Hey everyone!!

I'm really REALLY sorry for disappearing into my cave again. You'd think that with all this quarantine going on that I would actually be writing.

Well, truth is, I am writing....on Wattpad. Which, I guess because it's Camp NaNo right now, is where I should be writing....

But I have suddenly realized that I've been holding out on you guys. For years now, I've promised, and promised, AND PROMISED YET AGAIN, that I was going to publish the gripe speech that fathered the idea of Shattered Chandlier in the first place.

For all my old readers - yes, this is the gripe speech in which I defend my Raoul shipper status.

And yes TODAY IS THE DAY which I will finally reveal it. Seems to be a good time, since things have been progressing in that particular story, LOL.

Oh wait, before I jump in, I should really explain what was behind this speech.

Back in 2017 (told you this poor baby was old), I was a senior in college taking a public speaking course. Not that I really needed the credits per se, but I needed the skills (always take a public speaking class when you can, guys. They are lifesavers.)
The second assignment of that class was called a gripe speech. Basically, it's a speech in which you outline a particular gripe and try to sway the audience to your point of view.
Now, Lia had introduced me to the Phantom of the Opera somewhat close to this time. (I think we've established the fact that I have lived under a rock for quite some time, nevertheless, it took me some convincing to watch this one). And let's just say I had some FEELINGS on the subject of Raoul vs. Phantom.

You see....well, maybe I'll just let the speech speak for itself. Enjoy!

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As I'm reading this over again and remembering what I was feeling and why....I've suddenly remembered things that put some of this into context.

Two summers previous to this, I was a 4-H staff member for Penn State Extension. I'm not normally this specific, but in this case I need to. After a really notorious sex abuse scandal by the Penn State football coach Jeff Sandusky, Penn State made a huge restrictive crackdown on youth programs. Besides the extensive background checks and restrictions on volunteers, staff had to go through extensive training on recognizing signs of physical, verbal and sexual abuse. It was NOT pretty stuff.
Because of this training....I saw how abusive the Phantom's treatment of Christine really was from the get-go. Lia couldn't understand it at the time, and to be fair, I couldn't explain my position to her. I just KNEW it was wrong, and I couldn't get behind it.

It was at this time too that I was discovering the hidden meanings behind double language and recognizing impure ideas in songs. It was like a tearing of a veil - I couldn't un-see the images and pretend that they weren't there. That's why I can't listen to "Music of the Night" and "Past the Point of No Return" anymore.

Watching a *legal* copy of POTO's 25th on YouTube because of COVID-19, I've realized that I am a *little* more sympathetic to the Phantom. I can understand his pain, which is more than what I felt when I wrote this. I will also admit that I understand Christine's moral dilemma too, and wonder if I would also be in the same boat if I was in her place.
*sees reference and facepalms*


But even so, every word that I wrote in that speech, I still believe. Whole-heartily. At best, Phantom of the Opera is a cautionary tale.

And that's what I hope to show in Shattered Chandelier.

Phew, that was a mouthful. What are your thoughts on Phantom vs. Raoul? What personal fictional gripes do you have? Chat with me in the comments! 

Scribbingly yours,

Catherine

Hello all,

I apologize in advance, this is a rant.

You ever been in a new school, a new workplace? You meet a new group of peers every time you do.

It seems you gel very well. You think "This is a good group of people to be with".

Then someone says a bad word.

Then someone else makes a reference (and I don't mean a movie reference either).

Soon the conversation goes completely downhill. And soon they drag you into horrible activities such as Cards Against Humanity.

You sit there, totally embarrassed, trying your darnedest to get out of the situation discreetly. It feels like you are choking on a poisoned apple. You ask yourself "Why did you think that these people would be good to hang out with?", "Why did I trust these people?" You never regain that good relationship you had with them, and you try to distance yourself as best you can.

And this is now the new normal in groups of late teens and college age people.

This is why movements like the #RebelliousWriting and the #RebelliousReading are SO IMPORTANT.

If young people can joke about bedroom subjects, speak lightly of atrocious murder, and willingly break at least 4 of the 10 commandments in a single night, there is most assuredly a problem with our culture!!!!!

I'm sick of being burned by what should have been good company. I don't one hundred percent blame the people, I blame the culture. While it may not totally solve the problem, promoting clean and wholesome literature is a start at the very least.

We need to start speaking out. NOW.

Scribblingly yours,

Catherine

Hello all,

I hear the call, the trumpet's call, to a rebellion.......


I'm joining in solidarity with Gray Marie Cox and other young writers that wish to see the end of impurity, swearing, and general vileness in literature.

