Library of Congress wants your stuff

Pictures, poems, photographs and whatever else you can send in a file is wanted on this website put up by the library of congress. All they want to know is what inspired you to create your masterpiece. Thirteen year olds are allowed in!

Elizabeth Bishop

Remember that poem called The Bight I brought recently to read? You remember, it is by Elizabeth Bishop. If you are interested there is an online exhibition dedicated to her here. Hey, two links in a row that have nothing to do with XKCD. Although, the recent comic about Mythbusters was pretty good. It wasn't related to anything we had ever talked about so I did not link to it. Still, Mythbusters is just the coolest shot on TV. They blow stuff up and film it in super slow motion. If you film explosions in super slow motion you have my attention. I will give your show a chance. I think that is left over from my high school days when I used to watch David Letterman drop objects from a five story tower. Those were the days. What the heck, I'll embed a video of Dave doing just that.

Mark Twain and Mitchell's Dad

Hey guys, John Grooms had a nice column recently about the wisdom of the written word. You can take a gander at it here.

So, do you think for a book to be truly great that you should be able to pull ideas like this out of it? Is speaking to that deeper part of us what has allowed the bible and other stories from ancient times to live for so long? Is that why we go back to great novels, because they clarify our world or ask questions of it and us?

I've read Huckleberry Finn about four times now and it's always a different book. I hope everyone here reads it before you leave high school and then read it again after college. It will be a different and just as rewarding experience.

Quotes

There is a nice blog entry here at the New York Times website about passages in great books that really sum up a work for you. The writer asked his readers to respond with their favorite passages. There is some good stuff there. Anybody got any favorite passages or quotes to share? I'm doing this about five minutes before we close and will add one or two tomorrow.

Somebody post something

Someone tell Meghan to post that writing she read in the meeting the other day. Somebody post something. I am running out of XKCD comics to link to.

If I won does that mean the game's over?

XKCD declares that you won the game. Now you can concentrate on your schoolwork and not on not losing the game. Congratulations.

Submissions wanted

Hey guys, a new SF website wants your stuff. You can view the site here

DMV Haikus

Yesterday I went to the DMV and waited in line for two hours. Here is haikus that I dedicate to the North Carolina DMV

The line doesn't move
An eternity that will end.
The DMV is life?

Bad air, ugly rug
spanish conversations, two
more hours to go here.

Hey, I brought a book
No one else has a book, Why?
They stare at the walls.

Hey, guy, listen up,
the lady said to get in line.
We are all in line.

SF books that will change your life

Supposedly, anyway. You can view the list here. I highly recommend the book by Vernor Vinge. Probably one of the best SF novels I have ever read. It won awards.

Meeting on Thursday

I'd like to remind everyone that we will be meeting Thursday night at 6 pm. We may have two new people join us so leave all weapons at home. Remember to bring something to read and it doesn't have to be something you wrote.

One for the Lloyd Alexander Readers

This is Sunday's edition of Unshelved.

More Hi Def Movies from the Moon

These are incredible. I recommend the video of the earth rise.

Poetry Contest Sponsored by Borders

You can view the rules here. The age range is 13+ so everyone can enter. Anyone going to send one in? You can even enter a video of you reading your poem...

Nice try, you all lose

Check out this post concerning a story competition that gave out no prize. What do you think of that? If you think you got what it takes, look for the submissions for next year to be up here soon.

A post for Grace

Since you carry around that book of funeral and death poems how about some poems about the underworld?

Dawkins and Darwin

I just found this nice essay by Richard Dawkins on the importance of Darwin.

Trailer for the new Indiana Jones

I so want this to be a good movie.

Isaac Hails a Cab

Check out this photograph I scanned from the back of a book cover today. For some reason it cracks me up.

For those that like to draw

You know how Google has those Google Doodles around each holiday season? They are sponsoring a contest for K-12 students. They want you to make a doodle on the theme of "What if..." You can see the rules here. It looks like it's geared toward teachers but take a gander at it anyway.

Profile of Le Guin

You can read it here.

A Kickstart

I give you the Science Fiction Story Idea generator.

Play a song, any song

I found this interesting site today. Put a song name and an artist into this website and if it's out there it'll play it.

