Find your next favorite book or movie!
For better or for worse, the film has ended. The book is complete. You know what comes next.
Step 1: Stagger out of the theater or pry yourself off the sofa.
Step 2: If the story was epic and well-executed, gush words of approval and ovation. Or, if the story was….not so much of the above, cry with disappointment and bemoan what could have been.
Step 3: Take a deep breath, and move on with life. Or…are you kidding? The world needs to hear my churning, albeit calculated thoughts!
Look at the date this post was published. Now, without looking at your calendar (no cheating!), what happened 58 days before that?
If you guessed (or knew) that 58 days previous marked the moment 2017 bowed down and surrendered to 2018, you’d be absolutely correct. The transition from one year to the next is a time to deeply breathe in hope for improvements, for change, for new beginnings, and a time to exhale dusty what-could-have-beens. Dreams unfulfilled. Broken relationships in need of mending. Stories and novels stagnating in the brain’s bowels. On January 1st, we make solemn pacts with our soul that this year will be different.
I never heard the kick.
Nor the shouts of warning.
Or the woosh of the ball.
But I remember lying on my back, the breath knocked out of me, a soccer ball casually rolling away.
I was about 9 and had gone to the field to watch my uncle play pick-up soccer. Of course, a book accompanied us.
I don’t remember feeling any pain when the stray ball walloped the side of my face. But I still remember the book I immediately started reading again. Brown cover, I think. Inside, the adventurous pursuits of a young boy and girl becoming millionaires off selling toothpaste—3 cents a jar, 2 cents for material, 1 cent profit.
Their pursuits stayed with me decades later, as did the Boxcar Children and Hardy Boys before them, and four Pevensie’s, a couple of Bagginses, and countless others afterwards.
If you haven’t stopped reading yet, I suspect it’s for the curiosity of discovering what folly will come from this reviewer’s mind next. If so, never fear, for you’re in good company! After all, how better to start formally reviewing films than with one that splits its audience straight through the Prime Meridian? One that’s not so horribly bad to be drooling with deliciously dreadful things to say about it, but neither affording the opportunity for tremendous and emotional gushing.
[Read more…] about Review – G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
“You’ve got some ideas. You’ve got some characters. Even a plot twist or two. But give me a good story. I double dare you.”
The hard news? Writing’s, well, hard. If a piece looks beautifully written with ease, I guarantee it made the author wish he was doing something else. Anything else. Fishing with his toes in the Arctic sea else.
The better news? There’s a way to make writing not so hard. Like fishing with a net in the Arctic sea. During a heat wave.
So how do you make writing mildly less painful than very hard? ‘Bout time you asked!
Check out Part One of “How Do You Find Time To Write?” here!
First things first. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good hobby.
God desires for us to explore and discover His world, and it brings Him pleasure when we actively use our hands and mind to pursue new endeavors. After all, a good and intentional hobby can flourish into useful skills for furthering The Kingdom. [Read more…] about How Do You Find Time To Write? 5 More Ways to Increase Your Writing Productivity
