"Crib for pencils matchbooks
splinters of trees in my apron
restructured trunks all over
the place My desk once an oak
its rings now blocked
angles of legs and grooves
Paper I write on past
maple or pine so many
limbs gone sapless
Time has tucked in
arranged days waking
sweeping feeding the cat
washing a plate as moonlight
wants reading poems as
the week unfolds
then folds again
Morning gasses
I can't recall numbers
count back to zero stunned
That I came to be born
The whole night is shrinking
trunks and twigs
kindling to ash the fabric
of sky taken in Seams
hold only so long then
fray frazzle dangle us
all in the dark
when I fall
what pocket
will cradle me?"
This passage from the book is one of the 33 poems "written" by the main character Emily Beam at the end of a chapter. This poem is one of the last ones written in the book and comes near the very end. While writing this poem Emily was standing in Emily Dickinsons old home where she wrote her poems. Before this Emily had talked about how she felt a connection with Emily Dickinson and maybe believed in reincarnation. While there Emily seems to feel a much stronger connection to Emily Dickinson and writes this poem. I think this well help hook readers in partially because the poetry is very beautiful and helps show the writers graceful style of writing and because the content of the poem while reading into it is very intriguing.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Monday, August 10, 2015
Entry 4: And We Stay
fter finishing the book And We Stay I was very glad to have chosen it out of the list. I chose this book because I wanted to read one that was written recently so I first looked into the ones that won or were honored in 2015. I naturally looked at the winner, I'll Give You the Sun, first but didn't like the idea of alternating perspectives between both people and times so I looked at the next book on the list, The Carnival At Bray. This book seemed interesting but I wanted to read something with less of a love story than this one seemed to have. The next book on the list was And We Stay which I thought seemed interesting and had poetry at the end of each chapter which seemed interesting. The next two books just didn't seem as interesting as And We Stay so I decided to read that. After reading I never really felt a personal connection to the main character Emily. The only similarity I really found was she uses poetry as a creative outlet and I enjoy writing stories and occasionally read poetry for fun but never write it. I couldn't find a lot of personal connections in this article as it deals with something I've never experienced and is set in a boarding school when I've only gone to public school. I would recommend this book to my cousin because she is also into poetry as a way to express her feelings and skipped entering a poetry contest in the past out of fear of losing. Overall I found this book thought provoking and interesting. I looked forward to reading it and finding out more all the time.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Entry 2: And We Stay
The main character of my book, And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard, is a 17 year old girl named Emily Beam. At this point in my book the reader has just found out then before and maybe when Emily's ex-boyfriend Paul killed himself, Emily was pregnant. The readers can assume from things that were said, that she's not pregnant now, and doesn't seem to have a baby, that Emily had an abortion. The abortion may have been what caused Paul to threaten Emily then kill himself. Right now Emily's seems to want to understand why this caused Paul to kill himself and how to get over the guilt of both the abortion and her boyfriend's suicide. Emily's French teacher and her new roommate K.T., other major characters, seem to know that Emily is going through something and wants to help her use her poetry to help rebuild get confidence and help her get better. K.T. also seems to want to be Emily's friend as she seemed to be best friends with the girl who used to live with her in Emily's room and looking for a new best friend. Themes that are beginning to appear are just because you stop living in the world doesn't mean you won't stop affecting the world. You can see this in Emily's constant guilt and want of understanding over what Paul did. When Paul shot himself it seems like he just wanted to stop having to deal with things or face consequences but now other prod have to do it for him. The structure of And We Stay is very interesting. It is in present tense but third person so Emily's story is being told as it goes on but seemingly not by her. For the flashbacks in this book they often start with phrases such as "Emily tried to forget" or "Emily remembered how" and then goes into past tense while telling about something happened before she got to boarding school. Another interesting thing about the structure of And We Stay is that at the end of each chapter is a poem "written" by Emily that helps show her feelings and reveal things that happened. Now that the book has revealed more about Emily and her boyfriend Paul's relationship I'm even more interested in what happened and how it will continue to affect Emily.
Entry 1: And We Stay
Friday, April 17, 2015
The Worst Thing About My Book Is
My book is The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. I like the idea behind it. However, I don't like the way the author writes. I feel like the book moved really fast. The author seemed to be trying to cram a lot of information into the minimum amount of pages.
