A long time ago, in a town far, far away I thought myself to be an aspiring author of awesome proportions. I did lots of reading and said to myself, "You know what? I bet I can write a pretty decent story."
That thought may still have some kind of merit if I was still actively writing new things to this day, but unfortunately a two year LDS mission to Ohio got in the way of that, and then I never managed to get back into the habit. I regularly kick myself in the metaphorical junk over it, I promise.
If I were to make a list of things I desperately want to accomplish someday, writing a book, or even a novella would be very, very near the top. But, being so out of practice makes me very hesitant to try and jump back into that world. Having a blog helps, but let's face it, that really isn't the same kind of writing.
Anyways, to get to the point, I dug out some of the few writing pieces I still have from my more youthful days and thought it might be fun to share some of them. So, today we'll start with a short piece I wrote for the Creative Writing 218R class I took at BYU as a freshman. As a result, this post will be pretty long, so continue at your own risk. The piece deals with me trying to keep myself under an instructor-imposed word limit of 1500 while trying to be what at the time I thought was rather creative.
See if you can't figure out what the piece is actually about when you are finished, it shouldn't be too hard if you give it a little thought. So, join me after the jump.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Welcome To My Reading List
One thing I've always loved doing since I was a little kid is reading. My parents instilled in all of their children a love of reading. Every birthday and Christmas we could bank on the fact that we would get at least some books, often a fairly decent stack of them, and during the summer months between school years going to the public library was a pretty regular occurrence.
Over the course of my life I've read a lot of books and in previous posts here I've made it pretty clear that I gravitate towards the science fiction and fantasy genre's. For a long time I was reading nothing but the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but then a few friends introduced me to things like BattleTech, Wheel of Time, and the Shannara books. These gave me plenty of things to read and re-read time and time again.
In the past couple of years I've wanted to expand my reading, but never really knew a good way to find new authors I might be interested in, or find other genre's I might enjoy as well. I thought that obtaining my Kindle a couple years ago would help with that, but I'll admit that while I've used the hell of it, its library is still filled with pretty much just science fiction and fantasy novels.
That's where this new page I spent all day yesterday working on comes into play. I've dubbed it my Kindle Reading List because every book on it is available on the Kindle which is pretty much the only way I read books now unless it happens to have been written by Brandon Sanderson. This reading list includes mostly science fiction and fantasy because that's what I love, but you'll notice a few entries for both modern fiction and classic fiction. I figured I would expand my horizons slowly at first, staying within the genre I love the most, but with new authors as well as re-reading some of my old favorites.
You'll also notice there is a page in the sidebar for the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was going to include it in the main list, but there are far too many books for that, so I decided I would split it out to its own page. I am still working on the Expanded Universe list, but should have it finished in the next day or two in case anyone is interested.
My end goal is that these lists will help me to keep track of stuff I've always wanted to read as well as motivate me to read stuff I've never read before. Furthermore, I'm completely open to suggestions of books to read, and if you leave me a comment I'll be sure to give all suggestions a good hard look and add them to the list accordingly. Feel free to recommend as many as you want. I really want to have a massive list to pick from moving forward.
Over the course of my life I've read a lot of books and in previous posts here I've made it pretty clear that I gravitate towards the science fiction and fantasy genre's. For a long time I was reading nothing but the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but then a few friends introduced me to things like BattleTech, Wheel of Time, and the Shannara books. These gave me plenty of things to read and re-read time and time again.
In the past couple of years I've wanted to expand my reading, but never really knew a good way to find new authors I might be interested in, or find other genre's I might enjoy as well. I thought that obtaining my Kindle a couple years ago would help with that, but I'll admit that while I've used the hell of it, its library is still filled with pretty much just science fiction and fantasy novels.
That's where this new page I spent all day yesterday working on comes into play. I've dubbed it my Kindle Reading List because every book on it is available on the Kindle which is pretty much the only way I read books now unless it happens to have been written by Brandon Sanderson. This reading list includes mostly science fiction and fantasy because that's what I love, but you'll notice a few entries for both modern fiction and classic fiction. I figured I would expand my horizons slowly at first, staying within the genre I love the most, but with new authors as well as re-reading some of my old favorites.
You'll also notice there is a page in the sidebar for the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was going to include it in the main list, but there are far too many books for that, so I decided I would split it out to its own page. I am still working on the Expanded Universe list, but should have it finished in the next day or two in case anyone is interested.
