Tim Burton is a Mad Genius

Tim Burton must dream in vivid colors and crushed black shadows.
There were moments when I gasped at the brilliant beauty and unrestrained genius of Burton's finest creation yet.
The story line was blase'. Nothing new there.
But o my soul, Burton's sense of grandeur and knowledge of the darkness and light that accompany our dreams made me acutely aware of how very much I have lost my own muchness, just like Alice.
Reading reviews has shown that the film translates differently for different people. No surprise there, but for me...It was Alice reclaiming that true part of herself, the self of her self, that had been squelched and squashed for the sake of appearances and propriety.
Alice and I have very much in common.
And, just considering Mr. Burton himself...so many people talk about what a freak he is and how strange and how odd, but the wonders he creates, the way he can make you see your own dreams that you forgot upon waking.....Imagine if he had given in to be what everyone else thought he should be.
I remember sleeping on moss covered logs beneath a warmly lit spring canopy, listening to the light trickle of the stream beneath me, walking through the soft rain, barefoot and in my slip...because I cannot stand the weight and feel of wet clothing. I still remember the look on my sister's face as she crested the hill in our old station wagon and caught sight of me walking down the lane in nothing more than my long white slip. It's one of my treasures, that memory, a moment of true self. I use to stand on coffin-like boulders in the middle of the forest shouting memorized poetry at the top of my lungs with all the impassioned emotion of a true poet.
Where did she go, the brave and bold soul whose dress was not all that unlike the Mad Hatter's himself?
Bravo to Burton for taking us back to the place where we were before we fell up our rabbit holes and landed in the mundane monotony of everyone else's expectations.

The Other Side of Writing

It stands to reason that in order to write well one must read well. Read extensively, that is. Read a variety of literature. Yes, I love teen novels filled with angst and suspense. But I also love my classics (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Witch of Blackbird Pond), poetry (Margaret Atwood, Theodore Roethke, TS Eliot), thrillers (Vince Flynn novels) and adore my British cozies. And let's not forget that my bedside table is stacked with original pulp fiction.

The danger of reading all the same stuff all the time is that you will begin to write just like everyone you are reading.

It's kind of like leaving New York to go live in Texas for ten years. Eventually you will begin to sound like the natives.

The voices of the writers you read seep into you.

Expose yourself to something different every so often.

Even if you have to push your way through it and it feels like torture. (Yes, I know, that means I have to finish A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or else I shall be a hypocrite).

So today, I have written nothing and have been both pushing myself through Eclipse and finding myself, at odd intervals, racing through it.

Unplug and read.