Wandering Revisions

Revisions, hmmm... I could say that they are like the a never ending buffet, you try as many as you can, hoping that the next one is better, but ultimately you have to settle for one thing that suits your pallete.  I was once told that you could revise something until the end of days and still find something you could have done better.

When I write I throw everything I want to see in my mental image into a scene, and I look at the conglomeration that is sitting before me and I try to make it all make sense.  That sometimes doesn't happen.  Oh hell it doesn't happen a lot.

I forget a word here or there, because I said it either, in my head or out load, which is good enough right?  Well fortunately, people aren't mind readers, but unfortunately that means that without those words, the key to the sentence stays hidden and the meaning of it locked away.

When someone tells me that they have a problem with something I've written, I try to listen and hear what they have to say and take it into account, when I re-write something.  I pull out all my peer reviews and give them a quick once over.  If I find a pattern to which they all had a problem wrapping their heads around, then that is something that I definitely need to look at, otherwise...

Well probably not the ass stomping part.  Pretty harsh response for having an opinion, although I have heard of worse happening.  Anyway back to my wandering revisions.  My line edits, well let me just say that I am not the best person of doing a  lot of proofreading before I submit something, so yeah, things slip by.  No worries though, I am sure that I will either see it or be told about it later on.  Usually I feel like a fuqtard when see or am told about my typos/errors.

So my routine is usually put on some of my music, listen to the songs I feel best inspire me for what it is I writing and have at it.  I do try to write so that everyone can keep up with what is going on.

My experience with the peer review was fun and it did help me realize that I needed to improve on somethings, as to make them a bit more clear.

Book of the Tube of You

Youtube, the video frontier; this is the voyage of one man completing a Creative Writing assignment.  My mission:  To sort through the endless number of booktubers and determine in my opinion which dos not suck.

So as I begin my voyage, my meandering drive stalls and I procrastinate, with a cold bug nipping at my hind quarters and my mind set on Calculating derivatives, I felt little to no energy to devote to watching youtube for I need all my mental capacities to fend off the sniffles and the Calculus blues.

That was until I was faced with my arch nemesis: TIME!!!! 

Seriously though, I have to admit, this was not something I would normally be a big fan of.  I enjoy hearing others opinions but I usually can gauge from conversations about this that and nothing of what we might have in common.  Such as someone telling me that they like Twilight.  I can tell that we are not going to have too much in common when it comes to what we are going to read.

Call me strange, but for the most part I stopped reading young adult stuff when I was 14.  Guess what?  Booktubers love it.  I imagine that some might even marry their favorites novels.  Let this be a story about a shy young woman and some guy with a faux hawk and an eating disorder and apparently the legs of their imagination spread like some love starve harlot in a Super 8 motel.

Now before you get too terribly offended, let me say this: I am merely posting my opinion on the matter, I am hardly an authority on anything of the sorts and those who are writing these books have vivid imagination, a thought for young love, and a less jaded romance life than me.  I am more of a fan of body counts versus romance (sex) counts.  Yes I am speaking ill of the character Anita Blake (seriously is one of her powers the ability to avoid STD’s whilst engaging in numerous orgies in one night?), she just don’t love herself.

Also if I am to be completely clear and honest I feel this way about many books from different genres, but the first three Booktubers I watched told me about their young adult romance picks of the year.  Now call it the lack of oxygen getting to my brain, or the numbers that ain’t numbers running through my head, but somewhere it flipped the switch of oh dear god.

With a clearer mind now I say, enjoy what you enjoy, and be damned the grumpy guy who reads the art of war because it seems like a reasonable life strategy. Oh yeah whilst I am in a mood of oh dear god why, for those who actually read the Simarillion and enjoyed it, HOW?  Reading the Simarillion to me is like sky diving without a parachute to save a life; a daring and noble cause but ends up being a damn tragedy in the end.

Ah but I digress, onward back to the meander drive, wander factor four.  Fourth Booktuber; Danny “I’m a Smartass” Marks.  The first thing I watched from him was him vandalizing his own young adult novel.  In my mind I said, “Wil, this guy’s got some potential.  He just drilled a hole through his book and is painting it black.”  This man also referred to himself as a whore.  I laughed, I laughed a lot.  I had finally put my imagination out on the corner.

His book shelf tour was a tour of his shelf he labeled adult that he was promising to read for the New Year.  He had a lot horror books in his 24 book promise and some science fiction along with detective stories.  I heard a bell chime in the distance as an angel got its wings, or maybe it was the music I was listening to.

He never really mentioned any of his favorite characters, but he was quite prolific about his favorite book covers and book covers that he just didn’t like at all.  I think he has a thing against the color pink.  As far as wrap-ups went I didn’t come across those but he does do something call his weekly agenda which is basically ever two or three days he announces an agenda and he tells you of what books he plans to read and things he thinks about doing in the week.

