Welcome to Keeping Records

Today I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It's a cool movie, though the ending wasn't what I was hoping for. I'm excited to see where this series goes. I would definitely recommend the movie for Harry Potter fans and non-Harry Potter fans alike. It definitely felt like the movie was building up to something bigger in the long run.

Thanksgiving has come and gone (along with Black Friday). The winter holidays are fast approaching, which means Christmas music will be inescapable for the next month in the US. There are tons of holidays between now and the 1st of January. There's also still a lot of work to get done before the new year.

The holidays really tie up the phone lines sometimes.

While I was visiting my dad for Thanksgiving, he gave me one of my grandmother's journals from the 1950s to read. It's a day to day travel journal about their journey from Pennsylvania to Japan. My grandfather worked for Church World Services and was asked to go to Japan for them. I'm not sure of all the details, but this was the first trip of many for my dad's family.

I will admit, reading my grandmother's journals is a little difficult. They are written in cursive and occasionally the pen bleeds through the page.

She does, however keep a very strict log of the day's activities, including when they woke up in the morning and what they ate at each meal. She always includes the location and what the weather is like. I might have picked up on a few of these habits.

This is the first journal of many. I think my dad hopes that someday I'll compile them all into a book to publish. They are fascinating to read. So far I've managed to discover that my grandmother was very worried that the trip would spoil her children rotten.

I keep a personal journal and a travel journal. My current travel journal includes my recent trip to Iceland as well as two other trips I took nearly ten years ago. It's interesting to go back and read some of the things I have written. It seems that I like to include silly things in my travel journal (like what I was listening to on the airplane).

My personal journal is just that, personal. My first journal was from when I was in high school. It mostly contains silly drawings and poetry (really really bad poetry that is very much a product of the 2000s decade). My second journal is a log of my journey through college. There is a third journal floating around somewhere that is incomplete. Who knows if I'll ever find it again (its from a summer between Junior and Senior year of college).

My most recent journal was given to me by a friend for Christmas two years ago. Sadly it's almost completely filled and I'll need to get a new one soon.

I've talked with a few people who have also kept journals and diaries. We all agree that it's nice to write things out. One of my friends reread a journal they started in the early 2000s. They wrote a lot about the changes that were happening in the world and how it was effecting them (especially 9/11).

For a long time even the presidents kept personal journals. Many are held in the Library of Congress to be preserved. Through these personal journals, people are able to catch a glimpse at the day to day lives they and their families lived. It helps add a different perspective to events that were happening at those times, especially since we don't have audio and video recordings for us to view.

I would like to encourage everyone to keep a personal journal. Even in this day of blogs and social media, having something to record your thoughts private thoughts in might be benificial. Sure, nothing on the internet ever really goes away, but there's so much stuff on here that things can get a bit lost. Who knows, someone might really want to use your journals in the future for a book.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome To The Joys in Reading

Believe it or not, there was a time when I hated reading. I didn't see a point in it. If I wanted to know what something said, I would ask someone to read the message for me and tell me. I know now that that is a foolish thing to do (people can lie after all). It wasn't until I was in the third grade and spied a book with a young woman and a scary looking cat on the cover that I became interested in books.

I've been going to more book signings since moving to New Jersey

It might be a bit of a stretch to suggest that "Nancy Drew and the Clue of the Tapping Heels" was the book that finally got me interested in reading (I liked several books as a child, but the needed to have pictures), but it was the gateway book to many other mystery novels including the "Cat Who" books by Lillian Jackson Braun and anything related to Agatha Christie.

It also helped me to enjoy many other books my school assigned me to read. I still maintain "To Kill a Mockingbird" was the best book I read my freshmen year of high school. "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry" is one of my all time favorite books along with it's squeals "Let the Circle Be Unbroken" and "The Road to Memphis".

My mother was the one who got me into Harry Potter. Someone recommended it to her as a great children's book. She read the first three out loud to me and my sibling. By the time the fourth book came out, I had finally started reading on my own and would steal the book the read ahead. One of my aunts found me hiding behind a chair at my grandmother's house late one night reading the fourth book.  Apparently I begged her to keep it a secret from my mom, which she did. Now that I'm older, my aunt loves to bring that story up whenever Harry Potter is mentioned.

