I've not had much of a muse for writing these posts, I've been pretty busy with everything, and I just don't really feel like writing here, at least as much as I did when I started, so, as the title says, this will self destruct, when I feel like posting a little more, I apologise for not posting as much, but I really just want to work on some other projects of mine, more specifically the 3 writing projects I have on the go, and try and finish a couple of them.
I will see you when I get back from this sort of hiatus
-Craig
Friday 18 April 2014
Sunday 16 March 2014
Review #2 Looking for Alaska, by John Green
I seem to be going through all of the John Green books, which is fine by me, he's a good author and I've read a lot of his books, well all of them apart from Let it Snow, which was one that he worked on with 2 other authors.
Today I shall be reviewing my favourite book of his, the first one that I read; Looking for Alaska, which was also his first book to be released.
Let the review begin.
*****
Firstly, this book is incredibly well written, and the story flows very well, the character development is also very good.
The plot focuses around the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, who moves into a boarding school, where his room mate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin is already in a friend group, which Pudge soon joins, meeting Alaska, a wild girl who The Colonel is in love with, it's debatable whether Pudge is as well, or not.
Pudge has a knack for remembering the last words of famous people, which is a the topic of conversation the first time that him and Alaska are in private together, where she teaches him a new set of last words. A recurring theme for the book is the last words of two people, Thomas Edisons ("It's very beautiful over there") and Francois Rabelais ("I go to seek a great perhaps") both of which create conversation in the book, mostly between Pudge and Alaska, who spend a great deal of time together.
The group are smokers, drinkers and users of profane language, all of which were highlighted for Miles not to do, by his parents when he was leaving in the opening scene. The group are also all prankers, and are keen to carry out one of the largest pranks their school has ever seen. This is where another character is introduced: Takumi Hikohito, a friend of the group, keen prankster and owner of the Fox hat, he and Pudge are tasked with setting off numerous fire crackers, waking up a lot of the school, but mainly the principal, who proceeds to chase after them, letting the Colonel and Alaska sneak into his office to carry out their part of the deal, changing a group of student's grades, and also putting hair dye into the shampoo of the students.
The book is set up well, however not in the usual chapter format, however, in a set of sequences running up to the turning point in the book, an event that changes the course of the story, of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you, you can read it for yourselves.This event, is near the end of the book, so there wasn't much afterwards, but everything changed; everything ended up in trying to find out the cause of the event.
The book resolves, which is always good, however nothing was quite the same following the incident that the first 2/3 of the book was leading up to.
The book is, as said, very well written, everything is good about it, I can't really find any bad points about it, and I will also highly recommend that you read it, if you haven't already.
Today I shall be reviewing my favourite book of his, the first one that I read; Looking for Alaska, which was also his first book to be released.
Let the review begin.
*****
Firstly, this book is incredibly well written, and the story flows very well, the character development is also very good.
The plot focuses around the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, who moves into a boarding school, where his room mate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin is already in a friend group, which Pudge soon joins, meeting Alaska, a wild girl who The Colonel is in love with, it's debatable whether Pudge is as well, or not.
Pudge has a knack for remembering the last words of famous people, which is a the topic of conversation the first time that him and Alaska are in private together, where she teaches him a new set of last words. A recurring theme for the book is the last words of two people, Thomas Edisons ("It's very beautiful over there") and Francois Rabelais ("I go to seek a great perhaps") both of which create conversation in the book, mostly between Pudge and Alaska, who spend a great deal of time together.
The group are smokers, drinkers and users of profane language, all of which were highlighted for Miles not to do, by his parents when he was leaving in the opening scene. The group are also all prankers, and are keen to carry out one of the largest pranks their school has ever seen. This is where another character is introduced: Takumi Hikohito, a friend of the group, keen prankster and owner of the Fox hat, he and Pudge are tasked with setting off numerous fire crackers, waking up a lot of the school, but mainly the principal, who proceeds to chase after them, letting the Colonel and Alaska sneak into his office to carry out their part of the deal, changing a group of student's grades, and also putting hair dye into the shampoo of the students.
The book is set up well, however not in the usual chapter format, however, in a set of sequences running up to the turning point in the book, an event that changes the course of the story, of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you, you can read it for yourselves.This event, is near the end of the book, so there wasn't much afterwards, but everything changed; everything ended up in trying to find out the cause of the event.
The book resolves, which is always good, however nothing was quite the same following the incident that the first 2/3 of the book was leading up to.
The book is, as said, very well written, everything is good about it, I can't really find any bad points about it, and I will also highly recommend that you read it, if you haven't already.
Tuesday 4 March 2014
Two in two days? that's madness
Yes, another post, this time another poem 'The Listener' inspired heavily by the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and is also designed for spoken word
-Craig
-Craig
Listening, is a skill we all have although, let’s be honest not everyone uses that skill equally, some like to talk more and some like to listen more
that is where people tend to fall into two camps; you have the listeners, and you have the talkers. Everyone knows who the talkers are, they are the ones with the group of friends in the school playground, and you can often only hear one or two voices; the two prime talkers in the group, or if the talker is a little more friendly, more voices may be heard, but not everyone knows the listener
listeners are more quiet and don’t tend to join in discussion, another name for a listener is, a Wallflower, which is what we are, things that tend to stay outside of social groups, listening, rather than talking, and what we do say, is often more thought out and precise than what talkers say, however, wallflowers are often 1 or 2 conversations late, or can be.
