A Rainy Day and a Snowy Night

The title of this post refers to yesterday (Saturday, February nineteenth, 2012), when we had a chilly-but-pleasant rainy day and the first snowfall of the season. Being Lewis Winter, I love my namesake and all it brings, which is why I am half-disappointed in this particular one. One side of me yearns for cold and snow and ice and frost; the other enjoys the nice springy weather. I am glad at least one night, and I'm happy for what we did get...but I cannot help but wonder if global warming has something to do with this. Because I'm sure polar bears don't fancy it as much as we might.

Politics aside, I wrote a short poem a few minutes ago and would like to share. I am calling it "Rain Cycle" for now.

Rain

Falling

Onto leaves

And then dripping

Into the soft earth

Cycles back to the sky

And will soon return to rain.

Reminds me a bit of Herb Moore's album H2O Overture, but I like it otherwise. Any comments? Feedback? Death threats?

It's been rather warm today, but I got a good load of reading done. Now if you'll excuse me, I have forty-seven pages to read in order to complete my new 200-page daily reading goal.

Have a nice day.

-- Lewis M. Winter

Coming Soon: 60 Page Reviews

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Benjamin Franklin

My book club has a policy which states that in order to disqualify a book from the very fierce competition toward the Melinda Awards, two or three (not sure exactly how many at the moment) persons must read at least sixty pages in order to give it a "No." I've done that at least once (Vampire Crush - even the title is terrible!), and I'm currently struggling to reach the sixtieth page of What Boys Really Want by Pete Hautman. So this is basically a preview of something to come. First I shall probably review the aforementioned "vampire" novel. Also, I may be amending my New Year's resolution to 100 or maybe even 150 books. At least. I really need to get up to speed on my reading. In addition to these, I'm trying to read more good books and sixty pages each of more gods-awful books, which means my ascending standards won't tolerate any "decent" or "OK" books - it must be on either side of the fence for me and not on its tip. This is in order to improve my own writing and throw off more books for Printz. Another reason for which I do this is efficiency: I must read more. I already read far more than most people, but I was surprised at the reading abilities of many of my fellow members, particularly Ara. Much power to that one! I must, of course, make room for non-Printz books, but that should't be an issue. Anyhow, time to go!

Peace!

- Lewis

Books of 2011

Yes, this is ripped off of Olivia's awesome blog because it struck me as a good idea. I shall forthwith produce a list of the books I've read this year. The numbers have nothing to do with rank; they just count how many books I've read this year. The ratings I give will be by letter, but one may imagine them as stars: one star fails, and an grade-"A" book gets five. Savvy? Oh, and some of my favorite books may get three or four stars due to more critical, objective aspects, as opposed to how much I enjoyed them. Also, I may change my views over time, so don't be shocked to see a different grade on Shelfari of GoodReads or whatever.

Begin!

1. 9 (screenplay) ~ C
2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~ A
3. Animal Farm ~ B
4. Between Shades of Gray ~ B
5. Catching Fire ~ B
6. Catwings Return ~ C (apparently this is part of a series, so I might change the "memory grade" later)
7. A Christmas Carol ~ C
8. The Clockwork Experiment ~ B (Olivia's book - not yet published, but I'm rooting for it to catch an agent's eye)
9. The Crucible ~ A (can't remember if I actually read all of it, as it was for English class and partly read and partly viewed as a film)
10. Dead End in Norvelt ~ B
11. Death Note 1 ~ A (although this is my first and so far only manga, so I may not be the best judge)
12. The Doll's House (Sandman #2) ~ B
13. Dracula ~ B
14. Every You, Every Me ~ A
15. Fahrenheit 451 ~ B
16. The Floating Islands ~ A
17. The Giver ~ B
18. The Great Redwall Feast ~ B
19. Hamlet ~ A
20. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ~ A
21. The Hunger Games ~ B
22. Lady Windermere's Fan ~ B
23. Macbeth ~ B
24. Mattimeo ~ C
25. MirrorMask ~ A
26. Misery (screenplay) ~ A
27. Mockingjay ~ B
28. Mossflower ~ B
29. Of Mice and Men ~ B
30. Othello ~ A
31. Painted Fire ~ B
32. Paper Covers Rock ~ A
33. Paper Towns ~ B
34. Persepolis ~ A
35. The Phantom Limb ~ D
36. The Poison Eaters and Other Stories ~ A
37. Preludes & Nocturnes (Sandman #1) ~ A
38. Redwall ~ A
39. Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto ~ F
40. Robot Haiku ~ C
41. Romeo and Juliet ~ A
42. Rot & Ruin ~ B
43. Salome ~ B
44. The Shadowing: Hunted ~ C
45. The Stand ~ C
46. The Summer of May ~ C
47. Ten Little Indians (play) ~ B
48. Through the Looking-Glass ~ B
49. The Two Princesses of Bamarre ~ A
50. Vampire Crush ~ F (I didn't even read the whole thing, but it was definitely awful)
51. Welcome to Bordertown ~ B
52. Wither ~ B
53. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ~ A (if you can picture something even better than the beloved late-'30's movie, you know what I mean)

