Fine-tuning our writing 2

Embellishing and finishing a story

The first blush in the morning had just risen up, a little bit early for the retired Martin. After an entire lifetime waking up every morning at the break of the day to get to the printer´s, he would now choose and take a breather, staying pleasently in bed until the sun had breakthrough the window of his spacious but companionless room. But this particular day he was overcome with a rather weird and particular feeling. Such a singular perception that he suddenly felt the necessity to get out of  bed and  so quick as a flash he dressed up, took the book written by her beloved daughter, who recently died because of a long illness, trying to figure out in this book the last message she wanted to confide him but didn´t reach to do it.
The mockingbirds were singing so sweetly outside in the courtyard, mainly all over the centurial circus tree that Martin´s great grandfather had planted according to the family record. Suddenly there was utter stillness, such an absolute silence that Martin was  totally affected. He stood up and peered throug the window with wide open eyes and with atonishment he perceived a little boy sitting under the circus tree, he was not older than ten, wearing old clothing and he was reading a book. The perception was so out of context that Martin had to  rubbed his eyes to convice himself that he was not dreaming. For a long time he stared at this little fellow who was immersed and profoundly concentrated in his book, as if that place was his acustomed place of reading, a corner of his own garden. Then Martin crept downstairs, very carefully without making a single noise, opened the glass door onto the garden and again creaping carefully in order not to interrupt the boy, he approached the circus tree. Nearing the ground, he asked the boy: "It seems a wonderfull book, doesn´t it?" For the first time, the boy looked away from the pages , gave Martin a steady look and broke into a rather timid smile but in a enthusiastic way he said:"It is the book of my life".
When Martin saw the cover of the book, to his surprise he realized that it was the same book he had picked up this morning, the favorite book of his daughter. The  hunch created inside of him that both, this little boy and his recently buried daughter had something in common was inevitable and a growing eagerness to discover started to emerge at a tremendous speed, so without hesitating  he asked the boy: "Tell me sweet boy, who has given you this book and why is it the book of your life?" And  the boy answered; " It was a present from my mum who wrote it especially for me with an essential message, that I wouldn´t be alone, and that under a circus tree a good old man would  find me and would take care of me and will call me grandson"

English comedy series loses a lot when they are dubbed into spanish

In the Netherlands all types of comedy series and films are broadcasted in their original version with dutch subtitles. During my lifetime in Holland,one of my favourite comedy  was "Alf" ( I didn´t miss a single chapter) but when my family and I returned back to Spain I felt very very dissapointed after seeing Alf on the spanish television.
 Don´t you agree that  by dubbing english comedy into spanish they loose all their fun? Make your own opionion:

Original version

Which voice do you prefer?



Whitney Housten

Another musical legend gone to soon. Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and now Whitney Housten. People who have been very succesful  in their live but  somewhere in some road  got lost.
I want to thank her for gracing us with her amazingly voice and the beautiful songs she has left us.

"I wanna dance with somebody" my favourite song when I was 12  years old:

Another great song, hope you enjoy it:"The greatest love of all":



200 anniversary of Charles Dickens

David Copperfield
 Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

Universe is regular and predictable, suns comes up every morning and stars sweep across the sky at night, this is something determined by nature, but my destiny wasn`t written yet.
I knew I had to act and make significant decisions, decisions where I might not have all the right facts  and where I could achieve an unexpected outcome, but if I turned to be the hero, I was forced to accross failures. Defeat would be a set-up for  more important victories in my future., I had to act to deal with all my uncertainties........

http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/

Discover Anne Frank´s hiding

http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/

The diary of a young girl during the second World War

Anne Frank was a jewish girl that was born in june 12 in 1929 in German. She lived with her parents and an older sister, Margot in German. Her desire, when she would grow up, was to be a writer.
On march 1933 Anne´s father decided leave the country and to move on to the Netherlands and set up a store because of the Nazis. There she went to school and made many friends, but in july 1942 the Nazzis occupied the Netherlands and the freedom of the jewes began to be severly restricted. On Anne 13th birthday 1942 she received as a gift from her parents a diary. A few weeks later, Margot received a notice from the Nazzis SS communicating that she had to go to the labor camps. In that moment her father decided to hide in the "secret annex" which was next to their father´s office. Since that day, she started writting during 2 years in her diary, which she called "Kitty", here she wrote her everyday life hided in the attic above the store, describing her feelings, her thoughts and though she was a teenager, she wrote it in a very mature way.
In 1944 Anne ended writting because the hiding place was betrayed. After that the family was separated, the two sisters were sent to a concentration camp in which Margot died first and Anne died of typhus short before the war ended. Only the father survived, and when he returned to his house, Miep Gies, a women who helped the family Frank hiding, gave him his Anne´s diary. After reading it he decided to search for a publisher to make her daughter wish come true. Today there are more than 20 million copies, there are also films and plays and many streets and schools are named Anne Frank.
Anne Frank is a symbol of the six milion Jews killed during the Second World War by the Nazis.
I chose this event, because when I went to school in the Netherlands it was a habit on the first of May of every year to remember Anne Frank and this is one of the things that really impressed me when I was a little girl.

A CLASSIC ONE

When I read the book of Nelson Mandela, this song came to my mind. Do you remember?....