I tend to fall in the middle, for me, it’s a social thing, if I’m with people I like and know, I’m definitely a talker, however, throw me into a situation in which I don’t know anyone, I will tend to be a wallflower, is there a name for someone like me? someone in the middle, who is a socially controlled talker?
can we make one?
please?
Monday 3 March 2014
'What made you realise you were bi?'
Well, I've escaped doing one of these for sometime, but I figured I'd give the story to those who were interested in it, my coming out 'story'
So, I came out to myself in the summer of 2012, however it goes back a few more years, actually, to about 2008/9, so that is where my story shall begin
So this is going back to early secondary school, at least year 8, maybe more realistically year 9 or maybe even year 10, so from 13-15 years of age for those of you outside of the UK, there was one lad who had joined the year group in year 8, and he was alright, somewhat of a good friend although a little too argumentative in my mind, I think now, looking back at it, he had a small case of small man's syndrome (Google it if you are unaware of what it is) but either way, slowly, I sort of developed a sort of attraction to him, nothing major, just your typical early highschool crush, he was good looking, not going to lie, he was good looking, although nothing developed out of it, it was pretty clear that he was straight, and of course, I didn't want to be seen as different, so I kept on going, not really thinking much on it. That is where this story freezes for a few years
We moved up from London to Norfolk, in July 2012, just having finished my GCSE exams, and since the whole incident with my friend, finding him attractive and all, I was starting to look at other males and finding them attractive, although no one from my school or anything like that, more just sort of actors and musicians (Notably, Chris Evans (Human Torch, Captain America)) and I started to pay a little less attention to females, and then in the summer of 2012, I was perusing through Tumblr, and I found a couple of LGBT blogs, and they sort of opened my eyes to bisexuality and what that was and such, and I realised that the crush I had on my friend, was a little more than I thought it was; it was my brain telling me that I was in fact a little bi, and as time has progressed, I've found that I'm a lot bi, I like to think of it as at least 75:25 males: females in terms of my attraction to each gender.
I started coming out to some close friends, those who I could trust, and those who I knew I could trust, and I eventually came out to my parents in mid 2013, they were supportive and still are, although they don't really talk about it a lot, which is good, I don't really like talking about it to them, although I will do with friends.
So yeah, that's me, that's my somewhat story, a little uninteresting, but whatever, it's what I have and it's what I'll be using when people ask me the question that is in the title of this post.
-Craig
So, I came out to myself in the summer of 2012, however it goes back a few more years, actually, to about 2008/9, so that is where my story shall begin
So this is going back to early secondary school, at least year 8, maybe more realistically year 9 or maybe even year 10, so from 13-15 years of age for those of you outside of the UK, there was one lad who had joined the year group in year 8, and he was alright, somewhat of a good friend although a little too argumentative in my mind, I think now, looking back at it, he had a small case of small man's syndrome (Google it if you are unaware of what it is) but either way, slowly, I sort of developed a sort of attraction to him, nothing major, just your typical early highschool crush, he was good looking, not going to lie, he was good looking, although nothing developed out of it, it was pretty clear that he was straight, and of course, I didn't want to be seen as different, so I kept on going, not really thinking much on it. That is where this story freezes for a few years
We moved up from London to Norfolk, in July 2012, just having finished my GCSE exams, and since the whole incident with my friend, finding him attractive and all, I was starting to look at other males and finding them attractive, although no one from my school or anything like that, more just sort of actors and musicians (Notably, Chris Evans (Human Torch, Captain America)) and I started to pay a little less attention to females, and then in the summer of 2012, I was perusing through Tumblr, and I found a couple of LGBT blogs, and they sort of opened my eyes to bisexuality and what that was and such, and I realised that the crush I had on my friend, was a little more than I thought it was; it was my brain telling me that I was in fact a little bi, and as time has progressed, I've found that I'm a lot bi, I like to think of it as at least 75:25 males: females in terms of my attraction to each gender.
I started coming out to some close friends, those who I could trust, and those who I knew I could trust, and I eventually came out to my parents in mid 2013, they were supportive and still are, although they don't really talk about it a lot, which is good, I don't really like talking about it to them, although I will do with friends.
So yeah, that's me, that's my somewhat story, a little uninteresting, but whatever, it's what I have and it's what I'll be using when people ask me the question that is in the title of this post.
-Craig
Sunday 23 February 2014
Lack of updates
I've been lazy with updating this, which is annoying because I want to use this in the future to look back and see what I was doing at the time of each post, so yeah, a little annoying, but oh well.
