Day Dreams

Yet another entry for the Beauty on the Inside Event. I warned you, I'm obsessed with this story!=)
http://spacious-soul.livejournal.com/55065.html

Day Dreams by LadyKatySue on Polyvore.com

Beauty and the Beast

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE OTHER ENTRIES!

A polyvore set with some of the more well known versions of this story and a few lesser known ones.=)

Beauty and The Beast by LadyKatySue on Polyvore.com

Beauty

Another entry for the Belle event, click here for more. http://spacious-soul.livejournal.com/55065.html

Pretty much the best; this could actually happen in real life, version of Beauty and the Beast that I have ever seen! The book needs to be read too, Beauty by Susan Wilson. I caught it on Life Time a loooong time ago and had been wanting to see it again. And in spite of my frequent e~mails, the production company has yet to answer me about getting it on tape. I was over joyed when I stumbled across the entire movie on You Tube! It's in eleven parts, but still shorter then if you had to watch it with the commercials! Enjoy!!

Into the Woods Excerpt

Once again, this is for http://spacious-soul.livejournal.com/55065.html Belle event!

A little bit of history about this post. I wrote this book after years if procrastinating and many, many false starts. I have always loved the Beauty and the Beast concept and had been wanting to write my own version for years. I finally decided no more waiting and banged it out during NaNoWriMo last year. This is an excerpt  from Chapter 7.Previously, Hannah was a children's librarian who had been demoted to book re-shelver because of day dreaming. She was sent to the basement for something and found an old chest, events lead her here, to the Beast's world, where we find her now!

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Hannah walked through the meadow that just yesterday had been full of flowers and bird song. Now it echoed the rest of the woods. Cold and snowy, there was not a green leafy thing to be seen! Walking warily though the meadow, Hannah came to the spot where the tree branch had pinned her to the ground. She grasped the branch and tried to pull it out of the ground. It was stuck fast; even using all of her strength Hannah couldn’t budge it. Letting go of it she looked up at the trees and whispered, "What is going on here? What happened to you?"
Rubbing the amber stone, she went to the place where she entered the clearing yesterday. The trees were still woven in a tight mat of branches and needles. Going around the perimeter of the clearing Hannah could find no spot where the branches would let her through. Feeling a seed of panic sprout in her chest Hannah went around the clearing once more. About halfway around she heard a bird let lose in happy song right above her head. Hannah looked up and saw a small yellow and blue bird perched on a branch, just within her reach.

When the bird saw that it had Hannah's attention it hopped up onto the next branch and peeped impatiently at her. "What? You want me to follow you? I can't get through right here! The trees won't let me!" Hannah pushed against the mat of branches in front of her, demonstrating for the bird the fact that she couldn't get through. The little bird rolled its head in annoyance and hopped down to the first branch, peeped a few times, then hopped up to the next one and looked at Hannah expectantly.

"Oh! You want me to climb? I'm not sure I want to climb on something that just yesterday tried to spear me!" Hannah put her hands on her hips and shook her head at the bird. Looking about as annoyed as a bird can, it flew down and sat on Hannah's head, peeping and pecking at her. Hannah tried to shoo the bird away but every time she got him to fly off he would just land back on her head when she put her hands back down. After about five minutes of this Hannah threw her hands up in the air and yelled, "Fine, fine! You win, I'll follow you! Even though I think it's a really bad idea. What if the trees decide to dump me! Or find some other way to kill me! I guess that doesn't matter as long as you're happy."

Hannah reached, grabbed the first branch and scrambled up. When she looked up to see where the bird had gone, she found him sitting on the branch, just above her, looking as smug as you can with a beak! "Yeah, yeah you got your way! If I die, I'll let the Whisper know it was all your fault!"

Hannah followed the bird through the trees first up; then from tree to tree where the branches where strong enough and over lapped. Hannah got more and easier in her movements as she relaxed. She began to enjoy her journey through the tree tops. She was so preoccupied that she didn't notice when the bird suddenly peeped in fright and flew off. "Wow! What a view! Hey, bird where are we going?" It was just then that she noticed that the bird was gone. She looked all around and also noticed that the stone on her necklace was glowing.

