Alter the Scoreboard

For the longest time, I used the conventional 1-10 score marks for media I'd watched/read (it's only recently I began consuming albums like I do books/film). It works pretty well, conceptually. Something was good but not great? Seven. Something was bad? Three. Average? Five. The best? Ten.

Anyone can understand it, and its use is certainly pervasive with professional critics and commentators on any given medium. I do think it has some gravity in upholding one's opinion, but I also think it has detractors as well. The inevitable comparison between things is one of them. Sure, some media is comparable to other media by virtue that art begets art, and therefore influence takes root as similarity -- but when you have a spectrum, or a scale, everything that falls on it is related in the sense that it can all be weighed on that one quality. This is hard for me to stomach, because that would mean non-fiction, animation, live action, and the like are all going onto the same spectrum (and thus, be compared) when they should be treated as separate things.

The number score system, the star score system (which is essentially the same thing), and the grade score system breed a lot of "This is the standard everything should be compared to." This is a bit of a paradox, no? Everything is inherently different. Despite both being films, Saving Private Ryan is not going to achieve the same presence as Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, for many -- many -- reasons. One is a war drama; a very fictionalized re-telling of an actual event in history, filmed in live action, with showcases of real casualties and tribulations in conflict. The other is a case for animation with spectacular visuals (that blend many styles) and a heartfelt story about a cultural icon. Is one really better than the other? Many may think so, but even in that respect we must remember that "better" is really just "I like this more," for whatever justified, personal reason that may be. (Remember, there is no objective quality to art. I will fight to the death to uphold this idea, and if you want my opinion on it further, visit my post Objective Criticism is Pointless (and Impossible!) for more details)

So why not embrace that? It's not "better." It's, "I like it more." 

Scoring things is a good way to easily categorize your feelings about a piece of art, so the spectrum of score is an inevitable pitfall -- but by tailoring the scores you give as actual representations of the idea that the art is only labeled with your personal opinion, you remove the trap of weighing it with numbers -- as if it were a product. Before you get on me -- I do believe products can still be art. High budget films, which are regulated by corporations and tailored to their audience, are just as much art as a painting managed by no one but the artist, or music made with bits of guidance from the record label.

That being said, I score things as such:

Love 

When I love something, it transcends everything else. It's presented an aspect or idea to me that is not only relevant to what I find important, but does so with near perfection. Examples of such would be Speed Racer in film, Fullmetal Alchemist in comics, and Fahrenheit 451 in novels.

Like 

Something I would definitely be willing to call myself a fan of. I'd buy it or its merchandise, continue to support it as it continues, and is only one step removed from "Love." This is mostly because its impact is less powerful than "Love" titles, not necessarily because it has flaws. Things I like would be The Martian by Andy Weir, The Office television series, and Daft Punk's Discovery album. 

Appreciate
This is a really open category, because you can effectively appreciate anything in some regard. This is part of why my system isn't really that linear. Things I dislike on some level I can even put here, because I saw an element or shade of the work that I appreciate above any other way I feel about it. Examples would include The Art of War by Sun Tzú, (because I appreciated the knowledge but disliked the message), the two volume apocalypse manga Abara by Tsutomu Nihei (because I thought the story was flat but the artwork conveyed what it was meant to well), or Orson Welle's Citizen Kane (because while it did a lot for film as a medium, I can't help but find it a bit of a bore).

Indifferent

Not many things make it into this category. It's not so much that I didn't have a reaction to it, but that my reaction either wasn't strong, didn't lean a certain way, or it had a decent amount of ups and downs but was overall underwhelming. Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games novels, Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba's (the creators of Death Note) new series, Platinum End, and other various spinoff games like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Sonic Unleashed would go here.

Forgettable

Here's where it starts to get negative. A title here didn't offend me in any large degree, but nothing about it stood out and it left a bad taste in my mouth because it presents so little. I wouldn't revisit it, nor do I think what it did it did particularly well. For video games, Quantum Break is a good example, George Orwell's Animal Farm another, and many mainstream, western animated films like Free Birds, Home, Trolls (etc.) as a third. 

Dislike

Nothing about this sparks any positive reaction from me. Either tedious, horribly boring, messy, or just plain bad get to have a score like this. I prefer not thinking about it if I can help it. A film like The Shaggy Dog, the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage-play, and the seventh season of Game of Thrones would fit under this label.

