My Current Incomplete Reading List

One can't be a writer without being a reader as well. In fact, I really only consider myself I reader—I'm just too impatient to wait for someone else to write some of my ideas.

And so I came to decide to post some of my reading list. I'll always forget a work or two on these, and I'm always hearing about new books, so I may have a sequel at some point if enough readers (likely meaning one, given the average number of readers on any given post) are interested.

In no particular order, we have:

• Dirk Gently series by Douglas Adams. It's by Douglas Adams. That's my entire rationale behind wanting to read it, and, in my opinion, not a bad one at all. It was also recommended to me by Dr. Patton.
• Monsters by Ilsa J. Bick. Those of you who stalk my fan fiction profile know I've been reading Ashes and Shadows, and this seems to be the last book of the series. (I'm not sure if it's out yet, but that's fine since I'm still in the middle of Shadows.) The whole thing is sort-of-sort-of-not a zombie apocalypse, but it's well-written and engaging. There's a bit too much swearing, but it's generally spaced out enough among the 500 pages not to get too bad.
• Satires by Juvenal. We read a bit for class, and satire is just fun.
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. See above. We actually read A Modest Proposal for class, and his satire is so overwhelmingly crossing-the-line-too-much-to-count that I'm interested in more. I also feel like this is a typical novel people read.
• Whatever the title is going to be by Simon Batt. Although a lot of the my fellows at 2YN have some awesome ideas, I really need to read what he's doing once he publishes. He already has something out called Books and Stripes, so I may check that out first.
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I've only heard good things about it, and it also feels like one of those novels that everyone is supposed to read.
• A million (or at least a few dozen) things by Shakespeare. See reasoning for Douglas Adams.
• Don Quixote by Cervantes. I also read a selection of this for class, and it was beautiful. I hear the entire thing is painfully long, but I feel like I could stand it.
• Encarceron by Catherine Fisher. I thought it sounded interesting, so I bought it. I hadn't heard anything about it before I randomly saw it in a bookstore, though.
• Various things by C.S. Lewis. I've already read Chronicles of Narnia (although perhaps I was pretty late in doing that just a few years ago), but I hear he writes some very popular Christian material. Normally I don't do nonfiction, but it could be worth a shot.
• Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Hopefully he's one of those writers(/poets) who sort of speaks for himself. It sounds like he writes my kind of stuff.
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I've only read some of his short stories (loved "Rappaccini's Daughter"), but I like his style. This also seems like a sort of classic novel.
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Another classic thing that seems to be in my genre.
• Dracula by Bram Stoker. See above. I may also have a free version on my nook?
• Witch & Wizard series by James Patterson. I liked Maximum Ride (some more than others, for certain), and my mother has recommended this series. I think I'll read it on the plane rides to Asia this summer.
• "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" by Lemony Snicket. I love his style. For some reason, I never finished The End of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I might as well jump into this. It's listed as children's fiction, but who cares? I'm reading enough "adult" stuff to cover it, I think.
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I'm honestly not sure if I'll make it through this one, but Dr. McBride (English professor) recommends it, and it seems like something with which I should at least be familiar.
• Works of Jules Verne. I've already read Journey to the Center of the Earth (which was apparently two for a dollar at Wal-Mart), and, if I'm really going to get into the whole steampunk deal, he seems to be a necessity.
• The Iliad by Homer. Another one of those things it seems everyone should read/know.

That's all I have at the moment, but it's probably enough for a while. What do you think? Any recommendations? Anything you want to read now that I've mentioned it?

New Fan Fiction Idea #2

Had this idea a while ago, but a Western Thought study session just brought it back to mind.

Title: [something incredibly stupid translated into Italian] (could be changed)

Fandom: Hetalia: Axis Powers

Genre Tags: Humour, possibly Parody or Friendship

Length: Multichapter, though with shorter individual chapters

Protagonist: Germany

Antagonist: ...Italy, I guess.

Setting: Either modern-day or WWII-ish. That vague setting where all of the training things take place.

Plot: Italy slacks off hopelessly in training. Italy will cheerfully run himself ragged to successfully act out an opera. Solution? Compose an opera that will put Italy through all sorts of training exercises without him realizing it. At least, Germany thinks it's worth a shot.

Point of View: Third person, limited to Germany.

I feel like this could be incredibly fun. I'm not sure about trying to put an entire opera into just novel format, but I could be swayed. I've always wanted to compose some sort of silly opera.

Dream Journal #2

I remember that I woke up from a dream about various Hetalia characters dealing with the same theme of sorts, but I proceeded to go back to sleep and forget about most of it. I did manage to have another dream (or two?) afterwards, though.

28 Feb—01 March

Sealand somehow had come to have jurisdiction over two small islands of many islands close to the east coast of Australia. Sealand successfully convinced the micronations representing said islands to call him "senpai" and was very happy about that.