"Hey, bird? Bird, where did you go!" Hannah looked around frantically and began to feel sick to her stomach. "Whisper, can you hear me? Is anyone there? What do I do now? Where do I go??"

No longer was this a beautiful trip though the tree tops. With her friendly little guide gone, Hannah felt like she was going to fall at any minute and that the trees were going to turn on her. Just then Hannah felt the tree begin to shake. She looked down but couldn't see anything. The tree began to rock harder and harder. Hannah realized the wind had come up and started to look for a good path down and out of the tree. Suddenly the branch underneath her snapped off and fell crashing to the ground! Hannah leapt for the next branch and just caught it with her fingertips.

She swung her legs and managed to wrap them around the trunk. Inching her hands along the branch she was able to slowly move towards the trunk of the tree. After what seemed like ages she reached the trunk and wrapped one arm around it. When she felt secure she let go of the branch and wrapped the other arm around the trunk as well. Hugging the trunk, Hannah pressed her face against the rough bark and gathered her wits about her.

"You're okay! Just stay calm. Pretend you're not high up in a tree that may or may not be trying to kill you. Think, think. What should I do?" Hannah wondered allowed.
Hannah looked around and saw that there was a branch that looked like it could support her weight about five feet below. After looking around for any other option, Hannah slowly began inching down towards the branch. She had just about reached it when the tree began to shake again. Holding onto the trunk in a death grip, Hannah closed her eyes and feared the worst.

All of the sudden, the tree stopped shaking. Hannah kept her eyes closed and once more began inching downwards. When she finally felt the branch underneath her she relaxed. Turning around so she was sitting on the branch, Hannah leaned back against the tree and sighed deeply in relief. A soft breeze played across her face and brought a faint scent with it. Now where have I smelled that before? Smells like vanilla and something else................wait a minute, leapin' lizards!

Hannah's eyes snapped opened, she wasn't sure what she would see, but needed to find out. What she saw was this. Crouching on a branch across from her was a huge black form. It was built like a lion, but was black as a moonless midnight. Much to Hannah's surprise, this creature was wearing a long black cloak. His paws were at least three times the size of her hands. Gulping, she quickly looked away and noticed a tail was hanging out from below the cape. Hannah had the insane urge to giggle as she saw it twitching back and forth. She finally screwed up the courage to look into the creature's face.

A black mane that stood out around his head and a surprisingly pink nose were the first things Hannah noticed, but it was his eyes that caught her attention and held it. They were oddly human and in a flash of clarity Hannah saw that they were the same softly glowing color as the pendant she wore. Just as the pendant had drawn her in, this creatures eyes did the same. Hannah could see many emotions in those liquid, amber eyes, but was at a loss to describe any of them.

If he wanted to kill me he could have done it last night or most likely at any point! He looks nice, if pretty scary. I wonder what he is? Cat man? The Hairy Wonder? I think Beast will do, that's what these kinds of creatures are usually called! What should I say? What should I do...........

As Hannah mind raced, a breeze ruffled the Beast's mane and blew across Hannah's face. She was startled into saying, "Are you the one who smells like that? You smell good!" Hannah flung her hands up to cover her face when she realized what she had just said!

Beauty and the Beast Trivia

I may have forgotten that the Belle event started today. I may have thought it began on the 15th, but I still have a post for you! Some movie trivia, I love useless random facts!

Head over to http://spacious-soul.livejournal.com/55065.html to see the other entries!=)

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Chip originally had only one line, but the producers liked Bradley Pierce's voice so much that extra dialogue and business was written and storyboarded for the character.

The original "cute" character of the movie was a music box, which was supposed to be a musical version of Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). But when the character Chip's role was expanded, the music box idea was scrapped. However the music box can be seen for a brief moment on a table next to Lumière just before the fight between the enchanted objects and the villagers in the Beast's castle.

