Electric

I'll just say right now, I'm feeling electrified all over. Driving tends to do that to me, whenever my parents take me driving I just mellow out and focus on keeping the car between the lines on the road. Today I went and followed my usual bus in my mom's car. It takes a road away from the center of town to drop of people who live further out in Pescadero. So, I followed the but, turned where it normally does to head back into town and took the car all the way back home. Now this isn't that exciting for most people but it did leave me with electricity running all over me. I felt like I could conquer anything and that I would.

Those are words that are comforting to me with my current task at school. I have to yet again transfer out of two classes that a) I no longer need and b) serve no purpose for me to take again. Minor inconvenience that made this shorter school day drag on endlessly.

You know that book Geist by Philippa Ballantine that I was gonna review? I just found out that I won another copy of the book. It shall be signed by her along with a sweet treat from New Zealand (Most likely not signed). This makes 3 print copies of the book plus 1 eBook. I feel like I should give some away but each is significant to me in some way or another. Oh and before I forget, she's going to be in San Francisco doing a book signing Saturday, February 19th. I'd be more excited about this except that I think I'm going to be in Sacramento during that time. I know I'm already getting a signed copy, but I'd still like to meet Pip and get the other copies of Geist signed. Sigh.

As far as the review is coming, I've started it but I'm waiting to see what the book review requirements in my English class are so that I can use my review for a grade in class. It shall be appearing on this blog shortly.

I also found (almost) all of my old stories from middle school. I'm hoping they'll be able to help me through this creative drought I'm experiencing. Repeat sigh.

Still, I'm feeling quite electrified. What about you?

Email me: anglemeister.lpz@gmail.com
Email my shows: FEshow@kpdo.org or AbstractDiscourse@gmail.com
Follow me: @Anglemeister
Ask me questions: http://Formspring.me/Anglemeister

50: The Exhilaration

Ah, it's here once again. 50 blog entries, in 2 1/2 years. I made this post sometime in the summer, back when I had decided to leave all my 3 word blog entries from my first year of blogging when I was just a middle schooler. Good times. So sometime after the original 50th post, I went back and deleted and combined certain entries and was set back at least 13 entries. Since then most of my blogs have been with purpose. Some nonsense entries from year 1 are still there but the reasoning is that almost all of them where pure nonsense. June 17th, 2008 I opened this blog up to use for writing. In the early days that worked out to varying degrees. Nearly 3 years later I have 50 entries that grow longer and longer and become less about my writing and more about me. I never thought that would happen.

I don't always talk about myself so looking through these posts and seeing just how much of me is being shared, my jaw drops. Still there are things I haven't shared but that's to be expected. This was my place for creative fiction writing and now it's my place for creative journaling and opinion writing. I still am growing as a writer by blogging. I've found myself expanding my word count by blogging. I think if I hadn't blogged for 2 years before I never would have reached 42,000 words last November when the year before I'd only logged in 50. I smile when I see this blog. It was my first creative accomplishment. I put in a lot of time trying to alter the blog the way I have it now. I didn't spend hours at a time but 20 minutes here and there, still I did that over the course of 2 1/2 years.

This isn't up to the standards of certain Wordpress or even some Tumblr blogs but it is mine. The header you see above I made myself. the URL comes from a nickname I got in middle school that just stuck with me. The actual blog name refers to what the blog content became. The font, is the same as the TV show Angel, I figured since the main character has the same name as me and it is one of my favorite shows I should incorporate that into my blog. I don't know why I chose the color yellow but I do love blogs with darker backgrounds. Also the simplicity of the theme or layout is what I like about it as well. There's not a lot of flashy distractions, just lots of blog entries. The widgets on the right are the equivalent of wallpaper in your bedroom. decorative stuff that displays a little more about you and your personality. Not to mention some stats that make me proud.

I get a rush of excitement when I hit the 'Publish Post' button on blogger. It just feels good, my way of putting myself out there. I don't get hordes of readers but that's no big deal (most of the time) I just enjoy blogging. I did it off and on again when I first started but now that I read more blogs I just find myself itching to write entries all the time. I've never adhered to schedules of any sort on here, especially self imposed schedules. I just can't. I can whip one up if I have a clear thought as to what I want to write but I can't say that I'm going to post something about blah-blah-blah on the date of something-or-other. With the exception of my previous New Years Day post, I always write them the day I post them. I've also had times where I've had so many things I wanted to write about in one day but I let too much time pass the inspiration drifts away.

Basically, I am proud to have written 50 blog posts and look forward to the next 50, and the next 100. Anglemeister Chronicles isn't going away anytime soon, it may go on hiatus or just go dark at times but it will always be dusted off and played with again.

