“Are you American or Mexican?” The question was asked in good faith and curiosity by my nail tech, who was helping me determine which shades of green would look good on my fingernails. As I have olive skin/yellow undertones, it’s a valid concern. Still, in the current climate (I live in the U.S.), such a question may not always be
There are many people living in a large house. Outside the house, a pack of rabid wolves circles. They want in. Most of the people in the house know better than to let the wolves in. They in fact work to secure doors and windows against the threat of the wolves. However, for some bizarre reason, some of the people
Centuries ago, when faced with growing unrest amongst the common populace, the church and aristocrats (keeping in mind there has been a fair amount of overlap between those two) sold the idea that everyone would get what they deserve… eventually. They told the masses that their hard work would pay off… in Heaven. And that the poorer they were on
My goal this year is to post at least once per week. Alas, I don’t always have that much to say. Bad news for a writer, perhaps. But I do have a thought that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while now, and I meant to make a YouTube video about it, but I haven’t (yet—I might still).
*Using Disney’s animated feature for reference here. About a month ago, I posted this YouTube video about why diversity in media is not only a good thing, it’s not really a threat to the status quo. Due to my run for school board, I was thinking mostly about the attempts to ban books, but it applies to all the dude
I’ll say it again: the onus of the cost of creation is shifting towards the creators. Which means that marginalized voices are becoming even further excluded because they cannot afford to create. Used to be, a writer came up with a book, or a play, or a film script, and sold it to people willing to invest in it. The
Because this subject has blown up recently, and I have feelings about it. I’ve never read a book with a playlist printed in it. I doubt I read the kinds of books and/or authors that would feel compelled to include a playlist. So… yeah. There’s something somewhat juvenile about that, something that (to me) screams “newbie author.” High school mix
A year or so ago, I was encouraged to make an “arrow chart” of each of my books. If you’re an author or reader, you know what this is: an image (often animatic) showing the book with a bunch of arrows describing the tropes in the story. I suck at this kind of thing, but I tried. (The animatic one
We have once again arrived at the time of year where we reflect, usually in the form of lists. Best of, worst of, etc. I’m doing all that on my YouTube channel with the books I read this year, so be sure to check it out. But over here I’m going to look at 2023 in terms of my writing.
Not all opinions are made equal. Everyone is entitled to one, of course, and now that pretty much everyone in the world has a public platform via social media, everyone is able to broadcast their opinions to the populace. In many ways, this is a good thing. Hearing various points of view, getting different “readings” on a text (as we