Music Recommendation: Somewhere Over The Rainbow

From time to time, I run across a song that helps me relax and makes me happy. This is one of those songs. But, honestly, I only feel that way about this particular version. His voice was made for this song, and I'm glad he left such a wonderful piece of music in this world for us.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole 

Happy listening! (Because that's the way this song ought to be heard.)

Protest

Stop SOPA and PIPA.

Blog Update Post 2!

Over the next few days, as I prepare material for the new blog and begin the process of closing this one down, you'll probably notice a few changes. For example: the background is likely to go a bit wonky. Columns may move around. There may be header pictures. New boxes may appear, just as old boxes may disappear. Text styles may change. Colors may shift. And other stuff of a similar nature may change, because I am testing out Blogger features and figuring out what the new blog is going to look like. Enjoy watching the strange alterations, because this is probably the only time you'll see stuff like this happening on my blogs.

Anyway, on another note, the new blog isn't launched, yet. In fact, on my profile, it doesn't even say I have another blog, yet.

Why is this?

Well, the answer is quite simple. I cannot decide on a name. (There's going to be an interesting post on this in the new blog because, while searching for a name, I ran across something I wrote a long time ago and about went into hysterics. Is it weird to be slightly jealous of yourself? Probably, but let's not go there.)

I've been trying out various ideas and, thus far, none of them have really stuck with me. The one name I thought I genuinely liked is already taken, but I'm kind of over that name now anyway. For a while, I even thought that I might just rename this blog and take my name here with me, but that's a lot of tagged posts to clean up, many names in posts and on the blog to replace, and several pictures to dispose of. Plus, I'm not actually deleting this blog. I'm just shutting it down. So, I'd rather keep the name belonging to this blog on this blog. That way I can reference back from the new blog effectively.

Any ideas for a new name? Just kidding. I'll figure it out... eventually.

 ***************************

Also, I just realized that I forgot to mention: I am staying here on Blogger for the time being. If I'm honest, I love Blogger. This site has been a wonderful blogging platform thus far, and I would like to continue using their services because of that.

Blog Update Post!

Hi!

So, funny story:

I didn't post yesterday... because I thought it was Sunday. Turns out, my younger brother had one more day off of school than I originally believed. That's the reason I didn't post. However, that is not what concerns me most. What concerns me most is that I am now, apparently, relying on my brother's school schedule to keep me up to date on how many days have passed since whenever I did whatever I was doing that was meant to be repeated on the same day, in the following week. The funny part is, even after that realization and my concern, I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to stop referencing his schedule in order to figure out what day it is.

Cheers to another occurrence in which I learned not much at all!


Anyway, on another, hopefully more interesting note...


Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday!

It's 2012. I still find that a little bit hard to believe but, alas, it's true. The cool thing is, thus far, I haven't messed up and signed the wrong date to anything, yet. I'm not completely sure that counts as cool, though, since I actually haven't signed a date to anything yet this year. Probably not.

Also, I have some possible news.

Over the past few weeks, I've been mulling over a lot of those big "life" sort of questions in my head. And, naturally, that means my thoughts have been relatively chaotic. I'm not going to go over most of those thoughts here because they either aren't relevant, or they're still in the process of being thought up.

One thing I am going to share, though, is that there's a pretty big chance I'm going to be moving blogs.* Lately, I've realized that I have kind of locked myself in to a particular kind of blog here. And, while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm having some difficulties with that. Now, I know, it's my blog and I can change the angle if I want to... or so it would seem. The thing is, my realizations always start out that straight forward, and then I complicate things. But let's stay focused on the idea of moving, and let's take a moment to give you a bit of proper reasoning.

Reasons I'm Thinking of Moving:

