El Libro de los Portales, by Laura Gallego

Hi invisible people!!
Today my mood is quite unstable. On the one hand, I came back from my apartment in Benicassim like a week ago, and I'm still quite downhearted and stressed because of all the work I still have to do before May arrives with the exam season.
On the other hand, on the 4th of April, Laura Gallego published  her new book, "El Libro de los Portales" ("The Book of Gates" may be the translation in English), and I'm so excited about it! But as I've already said, and despite the fact that I've already bought it, now I'm too busy to read anything for fun, so I'll have to wait until summer holidays to plunge in it. I just can't wait for Summer to arrive!
Here I leave you a small summary of the plot and below you can see the trailer book if you're curious about it (I didn't know until I saw this one that there are trailers even for books!):
Painters from the Painters Academy are the only ones who know how to draw the extraordinary travel gates which constitute the  most important transport system of Darusia. Their severe rules and their comprehensive training guarantee professionalism, perfection and faultless technique in all their works. But when Tabit, a last-year-student of the Painters Academy, receives the assignment of painting a humble gate for a countryman, he can't imagine the plot of mysteries and secrets in which he'll see himself involved; secrets that could make stagger the main roots of the institution itself.

"Frontiers don't exist for those who dare to look beyond"

Manga and Anime

Hi, invisible people.

I couldn't write last weekend because I was in a family trip with my parents and my sister, visiting Córdoba. And apart from the fact that I didn't have time, in the hotel where we were staying I couldn't get to the Internet. Yes, the World Wide Web was out of my reach, which is something nearly unbelievable nowadays. It was my parent's fault because they made a "little" mistake when they booked the rooms in a hotel of Córdoba that did have wi-fi. The day before going there, they noticed something. Our hotel was in Córdoba, but that Córdoba wasn't in Spain, but in Argentina. Can you believe it? I just couldn't stop laughing. They had to cancel our booking and look for a hotel that was actually in Córdoba the day before setting out. That's why our hotel didn't have wi-fi.

Well let’s forget about it, because my initial intention was talking about manga and anime, but I just couldn’t help telling you that funny anecdote. So, here’s my last advice about it: if you want to visit a city called Córdoba, first check which continent it is placed in.

And now I start with today’s subject: What’s manga? And what’s anime?

Well I suppose you know that “manga” is Japanese comic and “anime” is the animated series based on the manga. But why has it become so popular? How did manga take over the world? First of all, we can thank the great input from Osamu Tezuka, who applied cinematographic techniques to manga and created those famous big eyes inspiring on Walt Disney’s designs. Then, after the Second World War, people in Japan needed to evade reality by reading manga, so in 1959, publishing houses got into the market of manga magazines. That became a great success, as sales figures soared and international expansion took off.  

Also, I think the clue is that there are so many genres of manga that you just can’t say you don’t like it. It’s as varied as films. Why does nearly everybody like films? Because you can find at least one genre that you like. Manga is the same case; maybe it’s possible for you not to like “kodomo manga” (which is for kids) if you’re an adult, as an example, but the same way that you like terror films instead of Disney ones, you may like terror manga. I sincerely think that those who don’t try reading manga or watching anime just because of prejudices are committing a great mistake.

In Japan, manga is a phenomenon that arrives to all social layers: everybody reads manga, from kids to the elderly. Even in the metro or the train, people read manga magazines and then leave them there so that they can be recycled and reprinted. The leading manga magazine, Shonen Jump, sells over 6 million copies every week. And in 1989, 38% of all books and magazines that were published in Japan were manga ones. Can you grasp the idea of how important manga is in Japan? Although it’s true that the word we manga lovers use to describe ourselves comes from Japanese and it’s quite derogatory, in origin. This word is “otaku”, and in Japanese is used to describe a person whose life nearly turns around his/her hobby. But that hobby doesn’t have to be reading manga. “Manga” is not negative. A “strong addiction” to it, well, maybe is.

