My Personal Writing Projects

I have mentioned some in other blog posts, but something else I have been doing on my senior project is in my free time I have been spending a lot of time working on various writing projects and reading. Since it’s a pretty big part of how I spend my time when I am not working and since I think it’s pretty cool, I thought I would make a separate post sharing what I have been doing. The main book I am reading, right now, is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. “The Road” basically follows the journey of a boy and his father in a post apocalyptic U.S. Cormac McCarthy is a really big deal in the writing world and his other really well known books are, “Blood Meridian,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “All the Pretty Horses,” which is coincidentally the book that David Treuer mentioned Toni Morrison reading and that she remarked that “it is the closest thing you can get to a perfect novel.” I am reading “The Road,” due to some trouble I got into in the final week of classes to get some extra credit for English. I have a short essay to write for it and then wrote about 5 other short essays on various poems. One of the poems is actually where I ended up getting my senior quote from! I don’t mind reading it though because it is pretty interesting and I have wanted to read some of McCarthy’s stuff for a while since my brother and David Hardcastle read and really like “Blood Meridian” this past summer. “The Road” is written in a really cool ambiguous style that adds to the overall eerie feel of the book. It’s written very simplistically so I think even a person who doesn’t like to read like Coen or Mr. Mitchell may enjoy this book! Although, it may be a bit too scary for Coen…

Outside of that I have got some other books I want to get through, which include “Pride and Prejudice,” “Madame Bovary,” “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” (the second installment in the “My Heart is a Chainsaw,” trilogy), “The Three Body Problem,” and “Clear Title” which are only a few among a very long TBR (to be read) list. Mrs. Bryan also provided me with some reading and podcast material that I want to look into!

In terms of personal writing, I have been trying to upload 1-3 times a week on my Substack blog. I mostly write about pop culture stuff that interests me. Fictionally, I have been working on my “Freaks & Geeks” reboot, which is just a lot of fun. I started writing this in the last few weeks of regular classes and I have about 30 episodes planned with about 6 fully written. The show pays homage to teen shows and movies I really like, and then also serves to poke fun at the more outlandish teen shows and movies like “She’s All That,” “Riverdale,” and “Euphoria”. It relies on a lot of “Family Guy” esque cut aways and some of the more outlandish and self aware meta comedies I like such as “The Office,” “Girls 5 Eva,” “Not Another Teen Movie,” and “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. The other major personal project I have been doing is copying my journal entries from middle and highschool into a google doc, which I plan to submit to the University of Iowa short story contest. I also am trying to convince my brother to submit his horror anthology series to it, but I have yet to see if he will agree. I am honestly considering submitting his work for him, under his name obviously, I ain’t no thief! This does seem mildly unethical, but it’s also how my mom got a full ride art school scholarship to Fontbonne University because her highschool art teacher submitted her work to a contest without her knowing. I am also considering pursuing another history research paper esque topic to research because I really enjoy doing that. Yes, I know I am a nerd. The topic idea I have is based on a JSTOR article I saw and it would be about the idiotic best friend duo in films and my examples would be Bill and Ted and Evan and Seth from “Superbad,” but I want to get a few more and I am not sure if I want to make it specifically about male characters or include female duos to compare it to.

Sorry, for the long post, this has just been brewing over the past 4 weeks and I didn’t want to break it up! Please do not give me another RJM or sue me!