When I went to Japan for six weeks, my aunt insisted I read as much as possible (and work on my penmanship). I found that I enjoyed "Lord of the Rings" (regardless of how much the first movie scared nine year old me) and the Lloyd Alexander books. I was encouraged to read as much as I could and to ask for help if I needed it. The only book I had a really hard time with (and have still never finished) was "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

Despite all of my personal struggles with reading, I found that I really enjoyed it. The struggles and feelings the characters went through were similar to what my young self was going through. I enjoyed being able to solve the mysteries well before the main character (or detective) did. Through reading I could be anyone and go anywhere. It helped me develop an active imagination.

I usually bring a book with me to the beach

Then I started reading nonfiction books.

One of the first nonfiction books that I remember liking was assigned my senior year of high school, "From Heaven Lake", and was followed by "Iron and Silk" a year later in one of my freshmen classes. Both were autobiographical accounts of people visiting China, going on a journey of self discovery.

I have since read more nonfiction books. Currently I'm reading a book about Introverts and before that one about Buzz Aldrin going to space. Nonfiction books aren't that different from Fiction books. They still tell a story and you are getting the author's point of view. Both teach the reader something (whether the reader accepts or agrees with the lessons is up to them).

Reading is very important. Most of how we communicates is through written words be they emails, blog posts on social media, or just a random meme someone texts you. They all convey a message. Some of us find them funny and others find them outrageous.

Some platforms limit you on how much you can write at any given time. Twitter is especially good at limiting the amount of text a person can use to express thoughts and arguments. Memes can help draw attention to a message, but can also limit a person's ability to see a whole picture. The message the reader needs to understand can be lost due to the limitations of the platform.

That's not to say a message needs a million words to drive a point home. Too many words can leave a reader confused or bored (like when Tolkien goes on and on for two pages about the scenery and you just want to get back to the action).

Like every good thing in life, there needs to be a balance.

I read because I love the adventure and the new points of view I am exposed to. Yes there have been books where I have screamed myself hoarse because of some stupid action the main character took (my entire junior year high school class had a lot to say about the protagonist of "Like Water for Chocolate"), but at least I understood where that character was coming from.

I'm not a mind reader (and I really hope I never become one). Reading has become just as important as listening in the age of social media. It's easy to share a post from someone you agree or disagree with. It can be harder to interpret the original author's tone (sarcasm in particular is hard to detect through written words alone).

I love reading and writing. I've learned a lot from opening up many good books. I don't always understand the world around  me, but reading other people's opinion's helps me to understand where they are coming from.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this blog (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Now I have a book about ghosts that I hope doesn't give me nightmares tonight.

Welcome to Empathy

Emotions are a part of being human. Every single person has the ability to feel their own emotions. We like to experience happiness. We try to avoid disappointment. We want to be loved. Emotions, no matter how much some of us might try to deny it (*cough me *cough), play a major role in the decisions that we make.

We cannot escape the emotions we feel.

Emotions are often the driving force behind my actions. I go to amusement parks because I love how roller coasters make me happy. I read mysteries because solving the plot before the main character does makes me feel smart. I tend to go hide when I'm angry because I've been known to do some pretty stupid and destructive things when I'm feeling extreme anger.

These are all valid emotions I have felt at one point or another. I am also not the only person who acts upon the strong emotions. I might forget that on occasion (which is not one of my better traits), especially when I'm arguing with my sibling about something. These arguments tend to quickly descend into screaming matches and it can take a while for us to forgive each other.


Emotions are what separate us from machines and computers. Granted, artificial intelligence is getting pretty good at recognizing and responding to human's emotions, but there is one thing a machine can not be programmed to do. A machine cannot be empathetic.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings with another individual. I've also heard it described as feeling the exact emotions another person is feeling. It shouldn't be confused with sympathy, which is feeling pity or sorrow for someone's misfortune.

One of the best quotes or analogies I've heard for empathy is that you can never know what someone else is going through until you've walked a mile in their shoes. It's a good analogy. After all everyone has a slightly different world view and might have a different perspective to share.

 But is it the best analogy?

