creative writing – Page 3

A Reflection on Eclectic Interests

What are you an authority on?

Truth be told, I’ve never considered myself an authority on anything. Oh, sure, I write a blog and share my thoughts and insights on life, writing, and sundry subjects, but I don’t consider myself an expert on any of them. I certainly wouldn’t call myself an authority on writing, and I probably never will. I’m just sharing my experiences, for better or for worse.

To achieve mastery in an artistic pursuit is something I pursue, but it is not a goal I expect to ever achieve. I don’t think it is obtainable. The journey and the gradual improvement of skill over time is what makes such a thing worthwhile.

I’m just a guy with things to say who started a blog. Thanks for reading it, by the way!

That being said, there are things I know about more than others. You know, the kinds of intellectual scree that are useful for a game of Trivial Pursuit, to rekindle the embers of a dying conversation, or perhaps to insert into a livestream chat. I have an unhealthy knowledge of pop culture, for example, particularly video games and tabletop gaming.

I also have an interest in animation history. I have a keen interest in modern Japanese history – enough that I took a master’s degree in Japanese Studies. Actually, reading what I just wrote, I can conclude that I like history in general. The hard sciences scare me, but I’m always up for a discussion about the liberal arts. Go figure.

Jack of all trades, master of none? Yes, yes, I am.

What about you? Are there any subjects you consider yourself an authority on or have a wide range of knowledge about?

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

What Makes a Teacher Great

The best teachers have no interest in being loved. Does that surprise you? Do you think that a teacher should want to be liked by his pupils? But that is not a teacher’s duty. Teachers teach. Easy lessons, hard lessons, the things that make a student stretch out beyond his comfort zone to grasp. A teacher pushes. Students do not always like being pushed.

Teachers are willing to endure ill-favor if it means the ones they teach are able to grow. Whether the elementary teacher who hushes whispered chatter and silences cell phones, the music instructor who demands the apprentice practice hours a night without fail, or the drill sergeant who shouts in cadets’ faces to strengthen their nerves, the best teachers do not mistake pleasantness for effectiveness.

Pleasant feelings are fleeting. Lessons well-learned are forever. A teacher who truly cares is one who places little value on popularity, and everything on the education of their students. Teachers lay a foundation in the minds of the taught. They ensure that deep roots are sunk, and that knowledge and experience grow ever higher. They nurture the student’s mind, and they test it. They see far beyond today’s temporary comforts. They see their student as they could be in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time.

What makes a teacher great? The desire and ability to make others great.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

The Memories of Childhood

I remember the smell of freshly baked peanut butter cookies in the kitchen wafting like a warm summer breeze. I remember how they crumbled in my hand as I ate them, little bits of delicious debris, and how there were always enough to last a week or more. I plucked them out of the Tupperware container one by one, day by day, a child’s guilty pleasure.

I remember the sound of my father mowing the lawn, a sawing roar yet somehow comforting. I remember the pungent odor of freshly cut grass coming through my open window, and I remember him manhandling the lawnmower up the steep hill in our backyard.

I remember walking through the forest park, the pine needles blanketing the ground like slivers of gold. I remember the tall trees that shaded me, and the baseball diamond at the park’s edge, where my parents and I used to buy hot dogs before returning home.

I remember the day after I had my wisdom teeth removed. My mind was a drowsy blur from anesthetics. I remember how my numb jaw felt like a lump of dead meat that didn’t hurt even when I pinched hard. I held a bag of frozen peas against it when the feeling and the pain started coming back.

I remember when I first became a writer. My parents owned a word processor, and I used it to write stories about my action figures. I printed them out and hung them on my wall, so proud of my work. I started my first novel, and never got past the fifth page. I remember getting my first computer, a great, gray blocky thing, and using it to write new stories. A child’s fancies that watered a ripe imagination.

I remember much, much more. More than could ever be committed to blog or paper. My childhood is over. The memories endure.

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Have You Thought About Your Toothbrush Today?

Let us consider the toothbrush.

No one does until one needs a toothbrush. Then one calls out for salvation from cavities and bad breath. The toothbrush is an unsung hero. No one goes through the day anticipating that most exciting and thrilling of activities – oh, yes, isn’t it just! – that is brushing their teeth.

Some things are so ordinary, so utterly normal, that they slip beneath notice. But we must be thankful for the toothbrush. Without it, we would all dwell in a mire of poor hygiene. Only when we don’t have something do we understand how important it is.

Toothbrushes, floss, old slippers, fluffy carpets, dishcloths – mundane, lowly, easily forgotten, yet so, so precious in their own odd ways.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Ye Olden Internet Days

Do you remember life before the Internet?

I certainly remember life with less Internet, though I’m not quite old enough to remember a time predating it. I grew up in the days of dial-up when going online meant not being able to use landline phones (I remember those, too) and television had no online connection. In fact, quite a few things weren’t online. Phones weren’t, cars weren’t, watches weren’t, heck, even there wasn’t even Wifi.

Streaming certainly a thing. Once upon a time, watching Netflix meant having a physical copy mailed to you to rent and return. Speaking of TV and movies, you watched them on a channel, stuck a cassette into a VCR, or went to a movie theater. This was the days before YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. There was MySpace, but I never used that so I can’t say much about it.

I do remember early Internet sites fondly, for some reason. Wikis didn’t exist, so people made websites more or less from scratch. Fewer templates, though there was AngelFire and similar tools. No Wix or WordPress yet. Fan sites looked unique. Silly, too, at times, especially compared to today’s sleek designs. Graphics weren’t a big thing, so a web page was mostly a bunch of text and a few pictures. And we were happy with what we got, you young whippersnappers!