In my case, I’ve loved manga, and even more anime, since I was little. It took me long to discover the world that was hidden behind the series that I used to watch on TV when I came home from school. Series like “Detective Conan”, “Doraemon”, “Sailor Moon” or “InuYasha”. For me it was natural to see characters wearing a “yukata”, taking off their shoes when they entered a house, sleeping in beds without even a mattress, visiting a temple in New Year’s Day and making wishes… I got used to all these things to the point that I didn’t notice that it wasn’t part of my own culture. That’s one of the reasons why I love Japanese culture and that I’m learning Japanese. I wonder if it’s possible to fancy something to the point that you “miss it”. When I think of all those things, like fireworks in summer festivals or cherry-trees in springtime, I feel the same feeling in my heart as when I think of my home in Benicassim. I miss it, although I’ve never been in Japan. Strange, huh?

Well, for now, if I’ve convinced you to watch anime, I recommend you “InuYasha”. Its author is the "mangaka" (professional who draws manga) Rumiko Takahashi. It’s about a semi-demon, InuYasha, and the reincarnation of a priestess, Kagome, who set out in the world of the Japanese Middle Ages to find the fragments of a powerful jewel that some demons want to use for mischievous purposes. During their journey, a little fox demon, a pervert monk and a demon huntress will join them to find the fragments and fight against Naraku, a demon who wants to obtain the power of the jewel for his evil plans. For me it’s the perfect anime, as the personalities of characters are really well defined and the complicated relationships between them create funny and really interesting situations.

Here I leave you some things in case you want to know more about manga and anime (it really is a whole new world to discover):

A presentation made by me with Prezi: 

http://prezi.com/cbijkmy8ee7t/traduccion-de-manga-y-anime-difusores-de-la-cultura-nipona/

A videoclip with Studio Ghibli's movies:

A Vocaloid concert:

4 steps to publish a book

Hi, invisible ones!

Today I think I'm going to talk about how to publish books. You know, since my characters were "born", more than a year ago, I've been thinking about stories for them, I've been developing their lives, and I have asked myself a lot of times: "Could I do something with what I've got so far? Could I share it, for example, on the Internet, to let people know about it? Could they give me their opinion and help me improve my story?" But I didn't have the answer. I've got a friend who loves writing and thinking about new stories like me. It's crazy when we meet each other and we start talking: "So that character blah blah blah... and that other... and that scene maybe should be narrated in first person..." And we get lost in our world and the others of our group look at us like we had gone mad. Well, that friend isn't for writing on the Internet. She thinks it's a great risk, as someone could steal your ideas. But there are people who DO write on the Internet. A lot of people even create blogs to promote their stories. And do all that people really have a copyright to prove that they are the rightful authors in case someone grabbed ideas from them? I felt like we were missing something, and that’s why I investigated about the different ways of publishing books. I think it’s better to know the possibilities your ideas have from the very start.

So here you are, publishing in 4 steps:

1.     Finishing the book. There are writers, for example the one from this blog, who say you must finish your novel before thinking about publishing. But I don’t agree with that. What if you have different options about the progress of the story, and you want someone else’s opinion to help you decide? Well, don’t worry, if you don’t want to finish it all by your own, without any other point of view, here comes step 2.

2.     Revising the novel. As I’ve already said, for me it isn’t important that the book is finished to start revising, as doubts may come while WRITING the novel, and not when you’ve already pieced things together. There are 3 ways of revising:

2.1.  Ask their opinion to people we know who like reading, and also ask them to be strict; flatteries won’t help our improving.

2.2.  Create a forum on the Internet to share our novel while we write it. This way we can get people’s opinions and ideas that may enrich our novel. But here’s the delicate point: How can we be sure that nobody will plagiarize us? We can’t register at the Intellectual Property until the book it’s finished, and that’s why we still don’t have any rights as authors. Well, if you’re worried, you can protect your ideas with a Creative Commons license, for example. Or maybe create a private forum instead of a public one, so that you know the people who can read your novel; people who you know that wouldn’t do such a cruel thing to you.

2.3.  Send it to a literary agency. Literary agencies are formed by professionals who will help us to enhance our novel’s virtues and make it “work” in book’s market. Or so they say.

3.     Registering our work at the Intellectual Property. We have finished our novel, and in order to bring it out, we must get our exclusive rights as authors recognized by the law. I think you must search on the Internet the Intellectual Property Office which is located closer to you and go there. Easy-peasy!

4.     From here, sky’s the limit and we can consider a lot of different ways to proceed. Here you have three usual ones:

4.1.  Send your novel to a literary contest. Here the only thing you have to do to get your novel published is… winning!! So do your best!