The last phrase of Cogsworth's line "Flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep... " was ad-libbed by David Ogden Stiers.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, losing to The Silence of the Lambs (1991). It was, however, the first full length animated feature to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy).

The first animated movie to win the Annie Award for Best Animated Film.

A song sung by the enchanted objects entitled "Human Again" was cut before production started. The song was later added to the Disney on Ice and theatrical productions and was recorded and animated for the 2001 Imax re-release. It was also added to the special edition released in October 8th 2002, making the movie a bit longer.

Art director Brian McEntee color keyed Belle so that she is the only person in her town who wears blue. This is symbolic of how different she is from everyone else around. Later, she encounters the Beast, another misfit, also wearing blue.

While songwriters are writing the melody to a song they often use dummy lyrics to help with writing the melody. In the song "Gaston" the writers liked the dummy lyrics so much that they used those in the final production.

Computer technology was considered for the rooftop fight and the forest chase, but the primitive state of the technology only allowed time to use it for the ballroom scene. Even for that scene, they had a fallback strategy: what they called the "Ice Capades" version, with just a spotlight on the two characters against a black background.

In the French release, Cogsworth's name is Big Ben, after the famous clock in London (extra, completely irrelevant, detail for trivia fans: the landmark's real name is "The Clock Tower of the New Palace of Westminster", while Big Ben is actually the name of the large bell that strikes the hours - nevertheless, the clock is seldom referred to by any name other than Big Ben).

When Beast and Gaston are having their life-or-death struggle on the castle, Gaston yells, "Belle is mine!" Originally he was supposed to say, "Time to die!" but the writer changed it to fit Belle back in the scene.

This was the first Disney animated movie to use a fully developed script prior to animation. In previous films, story was developed through the use of storyboards only, and was further developed during animation. Several previous films had gone way over budget when the animators spent time and effort animating scenes that, it was eventually decided, did not fit the movie, and producers realized that they could save money by having a script written first.

The dance between Belle and her Prince in the finale is actually reused animation of the dance between Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty (1959). The original Sleeping Beauty (1959) pair had been drawn over to become the new Beauty and the Beast (1991) pair, and this was done because they were running out of time during the production of the movie.

In the 1930s and again in the 1950s, Walt Disney attempted to adapt Beauty and the Beast (1991) into a feature but could not come up with a suitable treatment, so the project was shelved. It wasn't until The Little Mermaid (1989) became hugely successful that they decided to try it a third time.

*~Belle~*

It's nice to know I'm not the only person who loves this movie! 15 days dedicated to this wonderful story, how shall I ever convey my bliss?=)

Day Three~ A Favorite Book

Once again I am posting two choices instead of one. Can you tell I have a hard time making decisions?=)

This is the best version of Beauty and the Beast that I have ever read(except for the one I wrote of course!!) and believe me, I have read a lot of them!

There were three books that I call my favorites, but as the other one is yet another version of Beauty and the Beast, I decided to do this one instead! The first time I read it, after I finished , I closed it, held it to my chest for a few moments, then turned to the beginning and read it again! Yes, it is that good!!=)

Sad Day?

I didn't make it to the next round of ABNA.=( My pitch wasn't really what they were looking for, the winning ones seemed to run more along the lines of book reports rather then the more book jackety type one that I wrote. I waited and waited the 24th of February checking the main page every half hour or so to see if they had posted the results. Finally at about 4pm they had the list of names ready to upload. After an excruciating 2 minutes of download time. I quickly scrolled down to the P section and my heart gave a queer little jump as it went straight from Pe to Pl. No Pi to be seen.

I sat there staring at the screen for a few minutes, then I realized the strongest emotion that I felt was not of disappointment but of relief! In actually reading my book(weird I know, just reading it straight through!) I realized that there were lots of editing mistakes still and some old bits of the the first plot running through there. It wasn't ready yet and I have some more work to do before I will get my free proof and let people outside my family read it. So far it's just my Mom and me who have read it and we both really like it, but then again I think we may be biased!

