21. (does this have to be numbered?) WRITING ABOUT WRITING

So today I had to write about my "skills" as a writer. I'm not a very good writer, so obviously that essay was difficult for me to write. What I really hated was how much I had to use the word "write" and all other forms of it. It made the whole thing sound so repetitive. That essay forced me to overuse the word so don't blame me for not being able to find a proper synonym. Anyway, I GUESS I wrote about my "strength and weaknesses," but honestly I feel like I was just rambling on about my narcissism and fail skills as a writer. So I just spent a minute counting the words, and before this sentence I had 106. I hope this blog doesn’t have to be “quality writing,” because I feel like being too serious and academic would ruin the nature of blogs. They’re supposed to be fun, right? Or at least a bit enjoyable, for the reader AND the writer. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

20. I'M SO SORRY

I swear I'm not trying to do this last minute, I'm just.. well yeah I guess I am. But only so my last post (of the "summer") was posted on the last day. My blog's super cool like that. So anyway, I'm gonna talk about On Writing. I learned that the passive voice is unnecessary. I do agree that sometimes sentences sound weird when you rearrange them and stuff, but sometimes it sounds prettybfancy, which I actually like. Oh by the way, Stephen King must be a pretty intense writer to be "convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing." Is he saying he's scared of bad writing? After all the horrible stuff that happened in his childhood, it's almost suprising that this is what he's afraid of. Another thing, I am with him 100% when he says that informal essays are a huge waste of time. Because they are. No need to elaborate. Well, that's all on this book for now. Sorry to be the disappointment that I am. And I'm sorry to have put you through this the entire summer. But now I apologize for having to continue my ramblings throughout the school year. I hope you make it out alive!

19. SAVE ME

I sometimes (but not always) feel pretty bad that I could probably be a world champion procrastinator. I'm a horrible person. My friend told me this joke about procrastination that's super inappropriate and that's why it's hilarious. There's another type of humor I love but it's also pretty inappropriate so obviously I'm not gonna post the details or anything. Again, I am a horrible person. Anyway, this will be my last blog post about Into the Wild. I finally finished today! WHAT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. And I must say, I'm pretty darn proud of myself. So here's just some stuff I'd like to say about the last few (hundred) pages of this book. There's quite a lot that happened, but I'll try to keep this short. Concerning the parts comparing Chris to all those other people who tried to survive in the wild: I couldn't believe there were so many of them! I never would've thought that there were others like Alexander Supertamp. And in my opinion, they're all pretty crazy. Now the part about his family was really sad. Like how his childhood was kind of messed up.. It was ESPECIALLY sad when they found out about his death! His sister was just washing the dog when she got the news. That just.. really sucks. Sorry, I can't relate. I've never really experienced death before. That's probably why I can't see Thestrals.. Okay, I'm just gonna skip to the end now. Considering how frustrated I was at Chris McCandless throughout the entire book, I was pretty.. distressed. And I thought it was especially heartwrenching near the end, when he realized that "happiness is only real when shared." And the whole description of how and when he died.. I was truly sorry that this had to happen to him. RIP CHRIS MCCANDLESS AKA ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP

18. CHOCOLATE? DID YOU SAY.. CHOCOLATE?

I am so hungry right now but it's 11 pm and I can't go and get food. I need to start storing candy in my room again. Anyway, I'm back to reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor. And I'm almost done, I swear I am THIS close! So today, I learned that geography and seasons and pretty important in literature. I understood how "geography matters" but it's weird how even the HEIGHT of geographical features have some hidden meaning! And apparently, the south is pretty crazy because characters only go there so crazy things can happen. I wonder how Southerners feel about that.. Anywho, seasons play an important role in stories and poems by giving them a setting. It's pretty much the same as weather though, right? Well for the most part. And now, I shall end this post on the Interlude. Didn't he already say something about that "one story" stuff? How very repetitive. I got a little frustrated again. Alrighty then, well this is the last you're ever going to see of me blogging about this book. I'm going to finish it tonight, though! I've already promised myself. So I would just like to apologize for not being able to lead you through my triumphant conclusion of How to Read Literature Like a Professor. But have no doubts on the incredibility of my ending; it's gonna be A-MAZING!

17. OH, HOW I'VE MISSED YOU

So I've decided to get back to reading On Writing. It's my favorite of the three, and I really missed it. As of now, I am officially at the part where Stephen King actually talks about WRITING. (I'm not saying I didn't like his mini autobiography; I really enjoyed it!) I haven't read a lot yet, but I learned some pretty intersting stuff. Writing/reading is like telepathy: from the author to the reader. At first I didn't get it, but the concept was very thoroughly explained and it actually makes sense. I also learned that writers should have some kind of "toolbox." I didn't really understand this metaphor too well either, but I get it now. Here's some of the "tools" I've read about so far: 1) Vocabulary. Don't write long sentences if you can write short ones. Don't use big words if you can use something smaller. This really helped me because I tend to write some pretty long sentences. But it's hard for me not to! I guess I'll try to stop. 2) Grammar. You have to know the parts of speech and what makes up a sentence. That's easy enough to remember, but I've always been horrible at grammar. So I hope I learn some helpful stuff this year! I wrote a lot more than I was planning to. Darn.