So there we have it. Fifty-three, eh? My goal (and resolution) for 2012 is to read more than that. I'll set it at seventy-five. Maybe eventually I'll be in the hundreds, eh? We shall see!

Lunch Post II: The Bloggering

Brevity is of the essence; I must go to third period soon. I merely wish to comment on my own foolishness regarding blogging: I write a good deal of posts, but read far fewer than I ought to. This is an apology to all you bloggers who I follow but whom I have neglected to read. I am working on it. The same applies to literature, because one must observe the art as one engages in it. I'm reading more scripts now (currently Pamela Pettler's script to the film 9) and I am also reading posts by both people I know personally and those I don't. I have known people who don't want to read and (gods help them) don't like to read - and consider themselves writers. Stephen King gave a funny speech at Yale about that. I might post it later, depending on stuff.

I must away!

Happy blog reading and/or writing,

Lewis

Lunch Post #1

I am in school as I write this. I am at lunch in a relatively calm room, particularly when juxtapositioned with the cacophony of the school cafeteria. It is also a good place to check email, seeing as they have a number of computers in here. I'm perfectly capable of eating with the crowd, but I see no reason to. The other students in here pretty much always want to chit-chat, so it is difficult to get much reading done, but I am able to get online, which is a rather good advantage if you ask me. I read in hallways, sensing traffic with my eyes' outer rims and corners; I also read on the bus when I'm not listening to music, audio books, or a podcast. I find it useful to read in the crannies of time, as I intend to make the most out of these things. I wrote a poem in class at least once, called "The Resting Field" - it's in the post prior to this.

When I cook, which is becoming more often, I try to read a paragraph, look at the meal, read a few lines, and so forth. The legendary horror master Stephen King is known for reading in said time crevices, such as when he is waiting for a meal at a restaurant or between innings at the baseball games he attends. Even if one does not write purely for writing's sake, reading is a good thing to do. Writing is also a valuable skill, but that's beside the point, is it not? Speaking of that, I need to read more blog posts - I write them but my reading focus seems to eb elsewhere!

I must hasten to French I now. Love to you all.

Au revoir,

LMW

Give More, Get Less

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy

Surprisingly, this is not a post about selfless generosity; I just like that quote. It's a post about public schools in my county and what ensues. Not the whole hell-storm - that will come sooner or later in a separate post, I should think - but the levels of education. It is said that home-schoolers learn more, which I have no reason to doubt. While I may like my school, I do not like the county a bit: it is as a solid branch in a rotten tree. The curriculum is rushed and sloppy and has more the intention of passing us than actually teaching us. What use is it to learn a bit of something and then forget it? They don't take the time to engrave things into us, only to imprint them long enough to score a test. My point is this, plain and simple:

Learning should not be for the purpose of passing, but for learning in itself.

In a way, it's like having a sign reading that it has sharp edges. Might as well not be there. I loved my World History teacher last year, Chaney (no "Mr." required, as he was pretty laid-back) - but the course itself was the entire history of the world crunched into nine weeks, so there was a week on Greek myth, a week on Chinese dynasties, one on World War II, etc. Not enough for elaboration. In English we don't fully read many books - we read excerpts and then watch the movie most of the time. Don't even get me started on science! Ugh.