Okay guys, this is my revised speech. Well part of it. Read it and tell me what you think.

Why me? Why not? Jake Raynor

“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” A quote by Martin Luther King Jr. Why are we still fighting wars, when we are supposed to be setting aside our differences?

After so many years of fighting wars, you would think we would have gotten smart enough to realize that fighting is not the answer? Look back at some of the most famous wars in history like the WW II, WW I, and even the Revolutionary war. How did each of these wars end? They ended with a treaty that both sides could agree upon. Now, I understand that they didn’t come to that agreement at the beginning, and thus resorted to violence, but the problem is that they didn’t agree on a solution not that they couldn’t. They instead decided to kill one another, ending many peoples’ lives needlessly. Here’s an example of something that might have happened during the revolutionary war.

‘A man is running through the forest, panting heavily, his arms pumping up and down, and adrenaline flowing through his body. He is a Loyalist, and is running for his life. The troop he was assigned to was attacked, and he just barely escaped. The gunshots ended a few minutes a go, but the cheers did not sound familiar, and the man was too scared to see who had won, so he just kept running. After a little while, he stops and hides in a bush, catching his breath. He had left his gun at the camp, and he had no food. It is just a matter of time before either he starves to death or is killed by the colonists. A nearby town is 6 miles away, but the militia is between him and the town. Thoughts were racing inside the man’s head, like “What about my family? Can I make it back to town without the colonists attacking me? Will I ever see my friend Joe?” As these thoughts are racing though his head, thoughts of his wife, his daughter, of days long past of playing in the stream with Joe, and even the fond memories of eating dinner with his wife and daughter, the time Joe had brought food to celebrate the daughter’s birth. All these thoughts motivated the man, urging him to take the chance and head to the town.

With these thoughts motivating him, he turns around and starts running, listening to every sound, every crunch of a twig, looking around him like a mad man. After a while of doing this the man hears something. He stops and listens. It’s the sounds of the militia’s camp. “So the militia did win.” He thought. A tear crept out of his eye at the thought of his dead comrades. He quickly wiped away the tear with his sleeve, and sat down at the base of a tree. Worry and exhaustion finally caused the man to sleep, with his face in his hands to block out the light.

A short while later he is roughly woken up by a colonist militia scout. The scout says “come with me”. The man, in his confused state, complies with the man. After a few minutes of walking the man is pushed out onto the dirt road leading to town, with a militia camp in the middle of it. By now the man is wide awake and alert. He is pushed on to the ground and men come to tie up his hands and feet. Then the man is forcefully pulled up by his hair. A man looks into his face and says “Loyalist, do you have any wishes you want us to do before you die?”

The man says “yes. I want someone to tell my wife and child I love them, my last name is Hearst. Also please tell Joe Leaderman that I want him to look after my family. They are in the village the road comes from.”

Right then a sob could be heard from among the soldiers. The voice of the scout said “Please forgive me Earl. I’ll watch over your family.” When Earl looked to where the voice was coming from, he saw Joe, with his hands covering his face. And that was the last thing Earl saw.’

there you go.

The Bloggies

Have you voted for the 2008 Bloggies yet? You haven't? Well, scoot on over to the site and let your voice be heard. There is a category for best teen blog and it's a good place to find quality blogs that you may not have heard of.

University Podcasts

This is something I have not really delved into yet but here is a promising list of podcasts of courses provided by big ole universities. Unfortunately, some require Itunes. I'm not a big fan of Itunes.

A webcomic

Today while scanning Metafilter I saw a link to a comic called Minus. Take a gander at it. You might like it.

Ursula Le Guin wants to read to you

MP3 files of Le Guin reading her work can be heard here.

Exercise idea and Meeting

I dare someone to read this blog entry and use it to come up with an idea for an exercise for one of your meetings. I double dog dare. No, I triple dog dare you.

And, yes, we are meeting tomorrow. My bad, this month just flew by. See you guys tomorrow at 6pm.

January Meeting

Yo! Ed! Is the January meeting tomorrow or not? I see no emails of blog posts and I'm getting kinda worried that I missed something.

