Natascha’s blog

Write one blog post on a writer you admire. Introduce the writer to us and explain why you like his or her work. Also, you MUST embed a video that connects to the writer in some way.

My favorite author or at least on of my favorite authors is Sebastian Fitzek, Yeah you spotted it right… he is German… but all his books are translated into English as well. He writes thrillers… and once you start reading one… you won’t be able to stop. They are written so well… Fitzek pulls you in and never releases you. He uses real life situations and dramaturgies them 100%. He uses his brother who is a psychiatrist to freshen up his books.

I love that his books are so different and all great in there own way. His first book which also was the first book of his I read is called The Therapy. I’m going to use this book… don’t worry I wont give anything away… I only want to give you a little taste of his books.

In the book “the therapy” a man brings his very ill daughter to a doctor… he sees her entering the doctors room… this should be the last time that he will see his beloved daughter, who he is so infatuating to him. This book tells a story of a man isolating himself on an a small holiday island from people to get over this tragedy. There he isn’t only confronted with the disappearing (from his world) of his daughter…but with a man who disappeared from his daughters word… him himself.

The way I introduced this book doesn’t meet a bit the introduction this book receives. If you think you could have done it better then I did… read it… you will find it is impossible introducing this book interestingly… for it develops in every chapter… leading you through the mind of the protagonist… providing you with many aspects and chain of events… but don’t let those hints mislead you +). You will never get bored while reading Fitzeks books, he will keep you under suspense, by creating interesting characters trapped in there minds, powerful description of nature, and interesting (real illnesses) conflicts.

If you like Psycho-thrillers are interested in the different obscure psychological “illnesses” or find it exiting to take a look into people’s minds you must read at least one of his books. Anyone who’s taking psychology should read theses books (Hannah!!!)

I hope you’ll like his books as much as I do… if not… I’m sorry =). Oh yeah and if you want take a look at Fitzeks web-page… first of all you should check it out because it has a shor review, trailer etc. and second of all…Firzek.. at least to me seems like an interesting… abstract… amusing men … one could almost call a genius of the creative world.  He has a german web page but it’s also translated into english… for the english page you can not look at the books trailers though!! german:  http://www.sebastianfitzek.de/                                        english:  http://www.sebastianfitzek.com/

Write one blog post on this topic: “What are three WRITING LAWS you’ve come to understand this year? What three things can you confidently claim always hold true for the aspiring writer?”

Well there are not many writing laws; for writing is being free and law I associate with being locked up in a way. There are some distinct rules for structuring, like direct dialog, paragraphing, structuring sentences (run-ons etc.) and other structuring techniques. I got a lot of helpful advice throughout the creative writing class, by having a closer look at the work of my peers, by reading, and of cause by the teacher. One is that it is very easy to write, everyone who knows how to spell… even the people who are bad at spelling(hehe just like I am^^) can write, but the really hard work that makes a good writer is cutting all down, using interesting different ways of describing feelings weather conditions etc., choosing every word closely. Also research is very important when you want your stories, plays and sometimes even poems, to be realistic and fresh. Another very important thing to become a good writer is being a good reader, reading other stories other ideas, other poems, and building up your own original way of writing. As I already said I don’t think there are any writing laws, except the once for structure. There is one thing I learned though, there are many steps in writing, first gathering ideas by actually experiencing something, second taking the time to write those ideas down, not structuring in any way, just writing them down from heart, next step is organizing those thoughts, then structuring them and writing them in a way it will be understandable and interesting to your reader, and then comes the hardest part, revising cutting everything down. The last step takes the longest, even if you think your totally done with the story, poem etc, leave it in your cupboard for a while and when you look at it once more you’ll find loads to revise.

When I was a young girl, I used to wear a pink ribbon in my hair. I couldn’t give it away. “Mummy I’m a princess if you take this from me I will never find my prince and live happily ever after. You don’t want that do you?” I cried when ever my mum wanted to take it from me. “No darling of cause not”, she used to reply absentminded. Often we went to the ‘fairy palace’ as I called it. There she would sit in the ‘castle’ sipping her caramel coffee with extra cream, watching me fly higher and higher, my pink ribbon dancing in the many colours of the sun. Sometimes I was wondering what she was thinking, for she had this thoughtful empty expression on her face.

