Results of Ruminations

I finished my tenth novel today. As I've been struggling to finish this latest book (struggling because I wrote all 88,000 words of it in the last four weeks, and that kind of focus is draining), I decided to do a rough approximation of how much writing I've done since I started college/came back from my mission. (During my time in Florida, I didn't really write anything, though I talked about ideas with roommates or companions. Writing--genuinely putting effort into my stories--started in July of 2004, after I had been home from my mission for about a month. I've been writing ever since.) Since I'm bad at math, I decided to make a spreadsheet that would do the calculations for me. This is what I have so far: All of these are finished novels, and some of them I even like. The numbers have decimal points, for some random reason. Ignore those extra zeroes. I'm only talking about finished  products, but assuming those numbers are right (I'm a little ...

Yes, you should go see the movie. Spoiler: He doesn't wear those headphones with that jacket. ( Source ) Seeing the Spider When I was, I don't know, eight or nine, I owned a Spider-Man comic (I believe it was Amazing Spider-Man 361 or 362 ) that had exciting news in it: a Spider-Man movie would be released soon. The next bit of news I heard about Marvel was that it was going bankrupt. (For more details, this article walks you through the big parts.) I was worried that my favorite comic book superhero would never get a chance to be on the silver screen--and, even worse, that his parent company might go under. Fortunately, Marvel pulled through. Eventually, we got the Sam Raimi Spider-Man  and its two sequels, and though the third was easily the weakest entry, all of them represented a unified vision and tone for the franchise (though, yeah, the third one is atonal, but...well, moving on). When I first saw Spider-Man , I was about two months out from starting my mi...

I've long recognized that I have dichotomous tastes. A life-long fan of comics (mostly superhero comics, but there are some others that I appreciate), video games, and parts of anime, I've grown up subsisting on a steady diet of the fantastic. The Chronicles of Prydain  formed a background of middle grade and young adult fantasy (since Harry Potter  wasn't around--and when he showed up, I was anti-Potter), with Anne McCaffery's worlds filling in the gaps. I watched some Star Trek  with my mom, thought Star Wars  was fine (until it wasn't, ruined by constant viewings of the VHS tapes by my little brother--to the point it bred a bit of antipathy in me about them), and I read Animorphs . Both science fiction and fantasy swirled throughout much of my early life. Because of my obsessive personality, I definitely focused on Spider-Man a lot more than other properties, relying on that fusion of science fiction/fantasy that, frankly, has always been the most comfortable ...

Note: To discuss the themes of Cars 3 and look at how they affected me, I have to talk about the end of the movie. In that sense, I'm spoiling the film...or, at least, the film's plot . Don't read if you don't want to (which is always the way it works, obviously), but I feel like there's more to this movie than the story and whether or not it's "spoiled". And though I believe that, I wanted to make this paragraph a little longer to ensure that no one catches an eyeful of spoilers that they didn't intent.  Major spoilers. ( Source ) Pixar's third entry into its Cars  franchise is significantly better than Cars 2 , in large part because Mater isn't around very much at all so the story instantly improves. Okay, that's probably not fair. Cars 2  had some endearing zaniness, and the chance to expand the world of the franchise was a natural step: First film, bring the urban to the rural; second film, bring the rural to the urban. Both ...

I went to a family gathering to celebrate the Fourth. The gathering was family and the host family's friends and neighbors. As a result, I felt a Mr. Darcy, disinclined to extend myself or get to know anyone beyond my own party. We were there early because we brought supplies, so I decided to pass the time by reading some of my summer reading, a short book that I'm still trying to parse my feelings about. Maybe I'll write something about it later. Anyway, despite my mixed feelings about the book, it was a straight forward enough read that I was motivated to read a lot of it. I passed a good portion of the evening reading, which hasn't happened much lately and it was nice to use the time in such a pleasurable way. Sometime before the fireworks started, one of the older attendees interrupted my concentration to urge me away from the book. On one hand, this is a good piece of advice: if one is at a party, one ought to party. In fact, had he wanted to sit down ...

You likely already know quite a bit about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints if you're reading this blog--particularly if you're a regular reader, as I talk about Mormonism and Mormon life pretty regularly--and since it's Sunday, I wanted to talk about a random observation I had the other week, and it's about wine. See, in the LDS Church, we don't drink sacramental wine; we use tap water (which, incidentally, tastes like pool water at the chapel where I attend) and scraps of donated bread to represent the blood and body of Jesus Christ. I realize that's one more split from mainstream Christianity (but I already wrote about why that doesn't bother me), but I think there's a lot to be said about a thimble of water and a crust of (almost always) white bread to help remind me of the sacrifice of the Christ. The plastic cups are Church made and provided. The bread is donated. ( Source ) Why don't we use wine? In a revelation given t...

Jacques Derrida (as quoted in How to Read Derrida  pg 77): For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt. If the other gives me back  or owes  me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long term deferral or difference [ differance ]. This is all too obvious if the other, the donee, gives me back immediately  the same thing...For there to be a gift, it is  necessary that the donee not give back, amortize, reimburse, acquit himself, enter into a contract, and that he never have contracted a debt...The donee owes it to himself  even not to give back, he ought not owe  and the donor ought not count on restitution. Is it thus necessary, at the limit, that he not recognize  the gift as gift? If he recognizes it as  gift, if the gift appears to him as such , if the p...