4.2.  Send it to a publishing house. It isn’t a very difficult thing to do, as almost all publishing houses have e-mails on their websites. You just have to send an e-mail asking for a mailing address to send your work to. Send it to all the companies you think that might be interested in your novel (don’t have a try with a company that only publishes for kids if your novel is directed to adults, for example.), and keep on working in other projects. Publishers usually take their time to answer!  

4.3.  Publish it yourself. This is a bit more difficult, as you have to do everything the publisher would do. But don’t give up! Your goal is to have your novel published; if companies dismiss your work, you just have to publish it yourself! Here you have the steps, more or less:

4.3.1.   Create your book’s structure basing on a book’s layout that you like: size, font, indentation…

4.3.2.  Adjust those parameters to a Word document.

4.3.3.  Revise the orthography and make a printing test with your own printer.

4.3.4.  Convert the Word document to PDF.

4.3.5.  Design your title page with a program like Photoshop.

4.3.6.  Request your ISBN and Legal Deposit so that you can sell your book.

4.3.7.  Calculate the printing cost.

4.3.8.  Ask for a printing test to a printing house.
4.3.9.  Organize your book’s promotion, creating a blog about it, for example, and then sell it on the Internet!

And here I finish for today. I hope those steps help you if you are future writers! Or future mangaka! If you don't know what it is, don't worry, I'll tell you next time!
See you soon!         

Laura Gallego's Books Ranking

Here's the list with the books I've liked the most from Laura Gallego. At least until now, as there are still many that I haven't read.

1. Memorias de Idhún (Memoirs of Idhun). Sorry, I already explained what it was about last day. (Look at the post below.)

2. Dos velas para el diablo (Two Candles for the Devil). It's about a girl, Cat, whose father was an angel. And I say WAS because he was murdered by devils, as angels and devils have always been fighting. But she doesn't want to accept it and, despite her being human, she'll look for a way to get revenge.

3. Crónicas de la torre (Chronicles of the Tower). It's a saga composed by four books: The Valley of the Wolves, The Master's Curse, The Dead's Call and Fenris, the Elf (this last one is a prequel, as it explains the story or the origins of a character, Fenris, which happened before the main plot).

The Chronicles of the Tower explain the story of a girl, Dana, who was born with the power of seeing ghosts, so a sorcerer turns her into his apprentice and takes her to the Tower, which is like a school of magic (very different from Harry Potter's one) located in the Valley of the Wolves.

The book I liked the best was the third one, maybe because of a character that only appears in that book but who is quite important. 

                                                      

                                                        

4. Donde los árboles cantan (Where the Trees Sing). The story is set in the Middle Ages, when barbarians invade a kingdom called Nortia. Viana, the daughter of a duke who dies in the battle against barbarians, will have to choose between surrendering to them, and being the wife of one of them, or running away and fighting by herself.
 I had doubts with this one. I didn't know if I should have put it on the 3^rd place instead of the Chronicles, but as they win by number and age, I left it like that. This is Laura's newest book (from those I've read) and it's really one of her bests. Last 19^th of February, she even attended the ceremony of National Awards of Culture 2011 and 2012 (Premios Nacionales de Cultura 2011 y 2012) in the Royal Palace of El Pardo, as she had been awarded for this book with the National Prize of Juvenile Literature 2012 (Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil 2012). Congratulations, Laura! You really deserve it! 

                                                 

This is the photo of the awards. Laura is the one on the right, with the purple dress.

5. La emperatriz de los Etéreos (The Empress of the Ethereal Kingdom). The story is located in a frozen world, where humans live in caves because outside there's nothing more than ice and snow. But there is a boy called Aer who do think there's something more. He dreams of starting the journey to find the palace of the mythical Empress, following a blue and cold star that is always shining in the sky. He thinks maybe he'll find also his father, who set out too and never came back. But Bipa, a girl who keeps her feet on the ground more than anyone and who thinks that outside there's nothing more than death, will go after him to take him back home when he starts his crazy journey.