So, I've been on half term, if you're outside the UK you probably won't know what that is, but if you wanna know, I'm sure there's a google search you can do to look up the British education system. On this half term, I've been thinking a lot, and watching a lot of martial artsy stuff. For those who don't know I've had 12 years of martial arts experience, Karate and Taekwondo, and my most prized possession and greatest achievement to date was getting my black belt in karate, it took 10 years of training, and also two attempts, but I got it, and it wasn't at a private black belt grading either, like my first attempt, it was at a public grading with the whole class watching me, it was such a nerve wracking thing for me, since I was the only black belt grading, and there were at least two of each other belt grading, so all eyes were on me, it felt like it lasted a lot longer, but at the end of the couple of hours I was presented with a certificate, and my belt, and it's still with me today, and I'm still super proud of it. I've just been thinking about what it'd be like to do the Taekwondo system as well, go through the seminars, go to the grading with loads of other red belts and black belts from schools all over the country, seeing some of the biggest names in british taekwondo, it's just something I really aspire towards, I think it'd would be incredible to do and I can't wait for it to happen.
I've also been working on school work, which has lessened my time on the internet for personal interest, like filling out this blog, or working on writing projects, but still, I feel like I've done enough to get away with writing a little post, here or there, which will be coming more frequently, whenever I get the time or ideas, as I've also been suffering a large case of writer's block, which as been not only affecting my writing projects, but also coursework for school as well, which is never good.
But still, more posts will be coming out over the next couple of weeks, maybe even a photo or two, of the black belt, and other such things if I can find them.
-Craig
So, I've been on half term, if you're outside the UK you probably won't know what that is, but if you wanna know, I'm sure there's a google search you can do to look up the British education system. On this half term, I've been thinking a lot, and watching a lot of martial artsy stuff. For those who don't know I've had 12 years of martial arts experience, Karate and Taekwondo, and my most prized possession and greatest achievement to date was getting my black belt in karate, it took 10 years of training, and also two attempts, but I got it, and it wasn't at a private black belt grading either, like my first attempt, it was at a public grading with the whole class watching me, it was such a nerve wracking thing for me, since I was the only black belt grading, and there were at least two of each other belt grading, so all eyes were on me, it felt like it lasted a lot longer, but at the end of the couple of hours I was presented with a certificate, and my belt, and it's still with me today, and I'm still super proud of it. I've just been thinking about what it'd be like to do the Taekwondo system as well, go through the seminars, go to the grading with loads of other red belts and black belts from schools all over the country, seeing some of the biggest names in british taekwondo, it's just something I really aspire towards, I think it'd would be incredible to do and I can't wait for it to happen.
I've also been working on school work, which has lessened my time on the internet for personal interest, like filling out this blog, or working on writing projects, but still, I feel like I've done enough to get away with writing a little post, here or there, which will be coming more frequently, whenever I get the time or ideas, as I've also been suffering a large case of writer's block, which as been not only affecting my writing projects, but also coursework for school as well, which is never good.
But still, more posts will be coming out over the next couple of weeks, maybe even a photo or two, of the black belt, and other such things if I can find them.
-Craig
Saturday 8 February 2014
Finishing things
Hullo
One of the main pieces of advice that I've been given as a wannabe writer, from a few authors, is to finish things. That may seem obvious, but of course, that may seem obvious doesn't it?
you want to be a writer, you have to have finished manuscripts to send off to your publisher.
Finishing things isn't just about having a manuscript to hand over to your agent, or to the publisher themselves, finishing things is about tackling and completing a challenge and can be applied to any thing in life, not just a manuscript, are you a musician? finish your album, or the current song you're working on, rise to the challenge of finishing your next step in life, could be a life changing thing such as a manuscript or an album, or it could be a simple thing like a piece of homework or coursework, either way, the act of finishing things makes you calmer, as it's one more thing done, it can also make your next piece of work better, going back to the art of storytelling, if you finish drafts, if you finish paragraphs, if you finish the whole story, it will make the next one better, because you're learning the art of writing, you're learning how it all fits together, how each sentence pieces together to create the overall idea or scene, or character development, now, I use the storytelling example a lot, because that's what I do, I tell stories, and I need to learn to finish things, and I am planning on finally finishing my zombie apocalypse short(ish) story, which I may put online for digital purchase through the Kindle Marketplace. I may even read it a chapter at a time and put it on bandcamp for you to listen to, if that seems like a good idea. I plan to have it done by the end of the year, fully finished, and ready for publishing, if my artist can finish of the cover idea for it, it'll all be good, and then I will publish it through the Amazon Kindle publishing, and I am seriously considering a little audio project with it, recording on to bandcamp.
This may have been some elongated post about me planning to finish my zombie story, or it could be some sort of philosophical idea about the art of starting and finishing a task, but oh well, take it as you want to, as long as get something out of it. Whatever you decide to interpret this post as, I hope you get something out of it, whether it makes you strive to complete more tasks, or even finish a piece of homework you're stuck on, or whatever, that would be nice, I would see this post as completing its task; getting you to finish yours
- Craig
One of the main pieces of advice that I've been given as a wannabe writer, from a few authors, is to finish things. That may seem obvious, but of course, that may seem obvious doesn't it?
you want to be a writer, you have to have finished manuscripts to send off to your publisher.
