Book Review All Systems Red By Martha Wells On WordPress I follow a couple of blogs. Not too many. I pick them based on content, length of post, frequency, interest. For writers, I follow Whatever by John Scalzi and Filling the Well by Carrie Vaughn, among others. Recently, I was reading Ms. Vaughn’s site and…
Book Review The Art of Learning By Josh Waitzkin Many of you reading this post know who Josh Waitzkin is, but for those of you who don’t, he is the kid in Searching for Bobby Fischer (real person, not actor). Follow the link if that doesn’t ring a bell. I’ve seen/heard a couple of Waitzkin…
If you read my bibliography, you’ll know that I try to write fiction. I got the bug, so to speak, two years back, maybe a little more. I sold one story so far, trying to sell more. There are a bunch of professional magazines for the type of fiction I want to write, maybe 10…
Hey, it’s been forever since I’ve been able to show some progress, but in the March issue of Shodo Geijutsu, the magazine for my Shodo group, you can read that I made it to yukyu. This is up from 1 kyu. Check out the cover of the mag: My name has a big old circle…
Book Review Abandon By Blake Crouch I got into Blake Crouch with his Wayward Pines series. Good popcorn and jujubee reading. He mixes thriller, mystery, and scifi, while throwing in some good interpersonal elements. After reading the series, I went straight to Amazon so see what else was out there. I ranked his books by…
Book Review Lost Stars By Claudia Gray This book was recommended on a podcast I listen to and enjoy, Writing Excuses. I listened to them once before and was a little disappointed. Amazon had about eleven hundred reviews, with an average rating of 4.5 stars. The cover blurb says that the author is a New…
I kind of like my kanji submission this month. I still feel awkward and clumsy with the size, especially with the non-cursive style I have to use. But this month was fun if not skillful. Below is my kana submission. While I think I could have done better, I feel like I know more specifically…
Kanji hasn’t really improved since last year, but my rankings among the 3 kyu skews a little to the top. I’m going to try to test up in February. Until then, I plod along with the following, which means think a thousand (times), ponder ten thousand. Which is kind of saying the same thing twice,…
Book Review Artemis By Andy Weir Note to readers: I spoil as the mood takes me. Understand this in advance. I will not point out when spoilers appear. Assume they start now and continue, willy nilly. I really enjoyed Andy Weir’s first book, The Martian, which seems to have been a bit of an internet…
image thanks to bladerunnermovie.com Thoughts and impressions. Spoilers may ensue as I write, and I intend no editing. Readers beware. Overall impression; wow. Detailed impression; wow, but… Slightly more detailed impression; I like the following things, in no particular order. The visuals. The pace. The sound. The music (with some reservations). The characters. OK, so…
I feel like I’m starting to get the basics. The below is still pretty pedestrian, but the balance was good, and I feel like I started to “get it” a bit more than usual. This month’s kana is a waka (和歌), a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable poem. When I was writing it I didn’t really understand the…
Book Review Dark Matter By Blake Crouch I enjoyed Crouch’s first two books in the Wayward Pines trilogy, liked it so much, I bought Dark Matter and Abandon, which I will review later. I was not disappointed. Dark Matter is what Crouch does well, a mix of elements; thriller, science fiction, and love. It reads…
