One more set of Library books

Motorola Backflip

Blackberry Bold

Last week I made an impromptu trip to the library because I was bored and I wanted to see if the book I had been looking for on my first trip was there(and if you observe the colorful blue book it was), also to see if there was anything else I could get from my local library. To compare it's selection to my old favorite haunt in Voorhees, Nj when I was in school doing the majority of my book reports, research, et al would be unfair because the Raleigh branch(while it has a better picture than the Voorhees Library) is possibly a third of the size.  I know it's hard to tell from that horrid forrest of a picture, I mean they are barely showing you the front door or the top of the atrium. As a favor to me IF you just so happen to live in New Jersey, in Camden county, AND happen to own a camera or digital phone could you please give the library next to the FORMER Echelon mall a better photo. The old girl may be camera shy after all these years but she looks way better than that overcropped, myopic nightmare that seemed to focus more on the flora around her than on the well worn beauty of that concrete dam of knowledge.



To the books though, as I had watched the movie I decided to go ahead and check out WATCHMEN by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons  I expected as with most graphic novels or other books that got adapted into movies that there was probably a lot left out. And with as much respect as I had for the directors vision of the movie and how close I have heard everyone who read the Graphic Novel claim it was to the source material I had to check out what was missed. I must say I liked the GN, and while there may have been a few nuance things, as well as some "costume adjustments" for the movie MOST of what was left out was textual not visual. This is not the Watchmen review though I'm just listing the books here.

Next on the list was the coveted The 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes(And how to Avoid them) by Judy Delton, I say coveted because the first time I entered my local library this book caught my eye and while I did not have a card yet I found it a good bit of reading and decided that when I had time to get a card I would definitely want to pick it up. Unfortunately on the day I had time someone else had beat me to it. What can I say if I am going to be serious about doing something I am serious about doing it, I try to look up everything I can and get other perspectives besides my own. This book is lighter than the Elements of Style(which of course it highly recommends) not in overall weight but in tone, not that that's a bad thing. One is about retraining your mind to be less frivolous in how you toss words at your reader, the other is about becoming a more imaginative writer. I think I'm at mistake 13 or at least on it's page, yes prior to first picking this up I made a lot of those mistakes and still do make some of them but I do try now to weed them out(the not editing while I write thing is a little harder to do since this is of course a blog and not a book so *ahem* its a SLIGHTLY faster medium for publication). The main mistake I can not avoid, my highway debris in rush hour traffic, are my extended hiatuses from writing. Some days I still can't figure out a way to put my thoughts to keyboard or qwerty keypad, and I have a notepad with which to jot down ideas, hell it's in my laptop case(which I keep with me like air) and yet I don't think I have written in it since I returned the book on sketching.

Last but not least is The MLA's Line by Line How to Edit Your Own Writing by Claire Kehrwald Cook, now some may rightly say doesn't that contradict with one of your writing mistakes, most likely. I haven't cracked the book open yet so I can't definitely say yes, what I can say is for those times when I decide not to write a daily post but perhaps a longer story(say like the sequel to my first ever erotic submission that I posted on WP) I can possibly be less harsh and bring both books wisdom to bear. MLA stands for Modern Language Association of America, I know this is probably akin to homework which I am famous for loathing I have no problem with peas but now brussel sprouts are a bitter repast better saved for dogs, not that my canine companions EVER saved me from either headache. Oh no, those saliva waterfalls always wanted to save me from hamburgers, pizza, cookies and hot dogs it appears that like myself they want the good stuff and agree that veggies are overrated. Not all veggies just the ones that mom's make because some maniacal nutritionist swears they are good for you(yet I don't see them actually eating them *shakes fist), as I said though I'd like to become a better writer so two books this time and two from last time(not including the sketch book that ones takes more prep to make good use of, tools I plan to acquire in the future) hopefully have set me upon that path. The book on blogging seems to agree that constant content creation is preferable to showing up once a month and expecting people to read.

I may talk about each book more in depth in the future, especially as I finish reading them, now of course I am sure you are wondering why I have the same picture up there at the top twice. That is because I wanted to contrast and compare the photo quality from each of my phones, one is clearer than the other though, taken from similar distances and approximately the same settings I don't if it's lens smudge or just the version of the phones camera in question. The BlackBerry though seems to have caught some of the smaller words with more clarity not just focusing on the Large fonts, both pictures are pretty but at the moment a clear difference can be seen. I want to chastise myself at the moment for being at about 7 days per book, now yes part of it is because I'm no longer a child and after a hard days work I am not always in the mood to start reading, hell or even start writing. I may surf the web a little, I may watch some anime on a streaming site, I have long since admitted to being a digital addict so multi tasking some of these things is possible I just have yet to find a way to throw book reading in it to. One of these days I hope to get myself up to say like like 1 book every 3 days, the Memphis Library system allows you to check out books for 21 days that would be seven books. Now yes if I wanted to pretend that I was back in school I could attempt to read multiple books at one time, but cramming doesn't always work the way you want it to and things can become jumbled for later.

Anyway those are my library selections go round, I already finished Watchmen, pretty much halfway through 29 writing mistakes, and Line by Line is looking at me all condescending like it knows I'm a slacker but I will not hide from it. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their holiday weekend, that is if you are in such an area where the first Monday in September is a holiday.