6. Las hijas de Tara (Tara's Daughters). This is a science fiction novel located in a notional future where civilization and nature are in a constant war. Hundreds of years ago, humans had polluted so much the environment and destroyed so many forests that the goddess of nature, Tara, made vegetation grow all over the world, smashing all the cities under its green coat. Some humans, in response, achieved to develop technology and built fortified cities which could repel nature, called “dumas”. Other humans, however, learned their lesson and began living in harmony with nature, in the big forest or jungle of Mannawinard. The war between urbanites and the inhabitants of Mannawinard started soon, and now the priestesses of Tara have the duty of bringing the peace and saving urbanites from their own destruction, as they know technology can be hazardous for them too. So they leave Mannawinard and, after a lot of years, they seem to find a solution. But it won’t be easy: five humans from different origins and an android have to meet each other and take up together a journey full of dangers.

7. Alas de fuego, Alas negras (Fire Wings, Black Wings). The story is about a guardian angel, Ahriel, who is betrayed by her protégé, a young queen called Marla. With the help of a dark wizard, Marla disables Ahriel's wings and locks her up in a kind of prison from where nobody has ever escaped, Gorlian. This prison is like a primitive and wild world, where Ahriel will have to fight without her wings and she will start to see things from the ground, as humans do.

8. Mandrágora (Mandrake). The story is located in the Middle Ages, and it's about a girl called Miriam who arrives at the court of king Héctor. His dad, Zacarías, is an erudite who will substitute the previous wise man of the court, Cornelius, who disappeared in strange circumstances.

9. Finis Mundi. The story is located in the Middle Ages too. It starts in the year 997 AD, when the world is arriving to its end. Nobody knows it except a young monk called Michel, who will have to search the solution before the millennium ends. So he’ll have to find three powerful amulets (the Axis of Past, the Axis of Present and the Axis of Future) to invoke the Spirit of Time and ask him for a thousand years more. But he won’t be alone: a minstrel called Mattius and his apprentice, Lucía, will travel with him to avoid the Wheel of Time’s stopping.  

10. La leyenda del Rey Errante (The Legend of the Wandering King). This story is located in Arabia, in the age before the appearing of Islam, when it was a land of mysteries and legends. In that time, a man who nowadays only appears in some parts of confusing legends undertook an epic searching. That’s why he was called “the Wandering King”. Before, he had been a perfect and proud prince called Walid, who had not only a beautiful body, but also a beautiful soul. He was generous, intelligent and gifted for riding horses and wielding swords. But there was something that he coveted more than anything: he wanted to win the most famous poetry contest. When a poor carpet weaver beat him for the third time, he did something that changed his life forever. 

    

Laura Gallego and Her Fantastic New Worlds *-*

Hi, invisible beings!

Today I’m going to talk —Is it ok to say “talk” when I’m writing or typing?— about my favorite writer, Laura Gallego. You can find her biography and all that stuff in Wikipedia and in her website, but I’ll make a summary anyway.

Laura Gallego García was born the 11^th October of 1977 in Quart de Poblet, Valencia. She started writing when she was just 11 years old, with a friend called Miriam. The story they wrote was Zodiaccía, un mundo diferente (Zodiaccía, a Different World, could be its name in English). It’s not published but you can find it in her website. I discovered that recently, so I haven't read it yet. But I promise I'll have a look at it (in fact, I can't wait to read it) and then maybe I'll tell you about it. It's important because that's when Laura decided she wanted to be a writer.

She started publishing when she was 21, while studying "Filología Hispánica" at university in Valencia. She had been participating for some years without succeeding to the “Premio Barco de Vapor”. But when she sent her 14^th book, Finis Mundi (1999), she won!

Laura Gallego is now 35 years old and she has published around 30 books. But she’s working in many more projects and she’s finishing her doctoral thesis. Besides that, she still finds time to answer letters from fans and go around high schools to talk about her books. Isn’t that admirable?

