Today, I'm going to break the theme of this blog once more (hey, I've done this three times over a 50-odd post period. Cut me some slack). Instead, I'm going to discuss a few disconnected topics that I felt like writing about today. As well, I'll gloat over what I'll rashly say is my first 'official' recognition of my prestigious writing ability :). Before we get into that, though, lets talk about books.
As you may know if you've read my last few posts, I run a second blog called Mark's Book Blog. As you may gather from the unimaginative title, that is where I reveiw the books that I'm currently reading. Unfortunately, I havn't finished a book lately, and so have not had anything much to post about. I was mulling this over a few minutes ago, when I suddenly thought to myself, "I can't really post a reveiw there yet, but I can recycle some material over at What I Would Do..."
So let's talk books.
Naturally, I love books- why else would I try to write one? It's hard to read a book without wanting to write one yourself, and so here I am today. I remember my early readings fondly; the Redwall books, Tales of Deltora, but the more I read the more material I consume, and the better books I find.
For those of you wanting a book to read, allow me to make a suggestion or two. Perhaps you could read the best book of all time, according to the very reliable source known as myself?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you a beloved classic, a novel that has sold over 100 000 000 copies, and one of the best-selling books of all time... Le Petit Prince!
Okay, a disclaimer; I don't know the first thing about reading in french. I do know how to read english translations, though. In all honesty, The Little Prince is amazing. It may sound like a childrens book, and, granted, at first glance it may even read like one. But the deeper truth soon becomes clear; this book is a philisophical masterpiece.
To give you the merest taste of the books brilliance, allow me to quote one of my favorite parts of the book as I can remember it. Unfortunately, I can't access the actual words right now due to the late hour, I'll tell them to you as best I can remember them. To give you a sense of whats going on, the title character who has just met a salesman who sells pills that will quench your thirst and stop your need to drink.
"Experts have calculated that you can save 43 minutes a week with these pills." Said the salesman. "What do you do with those 43 minutes?" Asked the little prince.
"Anything you'd like."
"If I had 43 minutes to do whatever I wanted," said the little prince, "I'd walk very slowly towards a water fountain..."
Although I'm sure I messed that up terribly, you get the idea. And it's so true! What makes something satisfying is working to complete it, to spend time on it. If the little prince took the pills, he would get no satisfaction. If he worked to drink from the fountain, then the water would taste that much sweeter.
I'm telling you, even if you hated the little segment that I just tried to show you, read the book. As a non-religeous person, that book is like my bible.
And now that I've randomly told you about my favorite book of all time, let me tell you about that recognition of my writing that I teased in the start.
First of all, I love the app "plague inc." For those of you who don't know, it's an almost cruel game where you take control of a disease and try to wipe out the world with it.
Anyways, like many games plague inc has a wiki dedicated to it on wikia. Several months ago, looking for something to write, I decided to make a strategy guide for one of the disease types on the wiki. Soon after I stopped making many edits to the wiki, and more or less left it. That is, until today when I got an email notifying me that the main administrator on the wiki had sent me a message. I looked at said message and was pleasently surprised to see it say something along the lines of, 'Hey. I read your strategy guide and thought that it was high quality work. We need more good-quality strategy guides on the wiki, and I'd like it if you could write some.'
So, whataya know? Someone who isn't one of my friends or family actually likes my writing! Because I'm sorry, I just can't trust what they say. There's too much risk of them saying nice things just because they know me. Sometimes you just want criticism, you know? You take good reveiws with a grain of salt if that's all you get from your family. So it's nice to know that someone out there actually thinks that I can write moderately well. Anyhow, there's my gloating for the day.
For now, thanks for reading this disjointed and, I have the feeling, rather poorly written post. Until next time,
-Mark
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