Under The Dome Review

So if there are any Under The Dome watchers out there, I just have one thing to say: Read the book. I am wondering if Stephen King even signed off on this tv version because it is quite different from the book. I understand that it is a made-for-tv-adaptation of the book and, therefore, there are some things that may be too graphic for television viewing but I am telling you the book is so much richer and intense than the show. I encourage you, if you do not have too weak of a stomach, and you are enjoying the story and the concept, take the time to read the book. It is long but it is worth it.  Continue reading if you want to know some of the major differences in the book.  Otherwise, stop here.  

Difference #1: Angie (who is not as pretty as she is on tv but has teeth "rather crammed together and the size of jumbo Chiclets") dies very early in the story.  Junior kills her while under the influence of what he thinks is a blinding migraine but is really a brain tumor. 

#2:  Dodee is a dim-witted, druggy loser chick (not a brainy disc jockey at the town radio station) who is killed shortly after Angie, again by Junior, when she comes looking for Angie after she finds out her mother was killed during a flying lesson, running the plane into the Dome.  Junior keeps Angie and Dodee in the pantry at Angie's house (which is empty because her parents were out of town when the Dome came down) where it is dark and he comes to "visit" them when his head is hurting because it makes him feel better.  He sits between them with an arm around each of them talking to them in the dark.

#3: Norrie is not a troubled kid traveling through town with her two moms who all happen to get caught going through Chester's Mill on "Dome Day".  She is a tomboy skater chick who lives in Chester's Mill.  Her dad Ernie was the Supermarket Manager until he recently retired and cooperates with Barbie and the others to try to find a solution to the Dome.

#4: Big Jim Rennie is a psychopathic power-hungry politician (Second Selectman who controls the weaker First Selectman, in effect, making all of the decisions without having to take any of the blame when things don't turn out so good).  He claims to be a devout Christian businessman and says everything he does, he does for "the good of the town, for the good of the people".  He is very brutual, some would say insane. He showed a hint of this when he let Agatha drown (by the way, she and Max don't exist).  He convinces the new police chief (who, incidentally, is in his pocket) to deputize Junior and a group of his thug friends.  They are uniformed, armed and subsequently head straight down power-trip road, beating up and shooting people whenever they can possibly get away with it, always protected by Big Jim and the new chief of police. 

#5: The drug business is a much bigger part of the story, involving one of the two town pastors as the cook, who has also become completely addicted to the point of insanity from sampling the product.  Big Jim kills Coggins (the pastor) and also kills the late police chief's widow to try to keep the information from coming out.

#6: Julia Shumway has a much larger role and is a stubborn newspaper owner/editor/reporter who, with the help of the dead police chief's wife (who we never see in the tv version), discovers information about the drug dealing business, including Jim's misappropriation of city funds, and puts herself in great danger but is determined to make sure the town knows who Rennie really is and what he has been doing.  Her place is torched, burned to the ground, her newspaper office and apartment above it.

#7: Barbie is Captain Dale "Barbie" Barbara, US Army, Retired.  He is not a leg-breaking enforcer for a bookie.  He was in town for a time working as a cook in the Sweetbriar Rose (the restaurant Rose owns and Angie takes over in the show after Rose's untimely death).  He was on his way out of town after being jumped in the parking lot of a local bar by Junior and his friends when the Dome came down.  He decided that with Junior's father as the Second Selectman in town, he was probably better off disappearing than waiting for Junior to turn the blame for the fight on him.  He makes contact early on in the book with a Colonel he was good friends with and gets the military involved - they reenlist him and appoint him officer in charge, which of course really pisses off Big Jim and his posse.  They find the bodies of the girls and plant Barbie's dogtag near their bodies, framing him for the murders and throwing him in a jail cell.