I'm thinking that I have about another month of work to do on it before I send it in to get my free proof. After that I'll start passing it around to all the people who have said that they wanted to read it when I was done and nervously await the opinion of people not blood related and predisposed to like what ever I do! =)

Into the Woods

Back in November I participated in National Novel Writing Month(AKA NaNoWriMo) and and through that I wrote a book. Early last month I got an e~mail about a contest on Amazon.com that if won would result in a publishing contract with Penguin books. Needless to say I was super excited and rushed to finish editing my book by the entry deadline. I managed to finish and sent it on it's merry way, now I just have to wait for February 25 to find out if I've made it to round two! The books that make it into the second round are being judged on a pitch that you wrote about your book.

Not only did it have to be something like you would find on the back of a book, but you also had to include why it would appeal to the age group you had written it for. Now, I entered it into the young adult category(ages 12-17) because honestly, not to many people my age read fairy tales any more! Let me tell you, that last paragraph was hard to write!

How would my book appeal and speak to girls today, I really had no idea. I think that I hit on an important issue that is very relevant and is also something that has come up in my own life. I didn't want to pull just any old moral out of my hat so to speak, I wanted it to be something that I had had personal experience with. All that to say, here's the pitch and in the spirit of optimism be looking for my book at your favorite book sellers soon!

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We have all had fantasies about entering into the book we are reading, and yet, aren't we all a little glad that we can't? Imagine if when things got intense or scary, you were unable to shut the book and walk away. It is in exactly this situation we join our heroine. Her favorite story has always been Beauty and the Beast; and, from the outside, the story seems simple. Beauty shows up, always perfect and lovely, and the hideous Beast falls in love with her. Hannah is an average girl living a normal life, but what happens when she wakes up as Beauty and finds herself in a strange place filled with magic and danger?

The danger can't be banished by the turning of a page. The Beast is real and sitting right in front of her. The enchanted servants expect things of her that she knows she is incapable of accomplishing. How can she - plain, awkward and clumsy Hannah Smith - be expected to take Beauty's place in the story? Join Hannah as she struggles to discover the truth behind fear and love. Will she allow herself to live happily ever after?

In today's world of super models and stick thin actresses girls are bombarded with images of perfection. You are only worthy of love if you are perfect. The story of Beauty and the Beast has always been a favorite of mine but Beauty was well beautiful! Would the spell still get broken if an average girl took Beauty's place? Hannah, through no extraordinary measures, breaks the curse by just being herself. A message sorely needed by girls today. Being perfect and beautiful isn't the only way to find love and your own happily ever after.

(Into the Woods is the tittle of my book!)

Rejoining the Human Race!