Finishing things isn't just about having a manuscript to hand over to your agent, or to the publisher themselves, finishing things is about tackling and completing a challenge and can be applied to any thing in life, not just a manuscript, are you a musician? finish your album, or the current song you're working on, rise to the challenge of finishing your next step in life, could be a life changing thing such as a manuscript or an album, or it could be a simple thing like a piece of homework or coursework, either way, the act of finishing things makes you calmer, as it's one more thing done, it can also make your next piece of work better, going back to the art of storytelling, if you finish drafts, if you finish paragraphs, if you finish the whole story, it will make the next one better, because you're learning the art of writing, you're learning how it all fits together, how each sentence pieces together to create the overall idea or scene, or character development, now, I use the storytelling example a lot, because that's what I do, I tell stories, and I need to learn to finish things, and I am planning on finally finishing my zombie apocalypse short(ish) story, which I may put online for digital purchase through the Kindle Marketplace. I may even read it a chapter at a time and put it on bandcamp for you to listen to, if that seems like a good idea. I plan to have it done by the end of the year, fully finished, and ready for publishing, if my artist can finish of the cover idea for it, it'll all be good, and then I will publish it through the Amazon Kindle publishing, and I am seriously considering a little audio project with it, recording on to bandcamp.
This may have been some elongated post about me planning to finish my zombie story, or it could be some sort of philosophical idea about the art of starting and finishing a task, but oh well, take it as you want to, as long as get something out of it. Whatever you decide to interpret this post as, I hope you get something out of it, whether it makes you strive to complete more tasks, or even finish a piece of homework you're stuck on, or whatever, that would be nice, I would see this post as completing its task; getting you to finish yours
- Craig
Monday 3 February 2014
The day out in Norwich
Hullo
I thought I'd say a little about my day, nothing too riveting, just talking about the day out that I had as part of a sociology trip.
Well, it was supposed to be a sociology trip, a trip to Norwich, Norwich Crown court to be exact. We were going to the court as part of a unit 4 which is Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods, which if you do Sociology you probably would understand that, but for now, the sociology course is broken into 4 units, over the 2 year course, 2 units in year 1 and 2 in year 2, we were on this trip for unit 4 which focuses on crime, deviance and punishment, and in that the legal system and our teachers saw it useful to go to the crown court as it was a free trip and we got to be public witnesses in a few court sessions.
So with background out of the way, lets get into some details about the trip, after the 1hr long car journey in which a bunch of 17/18 year olds were playing eye spy (yes, we're that cool) we finally got to the court and we were taken into one of the courts (court 3 of 4) to have a general overview of the runnings of a court case and who was involved and where they all sat and things like that, after which we were split into groups and were able to go and have a view in to one or more of the court sessions, me and 3 others decided to have a look into court 4, which was one of the smaller courts and one of the most productive. n the space of about an hour we went through 7 cases, although not in detail, a lot of postponing until further notice, due to lack of evidence, due to lack of witnesses, and all sorts, so we learnt that court officials are very negotiable, and also very busy. I also observed that loads of them had lots of paper work, large amounts of it, for each session and case they were present in, a few barristers had macbook airs, which would have been a lot more easier to work with and I feel that a lot more barristers should swap to a laptop as it would be so much more practical than carrying around so much paper work, which would take forever to organise and shift through. there were a few laughs in court 4, although I feel we lucked out as court 3 had a very interesting yet sensitive case, which a few people got to watch.
After that, we had a look in court 2, which was much the same as court 4, but a little more interesting, being told that we'd get to see the swearing of the jury in which the jury either swore an oath on the bible or made a promise. We were told that they would do that a 12, so we went at 12 and then that was postponed to 12:45, so we came back at 12:45 and we sat in the session, hearing the fact that the Jury would not be needed, so we sat through the case either way, which was a somewhat interesting.
After that we decided as a group that we had had enough of the court sessions and we went for lunch, having a relatively short walk in to Norwich itself, splitting up again and finding areas to eat, my 'group' went to Subway, having had Subway we had about 40 minutes in which we could explore and go have a wander until we were needed to go back to the minibus to go back to school, we went to the Dr Martens store and then to the very large HMV store before heading back to the group and back to the bus, having another 1hr journey in which I went to sleep.
That was a quick run through of my Sociology trip, into Norwich
-Craig
I thought I'd say a little about my day, nothing too riveting, just talking about the day out that I had as part of a sociology trip.
Well, it was supposed to be a sociology trip, a trip to Norwich, Norwich Crown court to be exact. We were going to the court as part of a unit 4 which is Crime and Deviance with Theory and Methods, which if you do Sociology you probably would understand that, but for now, the sociology course is broken into 4 units, over the 2 year course, 2 units in year 1 and 2 in year 2, we were on this trip for unit 4 which focuses on crime, deviance and punishment, and in that the legal system and our teachers saw it useful to go to the crown court as it was a free trip and we got to be public witnesses in a few court sessions.
