Percy Jackson: Book Review

What two reviews in one week why are you doing this I hear you cry? Well I am really running short on time this week so I am just going to make a really quick post about The Percy Jackson series written by Rick Riordan.

If you remember back to my first ever blog post. I basically ranted about why the movie adaptation of this book was so bad. But then I remembered just today I never actually talked about the book and why it was so good. So that is what I am going to be talking about, so strap in. SPOILER WARNING.

I really not going to touch on the plot because you can literally just look that up on Wikipedia. But today I am going to talk about why I thought this book series was amazing. There were three main things I found amazing with the books as a kid. The Action, the Lore, and the story.

First the Action. Man the fight scenes described in these books was amazing and still holds up to this day in my opinion. I draws you in and makes you feel like you are right there with the characters, fighting right by their sides in the heat of battle. It was such a cool thing to me as a kid.

Secondly the Lore. Greek mythology is now my favorite thing to talk to people about because of the Percy Jackson series. It taught me a lot about the Greek gods, and how powerful there were, their personalities, and even what they were able to do in a fun and exciting way.

Finally the thing that always kept me going was the story. A normal every day kid being able to become basically a god was always an insane idea to me. This even affected my childhood and what I and my friends played as kids.

A fourth and minor thing that I am just going to mention is the nostalgia of the books. They kind of take me back to when things were easier, and I didn’t have to worry about writing three blog posts every week.

Well now since that is done I can finally head off to what I need to do. I promise next week that my blogs will be up to the normal quality but this week was show week and I really never had time to write blogs.

The Pajama Game: Play review

Hey look here another review. Yay! And it’s something besides a book. Yay! So today I am going to be reviewing the Play: The Pajama Game. (Spoilers but the play was written in 1957 so I am pretty sure you don’t care).

The Pajama Game, takes place in a Pajama factory in Cedar Rapids, IA. It takes place during a 7 and ½ cent dispute between the workers and the company. The play goes on and the dispute get settled. The end. I could do an in depth analysis of the story but instead I am going to be talking about what cool things happen in the actual show.

So the music is amazing by the way but one song in particular stands out to me, it’s called Hey There. (Warning the original singer on Broadway sucks) the song itself is very well written but there is something special about this song. So whoever is singing the song basically sings into a Dictaphone, (an old school tape recorder) and after he finishes singing stops the track, rewinds it, hits play, and then starts harmonizing with himself. It is one of the coolest things I have seen in a show for a long time.

There is one gripe I do have with the show and that is the writing. Man the writing in this play is horrible. I am in it so I have actually read through the script, and we have actually had to re write at least like twelve of the lines. Don’t get me wrong there are some really funny moments in, but for the number of funny, laugh out loud moments, there is some that you just don’t want to hear about. Like women getting blanked in the forest. Not allowed to say the worded that I blanked out because it’s a high school blog. And even though the writing is horrible I understand why. The play was written in 1957 when women were treated more like objects than they were people.

So with that another play review done and gone just like wind and with it another amazing play back to the mysteries of the wild. So let’s hope that this gave you an inside into more plays.        

Making Fatnasy in Writing

Yay! Another blog where my true nerd self gets to poke through. So today we are going to be talking about the wonderful world of writing fantasy. So prepare to be whisked into a world of powerful wizards, fire breathing dragons, fair maidens in need of rescue, and the brave warrior who must stop whatever evil you throw in their way.

Now you see, when I write fantasy I find that there are three main stories to be told when it comes to fantasy.

·         

    First you have The Quest. The Quest entails that your hero or heroes must go off to an unknown land to find/gather something for someone. Usually has to deal with a prophecy  

·         

    Next you have The Adventure. The Adventure says that your hero or heroes must go and defeat an enemy or an army for some sort for some reason.  

·        

   The final type is The Mix. The Mix is basically just mixing the ideas of The Quest and The Adventure together.

Now with the type of story comes your characters. There is a certain set of characters that usually shows up in fantasy so I will go over the ones I know.

· The Hero. The most basic character you can have in fantasy can be either male of female and has something about them that sets them apart from the rest of the characters/world.

   The Band. A group of heroes that usually all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Can be a mix of genders and has become a lot more common in fantasy writing.

   The Unlikely Hero. This is the character that is a plain old Joe, nothing special about them. But somehow they get whisked into an adventure that they never thought could have been possible.

· The Unlikely Band. This is a group of people that you would never think could be heroes. Every single one of them is usually an outcast or just looked down upon by society.

· The Siblings. Almost the same as The Unlikely Band, the only difference between them is that The Siblings are obviously related.

Finally we get to the major point of the book. The reason why your hero or heroes are on this journey. The main conflict. The main conflict can really be anything, so I will give you a few examples.

· The Plague. Your hero/heroes must go on a quest to find the cure to an unknown disease.