I’ve found other interesting things about her, like the fact that her favorite film is mine too: Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away (El viaje de Chihiro in Spanish). Her favorite book is The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende, and she’s keen on manga (Japanese comic). I already knew that, but I nearly couldn’t believe it when I saw that her favorite series are mine too: InuYasha, Detective Conan, Bakuman… She’s so much like me that I’m starting to wonder if I may be like her soul sister, her clone or her early reincarnation (I’m joking, of course).
So it's obvious that I love the things she writes about, but in fact I also love how she writes about it. 
Her stories are almost always fantastic; we could classify her work between historical fantasy (Finis Mundi), science fiction (Las hijas de Tara/ Tara's daughters), and epic fantasy (Memorias de Idhún/ Memoirs of Idhun). But what remains in every story she writes is the relevancy she gives to feelings. That's how characters become almost real; you can almost touch them, because their minds are so splendidly described that you understand them and you can feel what they are feeling. And I'd like to thank her for writing like this, focusing on characters, because when you read a book is to know more about them, not about which country the ribbons of the curtains of their rooms came from, or how many steps and in which direction someone took to arrive at some place. What I mean is that there are writers who want to describe everything so meticulously that you get lost while reading and finally you get bored because, really, who cares about these things? I’m not saying descriptions aren’t important; it's a fact that you must know lots of vocabulary and how to use it to be a writer. But also, the purpose of writing is to send a message, somehow, and describing things in order just to use more vocabulary and to seem more cultured makes the message become vague. At least for me, the best way to make the message arrive is focusing on characters: their feelings, their thoughts, their pasts, their worlds… And everything which surrounds them and which is relevant to push the story forward and make the storyline clear.

And now, I’ll talk about Memorias de Idhún, because it’s my favorite book and it will always be. Memorias de Idhún is a trilogy (La Resistencia, Tríada and Panteón are the three titles) about another world called Idhun. A world where magic still exists, where three suns illuminate the sky during the day, and three moons shine during the night, where humans aren’t the only rational beings. It’s a world where seeing a unicorn and acquiring magic is not a dream but a hope, where dragons soar in the sky and protect people. But a dark wizard called Ashran the Necromancer uses the power of the astral conjunction to let a superior species called “shek” (winged snakes which are ancestral enemies of dragons) come to the world and take the control. At the same time, he uses his power to kill all unicorns and dragons, as there is a prophecy which says that a unicorn and a dragon together could defeat him. But a baby unicorn and a baby dragon are saved from the slaughter, and sent to the Earth so that they can grow up save and return in the future to set Idhun free. The most powerful wizards and the human kings and queens of Idhun, while preparing to fight against shek invasion, send to the Earth a knight called Alsan and a wizard called Shail to find the unicorn and the dragon and make them come back. But Ashran is aware that they have escaped, so he’ll send a mysterious and young assassin called Kirtash to eliminate them and everyone who has gone into exile to the Earth. And he’s the kind of cold and extremely intelligent assassin that never commits mistakes. 

In that context, Jack and Victoria, two young humans born in the Earth, see how their lives turn upside down when Alsan and Shail save them from death, as Kirtash has tried to kill them. Although they don’t know which their relation with Idhun could be, they’ll become members of the Resistance and they’ll fight for it with their new friends.

That's more or less the plot summary. I don't have more time but another day this week I'll post a ranking list with the books I've read from Laura Gallego. I wanted to write it here, but anyway, this post is long enough.

So, bye and see you soon! ;p         

Books

Hi, invisible readers!

Today I feel like talking about books. Yes, those things full of letters that sometimes bore you but sometimes can take you straight to heaven. Ok, very few times, but that’s why I’ve said SOMETIMES. The truth is that you can’t enjoy a book when you’re thinking about the exam or the review you’ll have to do about it later. It’s a shame how a lot of young people think that reading is boring just because they haven’t read anything else apart from the school books. Instead of promoting reading, it seems the only thing that teachers get with this educational system is to discourage students and make them loathe books. But I won’t waste lines criticizing the educational system. It’s depressing, and I don’t want to depress you. Maybe another day.

Today I’ll be writing more specifically about novels, which are long prose narratives that describe fictional characters and events. And yes, even if the novel is a historical one, it’s still fiction, at least at some parts. If there isn’t any fictional part, it isn’t a novel; it might be a textbook or something like that.

Personally, I love reading but I have to say that I’m very strict about books. I know what I like to read and everything that differs from these features isn’t of my liking. It’s as simple as that.

And what do I like reading? I just can’t help liking fantasy mixed with romance. And now you may be thinking: Twilight. Well, I won’t lie, I do like Twilight, but it’s not my favorite book. It isn’t enough fantastic for me, I think. I prefer a story that isn’t set in this world; maybe in a place that could be this world but it isn’t, or half set in this world and half in another one.

