Category: Writing and Reading

Things I have written, or read about that inspired me and that I hope will inspire you.

Really Great Stories

I started working on a list of books a while back that I was going to place on a page on this blog for all of my readers to see. It was to be a list of the greatest books I have ever read and it was taking a very long time to compile it because these books all impacted me on a very personal and very deep level. The biggest problem is that a lot of the works that really influenced the way I think aren’t full length novels at all. They’re short stories. These are harder to come by in terms of purchase but I still think it is worth it for you to read them, and for me to talk about them, especially because I really cannot make a list of works that changed the way I think and merely limit that list to novels. And in order to do the list justice, I needed to give the ideas that I had about each individual work time to percolate.… [Read More]

Prayer for Dawn

Red Dragoon, a buddy I hang out with on a forum, issued a holiday… well… not a challenge, but an activity. We both wrote poems for Halloween and will be posting them on the forum in the off topic threads in the morning, but you… my constant readers, can read mine now.

It is a sestina. A sestina is a poem that is written in six stanzas of six lines each. Each line of each stanza ends in a word that is pre-determined, so you kind of write them like you are solving a word puzzle.

Happy Haunting!

Prayer for Dawn[Read More]

Poetry: Fan Girl

After a day spent listening to my entire collection of Gackt albums (I own his complete discography), I found myself falling asleep a few minutes ago, long enough to just barely start to dream. I don’t often remember my dreams, but this one was a doozie and made me realize that I had spent far too much time immersed in Gackt’s amazing voice today. It took me to another world… another life. When I woke up with my hair looking all ridiculous from having passed out on the dining room table, “Fan Girl” came out. I don’t promise quality here, I was half-awake when I wrote it.

I have to admit, sometimes it is really cool to wake up from a dream of some guy that you are never going to meet, with the most beautiful white wings, whispering to you in a language that you’ve immersed yourself in for the last year.… [Read More]

Damn

The more I write, the more I realize that I am a poet and not a short fiction writer. Not so much anyway. The things that set my soul in motion and really make me think and feel, and be… are poems.

Here’s one for you:
“Damn”[Read More]

Summer in a Bottle.

It’s cold here tonight and I’ve been fighting off a sinus infection for quite some time so I’ve been going through fevers and fighting off cold chills, but tonight I spent an hour just bathing in the glow of Summer. It felt so good.

I’m reading Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine” for my final paper of my associates degree. It’s just a literary analysis, no big deal, but I wonder if I can really capture everything that is in this book all at once in five pages the way that Grandpa Spaulding managed to capture all that is wonderful and radiant about Summer in a single bottle of dandelion wine. I’m not sure if I can, but I know that I can try.

So this is just a thank you to Ray Bradbury for his wonderful book that was written nearly twenty years before I was even born. Thank you for capturing Summer and reminding me why I loved Summer so much when I was a child, and giving me a reason to realize that in spite of the fact that I’m not a kid anymore, Summer doesn’t have to grow up and go away.… [Read More]