#8: Only small children were having seizures, not teenagers.  Two children who were caught inside the Dome when their mother, who was renting a cabin within the Chester's Mill borders, ran to the neighboring town for some groceries. They were found by another unlikely couple (an old man and a young woman) and taken in to town for medical care and food.  I can't remember if the girl, Alice,(she is older) has seizures or not but her little brother Aiden does.

#9: In the book, Rusty, a physician's assistant, is a big player in the resolution of the Dome problem.  He is married to Linda (the cop, who IS in the show) and they have two small girls, who also have seizures about pink stars falling in lines. Rusty, Linda, Jackie (another female cop), Julia, Barbie, the teenagers, Joe, Benny and Norrie and a couple others all work together to find out what is going on and try to bring the Dome down.

#10: There is no mini-Dome.  

So read the book and get the full story.  You won't regret it.

An Original Idea?

The Bible says "there's nothing new under the sun".  Wow!  Isn't that the truth!  It seems like every movie or book is a rip-off of some other movie or book.  My husband and I joke about this all the time but it is really daunting when you are trying to write creatively and be entertaining without being "cheezy" or thought unimaginative.  Every time I think I have on original idea, I realize that it is influenced (sometimes heavily) by someone else's idea that I saw or read or heard somewhere.  Maybe that's what people call "inspiration" but I so badly want to have a purely original idea for a story.  Tonight, I think, once again, that I may have one.  I can see how it was inspired by certain things but very vaguely.  I may not be able to get a novel out of it but surely a television episode at least!  Hm...now that's an interesting idea all it's own....

August 26 & 27

In the midst of the storm,
  in the raging of the sea,
when I need someone to lean on,
depending on You is easy.

When I'm feeling all alone
  and there's nowhere else to turn,
when I feel I can't go on,
that's the time I know I'll learn.

It's easy to rely on You
  when the road ahead is steep,
when I have no other option
  but to trust in You and leap.

But when the water's smooth and tranquil
  and I'm floating right along,
please help me to remember
  You're the reason for my song.

You're the source of all my blessings,
  the provider of my peace.
It's so easy to forget this
  when  it seems I need You least.

I will trust You on the mountaintop,
  and praise You in the waste.
I will honor You with all I am,
  no matter what I face.

No matter what each day brings,
  whether good or whether bad,
  no matter if I'm happy,
  no matter if I'm sad,

I don't deserve this grace You give.
  I don't deserve this peace.
But I will go on trying,
  I will go on striving
  to honor You and trust You.
I will go on praising You.
  Never will I cease!

Amendment

Looking over my last few titles, I have noticed a trend.  First, I want to apologize for being "whiney" and unwilling to accept responsibility for not fulfilling my original commitment to blog every day.  I have failed at this.  I typically am writing every day but I do not always make the time to blog about it.  This is a work in progress and I guess it was silly to think that it could be perfect from the get-go.  Anyway, I have amended my commitment to this:  I will write every day but will only blog when I have something to say.  Since I usually have something to say, this should be several times per week.  : )  Please don't give up on me.

If at first you don't succeed...start over.

Wow!  The last few days have been completely crazy!  We are in a huge period of transition in our family's life right now and it seems that a million things have happened in the past two days!  I know you aren't interested in that so I won't bore you by going into details.  I will just apologize for the lapse and say this:  we start from here and go forward.  I will do my absolute best to continue to write daily.  I am hopeful that you will not give up on me when I fail and that I might continue to learn how to better entertain you. 

Not My Fault

I know.  Excuses, excuses, right?  But really, the internet was down last night so I could not post.  Maybe that means I will post twice today.  Nah!  I have a meeting tonight, so probably not.  Anyway, I have been writing a lot more than usual for my book and that means that, so far, this has been a success.  I have added pages and been more free with my writing.  Normally, I am so critical of myself that I analyze everything as I write it.  I am learning, though, to just write now and edit later.  It saves a lot of time and gets more words on the page.  Sorry for the delay, if you're out there on pins and needles,waiting anxiously for posts to be available ; )

"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self."  Not sure who said that but it rings true.

