things done?

Well, I found out pretty quick. March 11^th, 2011 was the day I signed my contract for Wasteland with Crescent Moon Press. It was an amazing day. Surreal, actually.

Within the next few weeks, I got my first round of edits.

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

I quickly found out everything I’d read about edits, especially the first ones for us newbie authors, was true.

All the mark ups, suggestions, highlights…Some of my non-writing friends questioned the need for such changes, because why else would they buy your book if they didn’t like it, why change it so much?

Because editors have one thing in mind: Make this story shine. Because if it’s the best it can be, everyone wins.

I totally get it.

But yikes, so many changes? Did I really use the word flesh 192 times? Holy Cow!

Editors come at your novel with a fresh, objective eye. They haven’t been writing the story for weeks, months, years. They aren’t close friends wondering if they’ll hurt your feelings if they say something doesn’t work.

They do this for a living. They know what they’re doing. And they say what they mean. No filters. I really enjoy that, actually! Just tell me what needs fixing so I can fix it. That’s what I need.

Usually the editing process starts with bigger issues. Giving suggestions, ideas, direction on story/plot concepts. Then the following rounds of edits get more focused until it ends with making sure every T is crossed and I is dotted.

How long it takes varies with each publishing house and writer. For me, I signed my Wasteland contract March 11^th, and the book officially released September 6^th.

So, yeah, take in all the suggestions and work through your story, still maintaining your voice. But with the guidance of an editor, your novel becomes what it truly is meant to become.