Alright here's the next part of my story. I'm going to do as much of it as possible, and size restrictions be damned! muhahaha!

  " Are you ready for the upcoming battle?" Lovisa asked Marvier sarcasticly.
  Marvier just grunted in relpy. Lovisa knew that Marvier hardly ever talked unless it was nescesary.
  so they kept walking through the camp, only stopping occasionaly to check on someone or give orders, until they were at the part of the camp where the King was. King Darrin Was the kjeldoran king, and was supplying troops to Lovisa to help her complete her goal, to take down Hiedar and his Rimewind snow machines. Darrin was giving his foot soliders to Lovisa and her warhost so that they could be enhanced by Lovisa's famous warhost magic, which increases anyone who is a part of her warhost by tens timews their surrent streangth. Of course the King didn't give Lovisa all his troops. He kept a select few elite to his follow his orders. Amoung them was the kjeldoran royal guard."
  All right, i'm done for now. I know that this is not much but i want to eat lunch so have fun.

XKCD question

Am I the only one that can read an XKCD comic about nerdy computer stuff and have no idea what they are referring to?

The Oxford English Dictionary of SF

Ever wonder where that now-common science fiction term was first used. You can find out here.

Ok, Luisa aske me to post my story that i'm wrighting on to the blog so here is partof it.

"  Lovisa marched through her warhost's temperary camp. Her arms were crossed against her chest, a serious scowl on her face. On her left side was her two-handed axe, strapped to he belt. On her right side was her second in command, Marvier, the minotuar. Lovisa was a tall woman, about six feet tall, with blazing red hair and a well built body. But compared to Marvier, who was about seven feet tall, with huge bulging muscls under his thich, coarse fur, she appeared small."

there. that's all for now. i hate typing on this since it won't use the key...

People are nuts

I think this article explains why right down the street from my cozy forty year old house with a yard and big oak trees is a subdivision filled with $500,000 ugly ass brick homes with faux Charleston architecture that have been crowbarred so tightly together that they don't even have yards. It's better to look good than to feel good.

Java drawing program

Hey guys, check out this neat little drawing program with gravity physics.

Soup Cooler

Posting from Clare's computer right now.

"Shut your soup cooler!" I told her.

"I've never heard that before."

"Really? Ed has said it several times."

"Well... who listens to Ed?"

New Reading Area

You can view the new reading area here.

Now slower and with more bugs

Retail prankster has fun with a Windows Vista store display.

Teen Reading area update

I just found out that the area will be cleared out tomorrow. I am going to take a long lunch to get some bean bags today. Now all I need is a low Japanese type table. Where would you get one of those?

How to handle being sorta famous

Check out this advice from SF writer, Michael Swanwick.

Teen Reading area at MOR

I am happy to announce that sometime in the near future we will have a new teen reading area at the Morrison library. I discovered that if we collapse and slide down a row of shelving we will have an area about 12 feet in length that will open up down by the paperbacks in the Young Adult area here. Once the maintenance guys do the job we will put a few beanbag chairs and a table down there. It will be nice to give you youngsters an area to sit around and read in instead of having to sit on the floor.

Does anyone have any suggestions concerning the area? Anything you would like to see in there?

Bookstore made from an old cathedral

I find this entry on Metafilter. Check it out.

Meeting Tomorrow

Sorry I have posted anything in a while. You know how the holidays are, you sleep so much that you forget to do the little things that matter.

On to the news. Tomorrow we are meeting, of course. We will meet at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library.

Hobbit Movie

Check it kids, I think it's official. Can't wait.

Crayon Physics

Wow, I want to take stab at this software sometime. That looks like a lot of fun.

Our Next Meeting

I sent out an email a few days ago about our upcoming meeting on December 27th at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library. In that email I mentioned that Melanie would like everyone to bring a piece of writing to include in an anthology she wants to put together. Everyone that has attended one of our meetings in the last year is welcome to submit something.

The book she is going to put together will be one of those Kinko's jobs with the black plastic binding but she believes she can add it to the system. We will also have a stack to pass out at the reference desk.

I hope everyone will bring a piece of writing they'd like to have included. It can be a poem or two or three and short stories or even essays. Whatever the heck you want to submit.