Have a great day!

Feeling Exhausted

The blackness is creeping in and I have no idea how to stop it.  Not even sure if it can be stopped.  The tension is so thick at these times that it can be cut with a knife.  And my body is beginning to really feel it.  I know his is too.  If I could just get some sleep maybe things would be better. 
Only once?  Really? I remember things differently.  Hamburger gravy spoke angry words I never want to hear again.  But I hear them now, only different, but the same.  The spirits are speaking again and I don't want to listen.  When they say "three steps forward and two steps back" they aren't exaggerating.  We are making progress but it is a slow, steady progress and I am so impatient.  But we are making progress just the same. 

I DID Write!

Yesterday, I wrote about the frustrations of daily life, marriage and work.  I will not post exactly what I wrote but I just want to make sure that everyone out there tuning in to read, knows that I really did write yesterday, even if I did not get around to posting about it until today.  Yesterday was not a very good day, which I suppose you already guessed.  Sometimes it is so hard to go through tough times in life without having anyone to confide in.  When your spouse is your best friend and confidant, it makes it extremely difficult when things become strained between you - even if it is just a short period of time - because the person you normally confide in is the one you are in disagreement with.  I have never been one to have a lot of close friends or open up to many people.  In fact, I have generally been a loner, and I am really quite comfortable with things that way.  However, it sure is nice when you find someone (or maybe two or three someones) who you feel you can be completely transparent with and never feel like you are burdening them with your problems.  If you have someone like that in your life, be very, very thankful.  Let them know how special they are to you and how much you appreciate their unconditional love and support.  They are among the most precious gifts of all.  : ]

Random Acts of Violence

His hands closed around her neck and tightened.  As he watched what was happening, he felt like he was doing just that, watching.  He felt disconnected from himself, like the hands choking the life out of his wife belonged to someone else.  He felt terror at this but was powerless to stop.  He squeezed tighter and her eyes, wide with fear and confusion, bulged in their sockets.  Her lips soundlessly mouthed the one-word question "Why?" just before he was jerked violently from his sleep and sat bolt-upright in bed overwhelmed by panic.
The sheets were soaked.  His shorts were soaked.  Sweat ran from his hair, into his eyes, down his face.  His respiration was quick and shallow.  He sat there slowly coming back to reality, wondering what on earth or in heaven (or maybe hell) would cause him to have such a vividly depraved dream, and why, indeed, was he strangling his own wife. 

Off The Cuff

So, they say you learn something new every day.  Today I learned that Snooki has written THREE books!  I am not sure if I find this annoying or encouraging.  Anyway, I am just going to let things flow and we will see together what comes out....  Scared?  Me too.


Once, when I was little, I tried to climb the tree.  The one that stood in my backyard that seemed so big to me.  I found a little treasure.  At least, to me, it seemed.  An empty locust skin or husk that clung to that big tree.  I was not afraid to touch it now that the core was gone.  I perched it on my finger and it's little "legs" held on.  I found this entertaining and played with it awhile and now whenever I see an empty husk it makes me smile.  : )


Well, there we go.  Kinda weird, I know.  But I guess that's just me.  By the end of this year, maybe you can tell me if you think I've got a chance at this writing thing.  I would love some honest opinions.  I don't want to be wasting my energy (what little I have) dreaming a dream that would better be abandoned.  I have too many dreams for a woman my age to still be chasing and I guess it would do me good to whittle them down.

G'Night All!

