A Slightly Off-Topic Post...

So my good friend Clay and I have started an internet Literary Magazine which is, at this point, still in the creation process, but I would love for more people to get involved. It's called Scarlet Words, and though it is technically for a class assignment, we have high hopes for its future beyond that. So if you're interested shoot me an email. If you have facebook there is a group there for it, and we'd love to have people submit their fiction and poetry. I know this has nothing to do with the 21st century... or does it? It actually ties directly into my final project idea--the changing ways of the publishing industry. Now I won't say that we are part of the publishing industry here (yet), but you see this sort of thing more and more lately. People get published online nowadays instead of in books. This is not a universal truth, but if you had asked someone what an internet literary magazine was ten years ago they woulda called you crazy. I would have, but I was seven. Anyway, come on and get involved! By the way, my partner in crime would kill me if I didn't use the word luminaries in here somewhere... so... be a luminary and submit...? I tried.

Pirates!

So I have always had a fascination with pirates, but recently there have been a bunch of them giving my lifelong love a bad name. I mean, seriously, I thought all pirates were supposed to be the romanticized version, the gritty, good guys that act like bad guys kinda thing. But now there are pirates keeping people hostage and taking cruise ships and they aren't making it fun or disney-ish at all. Needless to say I'm upset. Now I know this is really no joking matter, people have died and it's bad and everything, but what ever happened to the days when pirates, who were, in their time, terrifying, were light hearted and joyous?

This post is mostly a joke, but I think there's a point in here somewhere. Pirates were never lighthearted and joyous, so why did we start to think of them like that? When did pirates stop being scary and start being awesome? This is a serious question. As Americans I think we like to take things that are tough and scary and idealize them. We value strength and, though I don't think we like to admit it, villainy, in a way. When did that start? Hmm?

But pirates are still awesome.

Final Project

So from the very start of this class I've been interested in the change in the publishing industry that is taking place all around us. I'm worried about what it will mean for writers like me. If I ever publish a book, will I not be able to hold it in my hands? sign it for people at some mall in New Jersey? It seems weird, I know, but I'm actually worried about these things. Even from a readers perspective, I'm interested. Will I have to curl up with a laptop or, at best, a Kindal if I want to read? I don't know if I can handle that, honestly. I want to have a dog eared copy of my favorite book. And I want to have another, perfect copy of that same book. I may be a weird person but America is full of weird people, and I don't think I'm the only person that feels this way. Now a whole nother problem to get into is publishing itself, and how hard it will be to get published in the future. Will the advancement of technology make it nearly impossible to get published? Will it make it so easy that everyone can get published? Will anyone care? Or maybe it will stay exactly the same, just in a new medium. Regardless of what happens in the future, this is a subject I am very interested in. I want to expand upon it and do some research. The SciFi writer Michael A. Stackpole has a podcast on the subject called the Secrets, about publishing industry and the best tips and tools to use in order to get new writers published. It's quite a good podcast, even if he rarely if ever updates, and he talks about these problems a lot. It is really what got me interested in all this in the first place.

Medicare Scare!

So this is a post in response to our work with the Bill family. And yes, the scare I'm referring to was actually not about medicare but rather social security, but hey, I'm not gonna pass up on a rhyming title. But anyway the point is that I was genuinely worried about the country I live in for a few hours when our research (falsely) uncovered the information that social security stops at 85. I dunno about you, but I plan on living a lot longer than that. The reasoning behind this was that the calculator on the website stopped at a certain birth date--you apparently cannot apply for social security if you are over 85. This is less terrifying than it simply cutting of at that age, though. This only means that if you haven't already registered then you can't anymore, but if you're 85 and you don't already have social security, then chances are you're already dead. I also want to address the fear of social security not being around anymore when I get to be that ripe old age. First of all let me say that I'm not usually this forward looking, and it's making me feel kinda weird. But the information I heard last week about social security put some of my worries to rest. It also made entirely new ones, though, but you can't win everything. I'm glad that social security will still exist when I need it, but I'm worried now that our country is way too far in debt to know what to do with itself. I keep wondering to myself if there's anything I can do to help, but of course there isn't, other than paying my taxes and being an upstanding citizen. The amount of money that is being lost and gained and moved around and made up is beyond my comprehension. I can hardly imagine having ten thousand dollars, not to mention ten billion. So I think I'm a little out of my league here. I'm still kinda worried about all of it, but I'm also worried about final exams, which are closer at hand. I'm worried about what college I go to, what job I'll get. Social security can wait.