Yeah, in our English 318 class on Thursday Brandon started talking about this novel he’s thinking about writing after he finishes the 12th book in the wheel of time series. Since blogging is always a frenzy of people trying to be the first ones to break news, I thought I’d join in the general pandemonium and write about what he said…
Thoughts on The Little Mermaid
I had this great idea for a story the other day, and it sounded a lot like Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, so I decided to read it (the original, of course) to see what the story is like. Having read it, I can definitely see why it is considered to be a classic–and how it could motivate people to build a statue in honor of it…
Something encouraging I read
I was surfing around on the internet the other day, looking on writing blogs, and I found something that was surprisingly encouraging. It was a comment by Muneraven on one of the pages of a really interesting blog called DeepGenre, and here is what it said:
90,000+ words, 300+ pages, and I’m going to bed
That’s just about it. I did some revision of The Wormhole Paradigm in between classes, and that was actually quite satisfying. After homework, wrote in The Lost Colony for a while, and it’s coming, slowly and surely. I’m tired and starting to get loopy, so I had to end in the middle of a scene, but other than that it went well. Now, must rest…tomorrow…blegh.
addicted to writing
That’s right. But the cool thing is that I think my story is getting better…
Just coming out of a writing binge
Yeah, that’s right. Somewhere on the order of 4,000 words in the last 48 hours…
Hinckley Challenge
I don’t usually participate in this kind of stuff, but a group of people are getting together online to commemorate President Gordon B. Hinckley’s life by pledging to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days, starting this Monday. President Hinckley was an incredible man and his teachings and leadership profoundly affected my life. Like all church presidents, he constantly encouraged the rest of us to read the Book of Mormon, and I feel that he would be pleased that people are commemorating him by doing just that. If you would care to join me, you can follow the link below:
Thoughts on Writing Groups
It’s been really interesting to compare my experience with the Quark writing group with the writing group in English 318. There really is a lot of contrast between the two, and that’s helping me to understand what works and what doesn’t, and what writing groups are good for and not so good for…
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
In English 318 at BYU, every time somebody mentions Scalzi’s name, Brandon Sanderson (who teaches the class) counts to three, raises his fists and shouts out “Scalzi!” in this voice that makes it clear that he’s cursing his name. Why? Because he beat him to some kind of award or something. But Scalzi is definitely a good writer, not only because Sanderson chose Old Man’s War as one of our “textbooks” for his class, but because he wrote a sci fi book that sold better than most fantasy books, in a time when the genre has been experiencing a downturn. And he is a good writer; I thoroughly enjoyed his book…
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
When I started this book, I was a little bit surprised that it’s such a famous sci fi book–the story wasn’t that strong, and there were a couple of flaws that even the Quark writing group would pick up on pretty quickly. By the time I finished it, however, it gave me the urge to do two things: vote for McCain and join the marines…