Why Write?

For this blog I am going to do a follow up to my last blog “Why Read?”, but instead of doing the subject of reading I’m going to go into the importance of writing. Writing is one of the most important thing for everyone. Writing is used in our everyday societies, from storytelling to communication, everyone needs to know how to write.

The main reason personally why I like to write is for the story telling aspect of it. People can tell amazing stories just like I said in my “why read” blog, it can take people to faraway places, it can open the door to people’s imaginations. But writing also has another purpose getting your feelings and opinions out. I will use an example from my own life, I personally wrote a play script about a very deep subject to me, and writing that script helped me get my opinion out to the public, it’s a great tool, and I know I am not the only person that uses writing like this. People who uses diaries or journals to get their emotions out of them without having to talk to people about, because maybe they aren’t comfortable with talking to people about their emotions. Now we will go onto the other side of writing communication.

Using writing as communication has been used since the beginning of humans, from cave paintings to now with us using social media for talking to each other using writing for communication has been a part a huge part of human civilization. Writing is used for communicating so many things like what we can and can’t do, how or how not to do something, it’s even used to communicate where and where not to go. Without writing explaining and getting things done would be almost impossible.

So in my opinion everyone should write. Writing is so important in everyday life, from telling stories of the past, present, future, and fiction. To being able to just simply talk with one another why you should write should be pretty obvious.              

Why Read?

            My good friend Rowan who writes the blog Pop Culture for Days wrote a post on the same topic “Why Read?” and I thought why not it is an interesting subject so I am going to give my own opinion why I think people should read. There are so many reason people should read, books take you to so many places, and can help you out in the real world.

            Books are amazing they take you to places that don’t even exist. From space to bottom of the sea, to the peaks of mountains and the bottom of caves, to the life of a normal teenager just struggling to a group of kids who have powers and use them for good, books are awesome. Books also put you in situations that you would never even think about like fighting dragons and saving princess, to looking for lost treasure buy just following some clues, to saving the world from an evil scientist to a few kids having a few laughs and growing up together books can do so much just by using the right words. Books allow your imagination to run wild, they allow you to think of new ideas or look at problems from a different angle. They connect people who have the same interests even if you think that you don’t share any. Books do so many things they can even help you in the real world.

            Books can allow to learn real world skills from lighting fires and how to build shelters in survival guides. To how to do stock exchange and other mathematical stuff in textbooks. Yeah maybe you don’t need to learn this stuff but it’s still cool to know how to do. Even books that aren’t specifically used to teach you things they still teach you things. They teach you how to be a good person, or how family is truly important or even how that true friends will always stay by your side.

            Books are great because they teach you important life lessons and also allow your imagination to run wild and just keep running. Before I end this I do again want to give a big thank you to Rowan and I will be leaving a link to her blog at the end of this post. So what I finally want to say, just go and pick up a book once in a while because you never know what will happen

Rowan’s blog: popculurefordays.blogspot.com/

How Video Games are as Good as or Even Better Forms of Literature than Books or Movies

Video games, in my opinion are one of the most amazing forms of literature even better than books and movies. Video games can tell you an amazing story by fully immersing you in the characters, the plot and how the world you play in works.  They can take you into worlds of fantasy, science fiction, war, drama, (ECT.) just like any movie or book could. But the difference is that videogame make you feel like you’re actually there watching it for yourself or in the main characters shoes. There is an infinite number of video games that I could choose from to prove my point but to keep this post short I’m am going to tell you about a few games that I know for a fact have amazing emersion and have great story telling.

The first game I am going to talk about is a game by the name of Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock Infinite was praised for its compelling gameplay, visuals and music to create in my opinion one of the best stories from a video game in 2013. The game is able to use all of its aspects to create so much emersion and allows the player to go at a challenge at anyway they can think of that follows the games rule. And that is another way I believe video games are a better form of literature than books or movies, because the player can choose how the story goes, and that leads into my next game the Mass Effect series.

Mass Effect is great because it shows that player’s actions can change the world around them. In Mass Effect every choice that you make effects everything else in the world. And those actions effect how good or bad of ending you get. See this is just a tool that helps you get so immersed in the game it is amazing. The player really feels like there are in the game and that their choices can have major consequences later down the road. This idea also leads to the possibility of going back and changing you actions so you can have an amazing amount of possibilities.

So I do truly believe that video games can tell amazing stories just as good as or even better than books and movies. Because in video games you have that extra emersion because you know that you can change the story if you mess up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying every video game has an amazing story but that is the say with books and movies. There is going to flops in all three categories no matter what.                   

Book to Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Lighting Theif

WARNING, Before I start this review I do need say that this review is going to spoil a lot from both the book and the movie Percy Jackson the Lighting Thief, so if you have NOT read or watched the movie I would recommend going and doing that now, or proceeding at your own risk, if you have or don’t care please continue, now the review.

There was so much going for this movie it should have been amazing, but there were so many things wrong with it, I don’t even know where to start. Compared to the book the movie is like a bad fan fiction it’s sad. Well I’m going to start with the minor details and move on to the bigger ones as we go. Before I continue I will say that I could not remember all of the thing wrong with the movie so I did go to the website Book Journey to get some more so I will leave a link for the page down below.