The funny thing about shoes is that they are made to fit the size of a person's feet. A person can't control the size of their feet, so they need to be able to find shoes that fit well enough not to pinch their toes and aren't so large that they trip. Just because I can fit perfectly into one pair of shoes doesn't  mean that I can fit into sibling's shoes, or my coworker, or even the shoes of my readers.

How can I walk a mile in someone else's shoes, when I can't get my feet to into them?

Sometimes I need a little help.

Books and movies (and comic books) are great mediums for evoking emphatic emotions. The ones that are the most popular and have the most staying power are also usually the ones that connect best with us on an emotional level. There's always at least one character (hopefully the protagonist) that we, as an audience, can identify with and root for throughout the course of the story.

These stories can become so powerful, that they start to take on a life of their own. They gain fans who celebrate the characters and how they overcame their challenges. Conventions might start popping up, so that fans can gather in groups and discuss how these stories changed their lives.

A good example of stories that touched lives for my generation would be the Harry Potter books. We, the audience, are introduced to a magical world along side Harry in the first book. When he is amazed by the moving pictures, so are we. We, the audience, are able to empathize with Harry's experiences and opinions because the books are told from his perspective. We are figuratively in Harry's shoes throughout the entire series.

 Harry is introduced to a lot of new and wonderful people when he arrives in the magical world at the same time we are. He's also faced with tough challenges and people who want to see him silenced (Dolores Umbridge) or dead (Voldemort and his Death Eaters). Throughout all of these encounters we are seeing everything through Harry's perspective and emotions.

Harry starts out as a wide eyed curious kid in the first few books. His innocence is shattered at the end of the fourth book with the death of Cedric Diggory. We have to put up with him being an angsty teenager throughout the entirety of the fifth book (and a few parts of the third book). We also get to witness him destroy Dumbledore's office while he is trying to work through his anger and pain at the death of Sirius Black. We're able to understand the relief and happiness he feels when he's finally defeated Voldemort.

Through Harry's perspective, we know who the bad guys are and we know who the good guys are. We also know there are people who aren't good or bad, but they do cause a lot of problems for Harry (an example would be Fudge). There are also the people we see make choices out of anger that later turn out to be really bad mistakes (Percy Weasley).

We tend to ignore or miss the same things Harry does. For example, Harry hero worships his father and his godfather, to the point where they can almost do no wrong in his opinion. However, there are clear signs that that wasn't the case. James Potter and Sirius Black were good people, there's no denying that. They probably wouldn't have befriended Remus Lupin if they weren't. They were also bullies.

Oh, I'm sure James and Sirius didn't think they were the bullies. If I were to guess, I'd say they felt that they were targeting the "real bullies". Snape was a known favorite target for them to harass and he hung out with a lot of people who would eventually become Death Eaters. James and Sirius did push Snape too far with their bullying and Snape lost his best friend and love interest Lily Potter (nee Evans) because of it. Snape called Lily a "mudblood" in front of a large group of people and I'll bet right then and there that James and Sirius felt that what they were doing to Snape was completely justified. Snape proved he was hateful against muggle born wizards. James and Sirius would never use such hateful words to describe someone, they felt that they were better than that.

Throughout the fifth book, you start to see some of the signs that Sirius was extremely flawed. There were a couple of comments made by Lupin at the very beginning after Harry isn't picked to be a prefect. There's Sirius's treatment of Kreacher, someone who has no rights and had been neglected for years. Finally there's Harry's journey into Snape's memories where we see a confrontation between James, Sirius, and Snape. Despite all of these signs, Harry still continues to idolize Sirius and his father.

It isn't until much later that Harry realizes these very obvious flaws led to Sirius' downfall. And it does take him a while to figure this out (two more books longer). At first Harry is totally consumed by anger. He tries to use the cruciatus curse to torture Bellatrix and even comes close to casting the killing curse while Voldemort is goading him on. He destroys much of Dumbledore's office while he rages.

