Give the gift of literature

Well its black friday. That day when everyone rushes walmart pepper sprays others for a tv and plenty of other stupid stuff in order to get the most modern i device or tv or video game. This year for Christmas give someone a book. Now don't just go buy the latest NY Times best seller. Seriously think about the person. What are their interests/hobbies? What books have they told you about? It can be anything from a cookbook to a novel to a scholastic journal. The point is to think deeply about the persons characteristics and how those are reflected in literature. Now the interesting part. What does this say about your writing? Who is your audience? Who would you buy your book/story/essay for? Seriously think about it and how it is reflected in your writing. If it's not the audience you are looking for, change. Don't change your personal voice just try to be more conscientious of your audience.

Get To Know: Patricia Cornwell

This will be the first in a hopefully long series where I find you readers interviews of writers on the internet so you can get to know professionals, especially since we don't get many professional writers here at coe. This weeks is Patricia Cornwell. Patricia is a writing veteran with the first book of her most famous series, the Kay Scarpetta series, being Postmortem (1990). She is also an avid reader as well as writer and says her most recent favorite has been American Sniper by Christopher Kyle. She continues to write and you can check the link earlier to see the full interview she gave with the New York Times.

Outliving the Horrors

Just within the last month a very interesting book came out. My Crazy Century by Ivan Klima details the life of a czech national who survived the World War 2 nazi concentration camps in Terezin. Ivan survived and later credits his survival to the fact that he has always had an irrepressibly optimistic personality. If you would like you can read more about it, with a few quotes from the author here. Or if you feel so compelled here is the amazon posting.

A Momentous Passing.

For those of you who don't know a truly great writer has left this earth and he will be remembered by his works. Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was a truly great writer in the field of military fiction. His most famous writings include the historical fiction work The Hunt for Red October, which was made into an award winning movie, and his many novels that coincided with many successful video game franchises like Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, and Splinter Cell. While the majority of Tom Clancy's most recent works were based around video games this is no less an accomplishment than a successful screen writer or playwright. I personally have spent many hours perusing his Splinter Cell, Endwar, and Net Force series and would recommend them to anyone who enjoys suspenseful and action packed writing. His writing style is unique and imagery vivid as he describes the actions of his heroic army men. Tom Clancy was one of the most recognized war fiction writers of this day and his passing is a tragedy but even after he is gone his novels tell the world just how incredible of a writer he truly was.

Write like a Character!

As of recently I have gotten into a new genre of video games referred to as MUDs. This stands for Multi-User Dungeon. It's basically a fantasy role playing game genre that is totally text based. Essentially I am writing a story for a single character over a long period of time. Admittedly combat is decided by the game engine but the point is its very similar to when one develops a character for a story. Specifically I'm referring to the MUD called Armageddon. Its a highly involved  and highly roleplayed game where the players decide realm changing events. However the game is very dark and dangerous place with a very dune esque desert planet feel. Yet it got me thinking. How often have you read a book where the main character simply has to win? There are so many books that cater to the younger populations in that the main character always wins, the knight arrives just in time, turns out she was pretending she was dead, the list goes on and on. I am more impressed with the writers who say a central character has died. How many story options does that open up? Endless. The next time you write a short story or just exercise your imagination try role playing your characters. What would you do in that situation with those experiences and these possible consequences? I'm not saying you should just roll dice or flip a coin to decide story elements. Just consider their actual consequences. Don't be afraid to kill off, hospitalize or seriously injure main characters!

Dynastic Novelists

I was just trawling through some of the news sites I use to find out about current writing news when I stumbled across, not literally I don't use stumbleupon, this wonderful little article about Stephen King's family.  The article talks about how the King family grew up in an environment of writing and how it has defined their family dynamics. Personally, I really love the part where they talk about when the children were growing up they were told to tell their parents stories before bed instead of the other way around. This dynamic instilled a love of story telling and imagination in them at a very young age and has led to many of them becoming world class writers. King's wife is a successful writer with 8 novels to her name and their children have many novels of their own with some of them receiving best seller accolades and a substantial fan base. I believe that this is a prime example of a household raised in literature and thriving from it. (though I wouldn't suggest asking your children to record The Raven for you while they're still quite young as King did)

The Return of the Blog

Well as a new school year starts at Coe College I return to this blog. I found this to be a very rewarding and interesting method for sharing writing news and interesting stories about various publications. I intend to begin being more diligent about bringing out more postings about more topics so that more people want to come and see this blog! I will also try and keep an eye out for events here in Cedar Rapids and the surrounding areas with regards to writing and remember to remind you whenever a notable author is visiting the college! I must also pay a great deal of thanks to the Coe College Rhetoric Department, located on campus in the Struve Communications Center, for giving me this opportunity and hopefully I will be able to convince some of you to take up a rhetoric minor or maybe even major! Either way this is only the beginning and there will be more to come!
Sincerely,
The Blog Master