Seduction

(Ulyssus and the Sirens--Herbert James Draper)
Ladies, if you want to drive a man out of his mind here is the way to do it in an easy to follow step by step list.

1) Wear a slinky black dress. Indirectly, show him your figure by displaying a cool feature of said dress.

2) Talk a lot about your dreams of finding that "special someone" to travel the world with.

3) Use non-verbal communication: give him coy looks from underneath your lashes, caress the skin around your neck, play with your hair, and show some slender white leg.

4) Touch his hand, if it is cold, wrap it in your hands to warm it, then place his hand on the soft, succulent skin of your neck.

5) Express interest in his manly physique.

6) Talk about your voracious sexual appetite.

7) Now for the coup-de-grace! Tell him you have just "friendly" feelings for him; that you feel no spark.

Hopefully he'll be able to get the picture.

Alive

It seems that I had a sudden flurry of posts and then just petered out. Never fear, my adoring public, I am still here.

My time lately has been spent writing (woo-hoo!). So far my new writing method is working quite well (I've been consistently productive since I began, which is as good as I can ask for). How consistent have I been? Well, how does over 12,000 words and 40 pages (in a little over two weeks) sound? Yeah, be impressed, it's ok.

Let's see, what else can I blabber about right now? Oh yes, I said something pretty boastful the other day, but I think it's a good quote. Maybe I'll be remembered for it (if somebody else hasn't said something similar).

Here it is:

1000 words? I can paint a picture in 50. ~J. A. Devenport

I don't know that I really can, but that is what I try to accomplish when writing. Writing, even prose, should have a certain sense of poetry. Blogging isn't the best place to accomplish this, nor is academic writing I guess, but everything else should embrace the beauty found within language. Prose should paint a picture, and 1000 words is enough to go through several poetic images that capture far more than a single picture is able to do. So, anytime you here that cliche "a picture is worth 1000 words," smash it down. Prove them wrong. Language is powerful.

My Sister said my blog was ugly:(

Is this better?

The only way to Celebrate the Holiday of Valentines Day

No offense to all the happy couples that I know, but I think that this is the only event that would save Valentines Day as a holiday. As it is, it's just a punch in the face to the majority of the population.

Annual Valentine's Day Stoning Of Happy Couple Held

God holds a Cattle Prod?

Headache+Excedrin=Late Night. I'm not on the internet blogging at this hour because I want to be:) Rather, I've been forced into it, but for your sake I shall try to make the best of it.

My life, for the last several weeks, has been in a state of, shall we say, steady upheaval. I'm not going to go into details, because they don't matter. What I will say is that for some reason God decided to send yours truly into a severe state of system shock. That's not what I'm writing about though--I spent all last year sounding whiny, and I don't want to do that again this year. What I am writing about is how sometimes difficult/traumatic/confusing experiences redefine us; they can help us see the world in new ways (for better or worse), and sometimes they work as cattle prods, giving us an electric jolt to our hindquarters which motivates us to move forward.

As a writer, I've been severely lacking in motivation since April of last year. I don't know why. Part of it was dealing with some minor writer's block. But really, I could have worked through it with a little bit of effort. That's the problem with motivation though, if you don't have it, you can't put forth effort. So, for the last eight months or so, I've made very little effort to pursue my self proclaimed career path.

Somehow, recent events have shaken me from this state of apathy. I don't even know how it happened, one week I was not writing, and the next week I was. A lot. For a sense of comparison, in the past week, I have written more than I had in the previous NINE MONTHS. That's a pretty good turnaround.

It still eludes me, why I was able to convert events of the last few weeks into writing motivation. It doesn't make sense, really. I've had similar experiences in the past and none of them turned me into a productive writer. Why now?

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this train of thought. Perhaps all I'm trying to say is that God moves in mysterious ways. Or maybe He moves in very simple ways, encouraging us until He's sure we're not responding, then giving us the cattle prod.

I don't like the cattle prod, but I am writing again. . . .

*the picture is from a Japanese Anime called Ah! My Goddess. In case you didn't catch the reason I added it to this post it's because. . .well, I just wanted to add a picture (and I like Belldandy, thankyouverymuch!).

On Writing

I started reading Stephen King's book On Writing, which is one of the best books about being a writer that I've ever read. I like to read it regularly. It's amazing to me how someone who is not known for elegant literature can have such a thorough understanding of language. Stephen King is an artist, and he understands the craft of writing as well as any of the great historical writers.

Anyway, here is a quote that struck me from my most recent read through:

Writing is a lonely job. Having somebody who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough. ~Stephen King

(I need me one of those peoples:)

Progress. Yay!

I think I've finally found some sort of formula to actually be a productive writer. Of course, it may be a little early to tell of it's going to work long term or not, because I've only been doing it for four days now.

In short, I've set a very modest goal for myself: to type 1000 words a day (that comes out to about 3 and 1/4 double spaced pages a day). I find that I can actually hit this in about three hours or less, generally. It helps that it's an easy goal, because it's easier to motivate yourself to accomplish a small thing than it is for a large thing. Once finished, I plot ahead for the next 1000 words. By doing this, I always have a general idea what is happening the next time I write, so I always have material to type.

Really, as simple as it sounds, this system seems to be working miracles for me. I haven't been this productive as a writer since I was a student, when writing was required for a grade. Even then I doubt I was really averaging 1000 words a day.