I am the rare case of someone who wishes to relearn what was previously presented in forgettable ways. The Modern Scholar audio series is good for that. I wish I could have at some point experienced the benefits of a home-schooled life. Not only do I learn more and learn it in more effective ways, but I have much more free time and less necessity to encounter lower types of people (not judging by race or class, but by mental and moral values). I ride the bus with many boisterous and uneducated persons, which I blame on lack of independent reading. It drives me bonkers to see people confuse the possessive "your" with the you-are contraction. Some do it for convenience, but many are honestly that ignorant. Most kids go along with the grow-up-and-get-out philosophy. They tend to hate school. I like school in theory, but Wake County is just ridiculous. I always say, If you race through life, you'll find the finish line fast enough (death). I'm a rose-smeller and proud of it.

I continue to educate myself on the things which interest me and do me well, even though we can only take so many classes. Most are core, as they don't seem to give a damn about arts or anything that sticks.

I've been a captive of the system and I have nearly broken my bonds (that will come to a head in college, I hope), and I am learning other things.

For further reading on unschooling, I recommend my friend Kate's post: http://amateurishramblings.blogspot.com/2011/09/definition-of-unschooling.html

Bonsoir!

- Lewis

New Destination

I believe I may have mentioned this, but tomorrow I set flight for California. Never before have I been so far west; I have looked forward to going there since I was eleven or so. We are to go to San Francisco, Big Sir, Yosemite, and Monterrey. I hope to see the ocean sunfish at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium: I always wanted to.

There are a couple of wee issues arisen from this excursion: 1) I might not blog as frequently or on time, 2) I prefer not to bring library books across the country, even though they constitute much of my reading, and 3) I won't be able to attend a lot of the filming for the library. But I'll try to make the most of this. It's California! What could go wrong?

You just lost the game.

Love,

Lewis

Two Book-Days

On Saturday, my dad took me to the library book blowout thing at the fairgrounds, and I spent ninety-one dollars of my own cash to get two cardboard boxes full of books. Isn't it funny how the cheaper things come, the more one spends? I got a few Stephen Kings (including an accidental two copies, as mentioned on my Facebook, of Dolores Claiborne); a lot of books by Dean Koontz (I've heard he's good); a couple of Anne Rices; several Dan Brown novels; John Varley's Mammoth (saw it at the store years ago and never got around to it); Offspring by Jack Ketchum; the third book of Jeff Shaara's World War II trilogy, titled No Less Than Victory; Martin's A Game of Thrones; a couple by Clive Barker; a book by Bernard Cornwell (who my friend Pam met); the original Dragonriders of Pern in one volume; some Ken Follett; and more. In short, I am a bit of a bookworm.

On Sunday (I'm writing this during the wee hours of Monday morning), I visited a closing Borders (a lot of them are closing, sadly) and bought (with my mother's money) roughly $250 worth of books. The first one I saw was rather cheap (book three of a series I have not yet started, titled The Dragon Heir--I later got the first two), and I contemplated going for The Vampire Archives, which is NOT a paranormal romance for the record, but decided it was too pricy. I should have gone for it, because I might as well have, with all the rest. I also got Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (who I met a little under a year ago); Stephen King's Under the Dome; The Book Thief; The Looking Glass Wars; Wizard's First Rule; Johnny Tremain; My Brother Sam is Dead; Paper Towns (need to read Green still); the first Cirque du Freak book; The House of the Scorpion; The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror; Flipped; Kaku's Beyond Einstein; and so on. I got a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 poster and a "Down with the Capitol!" poster relating to The Hunger Games, which I had not started yet at that point, but figured, "If not now, then when?"

Overall, my mother and I spent a lot of dough, but it was well worth it. We went to Gypsy's Shiny Diner afterward and had a very filling burger meal, and while we had contemplated a movie, we were too stuffed by that point. When I got home I shelved my books, hence the huge amount of "Lewis W now owns _______" on my Shelfari account. All in all, it was a great two days. I must leave now.