So with background out of the way, lets get into some details about the trip, after the 1hr long car journey in which a bunch of 17/18 year olds were playing eye spy (yes, we're that cool) we finally got to the court and we were taken into one of the courts (court 3 of 4) to have a general overview of the runnings of a court case and who was involved and where they all sat and things like that, after which we were split into groups and were able to go and have a view in to one or more of the court sessions, me and 3 others decided to have a look into court 4, which was one of the smaller courts and one of the most productive. n the space of about an hour we went through 7 cases, although not in detail, a lot of postponing until further notice, due to lack of evidence, due to lack of witnesses, and all sorts, so we learnt that court officials are very negotiable, and also very busy. I also observed that loads of them had lots of paper work, large amounts of it, for each session and case they were present in, a few barristers had macbook airs, which would have been a lot more easier to work with and I feel that a lot more barristers should swap to a laptop as it would be so much more practical than carrying around so much paper work, which would take forever to organise and shift through. there were a few laughs in court 4, although I feel we lucked out as court 3 had a very interesting yet sensitive case, which a few people got to watch.
After that, we had a look in court 2, which was much the same as court 4, but a little more interesting, being told that we'd get to see the swearing of the jury in which the jury either swore an oath on the bible or made a promise. We were told that they would do that a 12, so we went at 12 and then that was postponed to 12:45, so we came back at 12:45 and we sat in the session, hearing the fact that the Jury would not be needed, so we sat through the case either way, which was a somewhat interesting.
After that we decided as a group that we had had enough of the court sessions and we went for lunch, having a relatively short walk in to Norwich itself, splitting up again and finding areas to eat, my 'group' went to Subway, having had Subway we had about 40 minutes in which we could explore and go have a wander until we were needed to go back to the minibus to go back to school, we went to the Dr Martens store and then to the very large HMV store before heading back to the group and back to the bus, having another 1hr journey in which I went to sleep.
That was a quick run through of my Sociology trip, into Norwich
-Craig
Friday 31 January 2014
First post from the macbook air
As you can most likely tell from the title, I got me a MacBook Air, it is the 2013 13 inch model, coming with 4gb ram, 256gb SSD flash storage. It's pretty cool, we did spend most of our afternoon setting it up and making it work with everything, we being my dad and myself, but we eventually got it there and it's all working and it's how I'm typing this blog post to you.
Not much more has happened, I've survived another week of school, and as I've said, I spent today playing with the new macbook, transferring all my word documents over to Pages documents to work with them on the Mac OS, which was as easy as saving them as a .Doc file, having opened them, so that's good. I may spend the weekend catching up with draft 2 of my Alone book, which is my Zombie story which I may share with you guys reading this in the future, I'm also considering trying to do vlogs again, not sure how that will work out, but I might try it, since I now have the isight camera on the macbook, since I have a free house Sunday evenings, I may be able to get something done, if I know what I'm saying and things and not just rambling, although I prefer rambling, it's essentially what I do here, just in a non spoken format.
But still, that's it for this post, just a little update, if I get anything posted on Youtube video wise, I shall link it in a post that I do probably Monday or Tuesday
-Craig
Not much more has happened, I've survived another week of school, and as I've said, I spent today playing with the new macbook, transferring all my word documents over to Pages documents to work with them on the Mac OS, which was as easy as saving them as a .Doc file, having opened them, so that's good. I may spend the weekend catching up with draft 2 of my Alone book, which is my Zombie story which I may share with you guys reading this in the future, I'm also considering trying to do vlogs again, not sure how that will work out, but I might try it, since I now have the isight camera on the macbook, since I have a free house Sunday evenings, I may be able to get something done, if I know what I'm saying and things and not just rambling, although I prefer rambling, it's essentially what I do here, just in a non spoken format.
But still, that's it for this post, just a little update, if I get anything posted on Youtube video wise, I shall link it in a post that I do probably Monday or Tuesday
-Craig
Sunday 26 January 2014
Review #1 Paper Towns by John Green (Spoiler warning)
Hullo :)
This is the first 'installment' of my review series, in which I go through the lesser known books in my 'library' and review them, this first book is relatively lesser known to people who aren't fans of the Vlogbrothers, but if you are, then you should know this book, it's Paper Towns, by John Green, and this review may have Spoilers, so, be careful, if you wanna read it, go read it, and then come back.
Paper Towns is John's 3rd solo book, they are all stand alones so there's no need to read the other 2 before you read this one. The book talks about imagining others complexly, with some banter, some jokes, some pranks and a very detailed character backstory, right the way through until a road trip scene which takes up most of the latter half of the book.
The story focuses on 4 main characters, all of whom are friends and go to the same school together, they could all be considered protagonists, but the main two are Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman, who spend a lot of time together in the introductory chapters, they go on a pranking spree, something that Margo loves doing, and Q is a little rusty on, shall we say. The story progresses through their last year of highschool, with last year high schoolers getting up to stereotypical antics, until suddenly Margo disappears, leaving cryptic clues of her whereabouts, forcing Q and the others to go on a hunt around America to find her, with time running out they resort to a road trip, with calculated stops, and driver swaps and such (spoilers) They get to Margo with just the last bit of time left, whilst she was in the hideaway that she was staying in, when she decided to run from home.
