Christmas Quotables

I started today with a healthy dose of Christmas spirit. After spending 7 hours in the car en famille running errands and shopping, I'm afraid it has been gradually beaten out of me.

In an effort to get some spirit back, I turned to thinking about some of my favorite scenes from Christmas-themed movies. Here is a selection:

A Christmas Story

[Ralphie is visiting Santa at the department store, only he can't remember what he wanted]

Santa Claus: How about a nice football?
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Football? Football? What's a football? With unconscious will my voice squeaked out 'football'.
Santa Claus: Okay, get him out of here.
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] A football? Oh no, what was I doing? Wake up, Stupid! Wake up!
Ralphie: [Ralphie is shoved down the slide, but he stops himself and climbs back up] No! No! I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!
Santa Claus: You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

Christmas Vacation
[Clark's meltdown after a series of VERY unfortunate events at the family Chirstmas Eve - language cleaned up]

Clark: Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f***ing Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white a** down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of a**holes this side of the nuthouse.

It's a Wonderful Life

Zuzu Bailey: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.
George Bailey: That's right, that's right.
George Bailey: Attaboy, Clarence.

Miracle on 34th Street

Doris: Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. Don't you see? It's not just Kris that's on trial, it's everything he stands for. It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles.

Die Hard
[It was set at a Christmas party]

[Reading what McClane wrote on the dead terrorist's shirt]
Hans Gruber: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."

Ahhhh. I'm feeling better already. Feel free to add any of your favorites.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

Last night's fortune cookie said, "You will bring sunshine into someone's life."

So here is your sunshine in December.



Anyone else have sunshiny type news to send out to the blog o' sphere?

Stressss

How do you deal with Holiday Stress?

Do you remind yourself that, Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause?

Do you sit down and drink egg nog or hot cocoa?

Maybe a nice bubble bath with Vanilla bubbles?

Sit by the tree and relax?

Read a good book?

Walk through the snow?

What is your de-stresser? 

(I'm in need of tips.  I was up all night stressing and now I feel like I've got an ulcer.)

A-Mazed

I'm basically stealing this news from our friend Graham Chops, but in case you hadn't heard, James Dashner's Maze Runner is being made into a film:

http://bit.ly/e6EgHD

Kudos to Dashner, especially for negotiating the right to adapt the screenplay himself. A wise move, I would say.

This book has been on my "to read" list forever. I think it will be next.

ANWA 2011 Writing Conference

I'll be participating in the 2011 ANWA (American Night Writers Association) Conference coming up in February and wanted to share the details for anyone who's interested. There are some great people presenting this year, including one of my favorites--Janette Rallison. The conference is based in Phoenix, perfect for those who are looking for warmer weather in February.

"Writing at the Speed of Life" 19th Annual ANWA Writers Conference February 25 & 26, 2011.

Website http://anwa-lds.com/
ANWA - American Night Writers Association was established 1986.

Join us in beautiful Crowne Plaza Hotel near the airport in Phoenix, Arizona for two days packed full of workshops, classes and pitch sessions. For sure a writers dream. Rub shoulders with authors, agents, editors and publishers. See website for full schedule.

Program Focus: Autobiography/Memoir, Children's, Middle Grade, YA, Fiction, Non-fiction, Journalism, Marketing, Mystery, Playwriting, Publishing, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Screenwriting, Humor, Query Letters, Dialog,

Faculty: Kelly Sonnack-agent, Kelly Gottuso Mortimer-agent, Kirk Shaw-editor, Cecily Markland-small publishing company owner, author and newspaper editor, Pinna Joseph-book store manager, Authors: Chris Stewart, Janette Rallison, Laurie Schnebly Campbell, Elana Johnson, Angela Morrison, Conrad J. Storad, Chava Cannon-Music Writer

Cost:
ANWA Members: Full Two-Day Conference $100, One-Day Friday Workshops $30, One-Day Saturday Workshops-$80

General Public: Full Two-Day Conference $115, One-Day Friday Workshops $40, One-Day Saturday Workshop $90

*See Website for details http://anwa-lds.com/conference.html

Acting Out of Character

There is an episode in the original animated series of Avatar: The Last Airbender (which those of you who have followed our conversations on the blog know that we ninja Inkers LOVE)in which Katara, the rock and nurturing influence in the group, does something seemingly out of character. She hunts down and attacks an old man unprovoked. If there were no reasons given it would have been the worse episode ever. But...because we were with her on the journey to the attack, it made her seem more real, not less. She attacked him because she believed him to be her mother's murderer. Then she hunts and attacks the actual murderer and discovers something essential about herself. Making all of us feel like we know Katara better.

I think sometimes that I get so scared about my characters acting "out of character" that I forget that we all do it. Have you ever seen a normally quiet and happy mom in the store, after a sleepless night, with screaming sick children when the clerk says that they have sold out of the medicine she needed? Can you believe she would rant so badly that security escorted her out of the building?

Or let's take Scrooge as a great example of someone acting completely out of character. If you knew the first 1/4 of the story and then flipped to the end you might throw the book against the wall saying, "Stupid author set up a terrifically wicked old man and then made him all mushy in the end." Or you could take the terrifying journey with Scrooge through the ghostly night to face his own mortality and see that he has always been motivated by fear and that when his fear changed from being of the world and became about leaving the world behind his behavior changed dramatically.

I recently had an episode of acting completely out of character and against my own better judgement. I pouted. Yep and though I disdain pouting in others and especially my children and have been known to laugh out loud at it, circumstances arose in which I found myself consciously pouting. Luckily a good friend came to my rescue and laughed at my self induced misery until I laughed at it too.

Human flaws and uncharacteristic behavior can make our characters REAL. The trick is defining the situations that would cause them to behave out of character.

When have you acted out of character? What drove you to it?

7:57 am

It is 7:57 on a Wednesday morning.  What are you doing?  What would your characters be doing?

Me, I'm cruising the Internet.

My characters?  Well, one of them has been up for hours getting breakfast ready for the Alfheimers she works for.  Another is still asleep in her aunt's house, sharing a room with a baby and a snotty tween, dreaming about baseball.  And another is locked up in a guest bedroom with a husband she hates waiting to be set free.

And you?