January 21, 2003 - 6:15 p.m.
Alright, found my way back, aren't you just thrilled?
This site is living up to my expectations already, which brightens my waking period immensely.
So, what next?
Well, I'm John, sometimes called Ender, sometimes called Jarryn, and sometimes just not called. The Ender refers to a book I continue to hold in highest regard, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, which I read when I was 11. Every few months I'll take the couple hours and reread it, it being only about 300 pages put alongside how fast I read. For one of his earlier works it amazes me still how well he captured the mind and emotions of the lead character from such a young age till the early teens. Somehow he put the regular angst of boyhood into the boy without cheapening it or rehashing how others have. Such an easy read, it heped get me back into reading sci-fi at that age. I had started out with Asimov when I was 6( learned how to read exceptionally early, at 2 and a half, so by six I was reading novels), working my way through the Caves of Steel, and enjoyed the continued adventures of Elijah and Daneel for several books after. Unfortunately I went next to the Foundation series, which threw me off sci-fi for a while. My friend had been reading Piers Anthony's Xanth series( I hear the collective groan in your throats, beleive me), and already had the entire series to date, some 13 books I think. I ate books at such a book that I wanted something that went on for a while, and that world of puns and magic was enough to distract my young mind from thinking it was going on for too long and loosing cohesien with every book. I then turned towards the Tarot series, also by Anthony, which entrigued me with its caustic language, grusome violence, and masturbation scenes. I then plowed through anything fantasy based I could find, not really finding anything of note. After not having anything new in the local library fantasy wise(they had a deplrable lack of fiction period), I stumbled upon Ender's Game, checked it out, and read it that night. I still have the same copy, but don't tell them...
Although the writing style overall wasn't anything special, the character developement really showed me how alive a character can be, and how through character exploration you can get others to relate and more easily be able to envision. I then read a similar book by Asimov, one of his last I beleive, Nemisis. This also got into the mind of a young girl quite thoroughly.
At this point in my life, as in many adolescents lives, I felt isolated and different. I lost myself in books, hunting for stories where the characters were written so well they seemed alive to me, and with them I considered myself friend.
By the time high school came along I was carted off to a tech school that didn't seem too intent with reading and books, and my struggle to feed my mind grew more frantic. I read anything, good or bad, just too escape and keep my head from freezing up. But few others shared my interest, and the library there kept only a minimal number of books, all of which had already been colored in or had black marker circles already around Waldo.
I managed to get my hands on some King, loving about half of what I read. "IT" burned itself into my mind and continues as the only paperback that scared the shit out of me so badly I had to put it down. I loved it, and have reread it since, but somehow Pennywise has power beyond ink and wood pulp.
My senior year awarded something I could have used alot earlier in my vocational education career, my friend Dylan.
Two years behind me though he was, he was the only one who had read some of what I had, and had books of his own he wanted me to read. Our friendship started there, along with Anime and console rpg's, and continued to grow and strengthen till now, he being more family to me then my own blood.
We joined drama after school and massacred The Crucible. All this time Dylan fed me Zelazny and pointed me in the direction of sci-fi and fantasy that finally satisfied my mental cravings.
How did this turn into the auto-biography of my reading?
Yeesh!
Let's skip ahead now, I was getting bored, so you must be about ten handfulls into hairclub for men by now.
LAst year I read Michelle Wests' Sun Sword series, after which I went back and read her Hunter books. Currently she resides at the top of my favorite authors list.
She writes characters into existence like no one I have read so far. She paints the pages of her books with strong pastel strokes of words, with prose thats spellbinding, descriptions so vivid her maiden name must have been kodak. And a plot that is so twisting and thoguht out you envision her study having diagrams and timelines, character profiles and maps, crisscrossed with post-its of how they relate. Such a pleasure to read. Especially after the D&D of The Wheel of Time, and the Tolkien xerox that Terry Brooks puts his name on. Were she a single woman in the US and I a straight man... but neither being the case...
Oddly enough this brings me to my book. After reading just about every series out there and spending alot of me time just switting around waiting for sequels, I started work on my own book last summer. In about five sittings, much to my surprise, a book formed from the jumble of my mind.
Last week I was about 70 pages of writing into a productive sitting when I wrote a sentence that stared back at me and announced, rather sulkily, that it was the end of the book.
Yay for me. I unfortunately only wrote half of the 400 or so pages on the computer. The rest is in two note books waiting to be transcribed. Actually, I am doing so now, but needed a break so I started this journal.
I now return to my endeavors, and will post again soon, I am sure.
6:58 p.m. - November 21, 2003
11:55 p.m. - November 15, 2003
8:23 p.m. - November 15, 2003
3:38 a.m. - November 10, 2003
7:46 a.m. - October 27, 2003