Now I’m sitting here alone, sipping my cool, coffee, watching this little pink princes swinging. Her face shining in many different colours as her pink ribbon blows in the wind. I pull out the grey deformed paper clip she gave to me a couple of days ago. I stare at it, her voice echoing in my heart: “Black princess you mustn’t cry, Granny said he’s up there watching over us. This you need to keep it’s the key to his castle.” I star at the sky wishing I could be the one flying closer and closer to what I’ve lost.

I don’t know what I want to do in the future.. it’s really hard…well at least I don’t know what I want to do for my career… but like in general I want to marry Dean… go to Malaysia … to the rain forest… seeing monkeys in the wildness and looking at the biggest flower in the world the Rafflesia(or how ever you spell that)… smelling it’s rotten smell … I also really want to have kids ( preferable one older boy and 2 close in age girls… so that the guy can watch over the girls and bring hot friends over;) )  and write them books and poems and draw them pictures and picture books. I also really want to… when I have children… create a book for them from the beginning when they are born… were I’ll keep track of important events (firs steps…) in their life…taking their hand and foot prints and a strain of their hair, maybe even their teeth they loose and so on.^^ I know I’m a creeper

“Mixed: an anthology of short fiction on the multiracial experience” is as the title already gives away, a collection of short stories, reflecting on the meaning of being multiracial. The book includes fictional stories written by various authors, playing in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The book is introduced by Rebecca Walker’s. It brings up a question which is discussed throughout the anthology. How do you know who you are? This question links the short stories, for each story answers a part of it. Not only the stories are linked though, also the authors, for they all are of mixed racial background. This also lets the reader learn issues and conflicts that are present in various races.
Another really helpful and interesting way of setting up the anthology is that each author provides the reader with a biographical statement and with information on the origin of their story. “Mixed: an anthology of short fiction on the multiracial experience”, although it is a fictional book, reads very realistic. Detailed discretion pulls the reader into the narrator and lets the reader understand the feelings of the different main characters. The reader feels like

To tell the truth, at the beginning I hated the idea of reading a whole selection of short stories. It’s not like I don’t like reading, in fact I love reading. The thing I hate the most when reading a book, is the ending though. When I was young I used to cry when the book was over, only if it was a good book of cause. Well okay I wasn’t that young, I only started loving reading a couple of years ago. Don’t you dear tell anyone I cried because I was done reading a book. I don’t want to look like a baby neither like a nerd. Well what I’m trying to say, a collection of short stories means many endings. No, I didn’t cry after each story. In fact I didn’t cry at all. ^^ Now after having read the book, I am glad that I was forced to. There were so many different authors writing, each one using own techniques. One very helpful technique all of the story used were the names of the characters. The names made it easier to the reader to find out what the origin of the characters are. Some authors did a very good job in using dialog; it helped the reader to guess about what age the characters are and what their personality is. Also symbols made the story more interesting and exiting. One technique I used when writing my short story was giving the reader hints of what the setting is and not telling them so that they need to read carefully. I used a movie in the cinema and the newly released Michael Jackson discs to show what year the story is set in. Also the strength and weaknesses I only let shine through. This way I gave the reader a chance to first find out about the characters personalities to then see how they deal with the conflict and how those conflicts change them in either a positive, bad or in no way at all.

My favorite short story is, Bing-Chen by Neela Vaswani. I liked it the most, because it had an interesting setting. It was set in a small hairdresser shop. Also it had a nice symbol in it, which I found very interesting, hair. Have you ever experienced that either you or a friend of yours had a haircut and was unhappy with it. Right, it happens all the time. Well … explains it in her short story. She, by using an interesting, topic everyone experienced once in their lifetime, shows how hair in some way mirrors who you are. The story starts with a mum telling her sun that he should get a haircut. Unwillingly he goes to the hair cutter nearby. While his hair is being cut, he reveals to the reader, some important facts of his past. Read it and find out what mental change he goes through and how his appearance changes, while he’s being at the hairdresser.