We, of course, reserve the right to edit for dirty words and atrocious spelling.

This made me laugh

I couldn't help but think of Matthew when I read xkcd comic.

Terry Pratchett news

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this doesn't sound good.

SF subgenres

If you are interested, the blog for Penguin Publishing is doing a weeklong post on the many subgenres in science fiction. You can view the blog here.

A Quote

I am currently reading Steve Martin's memoir entitled "Born Standing Up." As you may have guess from the title the book focuses on his ten years as a working stand up comedian. Here's a great quote from the book concerning his decision to attempt to make a living by making people laugh: "I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naivete, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do."

Robert Heinlein

Hey kids, I think most of you know that I grew up reading Heinlein and I still go back to his books on occasion. I try to reread one at least once a year. I came across a nice article about him in the Los Angeles Times.

Also, you can check out John Scalzi's reaction to the story here. His opinion is relevant because the NYTimes review mentioned in the story is a review of Scalzi's book Old Man's War.

Reading lists

I've been keeping a reading list through the library's Readers Club website for about three years now and I've been updating my Goodreads list by memory. I've been wondering if any of you guys keep a reading list. I wish I had started one back in the second grade when I really began reading seriously. So, who keeps a serious reading list?

Website recommendation

I've been meaning to tell you guys about this site I have been using to keep track of what I have read. It's a social website where the focus is books. Cool idea, I think. You can see what your friends are reading and have read and you can read and write book reviews. The site is called Good Reads. You can see my profile here. Join if you wish and add me to your friends list. I have already had some nice communication with some friends concerning books through this website.

Howdy

I haven't posted anything for a few days because I have been moving all weekend. And I do mean all weekend. From Friday until yesterday I spent over 8 hours a day hauling boxes and furniture from three different apartments into one pretty big house. I don't ever want to do that again. One of my new roommates (an old friend of mine) didn't even bother to pack his stuff up until we were at his old place and ready to put his stuff on the truck. I still think he's not aware of just how close he came to getting beat up. Word of advice, if you ever have to move try and box up your belongings before the day you actually are supposed to move.

Ten Best Books of 2007

According to the New York Times Book Review these are the ten best books of the last year. You know, I haven't read any of these. I'm surprised Michael Chabon's new book isn't on this list. I thought for sure I had read a best-of-the-year book when I finished that novel. Last year I hit two, this year none.

Tolkien on Beowulf

Found this nice passage in an essay at Salon.com about how much the new Beowulf movie stinks.

"It is, Tolkien writes, not a primitive poem, but a late one. The pagan world is already past, but the poet still celebrates its vanished power. The fact that a poem written more than a thousand years ago was itself looking back at a lost world gives the poem an uncanny double resonance to the modern reader: "If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo.""

The letter I mentioned (link fixed)

Here is a link to the letter I mentioned earlier. I get a letter published every few months. It makes me feel important.

The link should work now. The page won't be up for long. It should get archived soon and then my name will live forever in the Charlotte Observer archives. Impressed yet?

The exercise

Jake, the exercise we worked on was taking five people you know and taking a characteristic from each person to create a unique character. That is what we were working on when I received the call about the break in from my roommate.

I did see that Colbert dropped his "campaign." I think he got all the publicity out of it he wanted. I think the whole thing was done just to see where it went and I'll wager he was a little surprised by all the hubbub surrounding his joke.

By the way, if you look at the Thanksgiving Day paper you will see a letter in the Charlotte Obsever Forum by little ole me.

ok, several things, 1) i stopped writing my original story for multiple purposes, 2) did you hear that Stephen Colbert was denied by the Democratic party of South Carolina?, 3) could someone please tell me what's up with the writers' strike? i have only vague ideas about why it's happening..., and 4) hope you guys had a happy thanksgiving!

Galaxy Garden

Have you heard about the guy in Hawaii that made a garden in the shape of galaxy?

Howdy

Sorry about last night, guys. I hated to leave. Writers Night is my favorite day at work. Someone busted the back window, unlatched it and crawled in and stole my Xbox 360, a bunch of DVD's and forty dollars out of my roommate's room. I'm pretty sure it was an ex-neighbor that was evicted last month. He was on the property yesterday and I gave his name to the cops. We think he stole some stuff from us this summer but we never had any real proof.