My end goal is that these lists will help me to keep track of stuff I've always wanted to read as well as motivate me to read stuff I've never read before. Furthermore, I'm completely open to suggestions of books to read, and if you leave me a comment I'll be sure to give all suggestions a good hard look and add them to the list accordingly. Feel free to recommend as many as you want. I really want to have a massive list to pick from moving forward.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Upcoming Movies I Really Want to See in Theaters
I'm a massive movie buff. I will watch just about anything as long as it isn't incredibly offensive or crazy. The other thing with me is that I absolutely love going to see movies in the theater. The big screen is where it's at for movies. If I was a millionaire tomorrow one of the first things I would do is find some way to procure or construct my very own private theater. One with actual full size movie screens, not some private screening room in a basement with a wall-sized projector.
If I never had to watch a movie again on anything other than in a theater I would be in heaven. Seriously. I'm not making this up. I love movies in the theater. Which, of course, means that 2012 is going to be a big and exciting year for me movie wise. This year is going to be huge for movie releases and I won't be surprised if several records are broken in the process.
While my list of movies I want to see is far longer than these few, here are the trailers for a couple I want to see in the next couple of months:
All three of these movies look awesome to me. I love movies with airplanes and dogfights, I'm a huge Gina Carano fan from her time on the American Gladiators reboot a couple years ago, and the John Carter movie just looks epic on the scale of something like Avatar in my opinion.
Cannot wait to see these!
If I never had to watch a movie again on anything other than in a theater I would be in heaven. Seriously. I'm not making this up. I love movies in the theater. Which, of course, means that 2012 is going to be a big and exciting year for me movie wise. This year is going to be huge for movie releases and I won't be surprised if several records are broken in the process.
While my list of movies I want to see is far longer than these few, here are the trailers for a couple I want to see in the next couple of months:
All three of these movies look awesome to me. I love movies with airplanes and dogfights, I'm a huge Gina Carano fan from her time on the American Gladiators reboot a couple years ago, and the John Carter movie just looks epic on the scale of something like Avatar in my opinion.
Cannot wait to see these!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Atlas Shrugged May Have to be the Next Book I Read
Except one. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
When I first met my wife, we went on five dates in six nights the week before winter break at BYU. On one of the last dates that week we went to the local Barnes & Noble bookstore because she wanted to show me some book known as the The Color Code and I needed to pick up something to read during the break while I was at home.
Long story short, I thought I would be pretty smooth and told her as we walked in to go get me a copy of a favorite book of hers. She did, and I bought it along with the book I was there for, promising to read it over the break so we could talk about it when I got back. In my mind it was a pretty slick way of setting myself up for another date when we both got back to campus.
The Fountainhead was pretty good. It's long as hell, but the story was pretty good, and I liked a couple of the characters a lot. Blah, blah, blah, we wound up married. Cool, eh?
Anyways, a few days ago, my wife and I went to the Redbox down the road and grabbed the Atlas Shrugged movie to watch. It's her favorite book of all time, hands down, and she was intrigued to see how the low-budget film that was released in 2011 stacked up as far as character depiction and so forth. I, having absolutely no clue what the book was about except that it involved trains in some fashion, had no sort of preconceived notions as to what was going to happen.
Yeah... shouldn't have watched that movie.
No, the movie wasn't horrible. As a matter of fact, as someone who had never read the book or had any idea what the story was about I was quite intrigued and enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to. The problem lies entirely in the fact that now I'm obsessing over two things:
Who the hell is John Galt?
What the hell does he have to do with Atlantis?
I'm not kidding. I've thought about it every single day since we watched that movie, and if I hadn't just started reading Fate of the Jedi: Conviction the day before I probably would have downloaded Atlas Shrugged to my Kindle immediately that evening. For all I know, the movie is completely off-track from the actual book. I won't allow my wife to tell me either way as I have a burning desire to discover for myself.
As a result, I did have plans to read the other Fate of the Jedi books and then finish the rest of the Millenium series books, but now those plans may have to change. My only hesitation is that Atlas Shrugged is long, and I worry I may lose myself in it if it really does have anything to do with Atlantis for some reason.
My wife should know better than to expose me to these things.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Finding a Laptop Bag is More Difficult Than I Want it to Be
I've had a laptop for a long time now. Ever since I started college to be exact. The problem is that I've never had a great bag to transport my laptop in. This is something that constantly eats at me for reasons I am completely unable to explain. Something about not having the perfect bag to carry my things to and from the office, or to and from campus in the past drives me up the wall.
What do I need from a laptop bag you ask? Not much to be honest. I need a nice safe pocket or slot to house my trusty 13" MacBook. On top of that, I need someplace in the bag to conveniently store my Kindle, my power cord to the laptop, and my wireless mouse. Beyond that the only other consideration I can think of would be to possibly have some sort of cell phone pocket or perhaps a place to store a generic type of notebook if I needed to.