Just for the sake of comparison, when I was in Brandon Sanderson's writing class, he said that a writer could be a productive writer, and make a living, on 2000 words a week. Stephen King sits down in the morning and doesn't get up until he's written something like 10,000 words. Anyway, I'm kind of in the middle right now.

Hopefully this keeps going.

*Correction: I just checked and Stephen King writes at least 2000 words a day (around 10 pgs). That's his goal and he won't get up until he hits it.

The Maze Runner

I was ill last night and couldn't sleep. So between the hours of 2-6am I read James Dashner's "The Maze Runner."

It was good, Dashner's prose is quite strong throughout, and the story is interesting. In short a teenage boy, Thomas, wakes up in the middle of a huge maze, remembering nothing of his past. There are other boys there, all kids, but as soon as Thomas arrives the status-quo for survival that has existed in the past is upset. The goal is to get out of the maze. Naturally, there are bio-mechanical monsters called "Grievers" that roam the maze to make things interesting.

However, perhaps because it is a YA novel (directed at a younger audience), I found the story extremely predictable. I guessed every single plot twist before it happened, and I'm not exaggerating. I also think that Dashner struggles a little with accurate teenage dialogue, and sometimes character motivations seemed out of place. My last complaint might be unique to me, but I thought "The Maze Runner" had a similar feel to Susanne Collins's "Hunger Games."

Anyway, even with its flaws I found the book engrossing enough to read in one sitting. And, I'm intrigued enough that I will read the sequels when I get a chance.

BTW, Dashner is a local Provo, UT author. I have a link to his blog off to the side somewhere in my blogroll.

Book Reviews

I just finished two separate and very different trilogies. I shall now present to you my succinct reviews.

The Vampire Chronicles--Anne Rice
I've read a few Vampire books, and seen a few movies, but I don't claim to be an expert in Vampire literature. But it seems that Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" is one of the mainstays of the genre. Anyway, I enjoyed the series.

As a whole, the "Chronicles" are well written. The first book "Interview with the Vampire" does a fine job of introducing Anne Rice's world. If it has a weakness it's the fact that the narrator is vocally narrating the story to someone else in the book. In other words, the story is one long exposition through dialogue. The idea is good, but it works better in the form of a short story. Rice is methodical in the buildup of her story, focusing on details and history before delving into the action. "Interview with the Vampire" may lose a portion of readers through its slow and seemingly meandering story arc, but Rice ties everything together in the later books. So, in short, the first book is good, but it main purpose is just to build up the later two books.

The second book "The Vampire Lestat" introduces us to the main protagonist of the whole story, Lestat, a Vampire who awakes (in the mid-eighties) and decides to become the front-man of a goth-metal band (because it's the perfect disguise, hehe), and announce to the world the existence of vampires (in short). The story then backtracks two hundred years and introduces us to Lestat's past. "The Vampire Lestat" goes much deeper into Rice's universe which is good. Unfortunately, after the excellent hook in the beginning, we don't actually get to see much of Lestat being a rock star until the third book. Still, it's a well written and interesting book.

If the first two books are buildup and history, "The Queen of the Damned" is climax the whole way through. In short, Lestat's music is so good (or bad, as my parents would argue) that it wakes up what is essentially the Vampire "god" or goddess as the case goes here. She decides to make Lestat her new prince and consort, all the while intending to destroy the world. Yay! I love impending doom in books! While the first two books are told almost completely through the eyes of one character, the last one has multiple character viewpoints, which was a good choice because there were so many plot lines to tie up. Also, multiple characters introduced through the first two books return for the grand finale, and its interesting to see how their years of immortality have changed them (yes, Rice does a good job of character development). This is getting long. . .in short, "Queen of the Damned" is really good, the best of the three (if you are action oriented).

Note: If you like dark and creepy sounding rock music, the soundtrack for "The Queen of the Damned" movie is actually quite good.

Now, onto Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy. Because I'm getting bored of typing this is going to be short.

The first book "The Golden Compass" is really good.

The second book, "The Subtle Knife" is not as good.

The third book "The Amber Spyglass" is less good than the previous two.

The reason for this is that Philip Pullman is a genius, and his overall story arc is very grand--As the story viewpoints start branching away from the main character of the first book, Lyra, the series gets harder to follow, and less interesting. "The Golden Compass" introduced some excellent characters, but we see less of them through the following books, which is a shame. While Pullman's writing style is very good and engaging, some people may not appreciate the fact that Pullman's story is a long allegory for casting down "god." In fact one of his character directly discovers that "physics" is superior to "god." Still, Pullman does interweave both physics and Christian mythology (academic use of word) into his story in a very interesting manner.

And now I am done. The end.

Terrorism

I found this video on the Onion the other day and I thought it was pretty funny:

Al Qaeda Populating U.S. With Peaceful 'Decoy Muslims'

However, not long after I found this video posted on Facebook:


Suddenly the Onion's satirical nature takes on a much more sinister aspect. I'm not a believer that every Muslim is a terrorist. But I do believe in the "few bad apples" idiom. The world is full of people with false intentions, people who hide behind a mask of friendship. Iago from "Othello" is a great example of this. Shakespeare knew humanity, and unfortunately there are a plethora of Iagos out there. . . The End.