I hope you guys completed the exercise last night. If you did, please post them here. I'd love to read them.

Meeting tomorrow

Don't forget, youngsters, we are meeting tomorrow at the Morrison Library at 6 pm. See you there.

The Creation Museum

Science fiction author John Scalzi has a photo essay on his Flickr page about his trip to the Creation Museum. It's excellent and funny.

Next Meeting

To answer Mitchell's question, the next meeting will be on the third Thursday of November, November 15th. Hey, that's a week from today. Time flies.

Human Clock

I've been on a roll today. I have a great idea for our next meeting. We can use the white dry-erase board and create a couple of entries for the Human Clock. I did a couple of times about three or four years ago and I'd love to do a couple more.

For those that like to draw...

Have you seen those blogs where super nerds use their DVD players and their PC's to stitch together backgrounds from old animated movies? Pretty cool stuff.

The Woman who broke Isaac Asimov's heart

I just found out today that Michael Swanwick is blogging. He has an interesting story about a woman he met.

Just out of curiosity - since the library will be closed on the fourth Thursday this month (that day being Thanksgiving, in case you were unaware), I was wondering when the meeting would be instead, or if there will even be a meeting. I ask purely in the interests of ascertaining whether or not I'll be able to attend.

Moon video goodness

Interested in seeing the first video of the moon shot with a high definition camera? You can view it here.

Alien abduction lamp

I want this.

Another Connie Willis interview

I haven't read it yet but I am sure it's worth reading. Going to go read it now...

From the interview...

Connie Willis' favorite SF short fiction:

"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
"Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury
"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
"The Menace from Earth" by Robert A. Heinlein
"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov
"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler
"Surface Tension" by James Blish
"Vintage Season" by C.L Moore
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett
"A Saucer of Loneliness" by Theodore Sturgeon
"Computers Don't Argue" by Gordon Dickson
"We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick

Ed says:
Menace from earth by Heinlein is a good one. Nightfall is a classic and Bloodchild is another great one that I have read. I remember reading A Sound of Thunder and really feeling that the story felt contemporary and real to me.

I see she mentions Zenna Henderson. I am not familiar with that author. Have any of you read or heard of Zenna Henderson?

All-Time Champs

Would you like to see a list of authors who have one the most total Hugos and Nebula awards for best science fiction novel?

Connie Willis Interview

I found a Connie Willie interview here.

An idea

Several months ago I broached the idea of starting a literary website. We would be the editors and take submissions from the general public. Your response was underwhelming. Now I have another idea for you to consider. I would like each member of our group to come up with a couple pieces of writing which we could post to a webpage that would be reserved just for our writing. What do you think of that?

Not writing or reading related

I don't know about you guys but I love nighttime photography, especially of cities. May I direct to this online gallery?

Collabs- not a month late this time!

I once saw and elk tangled up in a barbed wire fence. I had been walking for most of the day and I was so tired I was at first convinced it was a dream. But the blood was too real.
Whenever I smell frost I think of that elk, and the small caverns carved of the hot red drips, corrosive on the snowy ground. I wanted to help the creature but it was thrashing about madly in its desperate attempt to escape. I sighed and took one last glance and walked away. I could smell the snow as I crunched along. Soon I came to a forked path. One was lined with evergreens, only some snow on the ground. The other was worn dead trees and snow falling. It was a beautiful sight, the light of the setting sun peeking through the branches. I picked that path and started walking again.
What was I thinking about?

(Open for submissions of a nice, concise ending. Seriously, get off your butts and give me something good, people.)


Choose Your Own Adventure (ha, Ed, mine is cooler than yours 'cos it has a name!)

