I own a lot of books. Hundreds of them. Earlier this year, my partner strongly suggested I do one of two things: either get them all organized in one place or get rid of them. I went with organization. Sure, it would be easier to simply get rid of them, donate them to a local…
Author: RB
Living in a Bubble [Mental Health]
Depending on where you live in the world, COVID may or may not be a pressing issue. What I mean is that some areas are handling the virus with common sense. The majority of the population in these places has been vaccinated, people are wearing masks in public, adhering to social distancing, and the numbers…
Bradbury Challenge – Update 2 [Writing]
So far, so good. I’ve read another book, Packing for Mars, and been working my way through Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. The latter is for my ‘poem a day’. I’ve read Leaves of Grass many, many times over the years. It’s one of the greatest poetry collections, so raw and pure, and I find…
Review – Packing for Mars [Books]
Mary Roach enjoys being a writer. It comes across in every one of her books. It’s not surprising since she gets to investigate, research, and even get hands-on with her subject matter. Packing for Mars is no exception. Of course, she gets to hang out at NASA and spend the day with astronauts. What’s not…
Review – The Demon-Haunted World [Books]
There are good books and there are great books. In the realm of non-fiction, I’d place Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, to be in the latter category. Sagan, without argument, was one of our great minds. If you grew up in the 1970s or 1980s, you knew who…
Bradbury Challenge – Update 1 [Writing]
So my first week doing the modified Bradbury Challenge went well. It’s an adjustment to my daily routine, but I was able to get my reading accomplished and finished the first draft of a new short story, “Bank Shot”. It was interesting to note that, despite giving myself a two-week deadline, I didn’t feel rushed. I…
Music Moment – Elderly Woman Behind the Counter…[Music]
As one of the main bands to bring the early 90s Seattle sound – aka Grunge – to the mainstream, Pearl Jam has always been a constant member of my many playlists. Their sound is unique, recognizable, and their songs always feel as if they’re painting a mood or telling a story. One of my…
The Bradbury Challenge [Writing]
It’s no secret that Ray Bradbury was a prolific author. By the time he passed in 2012, he had written over six-hundred short stories, twenty-seven books, plus essays, criticisms, screenplays, and poems. The man was a writing machine. Luckily, he was open about his creative process and how he was able to accomplish so much…
Inspiration from Others [Writing]
A few of the stories I’ve written, or drafted, were inspired by things I read elsewhere. For example, there’s a song by Black Sabbath titled “Neon Knights“, which I turned into a short story about, well, neon knights. It’s only made it to the first-draft phase, but it has potential as an interesting fantasy/sci-fi mash…
An Author Shout-Out [Writing]
I was incredibly lucky to get an early read of Mackenzie Littledale’s upcoming mini-short story collection last week. It’s well-written, passionate, and stuck with me long after I finished the last page. I’ll be buying a copy once it’s published September 1, 2021, and I’ll write an official review then. Don’t want to spoil anything!…