For example, they tried to put four years of what could have been a good story on it's own and put it into three chapters.And this information was important to the character development and her background and why what happened, actually happened. I still didn't really understand what the colors were she kept talking about or why some of the kids are being kept in a camp. However right after those three chapters, in chapter four, the main character is planning to break out of the camp. About half way the chapter the main character gets a note that has this in it, "New CC was testing for undetected Ys(Yellows), Os(Oranges), Rs(Reds). Your bad reaction means that they know you aren't G(Green). Unless you do exactly as I say, they will kill you tomorrow... I can get you out." (Bracken 46) The reaction they are talking about is what is called 'White Noise' and that's not really explained either throughout the book. All it says is it only affects the kids with these powers who are immune to a disease that killed all other children. This disease is explained to the audience by saying things like, "they just died" and never really even talking about the fact that only kids died, no adults. Why now are kids getting these powers? Or do some adults have them?
I also didn't fully understand why she was breaking out of this camp in the first place. Later in the book it talks about how horrible the camp the main character went to was worse than all the others but it never explains why because from what the reader gets from all the characters, all camps sound the same and the character nevers says anything about what happened at her camp that was so terrible. And even though I finished the book I still don't understand what each of these colors really means and how they came to be called that. Or anything at all about this plot really.
Another thing I feel like the author didn't explain was the symbol on the front of the book. After reading I can tell why it's orange and the barbed fence around it. However, I don't have any idea how the symbol is applicable to the book.
Since this is the first book in a trilogy I think that the next two books will explain everything more in depth: what the colors are and the sickness that kills only children. I find that I don't really want to read the next two books though since the only reason I read this one was to see if it ever made since, not because I enjoyed the book. I don't want to continue reading books out of confusion and mild inquisitiveness but because I think they are good books. So I plan to put this series down and pick up a book that is hopefully much better than this one.
For example, they tried to put four years of what could have been a good story on it's own and put it into three chapters.And this information was important to the character development and her background and why what happened, actually happened. I still didn't really understand what the colors were she kept talking about or why some of the kids are being kept in a camp. However right after those three chapters, in chapter four, the main character is planning to break out of the camp. About half way the chapter the main character gets a note that has this in it, "New CC was testing for undetected Ys(Yellows), Os(Oranges), Rs(Reds). Your bad reaction means that they know you aren't G(Green). Unless you do exactly as I say, they will kill you tomorrow... I can get you out." (Bracken 46) The reaction they are talking about is what is called 'White Noise' and that's not really explained either throughout the book. All it says is it only affects the kids with these powers who are immune to a disease that killed all other children. This disease is explained to the audience by saying things like, "they just died" and never really even talking about the fact that only kids died, no adults. Why now are kids getting these powers? Or do some adults have them?
I also didn't fully understand why she was breaking out of this camp in the first place. Later in the book it talks about how horrible the camp the main character went to was worse than all the others but it never explains why because from what the reader gets from all the characters, all camps sound the same and the character nevers says anything about what happened at her camp that was so terrible. And even though I finished the book I still don't understand what each of these colors really means and how they came to be called that. Or anything at all about this plot really.
Another thing I feel like the author didn't explain was the symbol on the front of the book. After reading I can tell why it's orange and the barbed fence around it. However, I don't have any idea how the symbol is applicable to the book.
Since this is the first book in a trilogy I think that the next two books will explain everything more in depth: what the colors are and the sickness that kills only children. I find that I don't really want to read the next two books though since the only reason I read this one was to see if it ever made since, not because I enjoyed the book. I don't want to continue reading books out of confusion and mild inquisitiveness but because I think they are good books. So I plan to put this series down and pick up a book that is hopefully much better than this one.
The Wastelands:Describe How Different Characters Deal With the Main Conflict
One part of a good book is having characters with very different and dynamic personalities so that all the characters don't do the same thing always helping make the book more interesting. I believe Stephen King does a good job of making all of his main characters unique. The three main characters of The Wastelands are Roland, Susannah, and Eddie. They all have different ways of dealing with conflict
The conflict in the book begins with one of the members of the group, Eddie, being chased up a tree by a cyborg bear. The bear is described as, "... a shaggy tower with reddish-brown eyes. Those eyes glowed with fever and madness. His huge head now wearing a garland of broken branches and fir needles, swung ceaselessly from side to side."(King 20-21)
The leader and teacher of the group is Roland. He deals with the conflict by taking charge. He tries to save Eddie's life by telling Susannah how to kill it and charging her with saving him, leaving no room for argument on anything else. He doesn't just do this because he feels like he can't though, he also does it as a test of Susannah's newly learned skills. When told later by his companions that this may not have been the safest option since he was much better with fighting he acknowledges this but tells them that he still believed it best overall. This shows his one-minded and uncompromising way of thinking and is ideas that real action will truly show how well someone learned, even if during that real action someone could get hurt.
