A few months ago, I wrote a short story about a real person. I've never done that before. It's strange, because I didn't actually know the person. I wonder for those people who did know him, how they'll see my version of him.
I think I already have to add an event to his life to fit the story. Unless I can figure out an alternative.
I just wrote a proper romance. Not a story where there happened to be a bit of romance on the side. And I think I only managed it because of the movie Elemental...
It's only a first draft so far. And considering how little I tend to care for romances, I have no idea if it's any good. But I like it XD
Arrival, Chiang
This was a book of short stories. I learned about it because of the movie Arrival, which is great. The other stories had fascinating concepts too. The one that I remember the best is based off of the Tower of Babel.
Babylon's Ark, Anthony
An amazing true story of trying to save the remaining zoo animals that are trapped in a war zone.
Wayward Son, Rowell
I quite liked Carry On. The other two books in the series I wasn't as crazy about. Possibly because Simon was so depressed, which made him mean to everyone. He did go through a lot. Anyway, I just didn't find the sequels as fun as the first book (which was the freaking book that made me actually enjoy a vampire romance).
Sharing a House with the Neverending Man, Alpert
Stories of Studio Ghibli as told by a rare westerner who has worked with them. It's fascinating to hear about the company, and to hear some of the cultural differences are explained.
One thing that surprised me is that there's a character based off of him in The Wind Rises. He didn't even mention it in the book! I was wondering why that character was on the book cover, so I looked it up and discovered that I was right.
Warriors, Hunter
Okay, I finally finished the first series of Warriors. Only because I promised two of my cousins that I would. But the books drove me crazy. And not just because they glorify feral cats. The characters were all so frustrating. They didn't share information that was vital, or refused to believe certain things for no reason. Or just randomly went crazy. Yeah, I rather suffered through these books. If I want cool animal cultures, I'll stick with Watership Down.
Challenger Deep, Shusterman
I learned about this book because I went to an event where the author was present. He said that the book is based off of what his son went through. The book is amazing, and harrowing. It was really good, and quite stressful to read. I felt off balance for a while after reading some parts of it. It's about a boy with schizophrenia, and the story is split between the real world and the world that the illness has created.
My Side of the Mountain, George
Kids fantasize about running away from home and going to live in the wilderness. This kid does. It takes a while to adjust, but he learns to live on the mountain.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, Clarke
I've heard about this book so many times. It's amazingly written, and a good story. I think I need to read it again though. There's so much happening. I even missed part of the ending. I keep meaning to find a book so I can go back and see what I missed. It was something important. TT^TT
I just saw that they made a show based on the book! Gotta check that out.
Sailing with Noah: Stories from the world of zoos, Bonner
Some great stories about zoos, animals, and the people who care for them.
Rogues, Martin
A collection of short stories about characters who are, well, rogues. The stories are in a variety of genres, and there are some big-name authors in it. I learned about it because there's a Name of the Wind story amongst them. I think my favorite was where the team managed to steal an entire road.
Sheine Lende, Little Badger
The prequel to Elatsoe. This is the best book comp I've found. It's good, but why can't I find mooooore?
Beauty and the Beast, Rudnick
A novelization of the Disney live-action movie. I just stumbled upon this at a used store, so it was a cool find.
Annihilation, Van der Meer
A strange, dangerous, fantastical land is slowly spreading. A team of people crosses into this land, to try to learn what they can about it. It was a pretty bewildering read. The strange land is interesting, but they didn't give me enough of it to want to read more of the series.
Tending the Wild, Anderson
A great book of how the native California people cared for the land in ways that the Europeans never bothered to understand when they arrived. The entire state was cared for, unlike now where much of the land has been destroyed, or is in danger of burning to the ground.
There were a couple cool guest speakers at Fanime this year!
My anime/manga repertoire is slowly expanding, so I actually know some of the Fanime guests now. This year there were two anime voice actors that did roles I liked: Atsushi Abe and Tsubasa Yonaga.
Atsushi Abe was Mashiro from Bakuman. He was one of the racing members in Yowamushi Pedal too, and he did a character in Haikyu. He's also been in an X-Men anime? I'll have to check that out.
Tsubasa Yonaga was also in Yowamushi Pedal, and he did one of my favorite characters from the series: Manami. He also had a role in Tiger and Bunny.
I always liked Manami though, because both he and Onoda just seemed to enjoy biking up hills. Why was that important? Because it encouraged me to bike the unending hills around my house! Though Tsubasa Yonaga admitted that he's not a sporty person himself.
I got to say hi to each of them. I told Atsushi Abe that Bakuman was. great inspiration for my writing. And I told Tsubasa Yonaga that he encouraged me to bike the steep hills near my house. I've put that to good use.
After my road trip for planning Starsung, I decided it was time to finalize the map. I printed out the chunk of land they cover, and started plotting out locations. As well as the distance they could cover in a day in a horse-drawn wagon. Some locations needed specific features, like forests or lakes, so I needed to account for that.
Yeah, it's a much longer trip than I had originally planned for. It turns out that their starting location is about two weeks south of the main events. I may have to change it... Which means the research I did at that location is no good. And I didn't really research the area where the new beginning will be.
And even if I do move the starting location north by two weeks, their trip will still take longer than I thought. I don't know what happened. I had calculated this stuff out long ago. I guess I made a mistake.
Yeah, I guess maps are important.
I often don't notice how tall actors are. When I was watching some Star Wars bonus features, they said that Dooku is 6 1/2 feet tall. Holy crud! Well, movies like to use tall people for villains. They can look more looming and dangerous that way (In Back to the Future, they chose a different villain because an earlier option wasn't as tall).
Unfortunately, short guys are often not picked as a main hero. Not always, luckily. Though as I've mentioned, I'm unlikely to notice either way. Mostly because I don't really care how tall they are.
For example, Matthew Broderick is known mostly for "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." But I mostly know him from Ladyhawke (and The Lion King, but you don't actually see him in that movie). In Ladyhawke, his character is called Philippe the Mouse. Everyone makes a big deal about how tiny he's supposed to be. It didn't occur to me for a while to wonder if the actor really was that small (They're sitting on a horse here, so it's hard to really tell).
I also saw a video that teased Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) for being short. He never struck me as short. Even looking at pictures, he's not that much shorter.
All this is buildup to my actual point.
When I was watching Spider-Man earlier this year, Tobey Maguire was standing next to another actor.
The height difference struck me for the first time. Which got me wondering, Tobey Maguire he short, or is the other actor really tall? Or both. In Seabiscuit, Tobey Maguire plays a jockey. Jockeys are small, because that means the horse can run faster. But Red (the jockey he plays) was a very tall jockey. They even make fun of it in the movie. So I don't think I can judge by that (Why do I know so much about this? I read the Seabiscuit book, and I have the documentary, which is really good. I've watched it several times with my dad, who also loves it).
I would have stopped there. But I wanted to draw one of the characters in a comic with other characters. So I needed to know his general height.
Now, this may seem like a random aside, but it will work its way back in. In manga, they'll often slip in character bios. These bios generally have a picture, the character's likes and dislikes, foods they enjoy, their age, and blood type (I never understood why the blood type was in there). One of the factors is height.
I suddenly wondered if wikipedia did that for actors. I really hoped it didn't - that would be weird. I usually only check out an actor's wikipedia page to see what movies they were in. Maybe they really did have personal stuff like that. I waffled around for a while, not wanting to look it up. But finally I caved. And I was rather relieved to find that wikipedia didn't list the actor's height.
Except I'll still need to figure out how tall to draw the character... Is it weird that I feel really strange doing an internet search about that?