This story is a really good YA read, it's funny, it's sad, it's all around fun, very well written, with great character interactions, a very good storyline and all in all a great atmosphere, would highly recommend reading this, although it would help if you are at least over 13, as some of the topics aren't for those under 13, if you are, ask for parental permission and I'm sure you'll be allowed to read it, it's a very good book
-Craig
This is the first 'installment' of my review series, in which I go through the lesser known books in my 'library' and review them, this first book is relatively lesser known to people who aren't fans of the Vlogbrothers, but if you are, then you should know this book, it's Paper Towns, by John Green, and this review may have Spoilers, so, be careful, if you wanna read it, go read it, and then come back.
Paper Towns is John's 3rd solo book, they are all stand alones so there's no need to read the other 2 before you read this one. The book talks about imagining others complexly, with some banter, some jokes, some pranks and a very detailed character backstory, right the way through until a road trip scene which takes up most of the latter half of the book.
The story focuses on 4 main characters, all of whom are friends and go to the same school together, they could all be considered protagonists, but the main two are Quentin Jacobsen and Margo Roth Spiegelman, who spend a lot of time together in the introductory chapters, they go on a pranking spree, something that Margo loves doing, and Q is a little rusty on, shall we say. The story progresses through their last year of highschool, with last year high schoolers getting up to stereotypical antics, until suddenly Margo disappears, leaving cryptic clues of her whereabouts, forcing Q and the others to go on a hunt around America to find her, with time running out they resort to a road trip, with calculated stops, and driver swaps and such (spoilers) They get to Margo with just the last bit of time left, whilst she was in the hideaway that she was staying in, when she decided to run from home.
This story is a really good YA read, it's funny, it's sad, it's all around fun, very well written, with great character interactions, a very good storyline and all in all a great atmosphere, would highly recommend reading this, although it would help if you are at least over 13, as some of the topics aren't for those under 13, if you are, ask for parental permission and I'm sure you'll be allowed to read it, it's a very good book
-Craig
Possible future ideas
Hullo
This won't be the longest post, but I may have some more later, which will be slightly longer for you
So, I've been thinking about posts that I can add to this blog. Since this is primarily a book blog, with a focus on writing and such, I was thinking of doing some book reviews. Reviews of books that I've read, which is good because I've a large backlog of books that I've not reviewed anywhere, which will mean a lot of posts for you guys and a lot of easy posts for me, which I could bring out daily, bi daily, weekly, bi weekly, however it is easiest for me.
I think that might be quite fun to do, may post a little one later, not sure what book I'd review first though, so many to choose from
- Craig
This won't be the longest post, but I may have some more later, which will be slightly longer for you
So, I've been thinking about posts that I can add to this blog. Since this is primarily a book blog, with a focus on writing and such, I was thinking of doing some book reviews. Reviews of books that I've read, which is good because I've a large backlog of books that I've not reviewed anywhere, which will mean a lot of posts for you guys and a lot of easy posts for me, which I could bring out daily, bi daily, weekly, bi weekly, however it is easiest for me.
I think that might be quite fun to do, may post a little one later, not sure what book I'd review first though, so many to choose from
- Craig
Saturday 18 January 2014
Writing
As you guys should know from my posts up here, I'm a wannabe writer and storyteller read my previous posts for more info, I thought I'd talk a little about what I'm doing, for those who are interested and for me to look back at in the future to see what I was up to as a 17 year old wannabe writer.
Last month I discovered the writing application called Scrivener, it's a little on the expensive side, but it's for Windows and for Mac, which is good as I exclusively use Windows but I do have the option if I want to swap.
It's sort of just changed my whole process with writing, I'm a lot more of a planner and an outliner than I was just using good old Word and it's a lot more fun for me using Scrivener. If you don't know about it, I highly recommend watching videos about it, and getting the free trial if you're into writing or if you've got a long school project to do, I wrote a History project on it, it needed several chapters, so I figured it'd be easier on Scrivener than on something like Word, which does not have the same ability to plan and to have outlines as Scrivener.
The main idea of Scrivener is to have all of your writing resources at your fingertips, having the basic word editor, with an outline window, which shows all of the chapters, all of the text documents etc, there is also the corkboard, which shows text boxes for each of the folders or text documents you have and can look at in the default viewer, and there is also a continuous viewer as well which allows you to scroll through everything you've written, despite it being in separate folders.
For this new project, which I am calling Fires of Industry, I am using a plan that I've come up with a 3 act plan, with 5 chapters per act (although in this case act 2 has 6) with 3 scenes per chapter, which is how I've set it up, it's how I've planned all of the titles and content and things and it's going well, I've written the first chapter, and I'm half way through chapter 2 of act 1, anyway. I'll post a little about the story in future, but I just want to show and explain this glorious software that I've found.
