Green Rider is Awesome!

Sometimes I'll read a book that I find painful to put down. I also get very annoyed at myself when I finish because I should have slowed down to enjoy it more. Green Rider is one of those books. I could not stop reading it until I was finished. This is another reason that I was noticeably absent from blogging for a while, I was reading this, and the two books that come after it.

To give you even more insight to how much I enjoyed it, a tale. I was reading it and I realized that I had to stop reading it because real life was getting in the way. At this time to voice my frustration I said, and please pardon my french, "Freaking cow butt!" I do not believe I have ever said that before, and I hope to never say it again. This book is so good I said cow butt at the thought of stopping.

So perhaps I should enlighten you on what its about. Karigan is running away from school after getting suspended. While on her journey home she finds a man with two arrows piercing his back with am urgent message to the king. It must be delivered and she is the only one around so he asks her to deliver it. She agrees and takes the mans horse and message and rides off, but the ones who killed the first messenger are now after the second.

So yeah, that's the basics. Its a straight up fantasy novel, with Kings, and Kingdoms, and monsters born from the evil of the blackveil forest. The only thing its missing is dragons, but I'll forgive the author for that on account of having such an awesome book.

The author created a very convincing world that has very real problems. The king is constantly worrying about the Providences in his kingdom and it constantly trying to keep them all from fighting. Karigan has problems and worries besides the obvious ones (people want to kill her dead) and throughout the series we see how she reacts I was cheering her on the whole way. I want that character to be happy and all the others! That doesn't always happen though. A lot of the time in the series someone will come out happy while another will be hurt; often you wish it was the other way around for the characters involved and then the author makes you feel guilty for thinking that.

So far there are three books in the series: Green Rider, First Rider's Call, and High King's Tomb. Each one is filled with unexpected twists and has a bunch of general awesomeness. You will find yourself cheering Karigan on as she does increasingly awesome things.

There is a fourth book in the making and it cannot come soon enough! I have to know what happens in the next book! I have to know who the King... ah, but that will be spoiling for you wouldn't it.

GO! READ! THESE! BOOKS! You won't be disappointed. And if you are, you are free to take it out on me.

Sorry for the lack of awesome lately

Several things happened that kind of killed any enthusiasm I might have had, the biggest you can read about on my other blog. I'm finally getting back on my feet and am prepared for more awesome. In fact, I have several awesomes prepared for you. Expect two posts, one about a book series and another about a game to come soon.

Awesome Quintet

I saw this video on youtube and felt compelled to share because it is awesome. That is what this blog is all about after all.




Also, I'm trying hard to resist doing a rant post about Spongebob, though I'm getting close to a breaking point.

'Twas an Awesome Day

Today was pretty awesome. It was a Sunday and Sunday's always start with me being unable to sleep before church starts because of my nocturnal nature. It was about 4 in the morning and my head wouldn't turn off so that I could sleep and I was thinking of my Dragon Story and as I thought many plot holes filled themselves with some plot. I ran downstairs and wrote it down before I forgot it. This was a very momentous occasion since the single biggest plot hole that had been nagging at me to be filled since near the beginning had filled itself and for the first time I really felt like I could pull this off (more of this in my writing blog a bit later). A great way to start a great day (if you ignore the no sleep thing which I usually do).

For whatever reason I found that I had a bundle of energy at church, strange since I had nearly no sleep before it started. Then during one of the classes, my sister Cherisa checked her texts and found that Amber had her baby. This only added to my unusual energy and I found it hard to concentrate anymore on what was being discussed. After church we didn't wait long before heading straight to the hospital to visit Amber. They haven't decided on a name yet, but she was so adorable and my heart melted whilst I was holding her. I'm not sure how odd it is for a guy like me to love babies so much, but I do, and she was just a perfect little baby. Her face started getting red while I was holding her and after a few seconds her diaper exploded. It was just too funny.

So today was pretty awesome. Things went well, though I am very tired.

An Awesome Experience

A few members of my family and I went to hike the subway trail in Zions National Park a few days ago, and if you want to hear more about that then you can read my sisters blog. I'mma talk about a small event that happened that stands out in my mind.

We had stopped to eat stuffs and rest because its a long and arduous hike. There are many bugs and animals on the hike, and one bug that was very prevalent was the Dragonfly. Whilst we sat I saw a Dragonfly flying about my face and I raised my hand just a little and it landed on my index finger.

I have always been facinated by Dragonflys (perhaps because they are called Dragonflys) and to have one land on me, even for just a few seconds was amazing. I was verreh happy.

Yes, I did just geek out about a bug landing on my hand, thats just what I do.

His Majesty's Dragon is Awesome!

So not too long ago I was reading a webcomic about Dragons (big suprise) and the author of the comic recommended a book called His Majesty's Dragon. This book had dragon in the name and thus I looked it up on Amazon. It was not expensive and I had some money left over from something or other and before long I had a box from Amazon in my hands.

His Majesty's Dragon is a book set in England during the Napoleonic wars. In the book, Dragons are a part of the military, their riders known as aviators. England and France are at war (as you should know from your history lessons) and Dragons play a huge part in it.

I don't know about you, but I was already sold on the book by this point.

The main character's name is Laurence and his Dragon is Temeraire, but don't ask me to pronounce that. Laurence is a navy captain who takes a French ship and on the ship is a Dragon egg. Temeraire hatches from that egg and Laurence finds himself suddenly an aviator after being a naval man almost his entire life.