My Picks For Aspiring Writers

As I am writing this it is 11:59pm so, technically, I am still on time for today.  As it turns out, I left my notebook with Part II in it at work so I guess you will just have to wait for that.  In it's stead, I guess I will talk about some amazing books that I would recommend for any aspiring writers out there. 
The first one is by my all-time favorite author, Stephen King.  It is called On Writing.  It is entertaining, informative and challenging.  Even if you are not a fan of his novels or his style or his genre (or his language sometimes), if you are an aspiring writer, I would highly recommend you get this book and read it.  Then put it into practice.
The second book is by Natalie Goldberg and it is called Writing Down the Bones.  This book encourages creativity and gives you permission to write whatever...as long as you just WRITE.  She gives practical, almost elementary, advice on how to hone your writing skills and develop your style.  Some of the information is "face-palm" material (meaning, when you read it, you will hit yourself in the head for not thinking of it yourself).
One book I have not read yet (but plan to soon) that I have heard is great also is The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.  One of the things this book tells the reader/writer to do is to "Omit needless words."  In the spirit of that advice, these three books are all quite short - very non-threatening.  If you want to learn how to write better but want to spend your time writing, not reading, you will be pleasantly surprised at these information-packed quick reads. 

Part I

I guess I am a day behind again...still...whatever.  I wrote this yesterday but am posting today.  Maybe today I will finish it and have Part II up later this evening (or tomorrow).

The
Author & Perfector of Faith
The
Giver of Life
The
Giver of Second Chances
and
Clean Slates
The
Beginning & the End
The
First & the Last
The
Sinners' Friend
The
Future
The
Past


Have a great day friends!

An Excerpt

Well, I did actually write yesterday but I had a lot of work to do and did not get a chance to blog about it.  Here is yesterday's installment:

Wet and fresh - clean, salty mist sprayed up from the wake of the ferry as it cut through the Pacific between the coast and the island.  She closed her eyes and licked the saltiness from her lips.  She smiled, remembering brighter days from her early childhood before her parents were taken from her.  A time when innocence still reigned supreme.  She leaned forward into the ocean breeze feeling a sense of calm wash over her like the swells of the sea itself.  Her heart rate was returning to a normal pace and, though she wasn't out of the woods by a long shot, she had gotten this far with the baby without raising the slightest alarm or suspicion.


It's not a lot, I know, but I am just getting started at this after all.

Fly, Baby Bird! Fly!

I know this blog is supposed to be about me writing every day now but today, I have to write about something my daughter wrote.  She left letters for us - one for me and one for her dad - here at the house for us to read after she left.  My letter was one of the most amazing things I have ever read and a treasure I will cherish forever.  I really thought I was okay and had come to terms with her not being in the house anymore, with the fact that she is not just spreading her wings now, but actually flying.  I found myself realizing that this could easily be the end of her being part of our household.  I felt like I was standing on the edge of the nest one minute, urging her to spread her wings and get the feel of the wind lifting her, and the next minute she was not just feeling the lift but catching the current and allowing it to take her into the sky, while I am left thinking "Wait! Not yet!" and feeling my stomach lurch as if I were on a roller coaster.  I mean, I actually felt physically sick.  This, I did not expect.  But the words I read a few minutes ago reassured me that I have done my job.  They reassured me that there is a time for everything. This is her time.  She is ready.  Even if she isn't sure of it, I am. 

Here. We. Go!

Well, after tonight, I will officially be an empty-nester.  We got everything moved into the dorm and will finish unpacking tomorrow.  I have one more night with the kiddo in the house, one more bedtime to tuck her in with our special routine (yes, I still do that), one more morning to go in and tell her it’s time to get up if she plans to take a shower.  It seems so strange because I don’t feel like I could possibly be old enough to have a college-aged kid.  Not that I don’t feel the physical aches and pains that mid-life inevitably brings, but everything intangible in me insists that it is still young and silly and rebellious.  At this rate, it won’t be too long before my daughter is older than I am!

All of her life, I have looked forward to watching her navigate the next stage of life, viewing each as a new adventure for me as well as for her, anxious to see the young woman she would one day become.  Now here we are - she is all grown up and I am steadily feeling the years creeping up on me, grabbing at an ankle here, a knee there - and I have no regrets.  Once again, I find myself looking forward to the next evolution in her life with anticipation, wondering what wonderful thing God has planned for her next and knowing that she will rise to any challenge set before her to achieve her goals and find that success truly does lie in doing something that you are passionate about, in doing something you love. 

