Wannabe Writer's Ink

Wannabe writer with hobby of art. Stay and you'll glimpse a small piece of my heart.

Recent Media Consumed

Books

  • Legends of the Guardian King series (The Light of Eidon, The Shadow Within, Shadow Over Kiriath, and Return of the Guardian King) by Karen Hancock. Re-read, and this one certainly holds up over time. A Christian high-fantasy series centering on Kings, slaves, and a heavy dose of destiny, the story follows the 5th son of the King of Kiriath on his journey from religious initiate to slave in a foreign land to King to exile to King once again. Re-reading this, I am gently reminded that I often allow my fears and doubts to cloud my view of the goodness of God, and that no matter what happens, He has me in his hands and in His plan. I’d say that is the main theme of the series, and I’m glad to revisit it after many years.
  • The Great Omission by Dallas Willard. This one is just… a lot to think about. The main thing I drew from it is that I would like to practice the discipline of Solitude from time to time and see what happens.
  • Applied Economics by Thomas Sowell. I avoided this book for a long time because I thought it was Economics 2.0. Well, yes and no. No in that it is not “Advanced Economics” as I thought it would be. Yes in that it delves into what Sowell calls “Thinking beyond stage 1” which is, “Okay, you’ve stated your economic solution/idea/concept, but what happens next? Uh-huh, and then? And then? And THEN?” If anything, it takes the concepts learned in his book Basic Economics and gives even more practical examples. It’s a perfect companion book and I’m glad I finally chanced it.
  • Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming and also The Farther Shore by Christie Golden. Thiiiiiiiiiiiis. This was clearly written by a hard core Voyager fan. There were several things I wished had been addressed by the end of the Voyager TV series and this book addressed nearly every single one of those things WHILE weaving a fantastic story. Only issue I had with it is that the editor really dropped the ball in the second book, there were a lot of errors that should have been caught. Aside from that, this picks up right where the TV series ended and it was a great way to wrap up the story.
  • Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich. Another doorstep book-exchange book that I ended up loving. The story is kind of nuts, but the writing is phenomenal. Every single person is a Colorful Character and it’s a wild ride about how a bail bonds bounty hunter helps negotiate the release of a colleague who’s being held for ransom, then has to watch her own back when she gets the colleague back but the deal goes sideways. Lots of fun to read, great writing to study, I think I’ll hang onto this one.
  • The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Preston & Child. Another doorstep book-exchange. I’ve begun to understand that most of the novels I receive are murder mystery thrillers hot off the presses, and often in the middle of some series or another. My ability to context-mine has helped me stay afloat, but this particular one has more of a feel that emotionally connecting with the incidents described (though everything is recapped nicely) really depends on having read preceding books. I'm pretty sure, given the author's notes, that this is the third book in a quartet. Good writing, but never read a series like this out of order.
  • Captivating by John & Staci Eldridge. I think the last time I read this, I was single. I re-read it just now and it holds up well across the different periods of my life. Granted, I have not read many books trying to delve into the mystery of womanhood, but I think this is a very good (Christian) book on the topic. Much of what is said here resonated with me, both then and now. I appreciate, so much, the reminder of what my uniquely feminine qualities are and that they are meant to be a source of life and joy, not shame and confusion.
  • Letters by a Modern Mystic by C. Frank Laubach. People like this make me wonder if it really is possible to remain always (or almost always) in God's presence. However, on this topic, I connected more with Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God (with modern wording).
  • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Fragments of this book were assigned to me in college for various writing classes and fragments have been sent to me by various writing friends and I feel like I've only ever gotten fragments of this book because I couldn't stand to sit down and read something as boring as non-fiction or as judgmental as a book of writing advice. Of course, this book is neither boring nor judgmental. Listening to Anne Lamott read her own book on Audible, stumbling over some words and hurrying through some sentences like she didn't want to linger too long on them, was an experience in kinship. She talked about all the distractions I experience and how she deals with them. She talked about writer jealousy and acceptance of it. I have so much trouble acknowledging jealousy because I think it's ugly and destructive, but I saw her points. She talked about the host of mental illnesses that raise their heads every time you sit down to write. This book was a gentle encouragement to me, and a reminder that many people end up as writers precisely because they are neurotic and need somewhere to express the everything that is too much for them. It is nice to feel seen.
  • The Last Tide vol 1 (Pirateaba, Sandulak, Zanetti). A spinoff (Graphic novel!) from the Wandering inn, this side story follows yet another Earth girl who enters this strange game-based universe. This young lady lands at the end of the world. Literally. There are islands that exist near a place where the ocean falls away into a void. This world has an end, not a circumference, and one dares not get too close to The Last Tide, lest one be swept over the edge… or attract attention from the things that live below. FANTASTIC AND I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT INSTALLATION.
  • Gravesong vol 1 (Pirateaba). A spinoff from The Wandering Inn, this side story follows a different Earth girl who enters this strange game-based universe. Unfortunately for her, she appears in a magically sealed tomb. With a guardian still walking the catacombs. This is every bit as good and enjoyable as The Wandering Inn and gives a great background to a character we previously only knew in her stardom, the Earth girl who brought Earth music to this world and rocketed to stardom.

Shows

  • The Chosen (Season 3). Yeah I’ll just lie down here awhile and recover, 'kay? 'Kay. In all seriousness, though, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this show’s 1) ability to weave context into the narrative so well that it makes me FINALLY understand passages I’ve read since childhood and 2) portrayal of the pain and confusion and unsolved problems and backsliding dogging those who follow Jesus. There is no claim that following Him solves everything in this life, and I am grateful for the gentle acknowledgment of pain and human shortcoming.

Movies

  • The Forever Prisoner. This documentary is one of those areas of media I am afraid to look at. In this case, it’s because looking at it strikes another blow against how I look at the world. “The film details the treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi Arabian detainee held at CIA blacksites and later Guantanamo Bay.” Someone who is still being held at Gauntanamo Bay, though it has long, long, long been known that there is nothing he can tell us. What information he had he told the pair of FBI agents that were questioning and building a rapport with him when he was first brought in. When the CIA took over and implemented brand new Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, they ceased to get anything helpful from him, and the reasons for that are explored in depth, as are the tortures he was put through. I vaguely knew that we’d all kind of stopped trusting the CIA and our government for some reason a while ago, and it was such a given to me that Guatanamo Bay was equated to a maximum security prison/interrogation facility that I didn’t know it was formerly a luxury vacation spot until recently. But this brought a lot of that into sharp focus. Abu Zubayadah was the first, but certainly not the last, person “detained for questioning” by the CIA, using techniques known to produce nothing but anything-to-make-it-stop type confessions and no useful information. He is no longer being tortured, but they will never let him go, “Not because of anything he did, but because of what we did,” as the documentary says. I look at this and I feel very helpless. What very little trust I have left in our government continues to erode. It is one of those times when I wonder how much individuals of a nation will be judged for the choices that nation makes, and how long it is before such tactics get turned from “the enemy” back onto us.

Games

  • Bendy and the Ink Machine: The Dark Revival. Yeah, I gave up on this one two hours in. The scares feel really hammered in and overblown. There's so much talking that the creepiness is less scare and more cheese. And when I watched playthroughs so I could see how the rest of the story would go, I was very irritated at the story choices and attempts at moralizing that fell flat. The first game was great, but I wouldn't pick this one up if I were you. Unfortunately I played it 2.3 hours, just past the 2 hour return window for Steam, so I am stuck with the purchase.