See, not really all that much in the way of complexity, but to this day my efforts have been frustrated.
Working in an office environment has led me to feeling that I need to appear a little more "grown up" if you will. Whether or not that is really all that important is debatable, but I feel like using the same backpack that I used to go to class at BYU leaves me stuck behind in the not-so-grown up world I wish to leave behind.
I've looked at a lot of bags, but they all seem to have far more pockets and hidden areas than I need, or they are all shoulder bag style, or look far to "trendy" and "hip" for my taste. I want something that feels like a sort of casual briefcase without looking like I'm being pretentious if that makes any sense.
The search continues, and someday I will be successful, it is just taking a really, really long time. Finding a bag is not something I'll allow myself to simply do online looking at pictures. I need to pick it up, give it a look, and fall in love with it. Otherwise I'm positive I'll just be frustrated by what shows up in the mail when the order arrives.
Of course, the problem with that is there aren't many places that have much of a selection on hand for me to look at in the store.
What do I need from a laptop bag you ask? Not much to be honest. I need a nice safe pocket or slot to house my trusty 13" MacBook. On top of that, I need someplace in the bag to conveniently store my Kindle, my power cord to the laptop, and my wireless mouse. Beyond that the only other consideration I can think of would be to possibly have some sort of cell phone pocket or perhaps a place to store a generic type of notebook if I needed to.
See, not really all that much in the way of complexity, but to this day my efforts have been frustrated.
Working in an office environment has led me to feeling that I need to appear a little more "grown up" if you will. Whether or not that is really all that important is debatable, but I feel like using the same backpack that I used to go to class at BYU leaves me stuck behind in the not-so-grown up world I wish to leave behind.
I've looked at a lot of bags, but they all seem to have far more pockets and hidden areas than I need, or they are all shoulder bag style, or look far to "trendy" and "hip" for my taste. I want something that feels like a sort of casual briefcase without looking like I'm being pretentious if that makes any sense.
The search continues, and someday I will be successful, it is just taking a really, really long time. Finding a bag is not something I'll allow myself to simply do online looking at pictures. I need to pick it up, give it a look, and fall in love with it. Otherwise I'm positive I'll just be frustrated by what shows up in the mail when the order arrives.
Of course, the problem with that is there aren't many places that have much of a selection on hand for me to look at in the store.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
57% Finished With "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," and Loving Every Bit
There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and entertainment news outlets about the recently released movie entitled The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Since seeing the first previews a few months back I have been trying to decide if I wanted to see the movie in theaters, or wait a little longer and grab it from the local Redbox at some point.
Normally, if a movie looks like it is probably going to be pretty good I will just go see it in the theater, but this one has had some interesting news surrounding it. According to internet rumor, the movie originally received an NC-17 rating, which while I'm definitely not opposed to seeing R rated movies, NC-17 is pushing it even for me, and I likely would never have seen it if that were the case. The reasoning behind the first rating was apparently due to a specific rape scene found in the book, which has a pretty dramatic impact on the story as a whole.
So, instead of going to see the movie when it first came out, I figured I would read the book it is based upon first, and then make my decision. I grabbed the Kindle version of the text with some money from a gift card I received for Christmas and have been working my way through it ever since. I've been reading for about four days now, and while the story started a little bit slow and took a little getting used to it has begun to pick up quite a bit.
Stieg Larsson, the author, has a very interesting way of telling his story. The prose isn't quite like anything I've read before given my background in science fiction and fantasy novels, but despite that I've found that I'm riveted. The easiest way to explain the prose is to imagine someone is trying to tell you a very, very good story, but is doing so while trying to read you an essay at the same time. It's quite fascinating really. The dialogue between characters is minimal at best, and the type of prose I'm used to where the author depicts the various actions of the characters from moment to moment seems almost nonexistent, but I have yet to feel like anything is being left out.
It's definitely a writing style that is different from most, and the only way to appreciate it would be to read it for yourself, which I highly recommend, and I haven't even finished the book yet.
At some point I knew I was going to reach the rape scene that has caused so much conversation about the movie, and when I did it was pretty tame to be honest. Not that rape is a "tame" thing in any fashion, but as far as the depiction of what was happening is concerned it was done in a very non-graphic manner that said just enough to make it clear what was happening, but never crossed the line into making the reader uncomfortable. In fact, I happen to know some fairly innocent minded folks who tend to shy away from books and movies that depict anything remotely taboo and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to any of them.
As a result, I think I will see the movie whenever I have the chance, but I probably won't rush it. Right now the book has me hooked well enough that when I get it finished (probably in the next day or so) I will likely jump directly into the second book of the series before I do anything else.
