Welcome to My Official Web Page!

Welcome to My Official Web Page!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Happiest Place on Earth

I've just returned from a trip to the Happiest Place On Earth.

Disneyland!

It doesn't matter if it's pouring rain (it was) or if there are a gazillion people there (like the time the park reached capacity by noon- 80,000+ people!), but a visit to Disneyland guarantees a fantabulous day.

The churros are amazing and the rides are super fun. Plus, there's something about being immersed in a make-believe world that makes worries about work, bills, and all that mundane stuff just disappear. Yay!

In college I took a History of Disney course (and received 3 credits for it) where the professor pointed out that when you're in Disneyland you can't see anything else. The freeways and hotels are entirely blocked out.

Walt Disney was a smart guy.

I think you can see where this is going. A book should guarantee the same immersion. Different genres will have different levels of world building, but all novels should let the reader escape into a new world. I used to be wary of boring a reader with minutiae, but now I've discovered those little details make a scene richer. Plus, it gives me an outlet for nifty-neato tidbits I find while researching.

Fun things I managed to pull into my novel: Eating off monkey heads, using crocodile dung for birth control, and shaving off eyebrows to mourn cats.

More on all that coming soon!