Next the scene changed (at no point do I remember being involved personally in the plot) to what I knew to be a corporate office. In reality, the lighting was dim, there were no desks or cubicles, and it gave much more of a skating rink feel than that of an office building. The first outstanding character was a standard jerk corporate leader, whom I shall refer to as Don. He was in a typical crisp suit, with dark hair, and looked somewhat like "Mayhem" from the insurance commercials.

Also entering the scene was a Mexican worker, whom I shall refer to as Juan. He wore a black hat (the popular kind, with a brim sort of obscured by a lump of fabric bulging out from the top section) and a dark blue uniform with his name (whatever it really was) written on the back in an arch of cursive, yellow letters.

Juan messed up some operation, likely involving a phone. Don picked up a corded phone, holding it upright so that the ear and mouth pieces faced in the same direction as him, and continued to hold it up as he explained his distaste for what Juan did. Don slammed the phone back in its holder.

All of the other workers were sure Juan was going to get fired, and they watched him go to the locker room area of the office. Here there were full-length lockers arranged in rows that alternated with wooden benches, simple ones with no back on which one could sit from either side. Opening his locker, Juan put up his hat as Don walked up behind him.

With a sneer, Don looked around at the other workers and asked some rhetorical question involving what Juan needed to put on his greasy hair. After an arrogant pause, Don answers himself with, "Oil." This sudden sign of approval (based on anointment or something?) shocked the other workers as Don slapped Juan on the back with a grin. Don had somehow figured out a way to make this into something that would look bad for a rival company.

At some point during this sequence, I was observing a plastic box full of fingernail-sized, white, sparkly, fluffy things. They looked like those little felt balls (pom-poms? I forget) and had googly eyes as well. For some reason we were snacking on them.

After Don's proclamation of success, there was a typical rubbish movie ending with a band singing. They were on a black stage, black curtains behind them, that was also a part of the office. The main singer was a fat woman with curly hair that was either red or auburn.

There was also a scene where I was on an escalator behind Grandma Shirley*, the both of us going down in an escalator area painted white. I explained to her the cities of origin of the characters from Macbay Transportation Services.

* My maternal grandmother, who's a rather typical grandmother and can be silly. Her birthday was recent.

Pitchapalooza 3

Pitchapalooza startled and awed audiences with its possibilities.

Pitchapalooza 2 pushed audiences further, with Journey-acclaimed critics calling it awesome and exciting.

And now the release of Pitchapalooza 3 is ready to stun the viewers further...

...until it completely bombs at the box office and turns out to be worthless to pretty much everyone involved.

And so it seems that my novel pitch is not among those the Book Doctors selected. Ah, well. It wasn't as if I thought winning it—let alone being chosen randomly—was that realistic.

That was still the best odds I could possibly have of getting an agent, but oh, well. Self-publishing digitally it is!

Once I actually finish the story. And maybe after redoing the cover, although I need practice drawing people holding hands for my current idea...

The Thing About Fan Fiction…

...is that it has no hope of being published. Aside from my usual phases of panic that everything I write is rubbish and would never sell, the writing that consumes almost all of my time is absolutely unsellable due to copyright.

If my goal is to get published, then it seems logical that I should spend more time on publishable writing than fan fiction. Certainly I'm not about to stop updating Break Out or The Long and Winding Road, but updating as quickly as I feel the need to takes up time I could be using more productively towards getting published. I do feel like any writing is a good way to get experience, but just look at my other posts—I have tons of original fiction ideas to toy with. Still, fan fiction has the benefit of attracting attention while in-progress, so I don't have to wait until I'm done to get feedback on my writing.

Fan fiction is a different beast than original fiction, as I've very much come to consider in the process of converting The Long and Winding Road from one to the other. Even if they do share a lot of elements, there are also quite a few differences, so the experience I get from fan fiction isn't 100% going towards what I could use in original fiction.

Basically, it just comes down to how productive I want to be. More original fiction time = less fan fiction time. I do want to have fun, though it seems a little weird for fan fiction to be my inception-hobby with writing as my hobby and something else altogether as my occupation. It's a weird balancing act that I'm definitely going to have to shift if I want to make progress on publishable original fiction.

I'm not sure just how or how much I'm going to wean myself off of fan fiction. I hate to disappoint readers, so I don't expect to change any habits as far as already-published (on fanfiction.net) works go, but I feel like I might shift to a slower-updating existence once the second of my big series is over.

Does anyone else have experience with or tips for this?

New Fiction Idea #13

Somehow came to me while doing the environmental unit in chemistry (which makes me happy for the sole reason I haven't already had those lessons).

Title: Mount (could be changed)

Genre: Steampunk

Protagonist: Theodore Florence, a twenty-something young man with dark hair, olive skin, and hazel eyes. He's tall but skinny and dresses very well. His family is filthy-rich, and he's grown up in a sheltered place that let him stay cheerfully naive. He has an extremely positive view of human progress. He is stubborn and may be prone to challenging others to a duel-to-the-death if he doesn't get what he wants.