Hate

Things I fundamentally disagree with* or are just plain bad. I'd never go so far to suggest they shouldn't exist, as I think there is a huge benefit to a variety of points of view -- it's just that my point of view is that they're awful. Things like the movie Little Boy, Fall Out Boy's awful M A N I A album, and The Alchemist novella are among some of the things I just despise.

So Bad It's Good 

This, like "Appreciate," is another reason the scores aren't quite that linear. This is something that I have a hard time applying to anything but film, and even things I like ironically I may even put in other scores, but the sheer difference between content here and content elsewhere warrants its own score. Things like Tommy Wiseau's The Room, the anime film Panzer Dragoon, and Troll 2 are perfect examples of being so bad it becomes enjoyable.

- - -

So there you have it. I like this system because it's easier to understand what each score means (as, in my opinion, the differences between 5, 4, and 3 as scores tend to get murky depending on the critic), it doesn't box things in a way where they would have to be compared, nor does it treat them like products. It's simply a word (or a few) to summarize what I think of it in a quick, subjective manner. 

Keep reading fellas.

*(Art is often supposed to challenge how we see things, but that's not what I mean here. Things I hate because I disagree with them are things that present what I believe to be a harmful or inaccurate worldview, not necessarily just something I disagree with or have not yet thought about.)

Tri - Yearly 2019 Reading Update: December through April

Here we are! First entry.

I read some wild stuff these past few months. Before I give you the rundown of my thoughts on the stuff I read, let's look at an overview and some stats. 

December was a slow month. I had just gotten out of a reading slump, brought on by the stress of school (it took me three months to finish a single book!), and was getting back into reading again for the year. I wanted to make real progress in 2019, so I needed to start slow and pick up some speed. Graphic novels are a good place for that. They can be consumed quickly (depending on the title) and keep you invested with more than just prose, but artwork as well. I read 9 books. 

After receiving some books for Christmas (and money with which to buy others) I read more in January, and managed to finish off a book I'd put down the year prior. I read 12 books. One of the standouts was Tales of the Samurai, a collection of ancient Japanese folklore like The 47 Ronin, The Wonderful Adventures of Funakoshi Jiueymon, and The Ghost of Sakura. My favorite of the tales was definitely The 47 Ronin, which is based on real history of 47 samurai taking revenge for their humiliated lord, and then committing mass suicide to uphold the idea that they had broken their vows of honorable combat.

February is a short month, and my reads dropped back down to 9 books. That being said, I was able to catch up on some of my favorite manga titles, and read my first Brandon Sanderson novel, Warbreaker, which I happened to really enjoy.

In March, I picked up speed. I had started Tokyo Ghoul: Re (the sequel series of Tokyo Ghoul) the month prior, and finished out the volumes I owned when the calendar progressed. I quickly realized I quite disliked it. I intend to see the series out, as I'm at 10 volumes (of a total of 16) and don't like parting with my collection even if I dislike the title... but the quality of the story took a massive nosedive. Despite that, I completed 16 books. 

Then April hit, and I was on a roll. I finally found the momentum of my time before college, and managed to read a whopping 40 books. As with all months there's a bit of roll over, if I start a book at the very end of a month I complete it in the next, but this month I actually went and got a library card instead of reading what I had or buying books new. This is one of the smartest things I've done all year -- I can consume stuff from the library relatively quickly, and find things I hadn't even thought of before. This goes double for anything non-fiction. When I want to read about something but don't know any specific books, the library will have something to check out. I read some comic classics, like The Dark Knight Returns, I finished out Neal Shusterman's Unbound (a short story collection set in the world of his Unwind books), and re-read several volumes of manga to refresh my memory.

All together, from December of 2018 to April of 2019, that's a whopping 86 books.

But something should be remembered.

Graphic novels seriously conflate these numbers. They're a lot less impressive if I take them out -- but I believe comics shouldn't be taken for granted. They're literature just like a novel or piece of poetry. The story is told with artwork too, which takes practice, skill, and talent just like writing does. I'm not going to do the medium a disservice by saying the volumes I read don't count.

So, that being said, here are the stats!

