Journal 2 – Character Sketch
A. Evan sat in the crowded coffee shop and stared out the front window, patiently waiting to see his mother’s black crossover pull into the parking lot. They agreed that she would pick him up at...
View ArticleJournal 3: Ada and the Monomyth
Though I consider Ada to be a better heroine than Inman in Cold Mountain, that doesn’t mean she fits totally into the Monomyth or Hero’s Journey that Campbell created. Fortunately for argument’s sake,...
View ArticleJames Rives: Journal 4 – A Crowded Place
It was boisterous and compact. The Capital had a mall the size of the Old Earth’s state of Virginia and it definitely held as many people as the former state did. But it was commercial traffic– which...
View ArticleJournal 4
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before noon.” Nick laughs as Jamie slumps into the chair next to him. “I don’t need this today.” Jamie mutters as she rubs her head in frustration before trying...
View ArticleJournal 5 – Storytelling
There were a lot of times in The Things They Carried that O’Brien got very candid and “meta” with the reader. The three most prominent examples of this in my mind were the three vignettes towards the...
View ArticleJames Rives: Journal 5
If The Things They Carried has no heroes, I suppose I have to settle on a definition of what the word hero means in this context. Perhaps something far more specific than protagonists, something like...
View ArticleJournal 6 -
I spent this past summer sweating under the Spanish moss in Savannah, Georgia. There are a few things the city is known for, the food, the history, the river, and the ghosts. I’ve never been afraid of...
View ArticleJournal 8 – Adaptation, Beth Anne, and the Writer’s Block Monster
Plot twist: I have never been very interested in writing books. I love books, reading them has always been a great source of joy and inspiration for me, but I do not seek to write them myself. That...
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