A Few Suggestions Please.......... - Writers Forum

Mungye · 06-20-2006, 02:45 PM

Hullo,
I am in need of some assistance.After quitting as a women's editor(too many hours little pay and stuck a lot in office) I started writing free lance in many areas and I find it rewarding.
Until a couple of years ago I would just go here and there and do research 'on site' as it were for background and ambience. that sort of thing for whatever topic I was writing on.
But in the last couple of years I also began working again with an abused baby, helping to reattach her, language and trust and now I am applying for custody for her, the parents are not vaguely interested in learning to be non abusive toward her.
Now my problem is in the research.
Does anyone have any tried and true ways of getting the feel of a place, background, the 'true grit' without having to travel. It is nearly impossible at this time to travel with the little one because of severe behavioural problems . She is getting much better, but not enough yet. I would be a wreck and get nothing accomplished and she cannot be left with anyone else because of the abandonment issues she has struggled with being left behind by both parents. I am it for now, the only one she trusts.
I am desperate to get going with this latest work.
I need the scoop on some places in India and a few sections of New York City I have never been to as yet.
I would be so grateful for any help from any of you.
Thank you in advance.

mammamaia · 06-20-2006, 08:15 PM

first of all, are you writing fiction, or non-fiction?... articles, short stories, novels?...or?

and bless you for being so caring and taking on such a major task... i wish you all the best with your new little one...

love and hugs, maia

Mungye · 06-21-2006, 10:41 AM

oh how dear of you!
Silly me, I was so frazzled yesterday, a son's birthday and the baby was WILD.
It is fiction, a compilation of short stories, each with a theme such as jealousy,lonliness, dating, I sort of look at it like a huge apartment building in an older section of a bustling metroplos and take a slice of life from it, say ten tenants and their very different and unique lives.
This time I felt compelled to set it in New York, perhaps Spanish Harlem and I can't get there this time to walk the streets, talk to people, listen to the sounds etc. So I don't want it to be fake or slightly off. Don't know what to do.
And hugs back to you , how kind you are.

mammamaia · 06-21-2006, 06:53 PM

sorry to say, i don't see how it can't help sounding 'fake' or 'off' since you have no knowledge of the places or the people... i'm a native new yorker of sorts, havin been born/raised in one of the closest fringe areas, worked as a teenager in the city's then evolving puerto rican area around 8th ave and 33rd st, and decades later lived briefly in a dump in soho and then a swank hi-rise across from lincoln center...

i also lived in what you may be referring to as 'spanish harlem' a few years back ['98-99], and till you have, you've no clue what it's really like... i had a 4th floor walk-up 1 1/2-rm near 149th street in the south bronx... that's the haitian/dominican 'ghetto'... and i can tell you stuff to make your hair curl, if you really want the true nitty-gritty...

sure, you can read stuff written by people who did/do live in areas you're not at all familiar with... and even watch movies set there... but to write effectively about the place and the people, i think you really have to spend time there... why don't you just set your stories in locales you know well, and people them with folks you see and hear?

Holden Blake · 06-21-2006, 07:02 PM

^ Mammamaia, I think she was talking about fake in the sense of the info sounding too forced on account of she has had no experience of this place. I think she just wanted an insight from someone like you who is obviously had that first-hand experience.

Mungye I'd really love to help you since you've been so kind to me and you seem to be in quite the predicament with the little baby and all but alas I can't since I'v never really been anywhere foreign myself. I'm really sorry and I wish I could help, good luck with the baby, Holden

Mungye · 06-22-2006, 01:00 PM

Thanks guys,
I will then just go and stay in a larger city closer by, one with the sort of ambience I am seeking. Hey Holden babe, I am waiting............
And you help just by allowing me to drink in your created world

Buggs · 06-22-2006, 01:22 PM

Say Sweety,

Nice of you to look after the little bunnies.

I live in a rabbit hole here in Princeton, B.C. and, unfortunately carrots don't really grow very well in our semi-arid area. Anyway, I have been to India several times (5). Ever have curried carrots and peas?

