Reading List

This is my reading list. The things that are in bold are the things that I have read. I will be lucky if I get through Pride and Prejudice before I graduate high school. I have an exciting summer ahead of me though. I will be  spending a lot of time with my books.

Thoughts on The Great Gatsby

       A week ago today, I started reading The Great Gatsby, after finishing The Once and Future King, and it seemed to me as if people were more excited over the latter novel than they were the former; maybe because it is a classic and TOaFK is slightly unknown and obscure. I honestly did not know what to expect out of the book. One of my friends said it was great and that I would love it. My best friend proclaimed that it was a terrible book.
      Wednesday night, shortly after ten o'clock in the evening, I logged off of my laptop with one thought in mind: Finish the book, even if you lose sleep. And that is just what I did. I finished the book, actually. I only lost about an hour of sleep if anyone cares to know, but that is just a minor detail. Back to the point of this post, now.
      I promised a blog post on what my thoughts were in regards to The Great Gatsby. I am not sure whether I will contribute anything with this post, but it is worth a shot and I always like to share my opinions on the books that I read, as long as I have gotten something out of them. I most certainly did with this book, whether I want to admit it or not. There were many things I noticed and picked up on. It was an interesting book altogether and my fears concerning the book, that had been created by outside sources, did not come to pass.
     My first thought after finishing the book was,"Well, I finished it. What do I do now?" I was tired and I just laid in my bed for about five minutes, the lights on, waiting for some kind of thought to enter my head that would be intelligent enough. I was hoping that I would think to turn the light off and get some sleep, but no. My second thought I had before I went to turn off the light, that kept me in my spot for a few more minutes, was that I had just read a book about greed. If you have ever read the novel, greed is definitely one of its central themes. I was incredibly proud of myself for picking up on that myself because I usually have a terrible time at picking up on theme. Either I read into this book incredibly well or it was just so blatantly obvious that I could not have missed it even if I had tried to.
     The theme of greed weaves itself so intricately throughout entire plot line. Money is every characters motivation for their actions, perhaps save for Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway. Nearly every character is consumed with going to town, going to a party, drinking, and fine clothing. When Daisy Buchanan, one of the female characters in the book, goes to visit Jay Gatsby's home, she begins to cry when she sees all of the clothes that he has laid out on his bed. She claims that she has never seen something so colorful and beautiful, and she is saddened because of this (at least that is what I recall, you never know if I could be right. I read this book late at night and things are always distorted at night.) Another character, who has money as his prime motivation (see, the greed theme really is working its way throughout the novel), is Jay Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is the title character, and after reading the book I am not so sure as to why he is called great. He is an extremely greedy man, who like Daisy and her husband Tom, retreats into his wealth whenever there is trouble. His life has been centered around how he can survive and the best way to succeed in the world. His life seems to be full of lavish parties, mansions, and everyone around him is consumed by that and not the person behind everything.  I picked up that this was a learned trait from his father. You can see that at the end of the novel. I will not give away any spoilers, because I know that there are many who have not read the book because many people are much like myself.
      I feel as if I read it again I could pick up on more than just one theme, but that theme stuck out at me the most so I decided, why not analyze it? The book was a good book in general, possibly one that I would read again, but not as quickly as I would pick up one of Tolkien's books. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a classic author because he picks up on what society values the most and then makes the reader of his work realize how wrong they are. One of the biggest rules in writing is that you do not write unless it is going to mean something to someone. That rule, which I just stated, is why the classics have remained classics and other books have fallen to the wayside. They take the very fabric of society and twist it; they manipulate it; they claw at it until it shreds, until there is nothing left over save for the remnants of what used to be. The books that are considered classics make us realize our wrong doings (and perhaps good works, if we have any of those to proud of)  and they make us look at ourselves.
      In saying this, I am glad that I finally picked up The Great Gatsby. If I had not I would not be here writing this post then, would I? I think it is a valuable book that everyone should take the time to read. Sure, it ends oddly. Sure, it is sad at points, why would it not make you sad? That is what makes it a great book though and that is why it will last on through many generations to come. I can truthfully say, that if my children do not read it in high school, I will encourage them to read it on their own because they will take something from it, or at least hopefully they will.