Novels - 15

Non-Fiction - 4

Graphic Novels - 66

Poetry - 1

Magazines - 0

Wow! It really is skewed. While not a bad thing, I can look upon the numbers now and see a need to read things from other mediums. Reading shouldn't have to fill a quota, but I'm excited to see what I learn from more magazines, poetry, and non-fiction in the future. 

Now, let's get on with the standout works. 

Novels

I haven't yet read many novels that I thought were that stellar this year, but there are a few. To start, Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone by G. S. Denning was a funny romp, parodying the titular character Sherlock Holmes by making him a host to the thoughts of a demon-ified Moriarty, and I liked it well enough. Clementine by Cherie Priest and Redshirts by John Scalzi were, however, quite forgettable. And the only Stephen King book I've read in the past few months, The Sun Dog, had a promising premise, and a terrible conclusion.

A Clash of Kings, the second novel in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, was quite fantastic, though. The artistry in his ability to worldbuild through the consequences of how specific characters are apart from one another/interact with their surroundings (especially off page) is pretty engaging. As with all multi-pov novels, some characters lag in a reader's interest, but every chapter is brimming with stakes and the guarantee that what happens won't be irrelevant. To follow, the newest book in Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series, A Map of Days, has proven his ability to grow along with his characters. Important social issues (like racism and other forms of prejudice) are brought to light quite naturally, and the developments in the protagonist's love life are original and realistic. Unlike previous installments, the photographs used this time didn't make that much of an impression (either with being out of place or forced, as with all the three books in the series), and it left me with wanting more, which is far and away what a book should do when sequels are planned and coming. 

Other titles I read include Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker and The Rithmatist, which I thought were both very good -- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, a horror classic which I found to be a massive disappointment -- Kinslayer, the second book in Jay Kristoff's Lotus War trilogy, which I found a massive slog -- and It Devours! The newest novel in Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor's Welcome to Night Vale series. I liked it decidedly more than the first book -- but while I think the commentary on belief v.s. science was engaging and funny, Welcome to Night Vale as a whole relies far too heavily on a brand of humor that can quickly get stale. 

BEST: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

WORST: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

--

Non-Fiction

I didn't read much non-fiction. Only four titles fall within the category; Visual Reference Guides: Mythology by Philip Wilkinson and Neil Philip, Manga in Theory and Practice by Hirohiko Araki, Tales of the Samurai by various writers, and The Art of War by Sun Tzú.

I think the standout here goes without saying. The Art of War is the oldest piece of writing I've ever read, having been written somewhere around the 5th century B.C.E, and it presents a host of informative tips on commanding armies and rules to warfare that are broad enough to be applied to many different forms of conflict. It uses metaphor liberally, and paired with commentary from translator Lionel Giles (and various comments from other figures in China's history, like poets Du Mu and Mei Yaochen) offers a lot of knowledgeable insights on the nature of combat. That being said, I can't help but feel put off by the way war is described, even in the title. War is an evil that, while possessing many attributes of planning, communication, cooperation and the like, only ever results in more life lost than the day prior. To call it an art is a misuse of the word.

Besides that, I learned a lot about making manga from the perspective of industry giant Hirohiko Araki, mangaka of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and quite a bit about mythology from the visual reference guide. I don't know if I'll include a Worst/Best in this category in the future, but I don't think labels like that apply as readily and easily to non-fiction. And despite my issues with The Art of War's outlook on conflict, I did enjoy its knowledge regardless.

--

Graphic Novels

Yikes. Where do I begin? To start with manga, which is what makes up the majority of these entries, I caught up on titles such as The Promised Neverland, The Ancient Magus Bride, Hunter x Hunter, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Attack on Titan, and Tokyo Ghoul: Re. I started a few new series, such as Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, The Blue Eye of Horus, Black Torch, and The Rising of the Shield Hero. 

As always, Attack on Titan and The Promised Neverland continue to wow me with their complexity and, especially in Attack on Titan's case, nuance. Its character development has come a long way, it's been able to foreshadow intricately since day one, and things we would have thought are random twists have relevance and consequences unprecedented in earlier chapters. Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic is in a similar place in its story, and since it's wrapping up soon, it's fun to see how far the narrative has evolved. The Ancient Magus Bride was decent enough, but volume releases are few and far between, so it's hard to stay invested when I have to wait another seven or so months for the story to continue. 