I don’t understand very well why people prefer realistic novels, such as thrillers and things like that, but what I don’t STAND at all is their believing that realistic stories are more addressed to adults, and fantastic ones are for teenagers or children. Well, if that’s the case, if my imagination is the price to become an adult, hey, I’ll stay as a child forever. And also, why would you want to read about things that you see or hear every day? I mean, what’s the point to read a book just to experiment the same things that you’ve got here in your reality? When I read is to get away from here somehow, to “experiment” wonderful and beautiful things that normally are out of my reach.

For me, the best books are Laura Gallego’s ones. She’s my favorite writer and, as happens with Adam Young from Owl City, I’m very indebted with her. I’m sorry for English speakers because her best book for me, Memorias de Idhún, isn’t translated to English. I really feel like a pain in my heart when I think that someone won’t find Memorias de Idhún (Memoirs of Idhun) just because it isn’t translated to their language. If you like fantasy, you can’t even imagine what you’re missing. And if you don’t like fantasy, I’m sure Memorias de Idhún would change your mind. But, as I’m studying Translation and Interpretation at university, I hope I'll be able to fix that problem somehow in the future. I’ll ask Laura in person permission to translate it if it’s necessary. The reason is simple: I can’t conceive my life without that trilogy, and I assure you that I’m not overstating. So, if it had been written in another language, I would have been grateful from the bottom of my heart to the person who would have translated it. Languages shouldn’t be a barrier, they should enrich us. Now, I have just told you one of my dreams: translating Memorias de Idhún to English and Japanese (that’s for another story).

I don’t have more time but next week I’ll write more about Memorias de Idhún and Laura Gallego.

See you! (Well, in fact not).     

Owl City!

Hi, invisible readers!

As I already announced last week, today I'm going to talk about Owl City. I said that it's my favorite group, although it’s a bit strange to say “group” when Owl City is just one person: Adam Young. But I couldn’t say either that my favorite singer or musician is Owl City because it isn’t Adam Young’s alias or anything like that. Owl City is his project, an electronic musical project (I haven’t made it up, check it out in Wikipedia if you want) that he formed in 2007. So, if we want to talk about Owl City, we have to talk about Adam Young because he’s Owl City’s heart and soul.

Adam Randal Young, who is a singer-songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist musician, was born in a small town called Owatonna, Minnesota (USA) on the 5^th July of 1986. As a child, he always had a “push” to be creative, although there were no musicians in his immediate family. Adam grew up being a very shy kid, like surrounded by a “sheltered bubble”. I find that really interesting, personally, because I feel like that too. Even before coming upon Owl City, I sometimes thought that I had like a hedge around me, something that at times was heartwarming, protective, and at other times was distressing, even suffocating. It’s something that keeps me far away from other people, far away from the good things of relationships, but also from the bad ones. So I can indeed understand what means being wrapped by that “bubble”. You can’t reach anyone, but you can’t be hurt by them either.

Adam began creating his dreamy and sweet music in his parent’s basement at night, as he suffered from insomnia ­­­­˗that’s why I said that Owl City fans usually like the night, because it’s our origin, isn't it?; Owl City’s world emerged from a series of non-sleeping nights.

Around 2006, Adam Young made music under the project name “Sky Sailing”, but he started to post his fizzy electropop songs to MySpace and iTunes under the name “Owl City”, selling about 2000 tracks a week. He released two albums on his own: “Of June” in 2007, and “Maybe I’m Dreaming” in 2008. A year later, Adam signed a deal with a record company and released his successful album “Ocean Eyes”, whose hit single “Fireflies” sold 650.000 copies. Adam began touring through America, China and Japan; and released his expected album “All Thing Bright and Beautiful” in June 2011. A year later, he brought out his latest album: “The Midsummer Station”.

As an Owl City fan, I have to expose my opinion about this album. Before it was released, Adam Young had already notified that it “marked a flying leap in his direction”, as he was working with other producers and song-writers. So we expected a change, we didn’t know if it was going to be positive or negative. After the album had been released, Owl City fans rose with alarmed claiming: the style had changed quite a lot; it wasn’t so much “Owl City”. In fact, there’s a beat in nearly all the songs to make them more “radio-friendly”, so they’re not the sweet lullabies we loved to listen to. In my opinion, it’s still Owl City, and Adam is just exploring new possibilities of creation. It’s fine because most songs preserve their originality. But it’s also true that nobody writes songs like him. Just by listening to the lyrics I could distinguish which are Adam’s ones, because those ones are the most special and imaginative. So, for me, his collaborators are just hindering his work. It’s a shame for those producers and song-writers to spoil Adam’s art, the soundtrack of his dreams and our dreams, just to make it more “commercial”.

