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J is for… Journeyman and Joan of Arcadia #AtoZChallenge

J is for… Journeyman and Joan of Arcadia

Hi everyone – sorry for the delay of the J posts – I had a bit of a grump on but now I’ve had some time with my lovely sis and some chocolate I’m ready – going to try and do the K posts too.

Journeyman

Journeyman
Just the one season of 13 episodes of (in 2007). Kevin McKidd plays Dan Vasser a reporter who travels back in time to ‘right some aspect of wrong’. He jumps back (with only a few minutes warning) and forth to his present life and it shows the affect his extra curricular activity has on his relationships. He isn’t the only time traveller in the mix either. Like many of the shows I seem to like this one was cancelled too soon.

I think the main reason I liked this (other than Kevin McKidd) is that I am interested by Time Travel – so much so that the novels I am working on have time travel featured in them. It also reminded me of Quantum Leap (see my Q post) and Tru Calling (which I’m going to add to my T post).

As you can see I only have my homemade copy but I just found out it is being released on DVD on 29th April – here’s a sponsored link to Amazon. It says there’s a 20 minute feature with the writers etc about what might have happened had it not been cancelled.

Joan of Arcadia

Joan of Arcadia
Two seasons (2003 – 2005) about a teenager who talks to God. Joan is played by Amber Tamblyn (daughter of Tom Thumb – Russ Tamblyn – loved that film).

The strength of JoA was in its characters – Joan and all of her family and her friends at school seem so real that you just accept that God keeps cropping up (‘dressed’ as a different person each time). Her father is a police chief and her older brother has been paralysed in an accident; life is challenging but God keeps asking her to help other people.

Interesting actually that both of today’s series link to my novel in some way. Ages ago I decided that my protagonist Jane would look like Amber – you can see who else I am picturing on my Pinterest board here. My J post last year was about Jane too.

The episodes that stick out to me when reviewing the summaries on imdb are:
The Boat – Joan of Ark??
St Joan – Joan of Arc
Silence – Joan is ill with Lyme disease – is God just a hallucination?
Queen of the Zombies – Joan tries out for the school play

Joan’s Queen of the Zombies song – yes that’s God boogying along in the wings.

The series also has Joan Osborne’s ‘One of Us’ as the title track. There is something about a title track that settles you in. I like Charmed’s too (but was aware of the song from The Craft soundtrack before I started watching – obviously a ‘witchy’ song).

What do you think of the two shows above?
What time would you travel back to and why?
What form would you like God to take if he/she/they ever popped by to talk to you?
Which TV series title track is your favourite?

I’ve just joined bloglovin to make it easier to follow the blogs I like – it has a tablet app and you should see a widget in the sidebar which will add my blog to your bloglovin feed. Here’s my profile.

H is for… Heroine #AtoZChallenge

H is for… Heroine

photo 1

I was introduced to the book ‘The Woman in the Story: writing memorable female characters’ by Helen Jacey (Amazon Associates link) recently and was discussing it with a friend when they made a suggestion that has stuck in my mind.

Those writers amongst you will be familiar with the idea of the Hero’s Journey as plotting guidance for writing (here’s a cool interactive website that gives you basic information about it). Helen Jacey starts in the introduction to her book (p.xv) by saying ‘But none of the screenwriting guides have paid much attention to the difference between men’s and women’s lives and to what happens if the hero is a heroine.’

Now, once again I haven’t had chance to read this book but it may be useful to my PhD because of what my friend suggested. I mentioned back in the ‘A’ post that I was planning to use autoethnography as a research methodology and as I’m a woman surely I will be the “Heroine” in my own story so the guidance provided here might help me share that story in an interesting and engaging way.

Thanks Clarissa for the suggestion.

So do you think stories with female protagonists follow a different structure?

2013 Intentions

 

OK, so we are already a month and a half into 2013 and I have made a start on some of these already but illness has meant my energy has had to go mostly workwards. Please keep your fingers crossed that I can give up being sick for lent (and much more of the year).

 

• After the success of my daily challenges last year and thanks to a Christmas gift from my sister I have a daily challenge to complete my Kirigami (paper cutting and folding) calendar – I’ve been posting pictures of this on my tumblr blog along with others that I take (though those not on a daily basis – only when there’s something interesting).

• There is only one Kirigami for Sat/Sun so Sundays is typically gong to me a snapshot of the progress of my Happiness Jar (I’m writing happy memories on pieces of paper, popping them in the jar ready to read on New Year’s Eve).

• I am going to put my 366Photo and smallstone challenge in a Photobook – need to do this by the time my Groupon runs out in May.

• I realised how much I miss reading so I’ve upped my Goodreads challenge to 24 books (Thanks to sickness I’m already on 13 if you count the 2 betas I’ve read that Goodreads doesn’t, and I do! Lots of those are re-readings – Malory Towers and Harry Potter).

• The PhD ethics proposal has to come up high here – I’m currently feeling like I’m spinning in circles so I’m hoping to settle without vomiting soon ;o)

• To continue to work on my self esteem and not letting it be so dependent on others

• To leave 2013 weighing less than I did at the start. I’m really hoping that the 5:2 I’ve been doing since Oct 6th will help with this.

• To restart Pilates and try not to completely donate my money to the gym this year.

• To finish the rewrite/full first drafts of the first two books in my series (I NEED to do this this year).

• I will try to write at least 2 journal articles this year (take two).

• I will aim to use the April A-Z blogging challenge to progress with my PhD/my novels.

• If I have finished my drafts of books one and two I will aim to use November’s NaNoWriMo to write at least 25,000 words of book 3 (of 4).

• I will try and cross another 4 items off my Bucket List (two already planned are the Harry Potter Movie Marathon and LeakyCon London attendance).

 

I think that’s a more manageable list than last year so I think I’ll leave it there.