Tokyo Ghoul: Re and The Rising of the Shield Hero, however, prove to me that you really need to learn where to invest in the manga hobby, because they are atrocious. I'm too far invested in Tokyo Ghoul (both in time and my money) to quit now, but luckily I borrowed Shield Hero from a friend after he got into it because of the currently airing anime. Both of these manga are good examples of how not to characterize or build your world, as Ghoul can be boiled down to, "This character you thought was dead! Nope! Look at all this movement! Blood! Oh, his head came off," where Shield Hero is dead set on putting the protagonist through such stupid trials that I can only scoff, all while having one-note side characters that I can only bear to look at for a few pages at a time.

I also read Frankenstein: The Graphic Novel, Abara, Batman: Haunted Knight, The Dark Knight Returns, Pokemon Adventures volumes 1 and 2, Spiral, Piper, Ultraman, among others. The Dark Knight Returns is a classic in Batman comics, and it shows; while I was a little underwhelmed when all was said and done, part four of the story, involving Batman's eventual conflict with Superman, was well illustrated and the perfect way to finish the narrative. Compare that with Piper, a retelling of an old Irish folk tale, which was astoundingly bad. The art itself was unconvincing at the best of times and laughable at the worst, with such bland panel flow that it may as well have been scribbles. The story had no subtlety and just barely a lesson about trusting others. Not even the protagonist's deafness, something that can be utilized to bring light to the difficulty of living with a disability (and thus used to humanize her) is treated with real sincerity.

BEST CONTINUING TITLE: The Promised Neverland by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu
STANDOUT VOLUME: Attack on Titan vol 27 (for outstanding narrative developments)
BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
WORST CONTINUING TITLE: Tokyo Ghoul: Re by Sui Ishida 
WORST GRAPHIC NOVEL: Piper by Jay Asher
And the most important award...
BEST HIATUS: Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi

--

Poetry

The only bit of poetry I read this year has been Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, which was fantastic. I'm not one for poetry, so I think reading more will do me good, and who else to start it off but one of the greatest? I wasn't disappointed. 

The poems are broken up into four parts; Life, Love, Nature, and Time & Eternity. There's a lot of wisdom to be read from poems in every section, and none of them I can say I liked above the others. For a woman so reclusive, she had invaluable perspective and the ability to weave it into words that stand the test of time. I don't want to plagiarize her works, so I'll just leave a list of some of my favorites. 

The Mountain,

Unreturning,

Aspiration,

Life's Trades,

With Flowers,

The Chariot,

And, of course, Farewell. It was particularly hard to read, because its finality was present in nearly every word. Dickinson passed without ever having published a single one of her works, and while my knowledge of her is sparse and I know I wouldn't want to go without publishing my stuff, I can't help but feel she probably liked it that way. 

I definitely recommend it. 

Overall

Next round, I'm gonna work on reading more kinds of literature. I already have a particularly large pile of Ancient Egyptian history, as well as WWII books, a few old Marvel comics, among more books of varying types. I'm not in a rush to read more magazines, but I do think I'll take a look at what I can learn from things like National Geographic or Reader's Digest.

Thanks for staying with me for so long! Reading so much has been a joy, even the worst of it is knowledge and emotions from someone that I can glean wisdom from. Literature is a lovely thing, as all forms of art are. And that brings me to my last announcement for this article, and that's that starting with my next Tri-Yearly Reading Update, I will also cover the music albums I listen to and what I think of them. I'll see how that goes...

Until next time. Keep reading!

Tri - Yearly 2019 Reading Update: What to Expect

A what to expect from future Tri - Yearly Reading Updates. 

I always make sure to keep a record of the media I consume, with varying levels of response (ranging from a sentence or two in a few volumes of notebooks to whole, page-spanning reviews). But this is the first time I've ever documented the books I've read over a certain amount of time. 

Come April 31st, I'll post a thought-piece on my reads starting from December of 2018 and ending with the things finished in April. I will not be overlapping years in the future, but because I neglected the record in months prior I will be accounting for material read when I began.