Anyway, I’m not that old, but technology has a habit of making you think you are. It moves very fast, and in another thirty years, we’ll probably look at today’s Internet as something akin to the abacus. Or maybe we’ll go back to using the abacus because our calculators keep spitting out ads after every sum.

Yeah, we didn’t get many ads back then, either. Heh.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Charles Dickens on Writing

Charles Dickens knew what it is like to be a writer …

Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up…

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Cloudy Days and Snowy Days

How do you feel about cold weather?

I feel like an anomaly, sometimes. I enjoy cold weather. When it’s sunny outside, I look out the window and think, “That’s nice.” But when it’s 60 degrees, overcast, and windy, then I get excited. I’m the kind of person who thinks anything over 60 degrees Fahrenheit is too hot. 70 degrees is an oven. 80 and over is akin to the surface of the sun and unfit for human habitation.

Maybe I just like cloudy days because I associate them with something more rough-and-tumble, a more adventurous atmosphere than the sleepy calm of sunny days. The smell of imminent rain, the distant crack of an oncoming thunderstorm, the stiff breeze running over my skin – I love it.

Cold and snowy days, on the other hand …

No, I don’t like snow that much. The cold I can handle, but snow is something best enjoyed from a distance, preferably from the inside of one’s own home. Snow looks pretty, but so do swans, and they are meanspirited cranks. Snow is slippery, deep, obstructive, and eventually turns to slush, which is just cold mud.

Give me cold, cloudy days, rather than cold, snowy days, please.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

The Wrist That Would Not Break

Have you ever broken a bone?

As a matter of fact, I broke my leg when I was a kid. Had to wear a cast. Very painful and inconvenient, I can assure you, but this story isn’t about that. This is about the time when my doctor was convinced that I had broken my wrist.

So, I was a kid roughhousing with my friends, and I fell over and hurt my wrist. My mom takes me to the doctor, who looks it over and then sends me to a clinic to have an X-ray taken. The scan shows that there was no break, though I did have to wear a sort of partial-glove thing to keep my wrist straight and rigid. Presumably in case it did decide to break.

My doctor, however, was not a man easily dissuaded. I went in for another appointment, he inspected my wrist, then sent me over for another X-ray. No change.

I come in for a third appointment. My wrist appears to still be intact. But how can one know without an X-ray? Third time’s the charm. Off I go to have my wrist scanned for signs of a might-be-hiding-in-plain-sight crack in my wrist. Three X-ray scans, and my wrist still wasn’t broken.

In fact, the man in charge of the clinic came to speak with me in person to confirm if the X-rays had been deceived and my wrist was in fact broken. It in fact was not.

Looking back, I might have at least done my primary doctor the favor of discreetly breaking my own wrist to justify his vigilance. But that’s the sort of idea that only comes later in life with much wisdom and imagination. The fact is, my wrist truly, sincerely, and stubbornly refused to break, no matter how many X-rays it was subjected to.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

One Day of Horsing Around

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

I’m content with where I am in life, but if I could choose a single job to do for just one day, I would like to work on a horse ranch. I like horses, but I’ve never really been around them that much (so maybe I just like the idea of horses). Plus, my day job involves sitting at a desk all day, so I would very much appreciate being able to get off my rump and do something more physical, for once.

Of course, not really being a person who works around animals much, while I say now that I like horses, I can’t guarantee how much I’d like them at the end of the day! But that’s the point. I want to do something different and see what it is like for me. I want to challenge myself by stepping outside my comfort zone and seeing what it’s like on the other side of the fence. Is the grass really greener, or would I go running back to my office?

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Exposed: More Risks of Being a Writer

In my last post, I talked a bit about the material risks of pursuing a writing career: the money and time involved. Now, I’d like to talk about more abstract risks.

Courage

To write is to put pieces of yourself into all your work. An author writes from the soul, baring his thoughts, beliefs, joys, and hopes to a world that may very well look on it all with indifference or contempt. That is a huge risk, especially if your work is meant to sway hearts and minds. You are, for all intents and purposes, metaphorically standing naked before the world. Making your work public is an act of courage.

Disappointment

How have you responded to tepid reception to your book or short story? How long have you labored to complete it, only for it to not live up to your expectations? It happens. It has happened to the greatest authors of the ages. To write for yourself and then tuck away the results can bring some pleasure, but if you make it available to the world, you may find that the world doesn’t see it with the same fondness. It doesn’t mean that you lack talent or diligence, it is simply the way that life turns sometimes.

Time (again)

Well, well, aren’t I a cheat? Putting up “Time” two posts in a row? But I’m talking about it in a different context here. I’ve already dwelt on how writing means putting in the time. But writers are also fighting against time. Every artist does, I suppose. We have so many ideas. Loads and loads, enough to last more than a lifetime. But we only have a lifetime, so we must face the truth that we won’t be able to complete every project that we want to before the end. So, which projects will you focus on? What are your most precious ideas that must be given form and shape? Choose wisely.

Again, apologies if my latest post was a little grim for your liking. To be an author is a great thing, but it carried its own struggles. Worthwhile things always do. I greatly enjoy writing and publishing, even as I acknowledge that it carries immense frustration sometimes. Even so, for those of us who write, we push forward. Don’t stop, even if it seems as if the risks outweigh the rewards. Keep writing.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

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