·         \

   The Item. Your hero/heroes must go and find some long lost artifact to help do something.

·        

      The Enemy. Your hero/heroes must go and defeat an enemy for whatever reason.

So that is the basics in how to write fantasy. If you have any questions or your own pointers out them in the comments I would love to read them.

Rejection in General

Hey you probably thought you would never see this title again. Well I have had some interesting things happen in the last few weeks so I want to be able to talk to you guys about that.

So I have decided to turn in a few of my plays that I have written to my schools literary magazine. I will not know if my pieces have made the cut for a few days, which I really don’t mind. But I am prepping myself just in case they do not get selected which there is a decent chance of happening. So why am I telling all of you this, well because if you go into something prepared to fail then you kind of give everything you’ve got. Let me give you another example.

I have mentioned this earlier I am part of my school’s show choir tech, and we recently went to show choir nationals. Now I mean preforming at show choir nationals is a big honor in itself but our show choir hadn’t been having great year. We finishing pretty low in competitions so when we went to nationals none of us thought that we were going to make finals, so we gave everything we had because we thought there was no way in hell that we would make finals so we put our blood, sweat, and tears on that floor, and by some miracle when ended up making finals. I mean we placed last in finals, but we were facing schools all around the country, and we won best tech crew. So sometimes going into something prepared to fail and giving everything you have because you have nothing to lose is sometimes the best thing to do.

If you go into something thinking, oh I am sure that we will make it so we can save everything for later can and will most likely end up backfiring on you. So going in cocky and not giving everything is worse than going in ready to fail but giving everything you’ve got, because there is that small light at the end of tunnel that you might just barely reach.

I know this one didn’t really focus on literature to say the least but you can apply this to really anything. But if you want more about failure and actual literature go to my second post ever titled Writing and Rejection. You can find some more information there.    

Book Review: The Magic Tree House Series

Another book review, Yay!  And again it’s another one of my child hood favorites, Yay! This time we are going to be talking about The Magic Tree House Series. The Magic Tree House is written by Mary Pope Osborne and was and is still one of my favorite child hood book series of all time. The series follows two main characters Jack and Annie who are brother and sister. The story basically revolves around them and their magic tree house, which is basically a time machine. The book series is split into two sections that each follow an over arching theme. So now with that out of the way I 

can now explain why I love this series so much.

First off this is one of the largest book children book series to date. With a total of 54 books in the series so far (I believe the author is writing more but I am not one hundred percent sure yet) and a guess of about 120 pages per book (that stat is a very rough estimate) totals to be about 6,480 pages in the entire series so far. And I can see why since the first book was published back on July 28^th, 1992.yes this series is 24 years old, and I love it.

Mary Pope Osborne is an amazing author. From what I remember reading her books as a kid my mind was blown with how much detail and just how immersive the story was. And I am personally just impressed that an author has been able to keep a series going for 24 years and has still kept a pretty solid fan base with it. Another thing I praise Osborne on is how well she is actually able to teach kids things in a fun new exciting way. I mean don’t get me wrong kids love learning things but it does get boring doing the same thing over and over again. So when Osborne is able to teach kids things from history to science to literature is really cool. Don’t believe that she is able to teach history in a fiction story just listen to some of these titles. Dinosaurs before Dark, Mummies in the Morning, Pirates Past Noon, Afternoon on the Amazon, and the list just keeps going.

So if you are looking for a series to get you kids into I would totally recommend The Magic Tree House Series.

Hamilton the Musical: Play Review

Yes this is another review but I truly feel that this musical needs to be talked about. So just as a warning this will contain spoilers for the musical Hamilton or basically any American history class you will take.

Finally a musical that is actually really interesting.  Hamilton the musical does something completely different. Instead of taking place in the present day or a couple of decades ago it takes place from 1776 until the death of Hamilton. It is a historical musical; it talks about how our history happened, in a very interesting way. The musical is extremely historically accurate and talks about the one founding father that is very rarely talked about Alexander Hamilton.

The Play starts in 1776 when Hamilton arrives in America and how he becomes a writer and his struggle to become a solider. The first act ends with America winning the war and us trying to figure out how to run our country. The second act starts with the creation of the two party system and this is really where the true drama starts. It talks about how Hamilton has an affair with his wife, gets fired from his position in office, having his son die. And the play ends with the death of Hamilton in duel where he basically surrendered. This plot is insane because of how much information it is able to get a crossed in about 2 hours. Just the detail and how accurate the play is amazing. But now we move on to the piece of resistance. The music.

Lin-Manuel Miranda who is the composer, the lyricist, and the man who plays Hamilton. This man is a genius when it comes to writing music. You would think that the music in Hamilton would be the same as that time period, so basically opera, but you would be dead wrong. The music is a mix between now a day pop music and rap. Yes there is rapping in at least there songs and is really well written too.