As she embarks on her new adventure, I will be setting out on one of my own.  Soon, I will be writing every day; I will be pouring out whatever wells up inside of me, be it poetry or prose, fiction or fact.  Hopefully, this will be as interesting for anyone who reads it as I imagine it will be for me.  I hope to keep you entertained (even if it means making you squirm in your seat and think “who IS this girl I thought I knew?!”) while honing my skills and forming a daily-writing habit.  If nothing else, maybe it will at least serve as some slightly altered form of daily therapy that writing has afforded me so faithfully in the past.  Please do me the favor of holding me accountable to my commitment to daily put in writing what normally just floats away in the air.  If I know you are waiting, I am more likely to show up.

Thanks guys!

The Great Enemy

At church, we recently finished up a study on spiritual warfare.  It was a great study that is very relevant and useful for our lives today.  As the study was coming to a close, I was reminded of a poem I had written not very long before.  This is it.

I am the monster in your closet.
I'm the thing under your bed;
      your doubts, your fears,
             your unbelief,
I'm everything you dread.
I'm gravity, pulling down.
I am the undertow,
       grabbing on, holding tight
              and never letting go.
I'm the bully.
I'm the psycho.
       The beast, the dark, the wine.
I'm suspicion.
I am hatred
        breathing cold chills up your spine.
I'm the chasm of despair.
I am the great abyss.
        The nothing, the nightmare,
               death's deep and darkest kiss.
I am the first deceiver,
        the traitor, the funeral pyre.
I'm winter's killing frost.
I am the original liar.
I am beauty's great imposter.
I sing the sirens' song.
I'm distraction, greed, corruption.
I confuse what's right and wrong.
I'm the dragon, breathing fire,
        that haunts you in your sleep.
I'm inhuman and unnatural
        and I'm laughing as you weep.

"Stay alert!  Watch out for your great enemy, the devil.  He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour." 
1 Peter 5:8

I'm Baaack!

Okay people.  I know I have been away for a while. For those of you who don't know, I have been doing some transcription to make extra money.  This has caused me to spend less time on the computer doing things I love (i.e. writing, Pinterest : ], etc.) because my body and eyes don't like me to stay on the computer for hours and hours on end.  But, I have decided that I need to set myself some goals.  After watching Julie and Julia (again) I see how much I am like Julie in that I have a hard time finishing anything.  So, beginning the last week in August, I will challenge myself to write EVERY DAY until my daughter comes home from college for the following summer.  Every day I will write something.  Write anything.  And then blog about what I wrote or blog WHAT I wrote.  (Hopefully these pages will not be silent between now and August.  I plan for it to be a time to gear up and practice writing more often.)  These upcoming entries may range from what I think about something going on in the world to a poem to thoughts about (or excerpts from) the book I have been working on for the past seven or so years.  Once in a while, I warn you, I will probably write about something that is going on in my life personally.  For me, writing has always been a form of therapy.  I have never really been able to keep a journal in the sense that you sit down every day, reflect and write.  I write emotionally - like some people eat emotionally.  I do my best writing when I am down.  That is not to say that everything I write is (or will be) depressing.  That is what is so therapeutic about it!  Usually, it helps all the junk to flow out so that I can have a fresh perspective, which ends up reminding me how much I have to be grateful for.  So the question that is currently rattling around in my head is this:  "Why in the heck do I think that anyone cares what I think?".  I don't know if I will gain any more followers along this journey in the coming months or if anyone will read anything I write at all.  Of course I hope to provoke some deep thinking and occasionally make someone laugh, but the real reason I am doing this is for myself.  So, reader, whether you are there or not, whether you return or not, I will continue to write...because I love it.