I used to read all the time up through high school but I have a hard time finding books I actually like anymore
Mostly I just seem to read science fiction, I guess my favorite books would be Dune and The Forever War. The last time I read a book that I really enjoyed was A Game of Universe by eric nylund, which I randomly read on a trip because I had nothing else and was expecting it to be terrible.
Oh and I recently reread The Giver while working as a substitute teacher at my old gradeschool, that book is amazing for a childrenās book
I actually barely remember it, its all westeros people right? I read it like 8 years ago. Iām actually in this awful situation with ASOIF where I donāt want to watch the show until Iām caught up on the books, but I donāt want to read Dance until I reread the first 4 (since its been 8 years), but fuckā¦ those are some thick books bruv
I started Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck this week. Seems very Steinbeckyā¦ meandering on without a definitive direction, but the characters are keeping me interested (especially since all they seem to do is lay around drinking wine all day)
These are my top 5 books Ive read
Valis by philip k dick
satan burger by carlton mellick iii
finnegans wake by james joyce
book of the new sun by gene wolfe
the stars my destination by alfred bester
Iāve been listening to audio books lately. (Been going through one of my phases when Iām not listening to very much music.) I tried listening to Notes From Underground, but that didnāt really work for me. Then I tried listening to stuff by H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle and itās going pretty well. Maybe thereās something about really hardcore character studies that demand to be read rather than listened to, whereas itās more the opposite with stories that are more plot-driven.
Iām reading through Sound and the Fury again. Itās been a long time since I read this book and forgot how annoying Faulknerās portrayal of the Southern accent is. I have to read a page twice just to get wtf theyāre on about.
I just got Bailout in the mail so I may ditch this and move on to that.
I think my use for Nanowrimo ended after my first successful attempt. Not only did I do it, but in doing it I realized that full-length novels arenāt really for me.
However, Iāve been considering participating anyway and just writing short story after short story in hopes of hitting the 50,000 word mark. Weāll see.
What usually happens for me since my 2011 entry (which was just a coincidence as I had already planned to write a new novel long before I even heard of NaNaoWriMo) is I wind up doing it a couple of months early or a few months late. 2012ās entry was a Batman Mystery because I thought DKR was ass and wanted to write my own Batman story to make myself feel better. Then I wrote Sheol Must Fall in March 2013 after escaping one of the lowest points of my life.
50,000 words is nothing for me once I have an idea, but Iām having one of those points where new ideas are hard to come by.
Dark Knight Rises, of course. What kind of challenge is Batman going to have when heās rehabbing in a āprisonā with the worldās best chiropractor, electricity, sunlight, friendly inmates, and a rock-climbing wall WITH A SPOTTER. At first I thought Bane purposely left him there like that because he wanted Batman to come and face him againā¦and then he acts surprised when Batman comes back? COME ON, DUDE.
I may be participating with friends this year but I gotta say, writing 50,000 words in a month on top of all the other writing I do for work and personal business seems like torture.
Iāll be there. Remember, itās not finishing, but competing (with yourself, mostly) that matters. Iāve yet to finish. Iām an undisciplined and highly pedantic writer. Exactly the traits that NtWriMo is meant to get out of you!
Iām currently taking an Emily Dickinson poetry class and I must say that Iām enjoying it more than I want to admit. I used to admire poetry, but Iāve become less tolerant of it as I think it can be a very lazy writing style while at the same time being over-dramatic in intensity. Back in my āemoā (more of an angsty youth than truly being emo. Fuck those cunts trying to monopolize being sad all the time.) stage of life Iād write poetry and think it was full of meaning and shit, but it wasnāt. It was just a series of metaphors. I find those metaphors much better explored via prose. I can say what I want and Iām not constricted to meter. It definitely has itās place, but I believe that it is best suited for forming quick, concise points of inspiration, not trying to model life experiences in tiny little snippets.
Dickinson was really good, though, I must admit. :tup:
And since this is I supposed the āwritingā thread also, my blog should be taking off soon. Iām just trying to 1. find a name for it, since I changed itās content, and 2. get over some technical hurdles. My goal is to be able to publish a serial novel in its entirety using only the command line and vim as a word processor. Currently learning X11 configuration, vim shit and Wordpress shit. Those are all technical terms.
@pherai: Yea manā¦Steinbeck stuff is good. His stuff is not overly dramatic and really grounded in reality. I imagine his characters being your average Joe that just happens to have some issue and the ending usually has that harsh-truth twist as in its-not-all-happy-ending. I proudly owned majority of his short stories( Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, Cannery Row etc) and popular novels( East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Winter of Discontent etc).
Almost done reading Brandenās Six Pillars of Self-Esteem and I must say, itās pretty nuts how influential self-esteem is not just obviously for picking up women but in human society in general. The end-of-chapter exercises is kinda gay, reminds me of that Stuart Malley SNL skit, but the contents before it is solid.