-Craig
Last month I discovered the writing application called Scrivener, it's a little on the expensive side, but it's for Windows and for Mac, which is good as I exclusively use Windows but I do have the option if I want to swap.
It's sort of just changed my whole process with writing, I'm a lot more of a planner and an outliner than I was just using good old Word and it's a lot more fun for me using Scrivener. If you don't know about it, I highly recommend watching videos about it, and getting the free trial if you're into writing or if you've got a long school project to do, I wrote a History project on it, it needed several chapters, so I figured it'd be easier on Scrivener than on something like Word, which does not have the same ability to plan and to have outlines as Scrivener.
The main idea of Scrivener is to have all of your writing resources at your fingertips, having the basic word editor, with an outline window, which shows all of the chapters, all of the text documents etc, there is also the corkboard, which shows text boxes for each of the folders or text documents you have and can look at in the default viewer, and there is also a continuous viewer as well which allows you to scroll through everything you've written, despite it being in separate folders.
For this new project, which I am calling Fires of Industry, I am using a plan that I've come up with a 3 act plan, with 5 chapters per act (although in this case act 2 has 6) with 3 scenes per chapter, which is how I've set it up, it's how I've planned all of the titles and content and things and it's going well, I've written the first chapter, and I'm half way through chapter 2 of act 1, anyway. I'll post a little about the story in future, but I just want to show and explain this glorious software that I've found.
-Craig
Thursday 16 January 2014
Aren't I terrible
Well, then again, I never really set out for it to be a daily thing, I just thought it was good for me to try and do it daily, which I knew from the get go would be difficult, and I need to get back into the mind of the blogger, and what it is exactly that I share, and things like that, somethings I can't share because I don't know who will be reading this, and other things I can share because I don't give a damn who's reading this.
I haven't really been active much lately, which I'm sorry, if you are reading these, then I am terribly sorry, but I've just not had much to say about things, I've had some good days and some boring days, and some busy days, but they've all made me think, about nothing particular though, just thinking, thinking about life, and what it is I want out of it. Many of my friends who know me well enough would tell you that I would want to be a published author, if you ask them nicely, and that's true, but in essence, I don't really want to be am author, an author restricted to books, and novels, no. I want to be a storyteller, someone who tells the story it is they want to tell, through any means necessary, whether a Poem, novel, script, play, film, short film, whatever, I want to be able to tell the story I want to tell, and not have a restriction put to my name, and have people say 'oh yeah, Craig only writes Novels' Which isn't a bad thing, a lot of people are published novelists, and they enjoy it, and yeah I think I would as well, but for me, it's more of the case that I want to do more than write novels, I want to tell stories (duh, every novelist does) but some stories I've tried to tell, do not fit in the the novel criteria, they're more suited for a poem, or a short story, or even comics, when I was younger, drawing and writing and all of that.
I think that's why I'm more interested in storytelling than just novel writing, I want to be able to tell a story through any means that I know of, and have people still read it, and recognise who it was that was telling it, without looking at the author name.
- Craig
I haven't really been active much lately, which I'm sorry, if you are reading these, then I am terribly sorry, but I've just not had much to say about things, I've had some good days and some boring days, and some busy days, but they've all made me think, about nothing particular though, just thinking, thinking about life, and what it is I want out of it. Many of my friends who know me well enough would tell you that I would want to be a published author, if you ask them nicely, and that's true, but in essence, I don't really want to be am author, an author restricted to books, and novels, no. I want to be a storyteller, someone who tells the story it is they want to tell, through any means necessary, whether a Poem, novel, script, play, film, short film, whatever, I want to be able to tell the story I want to tell, and not have a restriction put to my name, and have people say 'oh yeah, Craig only writes Novels' Which isn't a bad thing, a lot of people are published novelists, and they enjoy it, and yeah I think I would as well, but for me, it's more of the case that I want to do more than write novels, I want to tell stories (duh, every novelist does) but some stories I've tried to tell, do not fit in the the novel criteria, they're more suited for a poem, or a short story, or even comics, when I was younger, drawing and writing and all of that.
I think that's why I'm more interested in storytelling than just novel writing, I want to be able to tell a story through any means that I know of, and have people still read it, and recognise who it was that was telling it, without looking at the author name.
- Craig
Monday 13 January 2014
Was meant to do this daily... whoops
I apologise for my absence of posts, I know that not many people are reading this, but I do hope for it to grow, and which I'm sure it will, but I was mainly apologising to those who do read this, and I was mainly apologising to myself, letting myself down again.
A lot's happened really, a lot has happened since I posted my piece of writing which is titled 'Remembering things' which you can go and have a look at, once you've finished reading what it is that I'm typing up at the moment.
Christmas is a thing which has passed in my absence, and New Year's, so I shall talk about those as they happened and in the order in which they happened.