I am Lissi, I love Jake. You mean how much I love him? Well, let me put it this way, I shave his hair, I pluck his eyebrows and then I color his face according to the weather and were we are going during the holydays. This way I always remember were we are going. I’m very forgettable you see, but not when it comes to paint his face. During the winter I painted his face white with a huge carrot across his face, we went to carrot land back then. Now I am just done painting the background. I chose light blue from the spot were his huge nostrils constantly vibrated, as if a cavemen was shelling a mountain, to make himself a home, to the top of his forehead. The rest I painted green, a wet, toxic green. Now I’m in process of making a mountain out of his crooked nose, draw a bright sun around his eye exploding in the colors brown, orange and green. His lips I turn into a little wooden house and surrounding it with millions of edelweiss. Completed, my dream holiday. The sun winks at me, then the house starts to talk, asking hopeful: “Darling you again spend our entire holyday money on those colors, are you sure you don’t rather want to go to one of those places you draw?” I reply flipping back my pink straight hair: “Darling, remember, I need to remind my self how much I love you, no matter how blemished you are.”

If I could have a super power… well I can’t really decide between being able to go into people’s minds, being able to make my self invisible and being able to wish my self to wherever I want.
Well if I could go into peoples minds, it would be interesting, for I would know what they think and feel. On the other hand this wouldn’t always be great for maybe a person which’s mind I’m visiting, would think of something I really shouldn’t know or don’t want to know. Also people sometimes think things they don’t mean; at least that’s what I do.
Whishing my self were ever I wanted to be, would be very helpful. It would mean I could visit my boyfriend, Dean, more often, without having to pay. The only trouble would be, no one would know where I am, and my parents would get a heart attack, if they would find that I’m no were findable.
It would also be cool if I would be able to make my self invisible, because than I could simply take the train to Dean for no cost. Even cooler of cause it would be if I could when make other people invisible two. I would keep this power as a secret, would only share it with Dean, and then we could simply meet one another, without thinking of the cost, or listening to complains of our parents. This would mean that we wouldn’t need to wait 6-9 weeks until we can see each other. The big issue again, would be the question: what to tell my parent when I visit dean and what he could tell his parents, were he’s at. This one power would even make this issue trickier then the one I mentioned before, since the drive to Dean would already take 3 hours, so I couldn’t just really quickly pop from here to there and back.
Wow I’m really into this! I have the feeling that I’m really able to decide what power I could chose. Well I got to

If I could create my own world, I would keep the people as well as the daytime and night time, the storms, the sun, the snow, the rain, the lightings and the storms, I would replace the boring and ugly buildings with extraordinary and beautiful structures. I would make the trains into flying dragons which would be much faster and not so expensive. The cars as well I would replace, with flying horses, flying beds or other creatures. The ships I would keep, but I would design them romantic, creepy or fantastic. The u-boot wouldn’t exist, but we would dive save in the stomach of dolphins to the bottom of the ocean. Dean would be with me more often and we would go through adventures together. Ohh.. I know how I would create it… do you guys know the “10th Kingdom” it’s a movie. At the very beginning of each series the is an intro, were the gray, crowded and boring New York turns into a fantastic place, with trees landscape, mountains with waterfalls, hills, seas, the skyscrapers turn into old castles, the birds into elves and so on. I would create it exactly that way, with many adventures and new places to explore.
Mhh.. on the other hand I like this world. Of cause there’s some improvement.. or a lot improvement that could be made, but I find we all should be careful not to loose or destroy this world. I mean on Earth there’s a lot you can explore; you can explore deserts, ice deserts, jungles, cities, different cultures, different believes, a lot of animals and plants etc.. There’s another reason why I wouldn’t change this world, my boyfriend. He showed me how beautiful this world can be, how you can make a dark, ugly, gray place, look nice and friendly. He showed me how many nice places there are. He made the lamest and most utterly boring activities, exiting and interesting to me.

Questions to the author:
1) How do you get your ideas to the books you write? Do those ideas develop during the writing process or do you know the middle beginning and the end of the book from the start?
2)When did you decide that you want to become a writer and how? What inspired you?
3) If you could live trough one of your books, being one of the characters in them, what book and which character would you choose? Why?