My Inspiration

     There are a lot of things that inspire me. I believe you can find inspiration from literally everything in life. My favorite author once challenged himself to write about the first thing he saw on a road trip; it was a dumpster, and the story turned out to be really good. A lot of times I am inspired by music, life experiences, pictures, TV, and news articles. But consistently I find myself walking out the front door when I have a bad case of writer's block. Nature is my favorite source of inspiration.
     I think humans naturally have a connection with nature. It can be calming (like waves on a beach), scary (a bad storm), and exciting (maybe a twelve-inch fresh blanket of snow?). You can use nature to generate emotion in your writing, which is something every type of artist needs: emotion.
     My favorite kind of nature is out in the middle of nowhere. I like to be able to get away from the chaos of normal life, go out into the country, and just take a walk by the lake or in the woods. It's calming and it's very enjoyable. It is also a great place to write. There are no distractions, and if you get writer's block it's no problem: just get up and go find something beautiful to look at. So for anyone reading this, I stongly encourage you to try writing in nature; I promise it is great, just don't go out in a bad storm. Now here's some things to make this blog post longer:

A quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson about man's special connection with nature:
"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged."

This is a picture of a place I visited once in Farmington, Missouri. I would love to go there again one day and spend a few hours roaming around and taking pictures. It's a really cool place.


This is a picture of the lake where I write most. It's Stockton Lake.

One more picture of Oklahoma. I took this picture on a road trip. I think it's really beautiful out there.

Unwind

          I took a break from Miss Peregrine's for now. These past couple of weeks, I've been reading my absolute favorite book Unwind. I've read this book a thousand times, and each time I read it I find something new that I love.

         If you haven't read Unwind already, I highly recommend it. It is a story set far in the future, after a second civil war. This war was fought over the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice issue. Unwinding was the solution they came up with. The new law stated that you could not touch a human life from the time of conception until the child turns thirteen. Once the child turns thirteen, the parents can choose to have their child unwound. To be unwound is to be taken apart and salvaged for your body parts. The parts are used for medical purposes. For example, if someone gets into a car accident and loses a leg, that person can get a brand new leg from a kid that has been unwound. Parents can choose to have their child unwound until the day the child turns eighteen.

        There are no chapters in Unwind. The book is split up by going back and forth between characters. The three main characters are Connor, a troublemaker whose parents were tired of dealing with; Risa, an orphan who was nothing more than a budget cut for the state; and Lev, who was born to be unwound based on his parents' crazy religion. They are brought together by coincidence and stay together because they are each other's best chance of surviving.

       This book... I can't even express how much I love it. It's perfection. The idea is original and interesting. There's action, suspense, creepiness, humor, love (but not too much), and everything you could ever want in a story. It's organized perfectly, written beautifully, and it's the kind of book that you just can't put down. The author, Neal Shusterman, is my favorite author. I've read a majority of his books and I think this is his best work. He did a great job of making the reader really care about what happens next.

      The thing I love most about this book is that it answers all your questions really well. A lot of authors will creat mystery about a certain thing in their story and just leave it like that, and let the reader "use their imagination." I think that's just lazy. Shusterman doesn't do that. Throughout the book, you read about how mysterious the actual process of unwinding is. The characters think and talk about what they think might actually go on in the "Harvest Camps" where Unwinds go to be taken apart. This question is built up for the entire story, and while most authors wouldn't bother explaining it, Shusterman takes you behind the doors of the Chop Shop and into the mind of a character while he is being unwound. This is my favorite part of the book, probably because it's a little bit terrifying.

      And I say again, if you haven't read it before, and you like books with interesting concepts and good plot lines, then you should definitely read Unwind.

  

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

         They always say "Don't judge a book by its cover," but the cover is exactly what first appealed to me when I spotted Miss Peregrine's on the shelf at the book store. Picking it up, I realized that this is a picture book. This novel is aided with eerie looking pictures that tie in with the story. The author, a first time novelist, Ransom Riggs, has staged some creepy looking photographs that pulled me in, expecting a sick, twisted story.

Cover

The back of the book. The picture of the twins in the left corner is my favorite.

        It is a mystery story, revolving around a young man who is trying to figure out the truth behind his recently passed grandfather's childhood stories. His curiosity takes him to an island where he finds that the orphanage his grandfather claimed he stayed in, was actually blown up before he claimed he stayed there.

       To be completely honest, I don't like this book that much. Miss Peregrine's is by no means beautifully written. Riggs is a film maker, who in his spare time blogs and writes travel essays. You can tell the difference between Riggs's writing and a full time author's writing. The story is mediocre, and it's not a thrilling page turner. Honestly, the only reason I'm still reading this book is because I spent $18 for this thing. Don't get me wrong; this book isn't bad. I like the way Riggs uses his skills in photography along with words to tell the story, it's unique and I like that. Like I said, it isn't bad, but it's just not that good.