The Author, Naomi Novik, obviously researched well and knew what she was talking about... writing about. This book is fantastic and follows well with history as far as a story like this can. When I finished it I was sad because I couldn't read it anymore, but then I realized that there are a total of 4 books already out. I will be getting the next one as soon as I can because this bok was incredible. I highly recommend reading His Majesty's Dragon. Talk about an awesome book.

My Awesome New Website

So I made an awesome website because all authors should have one. You should check it out.

http://josephlaterry.webs.com/

Don't Panic, We Still Have Awesome (Now In Tired Ramblings)

I'm terrible at updating this. Part of that is because I'm spending almost every waking moment working on the pageant, the other (slightly bigger) part is because I'm lazy. I'm so very lazy. I don't think I've accomplished anything this past three weeks that wasn't associated with the pageant. And then, when I tried to get something done, the computer I was on died. I seem to lack a serious work ethic. The only reason I'm writing this is that I had an unusual burst of energy (most likely due to the fact that its my birthday) and wanted to get something done, I looked through a list of websites and saw this one and realized that I've been very neglectful of poor little awesome here. So here I am, updating this now. I had a full list of idea's of what to put here and forgot while my burrito was being microwaved and I already started so this post might just be a ramble (I think its too late to say the word might).

Paragraphs! It's easier to read something when it isn't a wall of text.

Ok, so mayhaps I'm a tad tired. It is 5 in the morning and I haven't slept yet. That usually isn't surprising, but today I didn't get to nap at midnight, so I'm a bit more tired than normal. Yes, I do take naps at midnight. I used to think that when I got tired at midnight that it would be an opportunity to fix my sleeping schedule, but they always ended up being naps. So I nap, starting anywhere from 10PM to midnight and ending anywhere from midnight to 2Am.

Sometimes I think the chances of anyone reading what I write here is very low. That might also account for the low amount of postings that I've been doing. You may have guessed that I like to write, and I like for people to read what I write. I will often get discouraged when I don't get a comment, thinking that either nobody read it, or even worse, nobody who read it liked it. Comments are a very happy thing. I smile inside for hours when I get one. Now I don't know what else to put in this paragraph, so I'll end it there.

You may know that I have ambitions to be a best selling author, and if you didn't you do now. I used to think that it would be simple. My plan when I decided that this was what I would do with my life was thus: 1. Write kick-awesome book that rivals Harry Potter. 2. Become a millionaire. There are a few holes in that plan. I have a good foundation (writing a kick-awesome book), but I missed a few thousand steps in between that and the millionaire part. I also thought that being an author meant that I can have a reclusive lifestyle where I never have to have any human contact whatsoever (ideal for me), but I was also wrong. I have taken to reading the blogs of literary agents, new authors, and other people associated with my field of choice. They have shed light on my naive mind. This will be a difficult endeavor. One that will require hard work and dedication and possibly result in mental instability (more so than already apparent). As I was reading these blogs I began to be discouraged. How can I compete in the publishing world? My novel(s) are not nearly good enough and the sheer amount of work to get them to that level of kick-awesomeness is daunting! The economy is making it harder and harder to get published, I may never succeed! D:

But then I said to myself, "Who cares!" And then the more logical side of me started ranting that I should care and that perhaps I should consider a more stable career choice so that I may have a comfortable lifestyle. The writer in me told the logical me to back off. Logic told Writer more facts and showed some cool graphs about the chances of our success. Writer pretended to be interested, but the whole time was thinking of how to fill up that plot hole in our dragon story. Logic noticed that he was being ignored and did the logical thing, he grabbed Writer's face. With Writer's full attention Logic proceeded to lay out several alternative career options that would prove to not only provide stability in life, but probably a lot of comfort as well. He used quotes from our dad, "You should go into law," and past aspirations and showed how we could very well succeed in these places. Recluse jumped in and shouted something about dealing with to many people before retreating back into his cave. Logic and Writer ignored him because they had both come to face the fact that we will be unable to escape people no matter what job we go into. We heard grumblings from Recluse's cave. Having lost his train of thought brought on by Recluse's outburst, Writer told Logic that we love to write and tell stories and that we don't care if life isn't all that great so long as we are doing what we love to do. Before logic could respond, Writer hit Logic with some leftover writer's block and ran.

To sum that up, I still want to be writer. I wonder how long Logic will stay unconscious.

My computer is showing some of the signs that it would very much like to explode. This has happened before so I can recognize the signs. I'll have to stop writing though it has been much fun and renewed my hope in myself (ourself?). Hopefully, the computer will be fine. I'd prefer not to have another computer explode while I am using it (the count is up to two).

Thanks for listening.

I have an Awesome Mom

So, it being Mother's Day and all, I feel its time to make a post about my awesome mom.

I have a super awesome momma. She's the best. My mom and I are best friends. Whenever she doesn't work we hang out all night, both of us being night owls and all. At this time I would post a picture, but I don't have any, so use your imagination.

But my mom isn't the only mom I know. I have tons of sisters who are also moms. They are all super awesome and have equally awesome kids. They all take such good care of their kids. All of them are super moms (like on the cake we had today).

Oh, and I can't forget all my aunts that are moms as well. They're all pretty amazing, raising my cousins to be superb people. That's a feat worth a thousand years of praise right there.

And then, of course, I have some cousins who are also moms (though I'm not sure if any of them are aware of the existence of this blog :P ). Man oh man, being a mom in today's world is a hard thing, and all you guys are doing so great.

I think what I'm trying to say is: Happy Mother's Day :D