Reading can really make you think

Hello there!

I'm overjoyed right now, because I just finished my Literature course for this year, which is just awesome!
I had to read some poetry and novels by some British authors, then write essays about my impressions of them.

Most of the poetry seemed to glorify creation over the Creator, which I found very humanistic. The Only Poet I remember actually enjoying was John Keats. He's pretty awesome isn't he? Then there were other poems that were written around the time of WWI that introduced new ideas, or at least voiced ideas that no one had dared speak aloud before, about the plain reality of war. But each poem presented it's point and the idea that the poet was trying to convey very nicely.

I was especially depressed by Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, which is a poem about a man who struggles to reconcile his faith in God to Darwin's Evolutionary Theory. Darwin wins. It was so, so depressing. My heart went out to Arnold, who abandoned the truth in pursuit of lies.

The novels were well enough, but the only one that I actually enjoyed was Jane Austen's Emma. Though I admit I was a fan of hers long before this Lit. course. Yeah, I'm one of those girls, (Jane Austen fan).

The others were well written but each chilling in it's own way, so they were books that I would most definitely not re-read for pleasure. And hopefully will never have to re-read ever. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, was one of them. Honestly, it was well written and I enjoyed that part, but the whole taking dead people's body parts and sewing them together to create giant monster, was just gross. The story was a tragedy that played to human nature, saying that it is society that is the problem, and that people are inwardly good, but the Bible teaches otherwise.

I also read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, which was the sad story of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory carried out to the extreme.

 And today I finished The Animal Farm By George Orwell (Eric Blair), about animals who over throw their oppressive owner and start their own republic with a pig named Napoleon at the helm. It is a story that was written to criticise Stalinistic Communism. Not communism all around, only Stalinistic communism. It shows how communism, instead of liberating the people only enslaves them to a greater degree than they ever were before. It was well written, but hard to read because of the injustice of the whole situation.

Many of these books and poems are considered classics because they changed people. This literature presented new radical (at the time) ideas that challenged people's thinking and basically changed cultures. That is the effect that literature can have on the public. And that is why I want to write Christian fiction that encourages people in their faith, instead of tearing it down. The written word can make a difference.

So write!

Writing and reading about love?

I don't write romance. Mostly because it hasn't happened to me enough for me to write about it. I haven't been a jilted prince either, but somehow that's easier than writing about love. Writing about love comes hard for me. I write about it in passing, as a side story, but it doesn't take center stage.


But I love to read about love! Give me eight Christian fiction romances and I'll be good for a week! But set me down and tell me that I have to write a romance, not just a story with romance in it, I'd be sulking around for the rest of my life(actually I wouldn't be, I'd just be giving it my best go at it!). I think that it mostly stems from me being a oldest child perfectionist, and I know that it isn't my strong suit. The story starts out good with a good plot etc. but I have noticed that alot of romances feed off of emotion. Raw emotion at romantic frustrations. I haven't experienced many romantic frustrations. Thank goodness for that! I can't ever seem to get the right emotions, or deep enough reactions. Nothing I write makes me want to sigh. *sigh* I just can't get the scenes quite right.


I think that's where writing what you know comes to play. I think writing what you know is very important, I like to write main characters who have horses. Which works great from me since I can honestly say that I know horses. I have one.

I can also (and do!) write about struggles with being faithful and following God. I struggle writing those scenes too, because I want them to be real and easy to relate to. Like in the short story I'm working on now, my MC is confused about God's will for kings because, why would God choose a tyrant king who oppresses the people? He struggles with God's will for his life. For the kingdom.

I guess this post is mainly me rambling randomly about my writing struggles. So over and out!

The fascinating lives of prairie dogs

Have you ever seen a prairie dog? And no, I don't mean at the zoo, where their cute manipulative faces are displayed to the oohing and ahhing of tourists. Or at a ghost town, tourist attraction. I mean for real, in the middle of a rancher's cow pasture. There they are the enemy. My 2 uncles are ranchers and you have not seen a prairie dog unless you have seen one through he eyes of a rancher. Their homes are little holes in the ground, smaller than a manhole, but just big enough for a cow's or horse's foot. And if a horse is running across the prairie like they do in all those movies, and falls in a prairie dog hole, more than likely they will break their leg fatally. And then to put the animal out of its misery we will have to shoot it with some fast- acting lead aspirin-and for you green horns, that's a bullet. Ranchers do everything they can to exterminate them or at least prevent the spread of they're little towns onto to more land. My uncle tried to poison them more than once. And it is considered a good waste of time for boys around those parts, to drive out the pasture infested with prairie dogs with a .22 and try to see how many they can kill. My cousin's favorite horse, the one he was practically born and raised on fell victim to these rodents' lairs, my cousin was 21 and the horse was 7 years older than he was. I hate seeing their little rodent faces on tourist postcards. The little horse killers. But, all this is only my opinion. I have alot of those. I strongly recommend "Adgena" by Representative Curtis Bowers too, while I'm having opinions. Also I love the books in the "Once Upon a Time" series by Cameron Dokey. And I'm a huge fan of Gilbert Morris. And I'm rooting for Taylor Swift to make it. Thanks for ignoring this, bye!