Hamilton the musical is a true work of genius. The music and actual story is perfectly blended together to make a very entertaining story that keeps you intertwined throughout the entire show. The historical accuracy is almost dead on, and I am personal fan of the type of music. So if you are looking for a new musical to be listening to I would totally recommend Hamilton the Musical.            

Book Review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Hey look at that another book review. (Hooray!) This one is a little overdue since I read the book about a few months ago but I am sure it will be fine. So now for the back story. (WARING THIS BLOG WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS). With that out of the way let's begin. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay takes place during the golden years of comic books, and basically talks about two friends who start up their own comic book series and basically make the big time in the world of comic books.   

So let me just start off by saying, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is an amazing book. It really changed how I saw the creation of comic books. For a comic book lover like me, the book makes you really think about what it was like to make comic books back in the golden age of comic.

Another thing that I found truly interesting was the author’s idea to make Sammy homosexual, it was truly a shock, but I feel he did it, because without that extra point, Sammy was personally a very bland character and extremely 1 dimensional to me.

The next thing that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay does amazing is how it used its fiction aspect.  In some parts of the book it would tell you a story from the Escapists point of view, bending the line between what was real and what was fantasy in the book. I found this to be really neat but kind of confusing at times. I felt the author could have done maybe a little better job with it.

My one struggle with the book is that it was a little hard to follow at some points, it was hard to tell whose point of view the story was being told from, and what exactly was happening.

The final The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay does well is its structure. I personally like the idea that you get to see the world from both the points of Sammy and Joe. I know a lot of books do this, but I feel that it works extremely well in this book.

But besides that one small problem The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was an outstanding book and I wish more authors did books back in the golden days of comics.  

Evolution of Literature

This is another blog that I am completely shocked that I have touched earlier. Writing has been used since the beginning of man, but the use of it has drastically changed over our time span. Don’t believe me, let’s take a trip back in time and see where writing really started.

I am going to start all the way back with cave man. Yes cave art isn’t considered a form of writing but I consider it literature for one main reason. It tells a story. Cave art tells us the story of our ancestors before us and how the communicated.

The first form of writing is dated back to about 3200 BC in Mesopotamia. Back then writing was mainly used for trading and writing down events, but mainly trading.

A few thousand years later (I don’t have an exact date but you can probably google it) writing finally evolved into something new. Writing now was mainly used for treaties, keeping track of history, organization, and yes writing music. Yes writing was a thing back then, they didn’t have electronics to make the music for them.

Finally we get today where writing is used for everything from proving that you were the one to buy something, for writing treaties, keeping track of our history, organization, and still writing music. But then we got something new the computer. The computer has really gotten rid of the necessity of actually writing things down.

So there is the very basic evolution of writing and how it has changed over the years. And as you have seen writing really hasn’t changed a lot over the years. The only things that have changed are what we have written down and where we keep track of our writings.

I do apologize that this is a very short blog, but about half way through writing it I realized that I didn’t really know a lot about the subject that I was writing about, so hopefully I can try to make up for it in the next blog, and liked I had promised you in the last blog I stop my series track. Let’s just hope that doesn’t star back up, (that may or may not be a use foreshadowing) (hint hint). So I will see you guys in the next blog.    

Making Lore

Ah, it is finally time for my true nerd to show through. Today I am going to be talking about lore in literature. This blog is mainly going to be a Q and A about what is and how to use lore.

Q. First off since I know a lot of my readers aren’t nerds I will have to explain what exactly lore is?

A. So in layman’s terms lore is basically the back story to what you are writing.

Q. Secondly, what exactly can you use lore in?

A. Lore is mainly used Video Games, but I have also personally seen it in books, movies and comic books.

Q. Now what do you actually use lore for?

A. Well lore is mainly used for things that don’t fit into the main story, or other ideas you have.

Q. What is considered lore?

A.  Lore can really be anything, extra characters you could put in your story, backgrounds that you couldn’t fit into the main story, or even whole universes that just couldn’t fit in to a single story. So lore can really be anything that didn’t fit in to the main story.

Q. How do I write lore in to my story?

A. This is kind of a multiple step answer and it really depends on how much lore you have for your story. If it is just a very small amount I have seen a few authors just put in the back of their books, or with video games I have seen them put them in random papers around your map. Now if you have a lot of lore and I mean a lot you can do a few things. You could write a completely different story based on the back story that you created, or the other thing I have seen authors and video game creators both do is create like a book of lore for their stories. These are usually written like survival guides written by your main characters. The main thing with lore is that you want to make sure your lore is easily accessible, but not directly written in your game.

I know there is many more things I could write about creating lore, but I can save that for a rainy day. But I promise this will not become a direct series, if I were to da another one it won’t be for a while.      