I'll do this three times a year: at the end of April, the end of August, and at the end of December. I count all physical and digital books, including but not limited to: 

- Novels

- Non-Fiction/Reference

- Magazines

- Graphic Novels/Manga/Comics

- Compiled Poetry  

And, from this time forward, I will probably begin doing music albums as well. While not literature, they are art all the same and part of being an artist, to me, is well-versing yourself in all mediums (that may be a blog in the future!) As for film and television, my viewing habits are pretty inconsistent, and while I keep them in a private list I don't think I'll be doing something like this for them anytime soon. 

I won't list everything I read, but I will publish the number of each different kind of material, and briefly share my thoughts on the exceptional pieces as well as the stinkers.  

That about sums it up. Only a few days left to meet the deadline. I hope to see you there.

Building: The Library of Austinandria

Been doing a large amount of reading lately.

Not just reading-reading, but very time consuming, in-depth media harvesting. And I really mean that -- I've been listening to many different albums, playing many different games, watching many different movies/shows, and reading tons (and I mean tons) of books. Everything from graphic novels, to contemporary fiction, to history of all things! Something I'd previously never done out of choice.

Now that I'm out of school, I've been able to take a step back and examine how I see things. All throughout my schooling experience, I struggled intensely in mathematics, decently liked science, adored language arts, and was bored to tears by history. Obviously I was a kid, but you have to remember how formative education is (I have many, many gripes about modern schooling, but a deep dive into that topic is for another time).

Yet it's important context for what I'm writing here. School presents education in a manufactured, regimented, factorial way meant to maximize turnout (both making money and simply cycling students through the system, especially colleges) at the lowest possible rate of effort. When everything is a conveyor belt of -learn math here- -read [insert board-regulated novel] here-, maintaining the structure and ignoring issues is, of course, the most viable option. Gotta sweep the problems under the rug, right? Out of sight, out of mind. 

Because of this broad-strokes approach, many students have issues in academia. I certainly did. Getting me to seriously do assignments past my sophomore year was nigh impossible, and I laugh still about my time in community college. Because it's all so boring. Even the most interesting things are watered down, with the fat trimmed basically right to the bone. I believe history suffers from this more than any of the other subjects. I had a conversation with my friend about this recently. Take a look; 

• Language Arts evolve with culture and change for many reasons, and the things we learn from it are constantly changing too. If a society is literate, then knowledge can and will be passed. Yes, boards can decide which books are read in schools, but anyone that can read can pick up a different book elsewhere.
• Math is a foundation upon which anything can be discovered. It's the most concrete, straight-edged form of logic possible, and adheres to the universe entirely. It is impossible to regulate mathematics. 

But the other two are a bit different.  

Science is dependent on all the other subjects in some way, and is subject to change/alter with new discoveries. This goes without saying.

History, however, can easily be altered. Think about it. In school, we almost never hear about hugely important aspects of our own history -- the genocide of the Native Americans in colonial times, the Cold War, the current conflict we're engaged in in the Middle East... even other important world events like the Nanking massacre, or the exact details of Hitler's rise to power in WWII (or anything concerning those wars, really). That includes the Library of Alexandria, one of, if not precisely, history's greatest losses. A fortress of knowledge in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, that had thousands of scrolls in literature, math, science, history, myths, and religion, all collected before the common era.

It's gone now. Julius Caesar's army burned it down when he invaded Egypt in 48 B.C.E. and 40,000+ scrolls of culture and information were lost forever. It's said to have set us back by 1000 years. 

In a way, board regulation is doing something similar. You can't censor math. You'd have a hard time hiding away language arts and science. But history? That's easy to cut and slice. I'm not saying this is some huge government conspiracy, but there's a reason a western Christian school system (or at least, one built on those principles) didn't tell you that the sun god Ra created the gods by masturbating.

Unless you had made the effort to go looking into this information, did you know about the Library of Alexandria? School didn't mention it... not my curriculum. Omitting information is almost as bad as burning it, because to minds unlikely to go hunting (like, for say, children), not only do you rob them of a chance to find a new passion in learning, you misinform them.

This factors into how it's presented, too. Ever read a school history book that didn't bore you out of your mind? Just thinking about the covers and pages makes me squirm. Every era, boiled down to a five page slog with block text paragraphs, all about our "history" in the most vague terms possible. It's like... they wanted us to be bored.