 Didn’t note any book clubs he was a part of but then again I didn’t watch all of his videos either, but that seems hardly the point really.  What I enjoy is his ability to tell why he enjoys the books he does and make fun of himself and things that go with it.  I feel like that if you enjoy something then you can find a way to make yourself laugh at your own obsession.

There is not big productions to his videos, he has semi-neat book shelves behind him seems to really enjoy what he is doing.  However I have noticed that with a lot of the booktubers, they do these jumpy edits in their videos, that go on directly to the next topic without a transition or a lead in.  this is only slightly distracting to me, but I can deal.

Most booktubers seem to be about their hauls.  Their weekly book splurges that they intend to read, but as Danny Marks says he buys a lot of books and only reads some of them.  They are also big on waiting for their favorite authors to release books and how they look forward to seeing their favorite books be made into movies.  No harm in that I think.  Hey when they first said there was going to be a Lord of the Rings franchise in live action, I was more than a little happy.

Personally I don’t think I could be a booktuber.  There is that whole thing of time; I just sometimes don’t feel like I have a lot of it.  Then there comes the reviewing of books.  It is easy to tell my friends that I wouldn’t read something and exactly why and give it some choice comparisons with cleaning parts of a bulls anatomy with it, but to tell that to a few hundred or thousands of people that book sucks and why.  That is a level of truth that I feel like should not be served on a global scale.

All and all I think there is a general need for folks who do this sort of thing.  If you find someone who reads a lot of the same books as you then you are going to tend to gravity towards the books they read if they tell you that they are good books to read.  And sometimes a little push towards something you may not have heard of or may not have tried might deliver you to a new level of enjoyment.

Meandering Minds Want to Read

Goodreads.com and Shelfari.com; two websites with pretty much the same function and effect.  I kind of wished I had known about these two sites sooner, as I might have been able to avoid some books that made me toss the damn things across the room in a fit of rage and the burning question as to why did I pick up these intolerable pieces of flaming horse excrement in the first place.

Signing up wasn’t a terrible chore, just that sometimes it felt like it was going to take forever to get information on my friends who use Good Read.  Shelfari on the other hand went really quick, but seeing as how they are supported by Amazon, I am certain their tech staff and servers are a bit larger.

Currently at the pitiful hour in the morning there are 275 people requesting the book “Nellcott My Darling.” by Golda Fried; my current creative writing professor.  I am currently a member of mostly science fiction groups, because hey I am an engineering major and I really science and I enjoy sometimes poking holes in some stories, not always mind you, but there are those days when a mean spirited rant of how a 200 foot tall robot with a fox head man by British space marines just needs a proper jeering.  But mostly I like things that go big badda boom, and planet destroying space ships make a pretty nice size explosion. BOOM heh heh.

When I start naming shelves I might go with something like the Boom Factor, Pointy Things in major organs, because I was told it was good, I enjoy the torture of myself, Elves Must DIE!, And the big green thing eats your face, Too long, or Poetry: a moment of weakness, guilt, and pleasure.

I have to say I would definitely recommend this to friends, family, and the occasional acquaintance.  It is a good way to share what you enjoy reading, get ideas of what to read next and to delve into something you might not otherwise read.

The Measure of a Description

It can be measured but never truly understood, it is an enigma that has plagued humankind and driven some to simply accept it without question.  Its measure is boundless, yet it is appearance seems small.  It is felt but never seen, although we see it work all the time both in spectacular functions and in minor apparitions of itself. 

Many have sought to oppose it and yet it holds all things prisoner, including time.    It allows us to do great things, but always keeps us in its grace.  It is a prison without walls, yet it nurtures us.  Without it we would have no food to eat, no water to drink and no air to breath.  It gives us games to play, ideas to accomplish and many sleepless hours of discomfort.

We all feel it, every year, every month, every week, every day, every hour, every minute and every second, even in our deaths.  It warps our perceptions of all things we encounter.  It is so weak that a leaf can deny it for a time, yet it pulls down mountains and buildings in it grasp.  It is the measure of the severity of situation but its weight can be lifted.  It always works and never takes time off, without it we would surely die, but its efforts will be the undoing of all life as we know it.

Wandering Around the Workshop

While this is not my first workshop, it has been quite a long time since the last one I had been involved with. So let me begin by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed partaking in it.  It was a fun process and by following it, it actually offered me ideas of what I might be able to do better.

I often find that when most people think of a critique that associate it with the idea of ripping someone’s work apart making fun of mistakes and generally writing a scathing review or there is the lofty praise comparing a work to some other persons work that has won the affections of the person doing the critique.  If any of them had the chance to sit in on a true workshop critique then I think that there would be a very different opinion on the matter.

I believe that requiring a solution to every point you made in the story was a great idea.  I think is pretty easy for someone to say that you can do something better, but justifying how it could be done better is definitely a good point.  It also allows the writer to hear ideas that they may not have thought of.  I personally have a problem with thinking it out in my head and then realizing that because I said it in my head that I did not say it in my own writing.