Stephen Colbert...was running for president. [scratched out stuff, only "Terrorists could be anyone" legible] Maybe that's the appeal- everyone becomes a potential threat. Every cell phone whipped out could be a detonator, every package a bomb. It makes public transportation nerve-wracking. But it is not enough to shake the magnificent being that is Stephen Colbert.
He would make a perfect president because he has both of his eyes. (Damn you.)
But Jon Stewart was bitter about his colleague's enormous popularity and charisma. He began to plot the young man's (what?! he's 43!) downfall. His downfall...into Jon Stewart's arms.
Because Jon Stewart could crush a small car in his arms. (Awesome.) He figured correctly that if he could get Colbert in a hug he could crush the life out of him in about ten seconds. Colbert knew that. Colbert didn't care.
Fin. <3

The last one was obviously a war between the non-shippers and the fan-girls. We won. And I wasn't the one who drew the heart after the overly-pretentious "fin." (though I did write THAT.) Also, for anyone who wanted to know, I always grab the collabs so I can have the liberty of adding all those comments in parentheses. :D

Whole bunches of you

Yay! Parallel universes may actually exist. Cool, maybe there is a world out there where I am playing first base for the Chicago Cubs, we are in the world series and during the off season I play bass for U2.

A post for Mitchell

I'm sure she has heard and I should have posted this as soon as I heard but a character from Harry Potter has been outed by Rowling. Dumbledore is gay. I guess the only question is, does anyone really care?

The poem I wrote

Here's the longer version of the poem that I read tonight.

Everyone is older
my dad's youngest brother
always seemed so young
the adult that could
talk to the kids
is almost as old as Bob Dylan
he plays horse shoes half heartedly

My dad, the eldest
his nose ravaged
by his recklessness,
his balance more and more
off kilter
as the years between him
and his motorcycle accident
increase, struggles with horse shoes

The middle brother
his competitiveness stoked by
the horse shoe contest
his red hair fading
like paint on an old car
doesn't lose a game all day

My sister takes pictures
convinces the usually camera shy
to pose and smile
in the red afternoon sun
she's like a attractive queen
who just learned her rival
has had acid thrown in her face.

Aunt Bert's steak
is the rawest steak I've ever seen
eaten with utensils
I tell her, "You could just have left
that sitting out overnight and it
would be done to your liking."
"Yup," She says, "just leave it out
in the sun for a few minutes and
I'll eat it."

It's a good party, the kind people
don't want to leave
with long goodbyes
vows to do this again
"Not wait ten years this time,"
the middle brother says.
"We might not all be here ten years from now."
His wife punches him in the arm.

Everyone is older, even the trees

Le Guin on serious literature

Now this is funny stuff.

Bill Watterson reviews new Charles Schulz Biography

You can read the review here.

Meeting

Don't forget that we are meeting this Thursday because the room will not be available next week. This Thursday, 6 o'clock.

Lego Hawking

Interested in seeing a Lego version of Stephen Hawking?

I am America

As Grace mentioned, her is the cover of the Stephen Colbert book. That is a funny face. I don't know how many of you watch the Colbert Report on Comedy Central but, if you haven't, you are missing some of the best comedy of the last twenty years. I don't know if I've seen any better writing and performing since the Kids in the Hall were in their prime. I read an interview with Colbert and he said when he and Jon Stewart created the character he plays on the show Stewart told him he should play it as a person who is a know it all but an idiot. I think he pulls it off.

The possibility of talks

Hey, even the chance that discussions concerning a Peter Jackson directed version of the Hobbit is enough to get me excited.

The Family Reunion
(just something I jotted down today. It'll be much much much longer later. It'll be an epic poem not unlike the Iliad)

Everyone is older
my dad's younger brother
always seemed so young
the adult that could
talk to the kids
is almost as old as Bob Dylan
he plays horse shoes half heartedly

My dad, the eldest
his nose ravaged
by his recklessness,
his balance more and more
off kilter
as the years between him
and his motorcycle accident
increase, struggles with horse shoes

The middle brother
his competitiveness stoked by
the horse shoe contest
his red hair fading
like paint on an old car
doesn't lose a game all day

Frankenmonkey

How can you not like this?

Copies of documents for sale

Interested in owning some copies of original Robert Heinlein documents? Well I am, and anyone else that is can buy them at the Heinlein Archives.

Need a blues name?

Hey guys, I'd like to thank everyone for coming last night. I think we had another really good meeting. That's like three in a row. We even had a new person come and join us. Her name is Claire and she was named Spike by the group because we already have a Clare. Since we always try to be fair Clare was also given a nickname. From now on she is to be called "Teddy."