For the last month I have been spending a lot of my free time, wait, did I just say free time? Excuse me while I go and laugh myself into a corner about the concept of free time!....................................
Okay, I'm back now! As I was saying, I've been spending a lot of time here on Blogger, in fact during the week at least 1 hour a day, most week days it was 2-3 hours. Nap time was typing time over at the Poet house! What exactly was I doing here since I seem to have a considerable lack of posts per time spent here typing away? Well, since I don't have my own computer and didn't want my baby(yes my baby if you have a problem with me calling my book that go and, , do something to yourself! And not a lets grab a cookie type thing! ) on the Poets somewhat unreliable lap top.
Besides I wanted it here with me on the weekends so I could work on it here. So, I typed about 85 percent of it here, on Blogger. Then I copy and pasted it into Word when I got home. The spell check is a little loopy, it didn't like the name Nicolas and didn't have the word leapt! I guess my characters moved around rather quickly a lot of the time because I seemed to run into this frustration quite a few times!
If you couldn't tell from the title of the post I will now be joining the realm of the non-NaNoWriMo'ers again. It was a whole different kind of month for me. Just the massive amount of brain juice it took to keep the story going and all down in one month left me running pretty dry! I'm sure the director of the Christmas play I'm in will be happy to have me running on all my cylinders once more!
I had been wanting to write a book since I was a little kid, but I had never gotten around to it. It was one of those one day things. One day I'll write a book, one day I'll learn to play an instrument, one day I'll be 5 foot 6 and only weigh 115 pounds........okay even I don't have a big enough imagination to talk myself into that last one!
Back to the narrative, all of my down time at the Poets house was spent writing and some not so down time, can you say bored kids and nail polish? Oh, yeah! What did we learn today kids? Maybe that nail polish and blush are not interchangeable?
I didn't get much writing done at home because I didn't want to tie up our computer and I don't really have much free time.(There's that funny phrase again!) I work 40 hours a week and still do all that I used to at home. Plus my dad just got a job in NY so I'm coming home to moments like, "Katy! Your home after 10 hours of work! I know that you have to leave again in 40 minutes but can you fix the Internet, right now!?!?!"
Needles to say my life had exploded and I decided to add writing a 50,00 word novel in there because? Maybe I'm masochist, maybe I'm crazy, or maybe the aliens have finally gotten control of my brain. Whatever the reason I stepped up to the challenge and have conquered it! My book had been written, now comes the fun and easy part! Editing is always the fun easy part, right?
Wait........ why are you laughing? Hey! Why are you rolling on the floor in front of your computer, still laughing? I'm getting the impression that I said something amusing, hmm maybe this editing bit won't be as easy as I thought! Oh, well time will tell, but for now the book is going to rest and I will rejoining the normal human race, well as much as I was ever part of the normal human race that is!=)
(Just as a note, my parents are still happily married, my dad had just been out of work for 9 months and a contract job, even one in NY was very welcome. He comes home when he can and it's not a forever! Just wanted to make sure that I didn't start any rumors or anything!)

Crazy!

I was crazy to take on this quest of mine to write a 50,00 word novel in a month! What a busy month for them to choose to hold this event! I've only been caught up on word count three times. Never the less, my word count is up to 38,178! One more week to go and I couldn't be happier with how it's all turning out. We shall see what the end of of this crazy month long journey of mine holds for me and my story!

NaNoWriMo

Can anybody sane with a full schedule of other things to do write a 50,000 plus word novel in one month? That is the question asked by the people running the National Novel Writing Month competition. The challenge? To begin and finish an 50,00 word or more novel in the month of November. The challengers? Anybody with a computer who has ever wanted to write a book. Oh, and is a little on the insane side!

I had heard about this NaNoWriMo for a few years and had never given it much thought besides those people are nuts!! I'd been trying to write a book ever since I was 10! If I hadn't accomplished it in the 13 years since then what on earth would make me think I could do it in one month?

Something must have made me think I could do it, because on October 29 I signed up! Then the next day a pep talk e~mail came and it didn't pep me up one little bit! It did the exact opposite! In I found out that Twilight was only 25,000 words long! Now even if you've never read the book I know you've at least seen it somewhere. That's not exactly a light weight book! So, when I didn't even get started writing until the 3rd I had no hope of catching up to the 1,600ish word count goal. That's daily! So I was about 3,000 words behind schedule.

I sat down to write on that day and wrote for about 2 hours, spell checking as I went because I can't type. Nope, I've tried to learn really I have! Hen pecking very fast is what I do, so spelling mistakes abound in my writing! I went to a word count tool and was astonished to find I'd written about 3,000 words! I was ecstatic, not that I didn't erase half of that the next day because my characters had gone in an entirely different direction then I wanted them to.

But, not only have I caught up, I am a couple hundred words ahead of schedule! Well, at least I was yesterday, with this new dawn another 1,600ish words must roll out of my brain down my hen pecking fingers and onto the computer screen! Here is a link to my author page if you are interested.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/547888

If you are even more interested get back to me at the end of November and if I've managed to come up with anything decent you can request a copy of the next great American novel! To give you an idea of word count this post is 442 words, including this sentance!