Those who have read my blog post 10 Things That Make Me Banish a Book, already know that I don't have a tolerance for that kind of stuff anyway. But it goes a little more deeper than just "I don't like that stuff".

In that post, Thing #5 outlined how some books had evil intentions or bad subliminal messages, which is a turnoff for me. Believe me, I've had enough college English and History courses to be able to pick them out. In those same courses, we often used novels and other works that help jump-start movements and revolutions.

Whether we like it or not, reading plants ideas into readers. Why do you think that plantation owners forbade teaching slaves to read?

Reading also is a product and a changer of culture. Reading popular books of a time period will give you an idea of the ideals that were held at that time period. What will people of the future think when they see our "popular" books of today? The dark, depressing, and evil-filled ones? The ones full of sex scenes, and bad language? I don't think that they'll judge our society very favorably, do you?

On the other hand, the classics of old, such as the Chronicles of Narnia, Chronicles of Avonlea, Little Women, and Lord of the Rings gave society higher, better ideals to reach for - the end of a goal, correcting a fault, strong family relationships, friendships, chaste romances.

That, in a tiny nutshell, is what I try to promote in my works. Quoting from my Sunshine Blogger Award post, "In all of my works, I try to present a Catholic/Christian worldview and present hidden Catholic themes, similar to great Catholic writers such as J.R.R. Tolkein, G.K. Chesterton and Flannery O'Connor. Writing for my own pleasure is good, but writing for the greater glory of God is better." 

In a sense, this is why I rebel in general from the world. As a Catholic, I'm called to be a living, breathing member of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and a Temple of the Holy Ghost. Inside, outside, backwards and forwards. 

Therefore, I should use my talents and influence to promote what God wants in a society, not what the world, the flesh and Satan wants. 

But, you ask, shouldn't I be writing for an audience? To be popular? 

You know what I say?

FORGET THAT. 

Christians play by different rules. 

God wants clean language. Satan wants foul. God wants a chaste relationship, saving the sweet physically intimate behaviors for spouses. Satan wants the opposite - he likes to see people destroy their lives and their souls because that's one less soul belonging to God. 

The bottom line is....

YOU WRITE TO PLEASE GOD FIRST. 

Not the editor. Not the audience. Not even society. 

GOD - FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST. 

Period. 

Exclamation Mark. 

While other people may not agree with me, I think that the author's religious/personal beliefs have a lot of influence when they are presenting ideas in their writing, or just writing in general. This, I believe, is because our code of ethics influences how we interact with society.

Thus, as writers, we should not write what we would not tolerate in society unless we portray it in a negative light - show that it's bad.

Now, you see the power game?

We have the potential to change society's thinking!

And it is our duty to reorient it towards God!

But, we need to be careful of how we use this medium to present our ideas. If we overdo it, we could do more harm than good.

A lot of people tend to complain about the preachiness of a lot of Protestant Christian writing. Too often "Christian" or "clean" writing is bashed because of "Bible-thumping". Not that the Bible can't be quoted in a book at all (far from it!), but there is a time and place for it.  

Catholics on the other hand, tend to be really really sneaky. They veil their Christian messages into heavy metaphors. Flannery O'Connor, J.R.R. Tolkein, and William Shakespeare were masters at this. Theirs were so deep that unless you analyzed them deeper, you would miss a lot of them. Or worse, their true intent could be mistaken for something else - most of the time, something that wasn't good to start with *cough cough Romeo and Juliet cough cough*

As you can see, there are two different extremes here. What we need, is a balance. Use God's rubrics (10 Commandments, Holy Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, etc.) as your yardstick for your character's actions and thoughts. This will provide the best level of embedding subliminal idea advocation.

But that's getting really technical. We have better things to do than listen to me talk strategy.

What we need to do is start making our voices heard.

We've put up with the crappy literature long enough.

Let's get some fresh air to dispel the stench that we call Young Adult literature.

First things first: check out our fearless leader's post here.

Secondly, place the #RebelliousWriting image on your blog and link it to Gray's post (via an image gadget, it's really straightforward). Show your true colors with pride and stand with your brothers and sisters in Christ!

Thirdly, share the #RebelliousWriting image (and memes) on all of your social media. Pinterest, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. Anything that can support an image. Keep track of the reactions that you get, if you can.

Fourthly, start recommending clean books to your friends and ask your friends to do the same, if they haven't done so already.

Fiftly...writers start writing. Let's swamp the market with good literature and show these kids what they've been missing.

Sixthly, feel free to create and share memes for #RebelliousWriting! I've made some here:

Hello all,

I'm getting very close on commissioning a group of elite scientists to start looking for a cure for....