Are you a newbie writer or author? Don’t worry. You’ll be able to do it. It’ll be scary, might sting a little, but in the end, it’s totally worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. Editors are worth their weight in gold.

~~~~

I’ve got an e-book copy of Wasteland here for one lucky person. So, leave a comment and you’re entered.

I’ll choose a winner tomorrow and contact you, so be sure to leave your email addy in your comment. If you’re not wanting to do that, just send me (lynnrush@cox.net) your email addy and I’ll set it aside in case your name is drawn.

Thanks for having me here today, Brooklyn!

Write on, my friends!

Lynn Rush began her writing career in 2008. She has both an undergraduate and graduate degree in the mental health field and has enjoyed applying that unique knowledge to developing unique characters.

A former inline speed skater and mountain biker, Lynn has been known to test the limits of her athletic endurance. So, when she's not writing, she spends time enjoying the Arizona sunshine by road biking nearly 100 miles per week with her husband of fifteen years and going on jogs with her loveable Shetland Sheep dogs.

Catch the Rush: www.lynnrush.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LynnRushWrites

Twitter: www.twitter.com/LynnRush

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/k6NAZa  

Amazon:  http://amzn.to/pavzwE

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/pbigOg

All Romance Ebooks: http://bit.ly/nujjjp

You Tube Trailer:  http://youtu.be/k-KRE1yMiNk 

Book Blurb:

Bound by the blood contract his human mother signed four centuries ago, half-demon, David Sadler, must obey his demonic Master’s order to capture fifteen-year-old Jessica Hanks. But as he learns more about her, he realizes she may be the key to freedom from his demonic enslavement.

The only obstacle—Jessica’s distractingly beautiful Guardian, Rebeka Abbott. He must not give in to their steamy chemistry, or he will lose his humanity. But fresh off a quarter millennia of sensory deprivation as punishment for not retrieving his last target, he may not be able to resist temptation long enough to save what’s left of his human soul.

WINNERS!!!

The 2 Winners of copies of TEMPTED are: MELINDA WILLIAMS and JULIE! The Winner of a copy of MARKED is MICHEL KING! And BOOKLOVER62 gets ENTWINED!

Congrats! W000t!

"Every Story Needs at Least One Good Myth" Guest Post by Elisabeth Naughton

Thanks so much to Brooklyn Ann for inviting me to stop by during my TEMPTED blog tour! I’m thrilled to be here talking about the third Eternal Guardians book, which just released last week!

For those who are new to the series, the Eternal Guardians are seven warriors descended from the seven greatest heroes in all of ancient Greece who defend the mortal realm from threats of the Underworld. TEMPTED is Demetrius’s book. He’s the biggest of the Guardians, a descendant of the famed hero Jason, and he harbors a dark and deadly secret. One that could destroy the world. But when the princess of Argolea goes missing, he’s suddenly the only Guardian who can save her.

I’ve been in love with Greek mythology since I was kid. It started at a young age when I would secretly flip through my mother’s art books (she was an art major in college) and found all those naked pictures of gods and goddesses from mythology. After I got my fill of nakedness, I discovered that the images weren’t simply pornography, they were famous paintings of the Ancient Greek myths. And every image had a story. I slowly started acquiring my own books (not for the nakedness, mind you, but for the stories), and now I have whole shelves filled with books about the different myths, who did what to whom and when, books about heroes and monsters and the all-powerful gods.

When I came up with the idea for the Eternal Guardians books, I didn’t yet know how I was going to work it into Greek mythology – I just knew that somehow I would. But there were already books about gods and goddesses and their interactions with mortals. I didn’t want to do something that had already been done to death. Then one day I was perusing a blog, and someone left a comment saying they’d like to read about the heroes from Greek myth…and voila. I knew exactly who my warriors would be.

Each of my warriors are linked to a different hero from the ancient myths. Each has a different gift, and each has a weakness. Theron, in MARKED - book one - is Heracles’s descendent.  Because Heracles was this super strong guy who could do amazing things, Theron is blessed with extreme strength. His line is the purest of all the Guardians, but he’s limited by his personal bias against the human race. He believes in duty to the Guardians, yet he doesn’t care about the humans he’s been assigned (by Zeus) to protect. In many ways, he’s a conundrum. His book then, is all about getting in touch with his humanity—something he never thought he would ever do—and becoming a true hero in every sense of the word.

Zander is the hero in ENTWINED. Zander can link his heritage back to the famed hero Achilles, who could only be killed by an arrow piercing the back of his foot. In ENTWINED, every hero from Zander’s line has a vulnerability—the one place they can be struck that will result in immediate death. But after 829 years, Zander hasn’t found his vulnerability yet. Since most Guardians only live to be 700 years or so, and Zander’s showing no signs of approaching old age, he begins to think he’s immortal. Which is great for fighting—he’s the toughest warrior out there, able kick daemon ass, no problem. Not a bad thing, right? Wrong. For Zander, who’s already lost the only woman he ever loved, looking at an eternity alone with no joy ahead is the worst thing in the world.

And then there’s Demetrius. Demetrius’s forefather is Jason. Jason is one of the most fascinating heroes to me. He didn’t do anything extraordinary except gather the Argonauts and sail in search of the Golden Fleece. And he never would have succeeded in that quest—the one that launched him to hero status—had it not been for Medea, the sorceress he fell in love with on his journey who gave him a magical potion (among other things), which he used to slay the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. A sorceress he was tricked into falling in love with by the conniving goddess Hera. Jason’s life ended in tragedy when he betrayed Medea, and Demetrius’s life has been one lie after another, many of which he blames on Jason’s history. Working the mythology of Jason’s past tragedy into Demetrius’s current life was a really fun part of writing TEMPTED. It shaped Demetrius into who he is today, and bringing that out in TEMPTED, making him realize he’s not responsible for sins of the past he had no control over, was a real challenge.

