Sam E's Blog

Top 100 Science Fiction Novels

samarooski — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:04:53 +0000

For 2011, I plan on reading numerous books. Since I spent much of my teenage years reading fantasy novels, I have become very attached and interested in science fiction in the past two years. Because of this, I looked up a list of the top 100 Sci-Fi reads (obviously this list isn’t THE definitive list for the top Sci-Fi novels ever written, but it is a nice base for someone who is fairly new to the genre to get acquainted with the classics).

Since I enjoy reading a number of genres, I won’t read the whole list this year, but I will read at least 15 of the 100. I read three off of the list in 2010: Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

I will update this blog whenever I have finished one of the 100, and I will give a few thoughts on the title that is read. It would be really interesting to hear readers’ and writers’ thoughts on a couple things:

1.) If the list (linked below) is a decent starting point for a classics reading list.
2.) What classics should be added, if any.
3.) Does reading classics have any translation into the reader’s writing? If so, how? If not, why not?
4.) What other gains come from reading the classics? A special understanding? A higher appreciation?
5.) What defines a classic, to you?

The List:
home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html

A New Year: The Goals

samarooski — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:03:56 +0000

The last half of 2010 was not a time of good and plentiful writing for me, and the blame falls fully on myself. As a student, I was beginning to truly believe that I needed a writing workshop in order to produce words and projects. So, for 2011, I decided that it was time to kick my hands into high gear and write, write, write. My goal? Write more often and make writing a higher priority that it has been otherwise. I will also write a novella this year. That is the plan, anyway.

Blogging is something wholly new to me and something that I picked up at the start of the new year, knowing that it could keep me on track if I had a place to chronicle my writing ventures as well as my school and learning ventures.

Here’s to the New Year (four days late)!

Workshops

samarooski — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:57:07 +0000

For the last three semesters, I have taken a workshop class in order to get more comfortable sharing my writing, as well as gaining criticism from more people than just my inner critic. This semester is different because I lost my financial aid and am unable to take the workshop I was planning on taking. I haven’t been “on my own” for three semesters so I am cringing at the idea that I may hit a huge writer’s block wall. When I am in a workshop setting, I know that I need to write something. When I am at home, on my own writing journey, I know that I can take a little more time. Herein lies the issue–I begin to tell myself I will write later and later until eventually I do not write at all.

I’ve tried a variety of techniques: writing when I wake up, writing outside, writing about how I don’t know what to write. They all fall short of expectations. Without a workshop, I want to figure out what kind of technique will work for me. Next on the trial list is a deprivation period where I will turn off the tv, the ipod, the computer and my phone and hopefully then I will be able to spill out all that I want to spill.