Copyright Pt 3

So just so you guys know I just got back from a Show Choir vacation/competition in Nashville, Tennessee, and I am basically dead so do not except a lot of quality from this one. But speaking of show choir I am now going to talk about forms of copyright that you may not have thought of. (If you do not know what show choir is I am going to most likely covering the subject in a future blog).

So with show choir we have to pick all of our own music to preform, only problem is to preform that music we have to pay a thing called ROALTIES. For those of you who don’t know what those are they are basically a form of copy right which makes sure that you are giving money to the creator of that song., which is a good thing. So why did I mention show choir? Well I just got back from a thing called show choir nationals, which is where the best show choirs around the country come together and compete. So what the big deal?

Well we placed 6^th out of 22 team, which is amazing, but there is a small problem. The team that beat us for fifth place didn’t pay royalties for the music they used, and they got caught, but after it was only after the awards they got caught. So what happens now? I here you all asking behind your computer screens. Well they will most likely be sued and have to pay the royalties and a fine, that’s it. That is all they have to do. (If this wasn’t a high school blog this and the next few sentences would have a lot more color to them). Seriously, there trophies don’t get taken away, they don’t get banned from competing, they just have to pay money, and that is it.

I personally feel that there should be more done, if a school is caught breaking copyright, then just paying money that trying to get out of. But what do I know I am just a teenage boy sitting behind a computer screen. So I am going to ask you. What do you think should happen to the school? Should they just pay the money and be done, or should there be more? Go ahead and answer down in the comments. I would love to discuss it with you guys. 

Copyright Pt 2

Welcome to part 2 everybody, and just to warn you now there will be a part three to this but it will actually not be related to other 2 in anyway except for the subject matter of copyright. Now with that out of the way let’s get back to me ranting about copyright.

If you are just now joining us I would recommend going back to part 1 and reading that first. With that out of the way let me answer the questions I left you with from the last part. No I don’t believe that YouTube should get rid of their copyright system.

Now don’t get me wrong YouTube’s copyright system is one of the worst things in the world, but it is necessary, let me explain. Even though YouTube’s copyright system is worse than getting stung by a thousand hornets there is a reason for it. Copyright is used to help protect its user from those people who are breaking copyright law, so yes it can actually stop people from making money off of someone else’s work that they didn’t have permission to use. So yes copyright is a good thing, it helps people make sure that they get the credit (and money) they deserve, and it doesn’t need to go away, but YouTube’s copyright system does still need a little help.

And when I say little help, I mean a lot of help, and when I say a lot of help, I truly mean that the old system needs to be completely thrown out the window and completely re-worked. Instead of having a completely automated system who has to guess if people are breaking copyright, maybe YouTube could get a certified team that actually looks for people who are breaking copyright laws. Or even better keep the automated system but get a team together to help out those small time YouTuber’s, who get falsely claimed of breaking copyright and get there videos back. Or help brand new YouTuber’s who may not understand copyright yet, and didn’t know that they were breaking copyright law and just help them fix it.

See YouTube there is a way to fix your copyright problem. I respect that you at least have a copyright system in place, but come on YouTube, you should know by now that your copyright system needs work. So now we finally move on the part 3 of copyright. 

Copyright Pt 1

Hey guys, so today we get to talk best and worst thing in literature, copyright. Copyright, a two sided coin, both evil and good, dark and light, peace and hate, it can be force that helps people and a force for to destroy people. Today specifically I am going to talk about the place where copyright is most debated, the internet. And where in the internet is copyright most debated, YouTube. (I am going to get so much hate for this one).

So personally I have started up a YouTube channel to get my musical talent out there, (No there is no link to my channel, I will not stoop that low, if you would like the name ask in the comments) but I have run into a small problem, copyright. See I do drum covers, so I am required to use music, but whenever I put out a video I get flagged for using copyright. Which doesn’t really make sense to me. You see drum covers are considered parody, which is protected under fair use of copyright. (This has been a huge thing on YouTube recently so if you want to learn more about the situation going on over there I would recommend just doing a search on YouTube for it, a lot of people have covered the subject a lot better than I can). So why am I getting flagged when I am not breaking copyright?

Before we even get into that I should probably explain what copyright is. For those of you who don’t know, copyright in layman’s terms is basically a system used to protect people who create things from other people are trying to steal their ideas. But there is a minor problem when it comes to YouTube and the copyright system, it’s completely automated, so there is no human interaction. So the problem going on at YouTube is basically, people are placing false copyright claims on other people’s work (which I have had happen) to steal their ad revenue (the way YouTuber's make money). Which is very harmful to those content creators. And since the system is automated, it is almost impossible to refute that claim.

So is copyright one of the worst things in the world? Should we just out right get rid of copyright? You will find out in the next part of this not at all dramatic blog post. See you then.