Au revoir,
LMW

Happy New Year!

Here it is: 2011. The second year of the second decade of the first century of the third millennium. And as I attempted to convey in the last post, life goes on. I feel compelled to tell you (not sure why) what the first thing I ate this year was: A bowl of blueberry/oats cereal. Anyway, I think I have some resolutions, which I may or may not change:

• Write a sizable novel
• Learn guitar
• Take Drivers' Ed (I keep saying that!)
• Get more involved at school
• Read a book of 1,000+ pages (finishing The Stand would count)
• Watch an episode of Doctor Who
• Leave the country (vacation wise)
• Read/finish certain books
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• Dracula
• The Graveyard Book
• Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
• A Christmas Carol
• The Stand, as mentioned before
• Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower IV)
• Year's Best SF 14
• Preludes & Nocturnes (Sandman 1)
• For the Win
• Visit my Florida friends, whom I have not seen for years
• Get something published in a book/magazine/anything printed
• Record a song
• Write a script
• Play Quidditch (yes, you read correctly)
• Start learning a language (I'm thinking Spanish or French)
• Get back into acting

Whoa, that's a lot! I didn't expect that many. Now I don't know if I'll be able to do all of them, but "shoot for the moon," eh?

Sorry; my computer is acting up. I spent HOURS writing this post, and now most of it's gone. I don't think I'll rewrite it, but I'm very ticked now.

Anyhow, happy new year and all that, and I'm going to bed now. Maybe I'll post more later.

Thoughts About Drivers' Ed

Indeed I have been pondering it for over a year (almost two), but now I've decided to stop pushing it off; many of my friends and otherwise acquaintances are taking/have taken it. I always had the same primary reason: too busy. But I suppose that's always the case with me. I'm a busy guy for the most part, being a writer and whatnot. But if I'm going to take it, I might as well take it soon. I'm thinking of asking my C.A. teachers as soon as I get back from my holiday.

Other worries include the fact that auto-wrecks are a leading cause of teen death. I'll be careful...hopefully careful enough. I hear the lessons are super boring as well? I, for the most part, am not easily bored, but maybe I'll sneak a couple of books in just in case. I'm talking to Hannah, and she says it's not so bad (though she also says she wrote poems and stuff in there).

In other news, it is now New Year's Eve! A few hours ago (on New Year's Eve's Eve), Mother, Caroline, and I went to go see RED. It was exciting and funny almost simultaneously, and therefore awesome. For the first time in a while, I wrote an entire story by hand the other day. My computer was not working, but I didn't let that stop me. It needs some work, I'd say, but the idea of it intrigues me. Don't we all love things that fascinate us? I'm going to write more of my current novel now.

To all a good night,

Lewis

Christmas 2010: A Summary

I got up pretty early yesterday--sixish, I'd say. Apparently my sisters were also awake, so we woke our mother up and waited for our dad to arrive. He brought Launa (the big dog) over, and she and Coco (my Chihuahua) played around on the floor for ages. As it got lighter out, we began to open gifts. The most notable of mine, I think, was an Amazon Kindle (which I think I wrote my thoughts about a while back, in the post "Conversion"). I  tend to buy more books than I have time to read, and this was no exception. Just today I finished Cecelia Holland's short story "Dragon's Deep" in The Dragon Book, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. I really liked it, and it even inspired a future project of mine. I love dragons - I always have - and they were among the first things I wrote about.

My sister Laura received a marshmallow shooter...do I really have to describe what went down after that? We pretty much stayed at my mom's house the whole time, although at the end my father took us children over to his house. I woke up this afternoon (I had chatted with Hannah until two in the morning) and saw that it had indeed finally snowed. I ran around in it with Launa for a while, and then walked to Laura's friend's house to see their new kitten. I must say, this snow was worth the wait: Even at the end of the day, after people have been running and driving in it, the white blanket is still a beautiful sight. It actually looks kind of like the background image at the time of this post, what with ice and snow clinging to the skeletal branches.

