Illustrious Illustrators and Authors

Illustrious Illustrators and Authors

PuBLUSHed

I find the idea of publishing one of my papers to be somewhat uncomfortable. I have always enjoyed writing, but I don't think I have ever really aspired to having my paper read and published in a public forum. I think it is probably time that I change my mentally about my writing and be more open to the idea of having others read my work. I think it will allow me to grow even more as I received feedback from all sorts of individuals, so I feel more partial to Guest Blogging.

Granted, this all would require that I write something that is worthy of their time and can contribute to the academic discussion on my given topic. Hopefully I can do that.



Academic Archives: BYU ScholarsArchive

In my American Lit class, I wrote a paper on Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat. As I researched the topic, I found a very useful, peer reviewed article written by a BYU student that explored Poe's writing style. It helped me to form some ideas about my paper and I appreciated that fact that another student had struggled through similar ideas as mine. I think that this would be an interesting place to publish because whatever work I come up with (hopefully good work) it can be of use to another BYU student that is working on a similar assignment.

Guest Blogging: TheAwl /http://www.theawl.com/

"We are largely interested in reported or observed nonfiction or cultural studies. That includes work that examines or highlights history, media affairs, strange occurrences, ideas, popular or "fine" culture and capitalism in practice." This seems like a pretty progressive blog and would be an interesting place to discuss the different lenses of literary criticism. May not be what I am looking for with my paper right now, but I definitely would be interest for other works. 

Another Guest Blog: Book Riot /http://bookriot.com/
This was on their About page:

Our Beliefs

1. We create.
2. We always prefer the book to the movie.
3. We riot as a team.
4. We geek out on books, embarrassingly so.
5. We’re leaders.
6. We practice charity.
7. We miss our subway stop cause the book is that good.
8. We are non-traditional.
9. We believe in family (bookshelves and cats count).

I concur with every single one of these, and wouldn't have to look past their About page to feel like this would not only be a place I would want to contribute, but a site where I would enjoy reading other people's work. 

SHELL

This really is a shell. Quite empty. In fact, if you could hold it up to your ear, you might hear the ocean.

I am stuck with what I think I want to say and how I want to say it. I am also finding out that JRR Tolkien did a lot of artwork so I am not sure how much that will affect my decision to run with this idea.

Click here --> MY SHELL

Small Brainstorm

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Alice Illustration

LOTR Ilustration by Tolkien

From Plato to Alice

FROM PLATO TO ALICE

I am sure I am not alone when I say that my freshman year of college was a lot of fun and challenging all at the same time.

 I had always done well in school, and I very much enjoyed learning. But college was different. With all of the freedoms and opportunities college life presented me, I had to learn to be disciplined (I can't say that I have learned it entirely, and I am still working on it). No longer could I do little homework and minimal studying and hope to do well. Research papers and tests required a lot of preparation, thought, and effort.

I am the oldest in my family, so I didn't have older siblings to fill me in on what it was like to stay up 24 consecutive hours and writing a 10 page paper that was due the next day. But I did have an uncle who was at George Mason working through a joint PhD/JD program at the time. My uncle, Luciano, had just graduated with high honors as the valedictorian for his class at the University of Utah. We would talk about school a lot during my freshman year, and we still do. I spent a long time asking for advice and receiving counsel from him on G-Chat and Skype. Our conversations have covered many topics like: Supply and demand, opportunity costs, Plato and The Republic, myths and Ancient Rome, The Iliad, The Odyssey, the Aeneid, Joseph Smith and the LDS church, Google Glass, and recently, his book Subsumption. I have learned a lot from him and am grateful that he has always been willing to help me.

Me and Luciano. We joke that this was our first discussion of basic economic principles.

Luciano is an economist. And he is also a writer. He is working on the final edits of his book that is a fictional commentary on the relationship between history, economics, and technology. It has a gripping plot that explores the economical effects that an alleged peaceful alien invasion has on the world. He mixes science finction, fantasy, satire, and historical non-fiction to craft an entertaining and insightful story. Personally, I see it becoming a successful motion picture. I told him that I better be given a star role.

He asked me to read the working copy of the book and help him as he edits the storyline. It has been a really interesting process and I have enjoyed helping him and learning from his experience as a writer that is looking for outside constructive criticism and opinion. He even sent out a survey to those who read his first draft in order to help him understand how readers interacted with the text. I think this was a great idea.

He is somebody that I will feel really comfortable bouncing my own writing ideas off of. He has helped me with numerous papers, including some for this class. I think that as I get some help from him, I will feel even more confident as I share my ideas with others for this final paper and future papers. I think he will also have good insight on how I can better share my ideas, too.

The Binding is Our Friend

The Binding is Our Friend

If I try to recall them, there are only a few phrases of reprimand that I heard growing up that I actually learned from, and it has become a life-long motto:  The Binding is Our Friend! 

My parents are both avid readers. They have different tastes when it comes to genre and style, but they are both book devourers. Sometimes, they'll even read a book together. If you enter my parent's room, you'll most assuredly find a book on my dad's bedside table, with a mechanical pencil resting on top of it (his favorite marking tool). If you turn into the bathroom, you will find books (and magazines) of every kind on the edge of the bathtub where my mom does a lot of her reading. These are the examples I grew up with, and I am grateful for it.