This section will provide you with a window into my mind. The window might have some dust and a few dead flies, I don’t clean it that often. Proceed…if you dare!
January 2009
Well, it's a new year and one of my New Year's resolutions is to update my website blog more often. I'm not accustomed to posting my thoughts, but because I think it might be useful for those of you who may want to be writers, or those of you who are curious about how a writer thinks, or those of you who will be writing my biography after I'm dead and gone (what an ego I have!) I will try to provide you with some insight to my inner conversations with myself.
Don't get too excited, I'm not going to put anything in here that would keep me from running for President later (Wow, this ego really is huge. Who does she think she is, Barack Obama? Well while we're on the subject, I'm a big fan of Barack Obama. Of course, as I write this he hasn't been sworn in yet, who knows what he's going to do while he's in office - but I do feel that he and I think the same way about many political issues, particularly about issues of race. I don't believe in race, really. The whole idea was created to separate people, label them, and emphasize their differences. It lumps all kinds of different people together. It's artificial, and ridiculous. It makes much more sense to view people as having cultural differences. I love learning about other cultures. It's one of the reasons why I write about time travel in different parts of the world, not just America. It never ceases to amaze me how different people can be, and yet how the same. It's one of those unsolvable mysteries. We have more things in common with each other than not, I think.
Why do I not like to publish my thoughts? Well, mainly because I don't want people I don't know to know me that well. So with that, I'll end this entry.
March 2010
Good news! My new book, THE FIZZY WHIZ KID is now out in bookstores. It's a book about a boy who finds out what Hollywood is about...the hard way. It's kind of strange because I initially wrote THE GOLDEN HOUR as a reaction against Hollywood; writing books as been my oasis in a sea of irrational craziness that is the entertainment industry. Publishing books, in comparison, has been much more sane. And now I've gone and written a book about Hollywood, I guess because maybe deep down I love it in all its oddity, despite the frustrations it's caused me. I'll leave it to my future biographers to analyze it all out.
June 2010
I'm wondering whether or not these iPads, Nooks and Kindles will be the future of books and publishing. I hope not. I've always loved books; real books. Not just the stories in the books, but the actual paper pages, the font choice, the binding, the cover art, the illustrations, and also the smell of a brand new book. I don't know if it's the smell of the glue that binds the pages or the carboard or maybe it's just dust, but I find the smell of book intoxicating. Books are also durable; they stand the test of time. There are scrolls thousands of years old that still exist. There are books from the middle ages that still exist. If cared for, books last. Meanwhile, who knows how long digital information will last? My video tapes have all but disintegrated. I'm embarrassed to say I had a pretty large collection of them; now they are pretty much garbage. My CD's and DVD's seem more durable but even they may have a limited life. And downloads? Who knows? What happens when we no longer use the current hardware that holds the downloads, but move onto the next thing, whatever that may be? Will everything be transferred into the new format? Or will someone decide what is popular enough to make the cut? I shudder to think how many ideas will be lost in this process. Certainly not every movie ever made was transferred to video or DVD; I can only imagine the same fate will come to books. If you love a book, buy it as a real book. Preserve it. Care for it. Admire it on your shelf. Books are like friends, so treat them that way!