1. I want to expand on the topics covered here and I want to schedule the topics to particular days so that I can make sure that you don't receive five music recommendations in a month and not much else, or two book reviews and three posts on books I want to buy or whatever. 
1. In the Fall - or possibly the Spring - I'm going back to school for new stuff. I haven't actually decided on my major, yet, but if I like it, I'm going to want to talk about it. So, that will probably get its own day, too.
2. There's another point that's getting it's own proper bullet... 
2. I want to be more organized. If I'm being completely honest, this blog has been driving me crazy for months. I want to start again, kind of like moving house, and keep things neater.
3. Due to the fact that I am going back to school soon, I need to start producing a decent income rather soon. That may seem to be a bit irrelevant to this post, but there's actually decent money to be made in blogging. 
1. I started this blog for fun and I thought maybe I would update it on occasion with cool stuff. But, over all, I mostly figured I would get bored with it quickly. As it turns out, I rather enjoy blogging. And, as for the readers, I think you're all great and I don't really want to just ditch this.
2. Because blogging does take up a lot of my time, though, I need to consider turning it into something that I can make a little bit of a living at. Otherwise, when I get a full time job, this will get shoved to the side and it'll be sporadic updates at best. 
3. To make money at this, I actually have to create a clean, resourceful, and entertaining blog that stays on a proper schedule *cough* unlike the schedule I am currently not exactly running smoothly *cough*.
4. Lately, I've really been feeling the urge to dive into my planned out career and start making it work. With that idea in mind, I would like to take up a new blog and eventually tie it in with what I'm doing in life. Not all of my life will be covered, obviously, but it would be fun to start sharing a bit more of what I actually do and to make blogging a bit more of what I'm actually doing. 
5. And, even though it was special enough to have its own bullet point, I completely forgot the last point when I published this. Oops. Last, I have been wanting to build my blog up and connect with other blogs and causes I support. Over the holidays, I kept seeing videos and blogs regarding charity organizations and I realized that next year, I want to get involved in that sort of stuff. Also, I want to work with guest blogging, I think. So, one day per month, or something like that, I will probably assign to that sort of business.

So, there you have it. I do think I'll be moving. Or, at the very least, this site will be undergoing some major changes. I feel like I have pretty legitimate reasons for wanting to do this and, therefore, I'm actually considering it.

If you couldn't be bothered to read all of the above listed reasons, let's just go with: 

I've reached a new stage in my life. Things are changing and it's time for a change here, as well.


* Honestly, this moving thing is kind of a scary idea, really, but I'm looking forward to the change.

Happy Holidays!

It is - officially - the first day of Winter!
(I am ever so slightly excited... or, you know, really excited.)

Happy holidays to those of you celebrating, and well wishes to everyone!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find my fluffy socks...


------------------------------------------

I should also mention that I'm going out of town for a few days and I'm not sure if I'll be able to post. However, at the moment, I definitely don't have time to write a post. Will make up for this lack of reading material later!

Writing Poetry & Sharing With The Public

Over the past few days, I've started writing again for the first time in a while - and by that I mean writing something that I can stand to look over later. It would seem that I have started to find my flare for words again, which is kind of nice because, for several months there, my depression was drowning out everything that was even slightly useful.

Anyway, the other night, I pulled up a new document and began to write strands of words that had popped into my head when I saw a photograph. At first, I thought I would set the words aside and incorporate them into something later. Which I did, only, later was about fifteen minutes later, instead of several weeks.

What started out as a line, slowly twisted and turned until it became two, then three, and so on until, by the end of the evening, I had written over half of a quite decent poem.

I cannot properly express my joy over this occasion.

Poetry, supposedly, doesn't make anyone any money. So, I'm sure a lot of people I know will be confused over why this is so wonderful to me. But writing, to me, has never been about money. And poetry has a special, if not strange, place in my heart.

In college, several semesters back, I took a creative writing course. Experience has taught me that a lot of creative writing courses begin with a poetry section, so I can't say that I was entirely surprised when the course I was in started that way, too. The only problem was, at that point in my life, I didn't write poetry. It wasn't my forte (a point which my high school creative writing teacher would probably protest, but that's another story). I only wrote poems when forced, and in my opinion, all of them were awful. I didn't even read poetry, because if it was anything like mine, it couldn't possibly be worth reading.

So, when it was announced that we were starting with poetry, I panicked. Certainly that meant that I was going to fail that part of the class or, worse yet, the professor would like my work again and the class would be as good as useless to me. But, you know, the funniest thing happened. With this poetry, I decided to try something new and I actually tried to care. We wrote our first poem sitting outside on the campus grounds, flinging the words out of pens carelessly. And then, under the trees, we edited our words a bit before handing them over to the professor. She sat with us, went over our papers with her pen, and pointed out all of the bits that were awful. Then she sent us home to edit our work and instructed us to bring it back during the next class. When we came back, we wrote another poem - and this one we read aloud to our classmates, then edited. And this process continued through out the semester until, slowly but surely, I learned to write poetry. I began to excel in it. And, after a couple of weeks, I even learned to like it.

But for all that I like it now and for all that I understand it, poetry still remains one of the most difficult things to write for me. Writing poetry is - for me - a process that requires a lot of care and attention, and it requires that I be attached to my work.

So, after months of detachment and depression in various stages, I'm finally starting to feel what I'm working on again and I'm finally pleased with it. Hence, this means a great deal to me.

**********************************************************

 

There's another thing that makes this special to me, though.

I haven't been writing just any poetry. Currently, I am working on a small collection of poetry centering around people I have seen or met recently. And, since this project has an idea behind it and a defined number of poems within it, it's actually going to be seen by the public - which is pretty cool if you ask me, because it'll be the first time that any of my work has been viewed by someone outside my family, close friends, and creative writing classmates. 