I hope Owl City will remain as it used to be: a place in our minds where we can shelter from reality. ^-^


Oh, yes! I nearly forgot it: here I leave you a video where Adam Young explains the name "Owl City". I loved the explanation, so I want to share it with you.:)

See you next week! (Well, not literally.)

Music

Hi, invisible readers! Before I take up today's subject, I'd like to share with you a feeling that is becoming a bit annoying while I'm writing here in my blog: someone is really supposed to read this, right? I mean, I feel like I was talking alone. It's something to worry about, isn't it? We're in the XXI century, I'm young (even if you don't believe it), and I'm doubting that someone in the whole wide world will bother to get into my blog and read at least one of the posts. Well, I'm just a beginner. But as I'm not sticking in just one subject, there may be some interesting for you too. That makes me feel a bit more confident.

And now, here's today's subject: music. Although it's the first one, it doesn't mean it's the most important for me. But take just one look around and you'll see it: music is everywhere; it's in the air (like love, as the song says). Even now, while I'm writing, I'm listening to music. Moreover, I haven't still met a person who doesn't like any kind of music, because there is a kind of music for every kind of person. And music describes your character, it tells the others things about yourself, even if you don't want them to, because music is part of the human being. It is defined as an art form whose medium is sound and silence (check it out in wikipedia if you like), but apart from art, it has also a lot to do with science. For example, it is studied in cognitive neuroscience. Did you know that when you're listening to your favorite music, your brain is releasing the same chemicals in the same anatomical zones as when you take up drugs? And there are even more sciences related to music: music psychology, psychoacoustics, biomusicology... In consequence you come to think: how strange can actually be something that is so close to us? We don't realize it, but there are many things around us which are much more than what we see. For example, when you're using a computer, are you thinking about how it really works? Of course not, unless you're a computer expert. And music is much closer to us than a computer; it can express our emotions, create them inside us, or even heal us when we're hurt. It can unite people but also divide us. It’s very powerful. Maybe money moves the world, but music does too.

And what can I say about my favorite kind of music? I don’t have one. But I do have a favorite group, which is not exactly the same because I listen to a lot of other things apart from its music. But I can identify myself completely with my favorite group’s music. That group is the unique and irreplaceable Owl City, ergo, Adam Young. I’m so indebted with that guy! At least two of my stories started thanks to his songs, because while I’m listening to them, millions of images pass dancing through my mind.

By now I’m sure that you know me much better, and just because I’ve said my favorite group is Owl City (if you know Owl City, of course). I think Owl City fans are more or less the same type of people. We must like things "bright and beautiful” (like the sky, rainbows, angels, saltwater rooms, snow, summer, stars, fireflies, twilights…), and we usually have lots of imagination. That way we can catch all the images Adam Young turns into music, and see them inside our minds. Also, we like the night; I think that it doesn’t bother us to stay up late. At least, that’s how I see Owl City.

Well, I’m running out of time, but here I leave you a video in case you don’t know Owl City. It’s one of my favorite songs, and the first I heard from him.

In the next post I’ll talk more about Owl City; I think Adam Young deserves more publicity. >.<

See you! (Well, not actually.)

Welcome to Angel's Dreams!

First of all, I want to make clear that this is my first blog, and I'm still not sure if this is what is usually done. I mean, do people even write an introduction when they create a blog? I'm not really confident for this, but as the purpose is to write in English and improve it, I'll just focus on writing as much as I can (and as well as I can). I'm sure I'll make mistakes; I might even commit some of those definitive moral and venial sins against English grammar. So in advance and just in case, I'm really sorry.
And now, about the subject of my blog, I didn't know exactly what to choose because there are a lot of things that I like: music, films, books, art... So I'm going to mix it up! I'll talk about music, films, books and manga, which is a kind of art (maybe someone who doesn't know about it won't believe it, but I can guarantee it is).
And last but not least (or maybe yes), the name I've chosen for my blog. It's not something random, it has sense for me because it refers to two stories I created maybe a year ago and that I'm still developing. I love making up stories, thinking about the characters and their lives, and seeing how they become more and more real for me. It may seem weird, but I think my weirdness will help to bring them out, so I don't care too much.^.^