Other Main Characters: Daphne, Theodore's 19-year-old sister. Her skin and hair are lighter than her brother's, but they certainly have a family resemblance. She keeps her very long hair in a fancy updo and has a weakness for elaborate dresses and hats. She's very sympathetic towards others. She's just as naive as her brother but handles affronts to her fantasy world a bit better.
Dobson and Crick, two high-class engineers in the Florences' service. They're both well-built geniuses (though Dobson is a bit on the short side) that have fallen on hard times. They'll happily work on foolish projects just for the money.

Antagonist: At this point, nature and the laws of physics. There could be other opposition as the story progresses.

Setting: Typical steampunk universe. The actual story takes place in a Himalaya-type area, specifically their world's largest mountain. It has enough areas of vegetation to support some wildlife and peoples but is mostly rock face. The incline generally increases as the mountain goes up, and there are no roads beyond a few simple foot trails.

Plot: Theodore wants to build a railroad straight up the side of the mountain, more or less just because he can. Given the track and train won't be serving any real jobs, Dobson and Crick  manage to work some steampunk engineering magic (depending of the advice of my engineer friends, it could involve actual magic if necessary) and start building the rails. The trip does not go smoothly, however, and Theodore's insistence on watching the entire process—and Daphne's tendency to follow him everywhere—starts to take a toll as the comforts available drop off. Still the Florences and their workers continue, challenging themselves to get past natural obstacles and the troublesome natives until they reach the summit.

Point of View: First person (Theodore).

Seems like pretty standard steampunk stuff. If the physics is a bit too much, I could make them try to get to the top to build a zeppelin airport, but that seems a little less fun.

Dream Journal #1

Well, here's the first post of my most peculiar dreams. I was going to begin with an old dream, but I had a dream recently enough to star it now. It took longer than I thought to write this down this morning—I had to rush through breakfast—so we'll have to see if I can keep this up for other dreams.

Also, as much as I love formatting these things in a nice profile, it really doesn't work with dreams, so I will march onward with much disorganisation.

26 Feb—27 Feb

It was some sort of prom, if not at my high school, then at least with many of my high school friends. The lighting was dim, but there was enough light to chat with people. Melody* just knew I was going to get prom queen, but I insisted that she (wearing a silky, royal blue dress a bit like the purple version I actually wore to a prom) was a lot prettier than me.

For the announcement, we were all gathered in this wide, smooth-beige-floored (either marble, granite, or some dreamy mishmash of them both) room bathed in sunlight. Between columns of the same material at the edges of the room were large windows, and where the wall met the floor was a uniform raised step wide enough for most of us to sit on. As they announced some of the other awards (I don't recall what exactly, though I don't think any were really prom-based, nor was there a prom king), I was gritting my teeth so hard my lower left canine loosened. Someone else got prom queen, and I left, self-consciously prodding at the tooth with my tongue.

The next thing I knew, that tooth and two more (one of which was tooth-coloured but shaped more like a small wood chip) fell out. Clutching them in my hand protectively, I hurried through the maze of offices in which I had somehow found myself. The carpet was a forest green, with a lot of hallway stretching between large offices with glass walls, at least each wall that contacted the hallway. Dr. Patton** and some other professor were chatting in the hallway, and I felt terrible about not saying anything to them, but I was panicking about the lost teeth and managed to hurry past them (neither paid any attention to me).

I ended up going through more hallways as I entered the healthcare section of the school. First there were a bunch of (normal-sized) offices for veterinarians, including one with Mrs. Webster***, but then I reached the back door to a medical waiting room with a few people waiting in chairs. I told the receptionist (she was umbre, which was a bit odd since none of my medical waiting room receptionists have been such) about my tooth problem, and she said she'd call me (not on the phone) when a doctor was ready.

I went off elsewhere, still freaking out, and my mother texted me to see if I wanted to go out to a certain restaurant (I don't think it was a real one) to eat with her. I looked up where the place was on Apple Maps and agreed. Thinking my lost teeth could really mess this up, I went back to the receptionist and asked if I had been called yet. I hadn't, and since no one else was in line to talk to her, I asked how expensive this treatment would be and how long it would take. She said they would get prints from my mouth and make new teeth (which I thought strange since I still had the old ones), and that it wouldn't take more than three hours. This was a relief since dinnertime was farther off than three hours. I was, however, upset about losing all of that time to study.

*Melody was the quiet girl of the school. She was pretty and I believe received an award for her dedication to physical fitness, but she would not talk. She did smile. I didn't know her well, nor did I have many non-gym classes with her.

**Dr. Patton is not from the same school. I found nothing wrong with this, of course.

***Mrs. Webster was from the high school, with an office similar to the others in that particular hallway. She wasn't actually a teacher, but she did have a dog in her office (Nick), whom I often visited. Probably why she was in the veterinarian section (I hope Nick was okay!).

It should probably be noted that I put in my lower retainer for the first time in a while that night. Didn't wake up with loose teeth, though.