wynderlon

I decided to go private, which is the new black, dontchaknow? Anyway, my public blog, which focuses on my efforts at a creative writing (or any) career and general life stuff can be found at Wynderlon.com.

I will add you as a friend to my LiveJournal if I personally know you (send a request), otherwise check out Wynderlon. :)

I finally finished tweaking the code of WordPress and am going to be posting primarily there now. But, I'm using a plugin to cross post here, too. For now, the cross posts will be commentable at wynderlon.com. There will be a link at the top saying something like "share your thoughts & comments" and clicking on that link will lead the reader to the comment form at wynderlon.com - which I hope will reduce clutter. I also hope this won't reduce in commenting, *sigh* but we'll see.

Tell me what you think or if you run into any bugs.

Yup, so I'm currently addicted to this RPG called "Rogue Galaxy" and it's been taking up way too much of my time. I mean, hello, pirates in space! With actual frigate ships as spaceships! And awesome graphics of prettiness. How can you resist? So, of course, when the zombie hordes started shambling outside my door, slowly making their way across my front window with their arms extended and a kind of brainless look on their face (for a minute, I thought John had forgotten his Monster again, but then I realized it was just a zombie) I couldn't put down my controller. I wasn't at a save point yet!

There were a few screams of fear, quickly silenced as my neighbors inadvertently tripped over a pebble (yes, the same damn pebble) and sprained their ankles and became zombie chow. I began wondering just how much Ramen noodles I had stacked away for that day-the-zombies-come-in-droves -- you know, you gotta be prepared for everything. I must say, though, that the zombies are much quieter than my neighbors ever were.

Anyway, now I've got to try and dig out my Emergency Zombie Attack Box, you know, the one you keep in your closet in case of zombie attacks? The one that has a shotgun, lots of extra shells, a machete, a chainsaw, and a syringe full of special, non-zombie virus that will turn me into one badass motherfucka.

It's going to be a long day.

(Originally posted to Wynderlon.com)

I've been blocked since I had my horrible Jump Drive fiasco. Faced with the problem of whether I wanted to continue the way I was going (thereby re-writing those 20 pages) or go a different way, I found myself um-ing and aw-ing. Finally, I threw my hands up in the air and decided to just do a brainstorming session. I even had a new white board which was big enough to brainstorm on!

And then, because I was bored this morning, I decided to take a picture of it and post it on Flickr, so you can see. It even has photo notes! It's advanced! :)

Click on the thumbnail to go see:



I've also switched over my book reviews to wynderlon.com. I finished East last week, and it was one of the best reads I've had in a while. :)

So, my jump drive malfunctioned because a file in my Morgan folder became corrupted -- or something like that. I've been having all sorts of wonderful technology problems lately. I ended up loosing about 20 pages of my Morgan story because I was a dumb butt and didn't back up in the last 3 weeks. But, oddly, I'm being pretty zen about it. Those 20 pages are easily recovered because they were pretty sucky to begin with. This gives me a chance to rewrite and grow as an author. Yes, green tea anyone?

A new writing snippet can be found at wynderlon.com called: Skeletal Grin.

78% Geek

So I was dehydrated when I woke up today and as a result I was sick for most of the morning. I had to get milk, so I went to Sunflower Market, where they have 1.5 liter bottled water for 75 cents or so, and just opened it and begun chugging (of course I paid for it later!). I felt a little better afterward. The water out of the tap seriously tastes like a swimming pool lately, and it never makes my thirst go away. The joys of living in Arizona.

I love Sunflower and in SOME respects its cheaper than Fry's. It makes me feel like I'm going to one of those cozy "family" supermarkets you always see in movies in New England towns. I decided to splurge a little and get my meat at the deli counter (they have pre-seasoned meat!) and they even wrapped it in brown paper instead of that sytrofoam and cellophane packaging. I was in heaven. I'm such a dork. ^_~

Trying to convert code to Wordpress is going painfully and slowly. My PHP knowledge is laughable. But, I'm making a little headway mostly by trial and error. Its better than knocking my head against my monitor from writer's block frustration. Urg.

Battle Royale
by Koushun Takami

Synopsis: Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old gangster director Kinji Fukusaku. -- From Amazon.com

My Comments: I actually saw the Battle Royale movie first, back last November at GenCon So-cal. It was just past midnight and the air conditioning in the room was exceptionally high. I didn't quite know what to expect, except that I had heard it was "quite something" and "totally !@#$%ed up." My interest was immediately piqued -- I'm like that -- and so I definitely wanted to catch the screening of the movie. Well, it was quite something. It reminded me of the Suicide Club, I suppose because I found my jaw dropping a lot and thinking, "Oh they just didn't!..."