Susannah deals with the conflict by looking to the most experienced with fighting of the group, Roland, to see what to do. When he tells her she must kill it to save Eddie, she argues at first that she may miss her target and have the bear turn and kill both of them before killing Eddie and that Roland would be much more suited to the task. When Roland pushes her though, she remembers her lessons and manages to hit her target, saving Eddie. This helps revisit the idea of self-doubt she has from earlier chapters while also showing her want for the least risky option when someone's life is at risk but her willingness and resolution to do whats needed.
Eddie had the hardest time in this conflict as he was the one being chased by the bear. When he realizes that it is coming Eddie deals with it by thinking quickly through all his options and their consequences. When he realizes that his first courses of action will get him killed he tries to think a bit more outside the box and realizes he could try to climb a tree until, hopefully, Roland and Susannah came back and saved him. This shows his resourcefulness and the conviction he has in his group.
The conflict in the book begins with one of the members of the group, Eddie, being chased up a tree by a cyborg bear. The bear is described as, "... a shaggy tower with reddish-brown eyes. Those eyes glowed with fever and madness. His huge head now wearing a garland of broken branches and fir needles, swung ceaselessly from side to side."(King 20-21)
A depiction of the bear
Susannah deals with the conflict by looking to the most experienced with fighting of the group, Roland, to see what to do. When he tells her she must kill it to save Eddie, she argues at first that she may miss her target and have the bear turn and kill both of them before killing Eddie and that Roland would be much more suited to the task. When Roland pushes her though, she remembers her lessons and manages to hit her target, saving Eddie. This helps revisit the idea of self-doubt she has from earlier chapters while also showing her want for the least risky option when someone's life is at risk but her willingness and resolution to do whats needed.
Eddie had the hardest time in this conflict as he was the one being chased by the bear. When he realizes that it is coming Eddie deals with it by thinking quickly through all his options and their consequences. When he realizes that his first courses of action will get him killed he tries to think a bit more outside the box and realizes he could try to climb a tree until, hopefully, Roland and Susannah came back and saved him. This shows his resourcefulness and the conviction he has in his group.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Insomnia: About The Author
About The Author
The author of the book I'm reading, Insomnia, is Stephen King. Stephen King is an author who mainly writes horror stories. Generally his books are over 110,000 words. His longest book being The Stand with 1152 pages. he has been writing since 1974 and is still writing and publishing books today. Some of his most popular books are; The Shining, Revival, Under the Dome, The Stand, and Carrie.
Many of his books are still popular today because of movies(The Shining & Carrie) and some of his books are so long they got turned into TV shows.(Under the Dome) He has had _ of his book that have been turned into movies. In general he says he's reasonably happy with the way his books turn out. However, when asked about one of his most popular movies, The Shining, he says it didn't turn out quite like he wanted.
Stephen King Answers Questions From Fans
Stephen King began writing when he was in school for a school newspaper. He even sold short stories that he wrote based of movies to some of his classmates. He went to college at The University of Maine. Throughout college he wrote, published, and sold short stories. He then worked as a teacher while still selling short stories to magazines and columns.
After publishing his first book, Carrie, he moved around Maine while publishing more books like 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, and The Stand. After that he taught a creative writing class and wrote and published his first and longest series, The Dark Tower books. And has continued writing many more books up till now only taking a break in 2002 after a car accident. Some books he's published recently are Revival, A Good Marriage, and Mr Mercedes. He doesn't publish as many books today as he did in the 1970's through 1990's but the books he publishes are still just as amazing as when he was younger.
After publishing his first book, Carrie, he moved around Maine while publishing more books like 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, and The Stand. After that he taught a creative writing class and wrote and published his first and longest series, The Dark Tower books. And has continued writing many more books up till now only taking a break in 2002 after a car accident. Some books he's published recently are Revival, A Good Marriage, and Mr Mercedes. He doesn't publish as many books today as he did in the 1970's through 1990's but the books he publishes are still just as amazing as when he was younger.
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