It's easy to point fingers here, and when a student is struggling it falls on all those involved (the kid, the parents, the teachers, and the school), but the school is doubly responsible, because they determine how the education is presented. When there's an issue they need to be the ones to look at it.

But what am I getting at?

My point is this. Now that I'm out of school, I'm free to study my way. And god damn, is history fascinating. I already know so much more in the past two months of going and hunting down history myself than I ever learned in public school. So, like Alexandria's great library, I want to build my own. No, I'm not saying I want to fund a huge public library for all to use (though if I had enough money I absolutely would), I'm saying I want Alexandria in my home. A big fortress of books, containing fiction, non-fiction, history, writings and articles, books and movies and games and all of our modern art, as well as art and knowledge of old. The knowledge we can glean from art and history is impeccable, and a stronghold where all of it is kept, accessible and organized, is more than appealing to me.

But I want to go a step further. I want my writings in there too; my fiction, my poetry, my articles and non-fiction. So I started recording history I learned by hand, what I know about it, and what I think about it. I intend to fill many notebooks. I also went back and started taking notes on the things I was reading/watching too, as I used to do for reviews. All of it is something we can glean knowledge from.

As of now, the Library of Austinandria has nearly 700 books (692 to be exact!) and I continue to keep building. I don't want to post a picture of it at this moment, for it's not in the most attractive setup, but someday soon (possibly as soon as next year) I fully intend to share it with the world. There are also many DVD's, Blu-Rays, and video games, but I have not yet inventoried those.

ALSO: go study history if you hated it in school. It's not as much of a chore as you were led to believe. Until next time -- stay literate, stay active, stay informed. 

To You, in 2000 Years

I was hit with a thought and I wanted to share it. 

Our thoughts are all our own. They exist entirely within our minds, and while emotions may bubble to the surface and we can share what we think, the abstract reality of our experience is inherently unknowable to anyone but ourselves. That's part of the human condition. Language arose from this. Our desire (and need) to communicate brought us closer, and formed the world we live in today. We're in an era of global connectivity unknown in eras passed, where we can talk to anyone from virtually anywhere whenever we want with a simple call, text, or post. Cultural divides, while still present, are shifting apart. But those thoughts -- our inner selves -- are still kept to the individual. 

That's pretty poignant, I think. Imagine, for a moment, Ancient Greece. Two people -- siblings, friends, partners, what have you; have met one another out on the grass during a starry night. They lie down together and look up at the stars, pointing out constellations, laughing about things they witnessed throughout the day. And each of them, despite the connection they share, can only relay so much of their inner thoughts to one another. The formless feelings and shaped perspective they experience is one of their own. 

And they're gone. They've long passed. Greece's rule ended well over two thousand years ago, and the thoughts and feelings of those individuals looking up at the stars are gone. The people they knew and loved are gone, and have been gone for many, many lifetimes since. The bond they shared -- the bond only they knew and only they felt, is known by no one.

Isn't that hard to comprehend? We sit around and worry about our lives now, but will our accomplishments matter in two thousand years? When you lie down beneath the stars with your significant other, your sibling, your parent or friend -- will the moment you share live on? 

In a way, it can.

These thoughts and feelings are kept alive with our art. Yes, we may not be able to share minds, but we can share the things we create with them. The pottery, mosaics, architecture, and writings of Ancient Greece are still around today. Things they conceived, things they imbued with their thoughts and feelings survive. 

But what if these people didn't make any art? What if these two people were farmers, and worked only in the fields, never to transcribe their thoughts or sculpt their creations? Well, then the things they shared truly are gone. History is recorded by those who've won, but even then, the common folk under their rule are only that. Common folk. They live, they work, and they pass. Their selves have returned to the soil, a place destined for all of us one day. But their lives mattered then. The market needed fruit, the family needed food. Even if they didn't leave a mark to last us generations, they left a mark to last a lifetime.

So I ask -- where will you be in two thousand years?

Reading Log and Writing Updates

Yo! 

I noticed a year and a half or so ago that Goodreads allowed users to set book goals for themselves. Now, I no longer use Goodreads, but I do still keep a record of the media I consume. Yet I've never done it monthly, nor had goals to hit. 