I have been to Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Agra, Madras, Kanpur, Pondecherry, Banaries, Lucknow. I have probably spent 5 or 6 monts in India. From a rabbit's perspective, I just love the place; no demented farmers running amok with double barrelled shotguns!

Buggs Bunny

Mungye · 06-22-2006, 07:37 PM

wow, sigh you have been to Pondecherry, how splendid.I would love to sit at a table across from you for a couple of hours and just listen. Although, being Jewess I do love Israel, next on my list of faerie land places is India. To think it, to say the word, to , well it makes me feel like crying.
Have you seen "A little princess" with Liam Cunningham? Oh the Indian scenery and music breaks my heart. There is a scene when Sarah goes to the window of her attic bedroom and the gorgeously dressed Indian man servant is standing at his, arrayed like the setting sun and he raises his hands heavenward in an expression of joy and praise and she does and the song comes on . I cry like a baby every time. You fortunate person.
so............when is your book set in India coming out? I will save up, that is a book I won't miss picking up.Bugs Bunny, one of the most complex intelligent, funny creatures ever thought up.
Are you anything like him outside of cyberspace?

Buggs · 06-24-2006, 01:42 AM

Hey Sis,

Yep! I am a trickey rabbit for sure. While a lot of humans go around quoting Shakespear, I go around quoting from fairy tales. Sorry, but I ain't writting a book on India, but I am writing a book about Alice's adventures. You know Alice, the little girl who fell down a rabbit hole and wound up in a calamity over eating or not eating. She got nothing to eat at our mad tea party either. Poor girl!

Although Alice appears in my book, other characters also make their appearance such as Persephone and, just to be a trickster, a terrorist in Wonderland. The book will be non-fiction and about The Art of Tragedy.

It will be a very strange book, indeed!

Mungye · 06-24-2006, 10:39 AM

wow,
it sounds perfect. I write stories for children that are broken or have been in some way harmed. I make them personal and very very faerie and you cannot believe the difference it makes in their attitude-to go on , to fight and not stay a victim.
I think I should like to make you a hero in one.
And I hope you will autograph my copy of your book.I can hardly wait.

Buggs · 06-24-2006, 07:18 PM

Hi Sis,

Here is a very short story I wrote a long time ago:

It is about Kitty's Adventures

http://www.geocities.com/aquapontica/star.html

Mungye · 06-25-2006, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buggs

Hi Sis,

Here is a very short story I wrote a long time ago:

It is about Kitty's Adventures

http://www.geocities.com/aquapontica/star.html

Oh that was THE MOST SUBLIME enchanting tale of kitty. I should very much like it to be a children's storyboard book with amazing illustrations. I fell in love , in love in love with the imagery and I shall read it to the little one that I am trying to legally protect forever.
Thank you.
As for the anorexia nervousa, this is so ..........truthful it made me gasp and now I must know who you are. Are you from faerie land and have you had th e tragedy of this horrific disorder in your own life or family? Such wisdom and insight, yes please finish the book I want my own copy. I have struggled with a couple of friends and a child and thought my own soul was slipping away, that I was in fact dying of grief along with them.
You have me in tears right now, You are something wonderful. thankyou.

Buggs · 06-25-2006, 11:54 PM

Hi from Wonderland,

I will be going to Abbotsford sometime during the first week in July. Do you live in the lower mainland? I have my email address on the bottom of my "Alice's Adventures in the Underworld" web page.

No, I don't have any problems like what I write about but us rabbits have the uncanny ability to see inside broken humans' souls.

Mungye · 06-26-2006, 01:38 PM

Oh Buggs dearest,

I live in the Okanagan actually, sniff , sob,sniff.
Yes you do know how to read hearts. And......so do I so that is why we are oversensitive....or to others-just plain crazy!

Buggs · 06-26-2006, 03:13 PM

Hey Sis,

I used to live off Bear Creek road, up in the mountains above Kelowna a few years back when I was playing a gig at being a hillybilly. Then I lived the next summer in Vernon but Kitty got real bored with living in town.

I also knew the original manager of the The Caravan Stage Company in Armstrong. Back then I was into horses and the Caravan had a lot of horses back then.

Buggs
Where it is as hot as blazes now