MOTIVATION DEFICIENCY

Terrible disease, I tell you.

Crippling, even.

Particularly when you have only 3 major projects left to do....in the space of about two weeks.

Oh....and set apart time for work, eating, sleeping. Not to mention preparing for finals....don't get me started there.

Add into that a very rebellious, very cantankerous muse, who is begging me to write....and when I give it attention, it has the audacity to switch gears.

"Oh...I wanted to write that retelling, didn't I? WELL I LIED. I wanna do....a tag. NO! Scratch that, a BLOG LINKUP!!! Like Mary Kate's linkup!!!"

I hereby apologize for my horrid muse's behavior. I'll humor it for now (because I know that I'll put it through A Deep Cavern of Misery later....*evil smirk*).

http://www.brokeandbookish.com/2017/04/top-ten-things-that-will-make-us_25.html

So...what makes me skip multiple chapters?

1. Sexual Impurity/Smut

I CAN'T STAND SMUT. Adultery, sodomy, and graphic sexual activity are also major turnoffs.

So much so that I will scour reviews to make sure that none of that stuff is in there.

I can't deal with sex in a book. I can't deal with people making out in a book. Physical stuff better stay behind closed doors, in veiled and sacred language, or not go farther than a kiss. It just makes me sick. I have a very vivid imagination, and I can usually guess what happens from the littlest hint.

I'm even uncomfortable reading about divorced-people and single parents romances, simply because of the traditional Catholic Church's teaching on divorce.

Besides, I don't need to be thinking about that kind of stuff!!!! I'm trying to keep myself pure before the Lord God, which is difficult enough as it is right now. I don't need it in the books I read either.

So...unless acts of impurity are condemned in the work, any instance/event that violates the 6th and 9th commandments automatically boots the work off my reading list.

2. Pagan witchcraft/Necromancy

I don't mind the occasional elemental powers, but spells and superstitions don't turn me on. I actually refuse to watch Dr. Strange and read Harry Potter because of that reason.

One that I recently banished was Miranda by Grace Livingston Hill. I liked her other two Marcia Schuyler books and I was excited to see this one come up on Librivox. But I couldn't take the couple chapters with the hypnotist. After those chapters, the rest of the book went downhill from there and I couldn't finish it. Definitely not one of GLH's best works.

3. Graphic violence and death. 

Like I said, I have a very vivid imagination. Seeing blood makes my stomach tighten and I can't stand to see dead bodies either. Like at all. Just no.

4. A historically inaccurate book

Thank heavens I haven't run into a lot of those yet, but as a budding public historian, I can't stand to see something not fit the historical facts. As a matter of fact, I believe that works of fiction can really help in teaching history, if they are done right. I really value writers that take the time to research the time period and fit their story accordingly, down to the language and customs. I can't stand it when they put a 21st century plot or character into Victorian costume. It doesn't work.

5. Evil has no consequences/The Idea behind the story

Yes. I am a very deep reader.

I haven't run into many of these either, but I can't stand to see evil win. It's not how that works. Books teach, even fiction. You'd be totally surprised what fiction books have been the basis for (starting revolutions, legal debates, etc.). What ideas is the writer promoting through their work? What subliminal messages are present?

6. Dystopia

As a melancholic choleric/phlegmatic mixture, stability is very important to me. Murderous totalitarianism, and exploitation of women and children don't sit well with me at all. Actually, a disorganized chaos of a society is enough for me to reject it, lets be honest.

7. Stupid, shallow, and selfish characters

I'm sure that this is a universal thing, but the characters need to have a unique story of their own. Selfishness is one trait that I really can't stand in a character though. Even if the story is well written, I have abandoned books because the protagonist was really selfish and arrogant. I guess it's because I can't tolerate selfishness in real life.

8. Heavily cliched plot line

Like with the characters, each story needs to have its own twist to it. Otherwise, its almost like plagiarizing an essay. It's not worth the paper it's written on.

9. Illogical plot line

Sorry guys, the story has to be believable. Sure, outrageous things can happen, and sometimes happen in a sequence, but it's the exception not the rule. Confused readers are never a good thing.

I've been guilty of having illogical plot lines in my stories and have been (justly) heavily criticized for them. So, I'll share the love. 💖

10. The price of the work

I know. This is really petty.

But I'm a broke college student. I can't afford to spend $20-30 for a book.

Kindle Bookstore is my best friend right now. Because authors will put out works for free for a limited period of time. So I can get a $16 book for free if I catch it at the right time. Sweet!!!

That's it!

As a reward...here's a hint for my re-telling: My story is based off of a traditional Irish folk song.

Scribblingly yours,

Catherine