This year is different, though! I don't have a "goal," per se, but I am going to keep track of all the books I read per month. I'll make a blog post on the ones I have most to say about every trimester of the year. So on the last day of April, I'll come back and write about the books I've read in my time from January to then. I'll do this again in August and December, so if you're interested, stay tuned.

In other news, I queried my first agent! I haven't heard back yet, but any news is good news here. If I get rejected, It's another motivator in bettering myself, my writing, and finding ways to improve. And it goes without saying why a manuscript request would be a good thing. 

I've been normally pretty quiet on this blog, but I don't mean to be -- I'm just working on things right now. That includes a few MS's that I intend to finish by this year or early next year. One of them is 2/3rds of the way done, but I've sat on it for a bit to roll out the kinks in my biggest project. The other two I started within the same week, and write in every day. The fantasy-adventure I began this month is a project I write during the day, and the fantasy comedy/drama thingy I work on exclusively after 1 a.m. It's part of the flow, bro.

I'm calling them Oddity Collection Service, Where Sky Meets Sea, and Robin's Books respectively. I normally have a bit of discomfort in revealing my titles, but I think that insecurity is a little unfounded after seeing so many writers talk about their projects openly online. And even if it's taken, a title is a title. Many books have similar-or-same titles.

I've outlined all these books differently. Oddity Collection Service has a very detailed, three-part outline with bullet points on all major events coded in various bolds, underlines, and colors. Where Sky Meets Sea is a book in which I have outlined each chapter, but I go more by the theme of each chapter instead of the events, and let the story go where it needs to. Robin's Books is the closest I can get to being a Pants writer. I'm a Plotter at heart, so I always leave myself notes when I'm done with a section in Robin's Books on what I want the story to cover next, but other than that I just let whatever happens happen. It attributes to the tone as well, a kind of tongue-in-cheek sort of thing with solid direction but not much consistency. 

I can't say which one I enjoy writing more. Oddity Collection Service is a bit of a chore because I created extensive vocabulary the narrative adheres too. It's also set in our world, which is not my strong suit nor my preference. But the idea captured my imagination and I have big plans for the story, so I can't just not do it. 

Where Sky Meets Sea is set in a world unlike other fantasy worlds, but I'll keep the twist to myself for now. I have a clear vision of the moral and themes in that story, but characterizing is a bit of a challenge, especially with the "circumstances" of the lore, if you will. 

Robin's Books is honestly just an experiment. I love it to death, and I have no intentions of putting it on hold simply because of how I write it -- but I'm keeping realistic expectations. I know people out there would love it, I know it... but for now it's gonna stay my little secret. That includes the premise.

I hope I didn't bore anyone. I don't have many readers either way, but I'm a writer who rarely blogs about actual writing, which I have realized is not in my best interest. Regardless, I'm gonna keep chugging along, and this blog will be here to record my progress. 

Until next time. Goood bye.

I Just Read a Book: Manga in Theory and Practice

For a long time I've battled with myself on whether to talk about books. It may seem silly, but as an aspiring author (published author, that is -- I'm definitely already a writer) I didn't want to start critiquing other people's works. Recently, however, I decided I'd offer up my feelings on something I had just read in a new series to better-hone my own craft of writing. I'm convinced, after seeing Chris Stuckmann decide to shift to directing after previously being a film critic, that I can still offer valuable insight and share my point of view on writing without having to be afraid of what others would think. 

To start off this series, I'll begin with, of course, the book I most recently finished. In this case, it's Hirohiko Araki's Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga.

My love of manga is no secret. Once upon a time, I wanted to create graphic novels -- but I've since shoved that dream deep down into the very recesses of my being. I'm happier in prose, thank you very much. But manga is still a big part of my life. Many unique stories are told within that medium, and I wished more people would give it a chance. 

One manga (and anime) I haven't actually read (or seen), however, is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. A more than wacky Shonen Jump action series, the presence it has in memes and online communities cannot be understated. From my understanding, it's primarily a story about passing the torch, with each new installment taking place in the future and following the previous installment's successor. I'm pretty sure most of these protagonists are the children of the previous installment's protagonist... but I'm not gonna pretend to know things I don't.

