Category: childhood dreams

Dance and Sing for Books!

On By Victoria LK Williams (Vicki Williams)In childhood dreams, Free Writing, inspiration, life mingling with writing, Uncategorized1 Comment

Well, I hope you all had a chance to revisit your childhood over the holidays. I’m talking about the release of the new movie Mary Poppins Returns. Now I don’t usually post my thoughts about movies on my blog, but this one deserves some attention
I have to admit I was skeptical there was no way they could outdo the first. There is no way that someone else would play the role of the ultimate nanny and carry it off the way Julie Andrews did.original_1099048853
But boy was I wrong! I’m in love with the new movie it was everything I hoped for and more. The return of old characters, new characters, song, dance and Disney the way it used to be!
It felt like the movie was made just for me; the writer, the reader, the adventurer.

Big, big, big spoiler alert here!! If you haven’t seen, the movie, you may not want to read the rest of my blog. Or you can go ahead and read, I promise not to give too much away.
The original Mary Poppins had this beautiful scene where Bert and Mary took the kids on an adventure through pictures. They jumped into the paintings on the sidewalk, and the fun begins. Everything that you remember from that scene in the original Mary Poppins– keep that in the back of your head. Because in Mary Poppins Returns they took the same concept, but instead of jumping into pictures they made the emphasis on books.

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Books, books, books! There is a fantastic song, & dance number called ‘The Cover Is Not the Book’ and the song stuck in my head for most of the movie. You can even play it on iTunes.
I think for me as a reader and a writer it felt like the movie was calling out because of the accent on books. It is all about judging a book by its cover, and the lessons that it taught the Banks children through song and dance are excellent.
Now as a writer we know you can and should judge a book by its cover– because the cover is what sells your book. So don’t lose heart to that concept.
The movie was taking an old saying and giving it a new song and a fun visual concept. One that I hope will resonate with every child. Teaching our children to remember that each person is an individual and has their own redeeming qualities. Qualities that you can’t see by looking at a person until you get to know them.
So, thank you to the Disney Company, and the creators and writers of Mary Poppins Returns. You touched my heart and my soul, especially with that song and dance routine.

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PS  I have the soundtrack playing as I’m writing this, and I can’t stop grinning!

Victoria LK Williams

Things have sure changed!

On By Victoria LK Williams (Vicki Williams)In a new age, childhood dreams, Interviews, Reading, Writing, Habits, sharing, knowledge, mentoring, UncategorizedLeave a comment
When I was a little girl I had three women that I admired. They were all fictional characters, but I thought they were awesome. I wanted to grow up to be just like them.
The first one was going to be pretty impossible; Wonder Woman’s a hard act to follow and I knew I wasn’t up to the task. Of course in my own way I guess I could claim to be a wonder woman-I’m a mom with a career and a home to run. (Okay, maybe not  that sexy outfit, but I would love those great golden bracelets.)
But the other two characters that I loved were a bit more  realistic, and I let myself dream of the possiblilites…
The first was Nancy Drew. She was my hero when I was younger. She was the cool girl; she had best friends that stuck by her side,  a gorgeous boyfriend and she solved mysteries. Her dad was pretty cool, too. What more could a young preteen hope to be when she grew up?
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But, as I grew older, I realized Nancy Drew never  grew older college age.   I began to dream about what kind of job/career I wanted, so I set my sights on Brenda Starr— investigator reporter. With her gorgeous red hair and trench coat, she was an inspiration. I can remember walking around with a pen and paper pretending to take interviews– the same way that I used to look for clues when I pretended to be Nancy Drew.
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Recently I was asked to give an interview about my writing and it brought back thoughts of my earlier aspirations. But there was no one coming to my door to ask questions, no microphone put in front of me, and there was no cameras snapping pictures. Instead my interview was done on-line, in a new age of investigative reporting.
I was sent a series of questions and it was up to me to answer them how I wanted. It was up to me to make sure that they said exactly what I wanted; with correct spelling and grammar.  Gone was my vision of a star reporter with a microphone and trench coat. Instead I stared at my monitor and wrote my own answers.
And this gave me control over what I said. A big plus is you can think about your answers, you can go back and change the wording. You can control the impression that you make much more than with a live interview.
I think some of the questions were a little bit more intense than a casual interview as well.  Over 200 questions were sent and I had to pick 20 of them to answer. This turned out to be fun, and it really made me think about my answers. Some of the questions were nothing like what I would have expected.
 I’ve included the link to the interview below, for you to read.
So now  I can see that my heroes and aspirations as a young girl had to change with the times.  I no longer wish to be Nancy Drew or Brenda Starr, but I still think it’d be pretty cool to be Wonder Woman.