Dumbledore is able to stop Harry from taking his anger out on Kreacher. Yeah, about Kreacher, the movies don't really get into it, but he was the key to Sirius' death. After dealing with Sirius' abuse for half a year, Kreacher goes to Narcissa and Bellatrix for comfort. They were kind to Kreacher and maybe even sympathetic. It probably didn't take much convincing to get Kreacher to tell them everything about Harry and Sirius' father-son relationship. They in turn told Voldemort all of this and Voldemort convinced Harry that Sirius was in serious danger. When Harry tries to check on Sirius, he is met with Kreacher, who lies and says that Sirius is missing. Harry walks right into a trap which leads to Sirius dying.

It takes Harry over a year to forgive Kreacher and he almost doesn't. Dumbledore and Hermione have to point out to Harry how awful Sirius treated Kreacher and there was very little Kreacher could do to stop the abuse. He also has to learn about Kreacher's relationship with Regulus Black (the most unsung hero of the entire series I might add) for him to reach a turning point with his own relationship with the house elf. He is also able to empathize with Kreacher's experience in the cave from the sixth book.

Harry finally realizes that despite all of the good things his godfather did, he also did a lot of bad things. Remus even tells Harry that he never stood up to his best friends because he was scared that they would turn on him and tell everyone that he was a werewolf. This realization also probably helped Harry realize that other people he looked up to had flaws. He gets mad at Remus when he offers to join the golden trio hunting for horcruxes and would leave his wife and unborn child behind. Harry understands why Aberforth was estranged from his brother.

We are only able to realize these things because we are walking in Harry's shoes through all of it. J. K. Rowling did a fantastic job teaching us that the good guys didn't always do the right thing and that sometimes the bad guys did (Narcissa and Snape are the two best examples). She wrote a story that we were able to identify and empathize with.

We all see the world differently. We are the main characters in our own personal stories (though I occasionally feel like a side character, but that's another blog post). Unfortunately we are the only ones who understand what we feel at every second. It can be really hard to understand why someone else makes a choice that you yourself would never make.

Empathy is tough. There are some shoes that I will never be able to fit into, but boy oh boy will I try. The emotions people feel are very real. They can't always be controlled.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week.

Welcome to NaNoWriMo

So you've never heard of NaNoWriMo? Or maybe you have seen the mash up of letters, but have no idea what it means. Or maybe you already know what it is and want to know why I'm writing about it this week.

NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel (which is the bare minimum word count for a novel) in a single month. The focus is not on perfection, but on finishing the (censored) things. The idea is that once the novel is finished, the author is more likely to go back and edit, revise, or get it published later.

So why am I writing about this now?

Do I even have a good story to tell?

Well NaNoWriMo is comprised of four words National Novel Writing Month. That's right. November is the national month of writing a novel. It doesn't matter if the novel is fiction, nonfiction, or a fan fiction. What matters is that it's at least 50,000 words.

My cousin and I are both writers. It doesn't matter that we're not 'officially' published, we write thus we are writers. We're currently competing against each other to finish writing our current novel projects by the end of the month. Whoever looses must treat the winner to dinner.

Technically, we started this little competition back in October. We did this because our schedules at this time are absolutely crazy and we are trying to motivate each other to finish writing that story that has been floating around in the back of our minds for a while now.

But wait, you might be asking yourselves, didn't I already write a blog post about how I finished writing a novel. And you'd be correct. Back in 2014, I spent about six months or so writing a novel. Unfortunately it's been stuck in editor's limbo for two years. Editing is hard, especially when you want to change a good two thirds of the plot.

So what about this novel? Will it be edited, published, and become a best seller?

Even famous YouTube celebrates find time to write

I have no idea. I would love to become the next J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, but I don't have a crystal ball.

It takes a lot of hard work and even more luck to get traditionally published. To become a best seller takes even more luck and really good advertising.

Does that mean it's impossible and that I shouldn't even try?

No, if anything it means I should try even harder. I already do a lot of writing. Some of it is a hit, some of it is just left hanging in cyberspace (or somewhere on my hard drive). What's important is that I keep writing and working on improving my writing.

Do I have any advice for anyone who wants to be a writer?

Sure, just start writing. You might end up being a big hit. What matters is you and I are trying. We're learning. It might take some time, but at least you are enjoying yourself.

I know I am.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, comment, and/or share. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Maybe someday we'll all be reading each others  work.

Until next week!