Speaking of nicknames you can click here for a generator that will give you a blues name. Good luck. My blues name was "Legless" Junior Beech.

These voices will not stop,

my head is spinning,

my blood is racing,

there's a pounding in my ears,

no depressant can relieve,

they tell me things like,

end your life now,

and,

slice your wrist one more time,

it's too hard to resist,

but impossible to listen,

because oneday,

they'll tell me not to wake-up,

and that will be the end,

of the voices in my head.

What the?

I was messing around with blog settings and now my name is coming up as "Nameless and Anonymous." I don't know why. I mean, I do know why but when I changed the name back to "Ed" it didn't here. Hopefully it will catch up soon.

The art of losing isn't hard to master

Hey kids, how about a poem by Elizabeth Bishop?

Next Meeting and a Link

Hey guys, our next meeting is this Thursday at 6 pm at the Morrison Regional Library. I will have a graphic novel version of my vacation ready to share. It will be done in the style of Peanuts creator, Charles Shulz. That should be fun.

Also, if you are curious as to what is selling in SF/Fantasy in independent book stores that have Book Sense you can view them here.

ok here is part two! Yay! also after this i'm getting a beta-reader!

"... . Louisa liked Buso Renkin, but still thpught that Fruits basket was better, as did Lauren. So as they were arguing in the shade of the tree by the gym, looking somewhat suspicious, Mr. Colsen (the security gaurd) just noticed the hippy, the goth, the guy, and Grace. The grou[p was in the shadows so Coulsen couldn't accuratly make out what they're doing so he assumed they were selling something. Immeditly he shouted 'What are you kids selling!'. This made Luisa scream, Luaren and Jake jump, and made Grace blink. When they turned to face Coulsen, he saw that they were not selling anything and appolagized and walked away. after he was gone Luisa looked back at the others and said 'Geez what was that about?'. Jake, being part of the Caine Crew News, here's alot of gossip and rumors so he knew what was the reason behind that. 'Recently 4 students were busted with being in the possetion of drugs. I beleive 3 of them went to Jubi. because they sold some. the were _____, _______, ________, and ______.' Jake explained. 'Yet another sign of society's degeneration...' Grace said gloomily. 'yeah' agreed Lauren. Jake and Louisa noticed that Lauren was acting closely to Grace recently, like she was now, standing right next to Grace."

that's it. sorry it's so lond i got carried away :). i hope you liked it. by the way the drug story is a true one, both the cou,sen and student one.

My vacation

Hey look, me on a horse.

More wonderful news.

Robert Jordan died.

I've never read his stuff...but man, I really feel for thos who do. It's a sucky situation.

So it's been a while, but since this is a writers' blog I figure this should be mentioned.

Madeline L'Engle died.

Damn it.

Writing Links

Check out this alphabetic list of online writing resources.

Greetings from Michigan

I arrived in Traverse City, MI last night. I won't be posting as much fascinating literature links for the next two weeks. In case you don't believe me here is a picture of the 77/485 interchange in south Mecklenburg County. I took this right after the plane took off. At least, I think that is the interchange. It's hard to tell from way up in the sky what exactly you are looking at. I am at my mother's home and they have a new computer and I am really fighting with the new keyboard. New keyboards are like a new pair of shoes except you don't get blisters from new keyboards.

A book

Check it out, youngsters. Orson Scott Card has written a book specifically for teenagers. It doesn't exactly receive a glowing review here and I would be wary of recommending anything new by him after his last book but...it's out there.

ok this is a preview of the story i'm working on.

it involes a romantic relationship between grace and lauren tolbert.

" it was any ordinary day at A.G., durring F(resh)A(ir)T(ime). Grace, Luisa, Jake (me) and Lauren were hanging out. They were haveing a very heated debate about which manga was better, fruits basket or Buso Renkin. Grace, who read it but was not really into it, and Jake, who did not read it or any other Sholo for that matter, thought that Buso Renkin was better..."

sorry i have to leave it there but i will keep posting more if you want!

hey it's Jake the noob! just letting you guys know i joined the blog! umm yeah that's it....