I have several heroes yet to write about. The hero in my April 2012 book is linked to Perseus, so I’m having a lot of fun playing up his mythology in that book. And I’m constantly trying to work other myths into these books—Hades & Persephone, Prometheus & Io, Athena & Medusa. Taking the tragedies from Greek mythology and twisting them into happily ever afters for my characters is really the best part of writing this series.

To celebrate the release of TEMPTED, Sourcebooks is giving away two copies of TEMPTED (US/Canada shipping only) to two lucky commenters, and I’m giving away a copy of MARKED and another of ENTWINED to two more! (International shipping okay on Marked & Entwined). So four winners total! To be entered into the drawings, just leave me a comment telling me your favorite myth from Ancient Greece and which one you think I should write about next.

TEMPTED BY ELISABETH NAUGHTON – IN STORES SEPTEMBER 2011

DEMETRIUS—He’s the hulking, brooding warrior even his fellow Guardians avoid. Too dark. Too damaged. And given his heritage, he knows it’s best to keep everyone at arm’s length.

Isadora is missing. The words pound through his head like a frantic drumbeat. For her own protection, Demetrius did all he could to avoid the fragile princess, his soul mate. And now she’s gone—kidnapped. To get her back, he’ll have to go to the black place in his soul he’s always shunned.

As daemons ravage the human realm and his loyalty to the Guardians is put to the ultimate test, Demetrius realizes that Isadora is stronger than anyone thought.

And finally letting her into his heart may be the only way to save them both.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former junior high science teacher, Elisabeth Naughton traded in her red pen and test-tube set for a laptop and research books. She now writes sexy romantic adventure and paranormal novels full-time from her home in western Oregon, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA Awards of Romance Writers of America, the Australian Romance Reader Awards, the Golden Leaf, and the Golden Heart. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ball park, or dreaming up new and exciting adventures. Visit her at www. Elisabeth Naughton .com to learn more about her and her books. Her next book in the Eternal Guardians series,Enraptured, will be in stores in April 2012.

Thanks so much for coming today, Elisabeth! Seriously, guys, this series is awesome. Marked held my attention the entire time I was getting my first tattoo.

How's Fall Looking So Far?

I totally identify with this lady...except I don't have a desk so everything's on the floor and my couch.

Hello fellow book people :) The 1st week of school was hectic as usual. I think I only had one truly productive day. But things are slowly getting in order and I've got a lot of fun stuff planned on this blog. First up: CHECK OUT MY LINEUP OF GUEST AUTHORS!!!
Starting on the 14th we get Elisabeth Naughton, Author of MARKED, ENTWINED, and the newly released TEMPTED! ::drool:: She's gonna share some mythology behind her sexy Argonauts.

On the 16th we get debut author of the newly released WASTELAND, Lynn Rush! She's gonna give us a behind the scenes glimpse of what formal edits are like. Prizes and fun stuff galore! "Galore" is a cool word. I should use it more often. :)

October 19th, I get to talk to Rebecca Zanetti about sex. Tee-Hee...

Then sometime near Halloween we get to talk to Trina M. Lee about something she does best: keeping monsters monstrous.

Hopefully I'll get more guest authors on board. Those who are interested are welcome to contact me. The only thing I'd prefer is that you are a published paranormal romance or urban fantasy author. Ya know, to keep with my blog theme.

In the meantime, I'm gonna be posting about one of my other obsessions: Movies. How they compare to books, how they work when based on books, etc.

And how am I doing? Glad you asked. I finally got that stupid brace off my hand. My thumb doesn't feel any better, and it looks like my house threw up. It's never been a clean house, but seriously, I'd consider arson if I thought it would pay off.

How are all of you? What things are you looking forward to this Fall?

Quick blog about...Blogging

So far I've been doing pretty good getting in at least 2 posts a week and I'm getting better at seeking guest authors. Now, I'd like some feedback. How am I doing? What subjects do you like best, which ones bore you? Is there anything you'd like me to cover or see more of? 

Finally, thanks so much to all who follow this blog. If it weren't for you I would have given up a long time ago.

Now That Summer's Over...

The kids are back in school and I hope to get my writing schedule back in shape. I'm on week 3 of wearing this stupid brace on my hand (that's why I haven't been as active online. Typing in this thing is a bitch). So I should be free of it by Monday. In the meantime I'd like to compile my fall/winter goals.

1.) Get back into a regular writing regime. My husband may actually help me get on board with this by taking my internet modem away and leaving me alone for 2 hours.

2.) Finish rough draft of Book 3 in my series by Christmas. Because Book 4 is really nagging me..so much that I may sneak in notes and rough scenes by then.

3.) Get books 1 & 2 polished up a little more before I commence the grand agent hunt. What's cool is that I just put them on my Kindle and WOW! Not only is it crazy to read my book as a book, it is also easier to spot errors. I found 3 typos in the 1st 3 chapters...and realized the hero from book 2 isn't smoking his pipe in book 1. For shame!

4.) Keep caught up with blog posts. I've been slacking again... But next week I have some awesome guest posts!

5.) Get caught up with the bills...so I can buy more books! I'm loving my Kindle...but hating my empty bank account. To solve this, I've begun my "Blood for Books" campaign. No, I'm not letting vampires bite me. ::wistful sigh:: I'm selling my plasma. My 1st appointment is today...and since I can't have alcohol within 24 hours of donating, this should help stave off "Hemmingway Syndrome."

Anyone else have plans for fall and winter?

Female Anatomy and Romance Plots

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