Blogs

  • A Phantom for My Opera?

    Some days when I doubt myself and my abilities to write I think of employing a ghost writer. But in a bit of a different setup. I will write the first draft and then the potential ghost writer can refine it to a readable/enjoyable state. I love storytelling, and I love the creative process. But my produce just isn't up to par most of the time. Training is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I read, I watch, I practice... I learn? Yeah, sometimes I do learn. But I will continue to try my best. So no, I will not employ a phantom for my space opera. I will be the author of my own...
  • Hello Predator—Meet Prey! You'll get along famously

    [CENTER][MEDIA=youtube]dK80v17Fkcw[/MEDIA][/CENTER] Finally I've found a good and fairly comprehensive video on this subject, something I've tried many times to elaborate on throughout this blog. [B][I]Iain McGilchrist[/I][/B] seems to be just about the only scientist concentrating on this subject today, aside from some low-key research groups doing studies nobody ever hears about (unless they look into McGilchrist's work). He's its popularizer, the way [B][I]Carl Sagan[/I][/B] and [B][I]Neil DeGrass Tyson[/I][/B] are for astrophysics and science in general. Several times I've explained...
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  • The Desperate Search for a New Idea...

    I think I have it... Not a truly different idea in that it's completely unheard of on any level.. But I had quit story-telling for a while because I couldn't think of something genuinely new and interesting. Different in terms of style, structure, and idea. As a fiction writer...I tend to want to [I]create [/I]something. To flex my imagination rather than offering stylistic renditions of the same types of stories. Only problem is...I think I will never complete it in time. I know...cryptic. Useless...but this is more a time-stamp for myself. Maybe, in time, someone will look back on...
  • Time, time, time

    On our neighborhood walks my wife and I used to walk past a big old deciduous tree (as I recall, though it may have been a pine). A couple years back, though, it dropped its biggest branch and some others in a storm, and the property owners had it removed. All of it, stump and all. This year when we walked past that spot, there is absolutely no indication that the tree was ever there. Once the next generation of property owners move in, no one will recall that tree. It existed, but now it's totally gone. When we moved into our house more than 20 years back, a semi-retired surgeon and...
  1. Terrorism

    As far as I know, it was a Danish individual with dual citizenship who burned the Quran here in Sweden, him and an asylum seeker from Iraq. No actual Swede burned any Quran in a way that garnered so much attention, as far as I am aware.

    There are also conspiracy theories amongst extremists that the Swedish social agencies are stealing Muslim children.

    And here we are, with extremists chanting death against Sweden and dealing it because of a Dane and an Iraqi. If it wasn't serious I would...
  2. What is that song!

    Ever have one of those days where you just cannot get a song out of your head? I have had this song stuck in my head all day. I literally could not hear any other part of it in my mind except for this:

    " Ever know when the time is right to take the reins.
    Down the road they're gonna find out anyway but it's too late
    Ya know leaches like pretending that they're everything they're not.
    I don't like it, I don't need, I don't want it. "

    Yeah, that is it, all I can hear, kudos to anyone who...
  3. Transcendent Writing

    Transferred from What are you Reading Now?

    Oh crap!! One look at the title and you have to know I'd be all over it in a heartbeat: Transcendent Writers in Stephen King's Fiction: A Post-Jungian Analysis of the Puer Aeternus. Two of my favorite writers, and it's about not only psychology, but transcendence! It's like the quad-fecta (is there such a thing? Well, there is now!). Moreover, it covers pretty much my favorite King...
  4. Southpaw

    This morning I spent the first hour of my day practicing on the keyboard. I actually like starting my day out one of two ways. Either practicing the keys or working out. I know seems like very different ways to start a day out. However, it is what I enjoy.
    Anyway, so this morning it was the keys. :)
    Since I had successfully played ' The longest time' at my friends, Let's call her Sarah, house Sunday night when we were hanging out without needing my sheet music. I decided I had at the...
  5. Yesterday

    openly saying what is on my mind has never been easy. I used to keep journals when I was younger. But haven't had one since I was 13/14.
    So, this experience could get awkward lol.

    Yesterday I was working on rewriting Dark, since I received so much good, helpful feedback from people on here.
    Well, my best friend was at work, and started texting me because it was extremely slow and boring. (she is a bartender)
    So, I suggested I come just sit up there with her, I could bring my laptop,...
  6. On Virgins

    Subversion is always shallow. Thematic correctness doesn't change when a trope is subverted, it only changes in satire. Satire subverts the theme, not the tropes, because it needs the tropes in order to signal its identity.

    For example, the virgin or child saviour. She hasn't yet entered society fully, so she hasn't yet been fully corrupted by it. Her perspective is quite figuratively virginal: "But stabbing other people is wrong." The two men look up from their knife fight, understanding...
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  7. Results

    I didn't get any comments about those short scenes being head hopping so that eases my concern on that issue. Beyond that, I'll see how it goes when it gets to the beta readers.

    When it comes to beta readers that is an entirely different frustration. For some reason I picture the old Budweiser commercial with the frogs in the swamp, when it comes to Beta readers. The frogs are either croaking "Loved it", or it is just the crickets in the back ground.

    Book 2 is stuck at about 55k...
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  8. Can writing be a meditation?

    This idea has been on my mind for a while, just as idle speculation, but now I want to run a bit of an experiment.

    I know drawing and painting function as active mediations for me, at least at times. It happens when you fall into the flow state, when time seems to stand still or you forget all about it, forget to eat a meal or two becuase you're so absorbed in the creative work, and when you do bring the session to an end you realize a lot more time has gone by than you thought, and you...
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  9. The experiment with POV (750 words). Feedback encouraged.

    Here are three of the PoV shifts, of a total of six for the chapter. I am trying to show both sides of the battle by doing this, and keep the events in Chronological order. Rather than repeat the events from the opposing POV in a second scene. Does this work, or is it just confusing to the reader?

    The intruders came charging into the temple. How dare they invade the sacred space like this! He would teach them some manners. With a gesture, his undead began moving toward the invaders....
  10. Current status

    Currently working on a fantasy trilogy, I think it will be a trilogy, but you never know an idea may hit that extends it beyond that.

    Book 1 has the MC and companions sucked into a prophecy, the MC doesn't believe in, and is basically forced into helping with. For the gamers out there it is a basic escort quest. The story uses an onion villain, though at this point we only really see the outer layer villains.
    This work has been through a few edits, and is currently out to beta readers....
  11. Some great videos on spiritual/psychological topics


    One of the best videos I've ever seen on Jung's psychology and alchemy as a spiritual quest. Actually this channel is extremely fascinating.
  12. Hubert Dreyfus lecture series on Homer's Odyssey

    In which I tag along with Odysseus on his little jaunt around the harbor. Feel free to join us if you want.
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  13. Last Day

    Today is my last day in Greece.

    It's a painful sentence for me to write (or think about). Every summer, it's the same story. Get excited about going home to Greece for the summer, and get literal nightmares as the days grow nearer and nearer to the time where I am to go back to the UK to continue my studies. I've heard of people who get 'work dreams' where they find themselves in an unpleasant situation at an old or current job. There are also school dreams where you have a nightmare over...
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  14. Angela Carter on the Tale vs the Story

    Getting back to my posts concerning different kinds of stories, here's something I've posted on the board that I'd like to be able to find, so I'm putting it here in my online notebook (the first part is by yours truly):

    Fairy tales are not like regular stories because they're archetypal. They're about types rather than individuals. Even if an individual has a name in a fairy tale, they represent a type. The names are often strange, like 'Horsehair went to wash himself in...
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