The atmosphere of the workshop was relaxed, and that helps when you are on the receiving end of a critique.  When you are not on the defensive you do tend to be more open to advice, or at least that has been my experience.

I am kind of looking forward to my peer review; I am interested to see what people thought of my work and what they could suggest to offer my story a more character and depth.

Free Write: "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

"Emergency" is a story that leaves you wondering what it is that you are actually reading, Is this a story that is actually happening?  Is this a flawed interpretation due to a drug induced self exploration?  It is hard to tell at points, but I have to say that it was a fun read, following the misadventures of two drug users that are comical, but seems to be leading to a dark ending.

The character of the narrator is definitely an unreliable narrator indeed.  The fact of the matter that he is a person who is an avid pill popper by his own admission, his inability to remember what is truly going on and what he is really witnessing makes you question the events that are happening in the story.  Although, he does sound like he may be in better shape than his friend Georgie, but I get the feeling that was the intention of the whole story to begin with.

The title seems like a good one just because of the series of events that go on throughout the entire story.  In their own strange little drug induced world, they are beset upon by crisis after crisis, emergency after emergency:  The stabbing of Terence Webber, the squishy shoes, looking for pills, rabbits, snow storms, AWOL friends, and what not.  It is somewhat comical and also a sad state of affairs to find yourself in.

Georgie is a character that seems like he is headed to hard and fast burnout, a story of an ending that will be just as comical as it is tragic.  In my opinion, he seems like someone who sees what he is doing with his life as saving lives with every mishap he either creates or is a part of.

The language of this piece is a bit more on the poetic side of things and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion.  But it is a bit flowery for coming from an avid drug user who loses track of when and how the events of the story take place.  I personally couldn’t think of a better way of saying things, as I often find my own work a bit more flowery than some might expect given what my topic may be.

On the other hand, the dialogue of this story was captured a bit more in the realm of believable.  The dialogue seemed like what it would sound like in a casual conversation, I have been known on multiple if not excessively, for using profanity and swearing when talking to my friends about mine or their problems.  I think that a lot of stories lack that simple form of conversation, straight forward and honest to how we speak.

I have to be honest on this one, I kind of got lost in the timeline after Georgie pulled the knife from Terrence Webber's eye.  Although I kind of got the feeling that this was meant to be that way.  I feel like that you are supposed to lose track of where you are and get lost along with the characters in the story.

The first line of the story makes it seem like that the narrator is either a: kind of lost, or b: just really does not care to be specific.  The last line of the piece comes from Georgie, it seems to be that he truly believes that he is a savior of lives, and this will lead all involved down a strange somewhat comical and somewhat tragic path of misshapen adventures.

There are a lot of themes in this piece about blindness and vision.  Take Georgie seeing blood when no one else can, while part of this may be due to his passion of chewing on pill; he is in the middle of an O.R. and the chances of there being blood on the floor are great. Perhaps Georgie always sees a bloody room when he goes into an O.R.  Then there is the part of Terrence Webber being stabbed in the eye: He was caught looking at something that was a considered forbidden, and when he was unable to see it coming, his wife stabs him to punish him for it.  There is also the lack of head lights on Georgie’s truck, which results in them getting lost in a blizzard, despite the fact that there are only a few miles from home.  And it seems, in this story, when you lose sight of something there is a dramatic change of events concerning that something.  Georgie disappears to prep Mr. Webber, and returns having removed the knife from Mr. Webbers eye, restoring his vision.  Georgie does not see the rabbit and runs it over, but as he is cutting it open to make a meal of it, he finds the baby rabbits inside their dead mother, thus saving them from death.  However when the narrator loses track of the baby rabbits, they die under his weight crushing them in his sleep.

Overall this story was a funny and morbid piece as we see the happenings of the world through the eyes of a drug user Narrator and his equally dope fiend of friend.  It is poetic in its language and vivid in its imagery, however this story seems to be a classic example of what not to do in you spare time in the 1970's while working in an emergency room with your best friend who has no headlights in his truck, while working in an ER.

Welcome to:

My Meandering State Of Mind

You are cordially invited to :

My meandering state of mind,

As previously cited,

You are most welcomed inside.

We have tigers, lions and bears oh my,

We have battle fields and ashes,

and heroes live and most certainly die.

There will be plenty of food and drink.

Poisoned candy and clorox, what do you think?

The glass will be half full, no

The glass will be half empty, no

Just kidding, it is mostly just piss.

You better be okay with this.

 Where:

In my sleep and when I day dream,

Just past childhood near the toxic stream.

When:

Oh that simple to see,

whenever I damn well please.

 Bring:

A sense of morbid humor , I hope you have a good time.
For in my meandering mind we call it operation mind crime.
I couldn’t help it, I had to make this rhyme.