It isn't often that I stray from my science fiction/fantasy background for pleasure reading, but I'm glad I did this time because the result has been extremely good.
Normally, if a movie looks like it is probably going to be pretty good I will just go see it in the theater, but this one has had some interesting news surrounding it. According to internet rumor, the movie originally received an NC-17 rating, which while I'm definitely not opposed to seeing R rated movies, NC-17 is pushing it even for me, and I likely would never have seen it if that were the case. The reasoning behind the first rating was apparently due to a specific rape scene found in the book, which has a pretty dramatic impact on the story as a whole.
So, instead of going to see the movie when it first came out, I figured I would read the book it is based upon first, and then make my decision. I grabbed the Kindle version of the text with some money from a gift card I received for Christmas and have been working my way through it ever since. I've been reading for about four days now, and while the story started a little bit slow and took a little getting used to it has begun to pick up quite a bit.
Stieg Larsson, the author, has a very interesting way of telling his story. The prose isn't quite like anything I've read before given my background in science fiction and fantasy novels, but despite that I've found that I'm riveted. The easiest way to explain the prose is to imagine someone is trying to tell you a very, very good story, but is doing so while trying to read you an essay at the same time. It's quite fascinating really. The dialogue between characters is minimal at best, and the type of prose I'm used to where the author depicts the various actions of the characters from moment to moment seems almost nonexistent, but I have yet to feel like anything is being left out.
It's definitely a writing style that is different from most, and the only way to appreciate it would be to read it for yourself, which I highly recommend, and I haven't even finished the book yet.
At some point I knew I was going to reach the rape scene that has caused so much conversation about the movie, and when I did it was pretty tame to be honest. Not that rape is a "tame" thing in any fashion, but as far as the depiction of what was happening is concerned it was done in a very non-graphic manner that said just enough to make it clear what was happening, but never crossed the line into making the reader uncomfortable. In fact, I happen to know some fairly innocent minded folks who tend to shy away from books and movies that depict anything remotely taboo and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to any of them.
As a result, I think I will see the movie whenever I have the chance, but I probably won't rush it. Right now the book has me hooked well enough that when I get it finished (probably in the next day or so) I will likely jump directly into the second book of the series before I do anything else.
It isn't often that I stray from my science fiction/fantasy background for pleasure reading, but I'm glad I did this time because the result has been extremely good.
Monday, January 9, 2012
I Subscribed to My First Podcast Ever Today
I've been a consumer of Apple products for a long time. My laptop is a Mac, my wife has a Mac, I use a Mac at work, etc. We've had several iterations of the iPod in our home and someday I'll probably own an iPad of some sort whenever the time is right.
One thing that came about with the invasion of the iPod into modern culture was the podcast. A short (or sometimes long) recorded broadcast on whatever topic you can possible imagine thinking up, and then you can make them available to anyone in the world at the push of a button. Things started out slow for the podcast community, but quickly picked up steam and now it seems like every outlet in the world has some sort of podcast version available for user consumption.
Podcasts have always seemed pretty cool to me, I tend to listen to the Extra Hot Great podcast a lot of the time with my wife in the evenings while adventuring around Azeroth while she folds the laundry, but I've never subscribed to a specific podcast to listen to myself.
Until today that is. Today I finally got around to subscribing to the ESPN First Take podcast on my iTunes so I can listen to it each day. I'm a big fan of sports analyst Skip Bayless, and I figured it might be nice to mix things up at the office a bit each day by having it available to enjoy. It's an easy way to get some up to date sports news without trying too hard.
Wish me luck in my podcast listening, who knows, maybe I'll subscribe to another one someday.
One thing that came about with the invasion of the iPod into modern culture was the podcast. A short (or sometimes long) recorded broadcast on whatever topic you can possible imagine thinking up, and then you can make them available to anyone in the world at the push of a button. Things started out slow for the podcast community, but quickly picked up steam and now it seems like every outlet in the world has some sort of podcast version available for user consumption.
Podcasts have always seemed pretty cool to me, I tend to listen to the Extra Hot Great podcast a lot of the time with my wife in the evenings while adventuring around Azeroth while she folds the laundry, but I've never subscribed to a specific podcast to listen to myself.
Until today that is. Today I finally got around to subscribing to the ESPN First Take podcast on my iTunes so I can listen to it each day. I'm a big fan of sports analyst Skip Bayless, and I figured it might be nice to mix things up at the office a bit each day by having it available to enjoy. It's an easy way to get some up to date sports news without trying too hard.
Wish me luck in my podcast listening, who knows, maybe I'll subscribe to another one someday.
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