The first minor thing wrong with the movie compared to the book was Annabeth’s character. Now the character was portrayed correctly but in the book she is blond and in the movie she is brunet. Now this is a major problem, but it just annoys me how easily that could have been fixed. Another minor problem was that they forgot one of the beginning scenes it had to do with the main character being attacked by monsters, now this I can ignore this because maybe they didn’t have enough time to put it in, but I personally thought it was a cool scene so it annoys me. Now that’s all the minor details I can come up with so one to the big ones.

The first major thing the failed with was Medusa death. In the movie after they kill Medusa the keep her head and use it later on. But in the book after they kill Medusa they wrap up her and send to the gods as a joke, so it’s a very big difference. The final major plot point the movie forgot was Ares. See Ares is actually the main villain in the book but in the movie he is never mentioned. Instead Luke becomes the villain which changes so many things that it doesn’t make sense, it’s just stupid.

Now I’m going to end my “review”, more of a rant here because if I keep going this will go on all day and I really don’t think you want to read that. But if you do I am going to leave a few at the bottom, one will be for book to movie problems and the other will lead to just problems with the movie itself. I know this isn’t a very exciting review but I feel that it tells people one thing. If you have read Percy Jackson, please just please go watch the movies their horrible.

Book to movie problems: http://bookjourney.net/spoiler-alerts/lightning-thief-book-vs-lightning-thief-movie-by-rick-riordan/

Problems with the movie in general: http://www.moviemistakes.com/film8396

Writing and Rejection

Writing, it’s one of the hardest and yet most rewarding things to do. It’s hard because you have to put yourself through some of your darkest moments, reliving your past, to putting yourself in situations you hope and pray you never have to go through. But writing is also one of the most rewarding things. It gives you an amazing sense of pride and joy when someone comes up to you and says, “Man I truly love what you write”, or, “hey your writing has changed my life for the better”. But there is one thing about writing that is the hardest thing to deal with. It like the dark shadow of writing, the thing that no one want’s to talk about or admit that it exists. And that is having your writing be rejected by someone.

Having a piece of writing rejected is one of the worst feelings in the world. It feels like someone just ripped your heart and soul right out of you. It feels like someone took your life story read through and then said, “Nah this isn’t good enough for me”, and then throws your story right back at you. It’s horrible, but sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes you need that smack from reality telling you that something needs to be fixed. So don’t get me wrong rejection sucks but sometimes rejection can make your writing stronger and make you a better author.

Let me give you a few examples of how rejection have led to success in people’s life. Some of the most popular authors in the world had their books rejected. Even J.K Rowling the author of the very famous  book series Harry Potter had it rejected many, many times before finally someone read it and said, “Wow this is a good book”. Now take what I say with a grain of salt I’m not saying that if your writing keeps getting rejected again and again doesn’t mean that you will become some world renowned author, but getting rejected does build another thing determination.

Let me give you a weird example, acting. At the high school I go to I’m personally trying to be an actor, but for the three years that I have tried out for plays I have only made chorus twice and one very minor role, but I keep trying and you want to know why, because it builds determination. Even my schools director has noticed it so he has been giving me more responsibly in the theater world. So don’t take every rejection as, “oh I suck”, take it as “what can I do better”.

So yes rejection sucks but it’s not the end of the world. Maybe you got rejected because you didn’t have what there were looking for, or maybe they just didn’t see enough the first time through. So don’t give up after just one rejection but keep trying and maybe after the fifth, sixth time getting rejected go back and see what you can fix.

Book Review: End Game The Calling

Endgame, The Calling is written by James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton. Endgame is a great book with many twist and turns but I'm not going to bore you with a bland summary of the book. Instead I am going to give you a brief summary and then talk about what I thought made the book extremely interesting. Endgame is basically Hunger Games but around the world, there are twelve tribes and it’s a race for three keys whoever gets them all first wins, the losers and there tribes all perish. So that’s about the briefest summary I can physically give now on to the really cool stuff. One of the main things that I find interesting about Endgame is its perspective because it never stays the same, the point of view keeps jumping from one character to another. I personally love this idea because you aren’t stuck to the view and ideas of just one person, you can see the world and how others react from different eyes. Another thing In Endgame that is very interesting is the idea of puzzles. To find each key every opponent is given a clue but all the clues are different, so it makes it harder because they can’t just cheat off of one another. Once they do solve the clue they move on to the next clue and then the next one until they find the first key, then they move on to the next clue to find the next key. Now I know some books do this just so that they can stretch the series out but James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton don’t do that. The reason that they do it in my opinion is because it makes it so that the game is a challenge. They don’t just say “oh here is the key have slaughter fest and see who gets there first”. No they make so that each character has to deal with their own dilemma. Now the other interesting thing is that they put puzzles also for the reader in the book. Now the puzzles can range from pictures to symbols instead of page number’s so it’s a really interesting idea. And the best part about that is that James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton say if someone does solve all the puzzles that there is a prize waiting for them once the series has finished. And I personally think that is a cool idea. So with my review of Endgame, The Calling  I want to finish by saying that it is an amazing book with great writing and even a little challenge for their readers.