So in other news, I started driving again. Yea, I'm sixteen and still haven't gotten a license or anything. For awhile I really didn't like driving, but now I love it. It's exhilarating. I don't really give a damn about the freedom of not relying on my parents to drive me places, although that could be convenient next time I have to drive in a guest for my radio shows. What I really love is the idea of just moving in a car and being in control of something. Getting to control where I'm going, and yes getting there faster than walking or biking. I actually hope my parents keep making time to take me driving more often.

Also, I mentioned that I finished the book, “Geist” by Philippa Ballantine. I wanted to say that I'm going to be reviewing it on Abstract Discourse as soon as I get my co-host Shannon back so I can give her a copy of the book so we can review it together on the show. Before this though, I am going to write up my own book review for Geist to post on Anglemeister Chronicles. I have never done a serious book review outside of school so this is going to be a bit of a challenge for me. I've read a few book review blogs so I'm hoping that helps. I don't want to copy the blogger’s reviewing style so I'll have to watch myself on that. I think I could get extra credit for the review in my English class.

I recently joined Goodreads.com, it's a site where people can add virtually add books to their profile and update on their reading progress then rate and review the book. It's really fun and a great way to keep track of what's on my reading list. You can see my Goodreads widget on the sidebar, so far only stuff on my 2010 Reading Challenge list is on there. Also about that, the 2010 Reading Challenge is now the 2011 Reading Challenge. I knew it was a lot of books. I may take down the reading list page and devote a Goodreads widget to the 2011 Reading Challenge page.

It seems I'm going to be doing a lot of maintenance on the Anglemeister Chronicles. It'll be little stuff here and there but expect some tweaking of the content in the coming weeks.

Email me: anglemeister.lpz@gmail.com
Email my shows: FEshow@kpdo.org or AbstractDiscourse@gmail.com
Follow me: @Anglemeister
Ask me questions: http://Formspring.me/Anglemeister

Geist by Philippa Ballantine

I have quite a few announcements that I need to make in the coming days, I can only remember one at the moment. Today I wanted to talk about a new book coming out October 26th, Geist by Philippa Ballantine.

Geist is the first in a two book series, hopefully a third. Books of the Order, allow me to share with you the description of the first book.

"Between the living and the dead is the Order of the Deacons, protectors of the Empire, guardians against possession, sentinels enlisted to ward off the malevolent haunting of the geists...

Among the most powerful of the Order is Sorcha, now thrust into partnership with the novice Deacon, Merrick Chambers. They have been dispatched to the isolated village of Ulrich to aide the Priory with a surge of violent geist activity. With them is Raed Rossin, Pretender to the throne that Sorcha is sworn to protect, and bearer of a terrible curse.

But what greets them in the strange settlement is something far more predatory and more horrifying than any mere haunting. And as she uncovers a tradition of twisted rituals passed down through the dark reaches of history, Sorcha will be forced to reconsider everything she thinks she knows.

And if she makes it out of Ulrich alive, what in Hell is she returning to?"

Sounds like such a delightful read! I've been looking forward to it ever since I first heard about it a few months back. It wasn't until recently that I heard about it's upcoming release, which has thrown me into a Geist frenzy.

Philippa Ballantine is the first New Zealand Podcast Novelist, her previous podcast novels being Weaver’s Web, Chasing the Bard, Weather Child and Digital Magic. Her current podcast anthology, the podcast that got me interested in reading Geist and Chasing the Bard, is Erotica a la Carte. Please hold the snickering.

Erotica a la Carte is exactly what you're thinking, sort of. It is an anthology of many erotic stories, often also falling into the speculative fiction genre. Philippa as well and other podcasters have contributed great stories that are fun and interesting, and then there's the sex. Look I could go into defending why I subscribe to EalC but that's not the point of this post. Although, I think I know what my next entry is going to be.

With the book coming out in a little less than two weeks, I just wanted to give it a little pimping on my blog for whoever may want to check it out. The Author was also kind enough to have Ace books send me a copy so I can review it on Abstract Discourse. You know, that new radio show I'm doing on top of Furthest Edge. I'll talk more about that later. At the end of this post I have embedded the video trailer for Geist if you'd like to look at that as well.

The author's website is pjballantine.com, the official Books of the order website is booksoftheorder.com where you can enter a contest to win some fabulous Books of the Order prizes and read the first two chapters of Geist. also check out eroticaalacarte.com if you like, c'mon I know someone is going to...

Right. Moving on, contact me in the following ways:
Email me: anglemeister.lpz@gmail.com
Email my shows: FEshow@kpdo.org or AbstractDiscourse@gmail.com
Follow me: @Anglemeister
Ask me questions: http://Formspring.me/Anglemeister