Stephen King

In my feature writing class we were required to read Stephen King's "On Writing." This was a pleasure in my opinion. I consider King to be a good writer and one of my favorite series was written by him, The Dark Tower series. So what did I learn from the book?

Keep Writing - One thing that King pounds into your head is that you have to keep writing. He feels it's important to write as much as you can, because that is the only way you will become better. I agree with this, but I have never really practiced writing everyday. The book inspired me to keep my blog up better, as it gets me writing, and to start writing just for myself everyday.

Keep Reading - King says there is no miracle class that will teach you to become a great writer, and the best way to become better is to keep reading and keep writing. He says the best way to improve your vocabulary and writing skills is to read, read, and read some more. You will learn from what over people do, which you will learn from reading.

Open Door / Closed Door - King says he writes his stories with his door "closed." After the first draft he opens up the door and gets opinions from other people. I like this idea a lot. In the past I have sought out a person's opinion before I was done with a piece, which is not bad per say but I would like to give it a shot without.

Favorite Quotes -
"I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing."
"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."

Picture taken by Tojosan

Zelda Car

My brother pointed this out to me. The local Zelda car is for sale. Kotaku has a short story about this, and here is the article on Gamesniped. This car is usually about two blocks from where I live. I will miss seeing it if someone from out of town buys it. And here is the Craigslist posting about it.

Picture by wpwend42

Race to the finish

The end of winter term is drawing close. How am I doing? Potentially great! As long as I don't slack on my finals.

Speaking of slacking, I saw Watchmen the other night. I read the graphic novel while on vacation this summer and loved it. So I was skeptical when I heard about the movie, because usually they butcher one thing or another when making these things into movies.

The movie was great though. They held true to the original story. Also the movie was amazingly beautiful. Even if you hate the story and the characters, as one of my friends did, you will most likely find the art of it outstanding.

If you are thinking about seeing this you should know, it's not like other comic book movies. It is a darker grittier tale, but the story is a amazing one. So yea my point is... do not think this is a happy go lucky movie, and also be ready for some gory stuff and a lot of blue wang.

Well back to writing research paper.

Picture by EndoftheLine.

Twitter

That's right, I joined Twitter! After hearing so much about it over the last weekend I thought I should try it out. So far it is easy to use. If you want to follow me or anything you can check out the widget I added or go to my twitter site.

I miss San Diego... The weather was awesome. Once spring gets here it will be better. I cannot wait to start biking again and getting out around town more.

Well I better get back to updating stories and other homework. I will make a post about some of the better sessions I attended... when I get time.

The Voice

A number of speakers at the convention are reporters from the San Diego area. Including a few from Voice of San Diego. The keynote speech yesterday was given by Andrew Donohue, a reporter for the Voice of San Diego.

One thing he made a point of was cover letters. I liked this because I believe in the strength of a cover letter. Rob, my teacher, started to open my eyes to the importance of cover letters, and this convention has reinforced it.

Will Carless was the last speaker I saw yesterday. That was one of the best sessions I have attended by far, and that is saying a lot at this convention. This focused a lot on making good connections, and doing good journalism.

Well I have back to the convention. :)

Sunlight!

It's day three at San Diego Media +. This convention is amazing! Plus the weather down here is incredible.

The trip down to San Diego was interesting. The seats in the van are akin to rock slabs. Leg room? HA! In the back the heating system is messed up, if you turn the heat on at all in back it blows near burning hot air at you legs. No good. But the people are fun people to travel with.

The hotel charges $13 a day for internet, so I am at a coffee house right now. The one thing the hotel has that is absolutely amazing is the pool. Around it you will find all the normal sunbathing chairs plus a number of large round bed-like seat, and hammocks. I almost fell asleep in one the other night.

I am looking forward to another day at the convention. When I get home I may make a post about the best sessions I went to and give a rundown on them.

Final Countdown... err Story.

So I will either use my State of the Willamette River story, or write a new story on health and fitness.

The health and fitness is a story idea I have been interested in covering for awhile now. A lot of information about dieting and weight loss is not given clearly and I think that is a huge problem. I would like to present some facts about weight loss which some diets don't ignore.

For sources I could talk to a fitness instructor at school, and probably a personal trainer at 24 hour fitness or something like that.