I've probably mentioned something before about expanding my media (reading/watching/listening to more genres), and I'm now reading a graphic novel, namely, Preludes and Nocturnes, the first of twelve volumes in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. I love Neil Gaiman; he's a very clever man who has done a variety of things in his time. My aunt met him a while back, and I plan to someday do the same. Hannah has been acting as my guide in helping me choose comics/graphic novels to read. Maybe I'll even try Manga sometime. I hope I don't lose reading focus; I am still reading Philosophy for Dummies, along with Olivia's NaNo book from last year. Perhaps I'll remove The Vampire Archives 1: Blood Suckers from my plate. It's not bad, but the others I've been planning to read for a while.

Another thing I have been planning on indulging in is also by Mr. Gaiman: The Graveyard Book. I bought it on the Kindle section of Amazon, and should get around to it sooner or later. We saw Tron: Legacy on Christmas Eve, and I loved it, even though I've not seen the first one. I plan to watch it soon. Coco and Launa both seemed intent on the Christmas ham, especially after we caved and gave them a few pieces. (Note: LAUNA is my sister LAURA's dog. It was her clever idea to give the animal such a clever name.) I talked to my mom on the phone today, and she said Coco wanted to go outside, however, when she opened the door, he felt the wind and ran the other way. Last night, at my dad's house, we watched David Cross (whom I was new to)--he is hilarious, but curses quite a bit. Wow, this was a long post. Seeing as I read faster when off of school, I shall go an do that now.

To all a good night,
LMW

Oh, and here is a link to the video in which I discuss winter holidays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SzkwngskU

Reading Assignment

So on Monday, I found out that my English class is doing this thing. Yes, a thing. We have to choose a book outside of school (or from our media center) that is over 150 pages long and read it in four or five weeks. There's probably some kind of report involved at the end, but I haven't actually heard about that. I thought about reading Cornelia Funke's newest novel Reckless, but it was 300-some-odd pages, and I thought I might challenge myself/show off a bit more. I thought about doing something by Peter Straub. War and Peace seemed a bit too long to read in that space of time. I eventually settled on a 588-pager by Neil Gaiman, known as American Gods. I've read a couple of his books (Stardust and Coraline), his story "Orange", and I own both of the aforementioned books as well as Year's Best SF 14, which contains "Orange". I also possess a collection known as Smoke and Mirrors. He's a great writer and storyteller, and this one is proving amazing so far. I can say this: There is more cursing (like a Stephen King novel), and it is quite dark. It involved one of the most explicit and directly stated sex scenes I have read, which ended up with the man being trapped inside the woman. There is a character who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. This should be a breeze and a delight to read, although I put down Dracula to read it (I had already put down The Stand to read Dracula for Halloween). I sometimes read a bit more slowly during times of schooling, but this should not be affected, seeing as it is, strictly speaking, for school. In class we are also reading Elie Wiesel's Night. I rather suspect this project might be due to the fact that (wipes tear) a lot of people don't read these days. A friend of mine showed me a minimally short book and opened it, showing me how big the print was. I suppose he thought he would somehow benefit from going easy on himself like that. He is a nice bloke, but not a reader. I'm just glad that I am.

Irrelevant notes: I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. ~ My job is over for this year, but I can pretty much assure you I'll be returning. ~ Did I mention that I am most likely a descendant of Percy Bysshe Shelley? ~ I'm SO FREAKING EXCITED about Deathly Hallows!!! ~ Irrelevant notes...good idea! I should make this a regular thing.

Hello!

My name is Lewis Mason Winter, and this is to be my new blog. I had one before, but I somehow got locked out of my email and now I am restarting. L.M. Winter is actually my pen name.

Now, a bit about myself:

I am an avid reader, writer, and moviegoer. I enjoy mostly fantasy, horror, and science fiction, but I will read, write, or watch anything as long as it interests me. My favorite books are the Inheritance series and my favorite movies are all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. I enjoy a great variety of music. I am not into sports. My writings, as well as things I aspire to write, include:

• Novels
• Short stories
• Poetry
• Essays
• Scripts
• Journals
• Articles
• Letters
• ...and blog posts!

So, this is my first post. I should have more soon.