Owen Egerton's 30 Pieces of Invaluable Writing Advice

1. Write. Now. Go.
2. Don't think. Scribble. Scribble. Scribble. Type so hard you bruise the screen.
3. Now think.
4. Revise. Revise. Revise. Cut. Cut. Cut. Rewrite. It is the sweat of craft.
5. Don't always know what your images mean.
6. Do always know what your sentences mean.
7. Do not wait for inspiration. Go out and hunt it. Seduce it. Pin it down and dribble spit on its forehead until it cracks your leg bone and renames you.
8. Writing takes time. Don't find the time to write. Make the time. If necessary, abandon sleep, people, television and drink.
9. Treat writing like a hobby and you will receive nothing but the fruits of a hobby. It's a vocation. Honor it as such.
10. Don't say you're trying to be a writer. If you're writing then you are a writer. Publication is nice, but has nothing to do with the definition.
11. Love rejection. In letters, in criticism, in sales. Rejection is evidence you are in the game. If you're striking out, it means you got up to bat.
12. Drink and talk with those that write and create, but never mistake talking about writing for actual writing.
13. Love solitude.
14. Celebrate arrogance. You're calling yourself a writer, for godsake. Embrace it.
15. A person can only read so many words in a lifetime. Your reader is choosing to read you instead of Shakespeare, Hemingway, Whitman. Humbly honor that and give them the best of your soul.
16. Do not write from answers. Write from questions. Discover more questions. Our work is not to explain the mystery, but to expand it.
17. The craft of the sentence is important. But a perfectly crafted sentence with no passion is a well-dressed corpse. More fun to dance with a beggar than kiss a corpse.
18. For a writer, the Internet is more dangerous than whisky.
19. Whisky is pretty dangerous, too.
20. Write what you know is bullshit. Reach beyond what you know, grasp for what is beyond your reach.
21. The best fiction is magnificent failures. So fail magnificently.
22. If your story isn't worth telling a stranger in a bar, it's not worth writing.
23. In life many of us aim to avoid conflict. In fiction, we force enemies into a room with no doors.
24. Laugh out loud at your own written words. Even in public... Especially in public.
25. If you discover nothing while writing, don't expect your reader to.
26. Dream onto the page. I mean dream in every sense of the word. Wishing. Fantasizing. And the unconscious game of your unthought thoughts bubbling into fragmented memories and shaping a narrative with elements of your life, but in a completely unexpected order and relationship.
27. Live well. If your life is dull, it will seep into your pages like a stench. Take long walks. Get lost. Read. Read. Look foolish. Kiss people on the mouth.
28. If you write because you believe the world needs you, you'll soon discover we don't. If you write because you are so naturally talented you must, you'll soon discover you are not. If you write for money... I'm chuckling at you. None of these reasons will sustain you. Listen. Are you called to write? Then write.
29. You are going to die. So are all your readers. Let this inform every story you write.
30. Writing is both holy and meaningless. That's all the pressure and freedom you need.

     Honestly, I think that this is worth sharing more than anything else at this moment. Writing is one of the most beautiful art forms ever created. Writers are some of the most beautiful beings in the universe. A writer does things that no one else is able to do on a daily basis, and if not on a daily basis, then when they make time to do such things. They can take words and place them together to mean things that we never thought would be possible. 

     Words can move you. Would words be anything without the author behind them? Would words really be valuable if they were not stringed together to make a coherent thought? 

     I do not know. I cannot answer you.  

     What I do know, though, is that I am immensely proud to be a writer. 

Not completely sure if this deserves a title

But, I finished the book.
I feel as if this is a great accomplishment because after two and a half months I finished the book.

That is all. I will return in a day or so.

Racing

        Have you ever had a book that you absolutely hated, but you continued reading it because you felt as if you owed something to it? Oh yes, you know the one. It popped into your head just now. I have had many books like that, that in theory would be marvelous books to read but I never finished them. Not until now.
       If you know me in real life, you will know that I am reading The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It is a modern adaptation of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Starting out, the book was decent, despite a few writing things that I hated (such as the anachronisms that were used, but I will not get into that). I had left it sitting on my shelf for three years after purchasing it. I decided that I would start reading it, and even though there were some details that I ultimately disliked, I decided that I was going to finish reading that damn book. Even if it killed me.
     Right now,  it might very well kill me. I have been working on reading the book since the beginning of February, and even though I only read about 10 pages a night and much more on the weekends, one would think that I would be done with it by now. Nope! I do have around a hundred pages left to read, though. This is where my race begins. There are books that I want to get read before I graduate and there is one book that I want to read before the move comes out. That is The Great Gatsby. The movie comes out on May 10th and I fully believe that I can finish reading the book by then. I am firmly against reading two books at the same time, and that is part of the reason that I have no started it now. The plot lines would get all muddled up in my head and it would be a bad deal for everyone.
     This is why the race is beginning. I am trying to get The Once and Future King finished so I can start on The Great Gatsby and it is going ridiculously slow right now. I suppose that I could spend more time reading than I do on facebook, youtube, and tumblr... but the kittens. The pictures of the kittens are so adorable.
     I hope that you all can be better than I and get some reading in soon.

A Hole in the Wall

I was inspired to write this by a picture that I found online.  


    The smell of decay hung in the cold, stale air that laid under the city. The bodies of the dead slowly rotted away in the tombs where they had been placed. They were now locked up for all of eternity. Eventually, the names that marked where they laid would wear away and the dead would be forgotten one last time.
      The light of the torch that was being carried through the catacombs did little to extinguish the darkness and the feeling of dread that creeped in the darkness behind the person carrying the light. The dark figure continued on through the maze, ignoring the feeling that was present at the bottom of his gut. When he reached his destination the torch was set in a holder in the wall and other torches were illuminated.
     He could see faces in the darkness, some that he was familiar with and some that he had never met before in his life. After speedily inspecting the crowd, he walked over to the large hole in the wall that bore his name. It was not far from the ground, so he could easily climb in.
     The one regret that he had was that he did not say good bye. The hole was sealed quickly and he saw his last light.