I'm a part of a couple lovely writing communities over on Livejournal and, at the moment, I'm only participating as a reader. But this collection is going to mark the first change in that, and I really don't think I could pick a better piece to start with. 

Signed, 

Mildly Excited

 

Music Recommendation: Pouring Pain

For the last few days, I've been working on fixing my iPod, clearing out all of the old music and putting on new music. Naturally, I came out of this experience with a few songs stuck in my head. This song, for me, is particularly sticky. And, since it also holds a special place in my heart, I'm dropping it off here. This band usually isn't one that everyone takes to, but I hope you enjoy.


Pouring Pain - Ima Robot

Happy listening!

Ink Wednesday

This is not necessarily a fiction writing related link but, as far as I'm concerned, everyone should know about this site. I was a writing tutor for a while during my first two years of college and I have to say, had students made use of this site more often, there would have been fewer MLA/ASA formatting mistakes to explain in detail.

So, since finals are upon (some of) us, have a useful link:

• Purdue OWL: An online writing laboratory (see: house of useful information) provided by Purdue University. Also known as: A wonderful writing resource for high school/college/university students that can be used as an easy access point for learning academic writing/formatting rules.

(Note: Yes, I have been looking at my MLA manual again recently and, once again, I've been reminded of how irritating the formatting rules are and how much time I could have saved simply by using this website. My apologies for the miniature rant of sorts.)

Hopefully you'll find some use in it.

(Note 2: I'm not actually sure if this site applies to those of you who live in countries other than the United States. I'll probably look into that eventually, but use your judgement for the time being.)

Book Review: Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

"Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart -- and an ordinary life that is changed forever on the day that he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed -- a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city -- a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known..." (Cover blurb on book.)

Some years ago, my cousin recommended to me a book called American Gods by Neil Gaiman. At that point in my life, I was more interested in YA fiction and anything to do with Harry Potter - and, to be honest, I wasn't planning on trying anything new anytime soon. But, after a few years and several more conversations regarding said book, I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble on my way home. And, in a way that was quite surprising to me, when I started reading it I fell in love.

Writing style is something I watch for in books. A book can be good without a great writing style. In fact, that's usually what I run across - good books with something to be desired in language use. So, when I find a book with a writing style I love, I like to track down everything else that the author has written and buy one book at a time, reading as slowly as possible and enjoying each book like a fine dessert.

That is how Neverwhere came to be in my hands. (I bought my copy from a bookstore that no longer exists - a fact that tickles me a bit every time I think about it.)

Neverwhere was Gaiman's debut novel. And while I'm not quite as enraptured with this novel as I am with American Gods, it's good beginning and I imagine that it probably made a decent splash upon being published.

Neverwhere is a Sci-fi/Fantasy novel about a world called London Below, where people who fall through the cracks in society tend to end up. It's a dark, dangerous sort of place where creatures will pull you down into the gap by the tube train and there is a market place that moves around. It's a place filled with quirky characters - such as assassins, nobility, rat-speakers, door-openers, and even an angel - as well as plenty of opportunities for adventure.

At first, the novel is following Richard Mayhew through his normal, day-to-day life. And, while entertaining to read, it seems like a rather boring life. Then he stumbles upon a girl named Door, and his entire world changes. From there on out, you're on a dark, thrilling sort of adventure, and it's a pleasure to read.

While I never became extremely attached to the characters, they never failed to bring a smile to my face. Mr. Vandemar's antics, in particular, often made me laugh (And it might be a strange thing to say, but I've never found a villain quite so adorable as him. The imagery with him is just... incredibly amusing.). And, while a bit self-centered, the marquis has a certain charm to him that landed him in the position of my favorite character.

The settings were described with enough detail for a mind to cling to and invent its own imagery, which I think was a good opportunity to offer in such a novel as this one. I got a great sense of wanting to see the Floating Market while reading Neverwhere, and that's a fascination that has stuck with me ever since my first read.

On the overall, I found Neverwhere to be completely entertaining. It's strong in fantasy, with lots of imagination, and the story-telling is lovely. The characters left an amusing sort of impression and the settings were interesting. There was, admittedly, room for more development in Neverwhere, but it was a fairly satisfying read as is.

While not a very serious sort of novel, Neverwhere brought to mind a point that has stuck with me ever since:

If I stumbled upon another world filled with adventures and an entirely new culture to adjust to, would I ever want to return to this one?

This probably isn't a book for everyone, but if urban fantasy is up your alley, I'd recommend it.

This book can be found in bookstores and online:



Neverwhere


Happy Reading!