Christmas was somewhat eventful, I don't mind christmas, being a 17 year old, I still get gifts, not as many as my younger self did, but I asked for things and I got what I asked for, which is always nice, able to tick off (metaphorically, mind you) everything that I had asked for, this list includes CDs and books, and money, which I used to buy myself a larger gift, expense wise, an iPod Classic, seeing as my only other way of listening to music on the go was through my iPhone, which was smaller in memory and I could only usefully store half of my iTunes library on my phone, keeping space spare for emergencies, or whatever, other things I needed to download, now, with my new iPod, I can store 100% of my library, onto my device to listen to on the go, I may be a little late to the iPod bandwagon, but I don't mind.
I also got the first 3 collections of Sandman, the comic book written by Neil Gaiman during the 80's and 90's and even some written in the 00's and 10's of this new century, they are releasing the older ones in omnibus form, 10 of them, I need 7 to get the full collection, I also got some other musical collections, the essential Judas Priest 2 disc collection, which is very fun to listen to, I also got Painkiller, by the aforementioned metallers, and the last main thing that I got, was 'Who killed Amanda Palmer' by, Amanda Palmer, a very nice CD, with my new favourite song on it, by the name of Ampersand, to which I am writing this blog post.
After christmas of course, came New Years, which I spent mainly on my own, although we did spend that day, the 31st of December, bowling, with some friends of my families, 2 adults and 3 kids, plus my 2 adults and 2 kids, it was a fun game, a competitive, but fun game, I ended up coming 4th out of everyone, which was good, I'm not a strong bowler, but I like it, and then we went back to theirs for dinner and things. One of their kids and I are of the same age with relative same interests, and we started playing Guitar Hero, the 3rd one, Legends of Rock.
I have always been good at that game, playing on Hard and Expert mode for most of the time, I felt as if I was showing off, but I was just having fun, having eaten dinner, we played the longest game of Monopoly I've ever had, it lasted for ages, but neither team wanted to end it, we kept finding little ways to pay off the debts we owed, or the transactions we needed to make. before we finally caught the opposite team on a hotel costing m800.
We got home at about 11, and I finished watching a Deadmau5 live stream, going to bed at about 1:30 in the morning, seeing in the New Year on my various social networks, not much has happened since then, gone back to school, still writing, I started chapter 2 of draft 1 of the new story I'm writing, it should be going quicker, but I'm feeling uninspired at the moment, will catch back at a later date
uploading in three... two...
A lot's happened really, a lot has happened since I posted my piece of writing which is titled 'Remembering things' which you can go and have a look at, once you've finished reading what it is that I'm typing up at the moment.
Christmas is a thing which has passed in my absence, and New Year's, so I shall talk about those as they happened and in the order in which they happened.
Christmas was somewhat eventful, I don't mind christmas, being a 17 year old, I still get gifts, not as many as my younger self did, but I asked for things and I got what I asked for, which is always nice, able to tick off (metaphorically, mind you) everything that I had asked for, this list includes CDs and books, and money, which I used to buy myself a larger gift, expense wise, an iPod Classic, seeing as my only other way of listening to music on the go was through my iPhone, which was smaller in memory and I could only usefully store half of my iTunes library on my phone, keeping space spare for emergencies, or whatever, other things I needed to download, now, with my new iPod, I can store 100% of my library, onto my device to listen to on the go, I may be a little late to the iPod bandwagon, but I don't mind.
I also got the first 3 collections of Sandman, the comic book written by Neil Gaiman during the 80's and 90's and even some written in the 00's and 10's of this new century, they are releasing the older ones in omnibus form, 10 of them, I need 7 to get the full collection, I also got some other musical collections, the essential Judas Priest 2 disc collection, which is very fun to listen to, I also got Painkiller, by the aforementioned metallers, and the last main thing that I got, was 'Who killed Amanda Palmer' by, Amanda Palmer, a very nice CD, with my new favourite song on it, by the name of Ampersand, to which I am writing this blog post.
After christmas of course, came New Years, which I spent mainly on my own, although we did spend that day, the 31st of December, bowling, with some friends of my families, 2 adults and 3 kids, plus my 2 adults and 2 kids, it was a fun game, a competitive, but fun game, I ended up coming 4th out of everyone, which was good, I'm not a strong bowler, but I like it, and then we went back to theirs for dinner and things. One of their kids and I are of the same age with relative same interests, and we started playing Guitar Hero, the 3rd one, Legends of Rock.
I have always been good at that game, playing on Hard and Expert mode for most of the time, I felt as if I was showing off, but I was just having fun, having eaten dinner, we played the longest game of Monopoly I've ever had, it lasted for ages, but neither team wanted to end it, we kept finding little ways to pay off the debts we owed, or the transactions we needed to make. before we finally caught the opposite team on a hotel costing m800.
We got home at about 11, and I finished watching a Deadmau5 live stream, going to bed at about 1:30 in the morning, seeing in the New Year on my various social networks, not much has happened since then, gone back to school, still writing, I started chapter 2 of draft 1 of the new story I'm writing, it should be going quicker, but I'm feeling uninspired at the moment, will catch back at a later date
uploading in three... two...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)