16. I NEED TO SLEEP

This post isn't going to be very long (fortunately for you) because for some reason I didn't get to read much today, and I am very sleepy at the moment. Also, my allergies have been being super frustrating recently or this weird weather is making me sick or something and sleeping usually helps with that kind of stuff. Anywho, as of now, I'm on the chapter about baptism. Here's what I've read: Apparently, almost drowning ALWAYS has more than the two obvious choices as to its symbolic meaning. He used the word "apothegms" in the beginning of the chapter. I kind of understand what it means, but I have no idea how to pronounce it. I like how he says suicide could be called "death by misadventure;" while suicide will always be a horrible thing, this phrase would make it seem more.. interesting.. at least if I WAS a detective trying to solve the crime. Wow this is actually kind of long. I'm sorry. Okay just one more thing: I thought it was contradictory of him to say "'Always' and 'never' aren't good words in literary studies." He uses those words quite frequently. Just saying.

15. PLEASE JUST STOP

This book seems to go on forever! IT NEVER ENDS. I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 4 days but How to Read Literature Like a Professor has taken me almost three months. I planned to finish it tonight, but I'm pretty sure that's not gonna happen. I suck at planning! Anyway, since last night, I've read enough to talk about. Regarding the chapter about Christ figures.. it seems like you have to know simply EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING to read literature like a professor! You must be familiar with religion, politics, history.. too much! And apparently if you DON'T know these things, you won't get a "full understanding" of the text you're reading. Now the chapter about flying: I already found a crossover to my history class! It doesn't really have anything to do with history, but the author was kind of comparing Superman and Batman, and today in APUSH we had to write a thesis comparing and contrasting Superman and Batman movies! AMAZING. Later on in the book, I saw that he mentioned Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I was reading that last year during SSR! I never got to finish it, and I was hoping to this year. But I probably won't get the chance. Well I think that's all I have to say for now. I've still got an insignificantly significant portion of this book to read.

14. MORE FRUSTRATED

How to Read Literature Like a Professor has been frustrating me since the very beginning. I think it's weird how we had to read this book AND On Writing, because they're pretty much opposites and seem to contradict each other. In my opinion, How to Read Literature Like a Professor has quite a bit of (in the abbreviated form of what apparently is one of Stephen King's favorite words) bs. I feel like there's a lot of that in this book. So many things he mentions seem very unnecessary to me. And while examples do help me in understanding some certain concepts, what frustrates me even more is the author's use of examples taken from literary works he's expected EVERYONE to have read. So even when he's explaining an example, sometimes I still have no idea what he's talking about. EVEN MORE FRUSTRATING is the fact that most of his examples ruined a lot of stories for me. In that chapter about political stuff, he was telling how some Edgar Allan Poe stories (THAT I HAVE NOT READ YET, BUT WAS PLANNING TO READ IN THE NEAR FUTURE) actually contained hidden messages about politics. And in his VERY DETAILED EXPLANATION, HE JUST WENT AND SUMMARIZED THE STORY AND GAVE AWAY THE ENDING. I am very frustrated. Well, I'm gonna go back to reading now so I can just finish this book already. Hopefully I'll be done by tomorrow to have one last blog post about it. And hopefully I won't have to be in contact with this book too much afterwards.

13. FEED THE MATH MONSTER

That phrase was on a bookmark I bought in 7th grade. I am not the math monster cause I suck at math, though I AM hungry so I think I'll go feed myself soon. But before I go to the kitchen, I'll share some thoughts about what I read earlier. So yesterday (technically), I got up early to go fishing in Sacramento. While we were patiently waiting for the salmon that never bit, I had some time to read On Writing. So first, I would just like to say how amazing it is that the prices on EVERYTHING have changed so dramatically! (I still don't quite understand inflation, but I'll learn that in Econ, right?) I was so [I can't think of another word for] amazed when King said that one of his stories got him $60,000, and that was as much as he usually earned in four years! I'm pretty sure that the average family of four today could not survive for even ONE year with $60,000. But what was even MORE amazing is that his novel, Carrie, made $400,000, and he got half of that! That's still A LOT of money today, so I understand why his wife started crying when he told her that they were officially rich. Writing is quite the lucrative business! What else.. Oh, I found it very interesting how he dedicated entire chapters to his alcoholism and drug abuse. It seems like all writers go through similar problems.. (the "Hemingway Defense") but maybe I've just read too many Stephen King stories. His characters are always messed up writers.
P.S. Like how I actually talked about the book? I feel like I didn't go TOO off topic this time. If you agree, we have my friend to thank; she's the one who told me how random my posts were. You know who you are, Friend!

12. AND GIVE ME TIME

So I still never got the time to read any of the millions of books on my bookshelf that have been patiently waiting for me all these years. I am such a negectful book owner. Anyway, I did find a wee smidgeon of time to read a bit more of On Writing a few days ago while I was waiting at the orthodontist. I only read about 5 pages, but I think that's enough for me to comment on. Anywho, I thought it was hilarious how King never even thought about all those copyright issues when he decided to write his "novel version" of The Pit and the Pendulum. I thought it was even more hilaious when he named his publishing house V.I.B., A Very Good Book. Also, it's a good thing he didn't listen to his teacher and stop writing "trash," or else we never would have been exposed to the wonderful world of Stephen King stories. Well that's about all I have to say at the moment. But if you're wondering what's been going on in my super exciting life, I've had a pretty good week so far. I got my braces removed on Monday, finally after a horrendous 3 years and 352 days. Then the day after, I finally got my permit, on the 6 month anniversary of the first time I failed the test. Hurrah!