Of course, when I heard the next day that it was originally a novel, I definitely wanted to read it. I'm like that, too. Movies that sparked my interest and were novels first always make me want to read the novel. Rarely have I found that the movie is better than the novel. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I found out my fellow NANOWRIMO-er and writing group friend, Allie, had it and I was quick to borrow it off of her. :)

I won't sugar coat it. The book (and the movie) are bloodbaths. It's about high school kids fighting to the death until there's only one survivor! And it isn't clean deaths, like "bang, and he drops," but sickles going through jaws and stuff. The book explains more about the world the story is set in, which seems to be a fascist Japan, whose major enemy is the democracy-loving Americans. What really tickled my funny bone is that rock had been made illegal, especially western rock. I found myself having to put the book down every now and then and take a deep breath. The author did a wonderful job on the helplessness these kids are feeling as they try desperately to survive. The reader learns the background of almost every kid, and in the end, even the ones ruthlessly killing are semi-sympathetic characters. It's also an interesting treatise on fascism. The book seems to suggest that loosing one's freedom is a sacrifice people freely endure when the government keeps them in fear and distrust (not a generally new idea, but the book shows these effects in an interesting way), and that fascism is an endless cycling relationship between the government (those in power) and the population. The government creates this uneasy feeling of fear and distrust, and the population will willingly keep itself yoked and bridled, which will, in turn, keep fascism (and therefore the government) in power. Who needs to break the cycle first? Can individuals really make a difference? The book asks these questions...and answers them somewhat hopelessly.

So, yes, it's not a book that sugar coats things. It's not a story filled with sunshine and roses. There's a hopelessness to the situation that pervades the whole thing, and at the end, I was left wondering, "Is that a happy ending?"

My Rating (out of 5):

	I know I haven't written anything here in a long time. I've actually been reading quite a lot, just bad at writing about it. But, my silence as of late doesn't mean I haven't been busy! I actually taught my first group of high schoolers today! :)

So, I was reading an article about books that are getting quite a bit of attention and are the author's first works (article is here). I noticed quite a few of them had "LJ" written next to them, which meant they received "excellent reviews on [LiveJournal]", but I also know that there's a few that were originally placed on LiveJournal, as either the whole work or excerpts. Does this mean LJ is now a new advertising tool? MySpace sure is. Remember when all the official movie websites were sony.com/something? Well, now they all seem to be myspace.com/something, or on the mainpage, in big letters, are the words: GO SEE OUR MYSPACE PAGE!

I hate MySpace. I'm also not a big fan of LJ. I realize the hypocrisy in this statement, but what can I say? I know HTML. I've made webpages since I was a wee lassy. I feel like these two mediums are trying to tie my hands behind my back and make me write my entries with my tongue. I do blog regularly, though. (I wish I could journal regularly, too)

Go to wynderlon.com for the latest on life, the universe, and me.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program. I've actually been reading quite a lot. I've finished Do Androids Dream of Sheep? and Fight Club, which were both novels for my Film & Literature class. I will post about those soon, since I did have some thoughts (deep ones!). Now, I'm doing a total 180 and reading Terry Prachett. Boy that guy's prolific.

I've been feeling rather down-trodden lately, which always affects my writing in one of two ways: 1) it'll spark a frenzy of creativity and churn out pages upon pages of material or 2) I'll go into "dead mode," where I just don't want to write.

This time it seems I've entered "dead mode." Sigh.

However, I DID fiddle around with some writing a few days ago. I call it "Pillow Talk." I hate that title, but for now it works. You can see the first two paragraphs here.

I've actually been reading, too. I'll post about it later.

Crown Duel
by Sherwood Smith



My Rating (out of 5):

	I decided to set up my LJ as my book list and to review some of the books I'm reading. I'm such a bibliophile that I'm constantly cracking open one book or another, and I thought, "Why not share?" Maybe you'll find your next favorite on one of my lists -- and maybe I'll find my next favorite from a book title you shared!

I'm going to do something with this LiveJournal I have. I know what I'm going to do, too, so in the next couple of weeks, I'll start making the transformation. Keep your eyes peeled. :)

Also, Wynderlon underwent a major layout and content update. It's beautiful now, and very sexy (in my opinion). Go check it out!