Hello all you strange and excellent people,
I do not have any striking prose pieces or related material for you this week. In fact, I’ve been in a bit of a writing trench lately. Priorities have been a bit screwy and my attitude, well, temperamental. Afflictions of self and whatnot. I’m working to help them pass in a timely manner, but matters of the heart can be elusive, so we’ll see.
I picked up Brandon Sanderson’s final Reckoner’s book, “Calamity.” Barreled through it in less than three days, which is super fast for me, because I’m not the most breakneck of readers. Yes, even for easy-peasy young adult novels.
Took me two years to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Nevertheless, I recommend the series to all audiences. Anything that takes the superhero genre and flips all the tropes on their heads is something that will receive my mark of approval.
I’ve concluded that, unless I am really inspired to write some type of short-form story, I absolutely hate the activity. Short stories suck to write. I have half a dozen of them complete and undergoing revision, but I fear I don’t like any of them. The heart is there, but the execution was freaking terrible. This is a large part of my discouragement over the last couple weeks.
“The Wisdom of Demons” has seen far more progress. I am currently establishing a coherent timeline for the rest of the story, which will act as a vehicle for pushing ahead to the end. I spent an entire work shift backpedaling through all of my material, organizing it, and fleshing out details of setting and character agendas, so the book doesn’t feel like a flailing mess anymore. Praise God. I was tempted to scrap it for a while, there.
Christina Grimmie released her newest EP earlier this week. Musically, vocally, it is splendid. The lyrics are not bad, per se, they just hurt my heart a little bit and all ring the same emotional chord. She clearly did not have a good relationship this last year, because all four songs follow the same subject. I fear I might sound too self-righteous in asking that she use her skills to sing songs of a different tone. Her pedestal in our culture is far greater than mine will ever be, so she has a great opportunity to shed light upon people who lack light. Do not misunderstand, she does do all of this, just not to my selfish satisfaction. As if I’m somehow in a place to make decisions on what she should and should not do with her abilities and time.
But that’s a rabbit hole nobody asked for. Go check out the EP. Seriously, it’s great. It’s on ITunes for like, three dollars.
I recently discovered the Cracked Podcast, so that has also been a huge drain of my time. A worthwhile drain, mind you, but a huge one nonetheless. I’ve learned a lot about things I never even thought to ask questions about, like how America inadvertently inspired Hitler, gender and racial issues of a fabric I’d never considered, and pop-culture analysis from perspectives far unlike my own. This abridged fluff I’m giving you now does absolutely no justice to how good the podcast is, so if you have an opportunity, check them out.
I’ve been on the hunt for post-graduate, MFT programs. A necessary evil if ever there was one. This also means I’ve been siphoning some time into studying the bloody GRE, which I grow less fond of by the day.
Lastly, I’ve finally put on paper my six-step plan for my writing career, which I’ve theatrically titled “Operation: Prisma.” Yeah, I made a plan for life, that thing which notoriously spits in the face of plans. Because I can, I guess.
Step One, get at least three short stories published, so I can have reference material for future pitching prospects. Step Two, get my first novel published. I’m aiming to have this done no later than five years down the road. Then, in no particular order, the following goals involve increasing my popularity to a higher threshold, helping to make a video game, and helping to make an anime.
Hopefully our world does not implode or break down into forty different kinds of madness before then.
God bless, go about your days with a song in your heart, and always remember to smile.
(*Artistic piece by Yuumei for your aesthetic pleasure. Please go support them on Deviantart.com, because holy crap they have so much cool stuff.)