Regardless, the mangaka (manga artist), Hirohiko Araki, is a very prolific creator. His art is instantly recognizable with its bold lines, striking visual style, and the ever-present "Jojo poses," wherein his characters bend and stretch like noodles. 

I picked up his book, Manga in Theory and Practice, out of pure intrigue. There isn't a manga industry in the United States like there is in Japan, where the popularity of it is unparalleled and weekly/monthly magazines publish new titles every few weeks. Here, manga is delegated to being bound only in the tankobon volumes. They come out the same way overseas too, but they're published as serials first.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Araki's manga-making guide would get brought over here because of this. How would this information benefit an American? 

But I had to remind myself of the value of knowledge in general. Anything a creator like this can impart is something worth taking a peek at. So I bought it, and have finished it with an overall positive opinion, but with still a few remarks. 

My first impression, having not read the man's fiction, is as such: the likelihood that meanings were lost in translation is inescapable.  I've taken two college semesters of Japanese, and can tell you from even as small of an experience as that, that the way English and Japanese work cannot be further apart. Japanese handles nuanced meaning and wordplay in a much, much different light. Grammatically, the languages are essentially swapped. And culturally -- as my friend Takahiro described it -- Japanese is like one is surrounded by what they describe, whereas English is like one is looking down at what they describe. So knowing this, I can only help but feel a little lost in translation myself. 

Araki describes several integral parts of the manga-creating process as "The Four Fundamentals of Manga Structure." These things are characters, story, setting, and themes. To him, characters are the most important part of any manga, and I believe this wisdom is applicable to all forms of narrative art. Characters encompass the soul of the story. They're the people. We're also people, and naturally we'd be captivated by people more strongly than other elements.

But then he goes on to say that a character should never be moving backward. He gave examples with the films Kick Ass and Kick Ass 2, citing the character of Hit-Girl and how, to him, her giving up crime fighting in the second film is an example of negative character progression, and makes for bad writing.

I haven't seen the Kick Ass films, but I can only disagree. Characters moving negatively can make for really engaging drama. Characters don't just exist to get better and more worldly. People can fall away to depravity -- or in much less extreme examples, give up fighting crime. Retirement, whether literal or metaphorical, is just as useful a device as anything else. 

He says other things regarding story I don't agree with, but again I have to remember just how many things are possibly lost on the Japanese to English translation. I noted some typos in the book beyond actual concepts he conveyed, and could only think; could greater care have been put into translating this? 

His tips on artistry, however, are very good. He mentioned that drawing water needs the presence of gravity, drawing fire needs the presence of wind, and drawing things like stones (or any solid surface, really), need a definite light source. Practical experience also helps one with shape and scale. In one of the arcs of his manga, he portrays a chase across the American midwest. He remarks on the ease of hiding in Japan due to its condensed nature, and the contrast of just how large America truly is. On a train trip he noted that land could look the same for miles on end, and running from an adversary here could make one feel hopeless. He translated that sense of scale to his art, and therefore made it genuine. 

This spoke to me, because a writer (or artist's) experience is a primary source of fuel in their work. You can read all the books you want, but you'll never understand the sense of scale presented by the pyramids until you truly visit Egypt.

At the end of the book he says, "some readers may interpret what I've written in a matter I didn't intend," and while that definitely plays into my expectations of translation troubles, I can't help but also apply this to my own current experience. The first novel I finished, as having been read by a few of my friends now, is currently being read by someone new. Hardly a page into the story, she already had gripes that none of my other readers presented to me, citing a character's dialogue as feeling "forced," painting the character an archetype moreso than someone I had fleshed out. 

Obviously this was never my intention, but it has a lot to do with interpretation. She thought this character's line made her pathetic. She interpreted it as painting the character one way, when what I really meant was for something else entirely. This happens all the time with books and people; some will interpret one message, and others will come away with something else in mind. Encapsulating that, Araki goes on to say that he doesn't want readers to go on creating manga exactly how he outlined it in the book. He simply wants to offer his knowledge as a roadmap, and realizes the difference in opinion that people may have upon finishing. I think that's very wise, and really helped me recognize the man's talent. I respect his work much more than I did before, and have learned something about writing and how others interpret one's work. 

So I very much appreciate the book. 

Until next time, keep writing, keep reading, and keep on keeping on.