Sunday, November 23, 2014

John Milton

Name: John Milton
     Birth: December 9, 1608 Place: London
     Death: November 8, 1674 Place: London

Best Known Works: Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”, “On Shakespeare”.

Brief Biography
     As inspiration for his writing, Milton drew largely from his own experiences. After each of the deaths of his second wife, two friends, and his sister’s unborn baby, Milton penned poignant poems of grief. Involved with the politics of his day, Milton wrote many pamphlets by order of the Cromwellian government, for which he worked from 1649 until Oliver Cromwell’s death (Luminarium). He also wrote two treatises on divorce after his first wife left him for several years in the beginning of their marriage. Having had the opportunity to meet Galileo earlier in his life, Milton alluded to the genius from Italy many years later in the composition of Paradise Lost . Living during the Renaissance, Milton was exposed to the increased interest in the Renaissance of classical culture. Accordingly, Milton included references in much of his poetry to mythological figures and stories of both Greek and Roman origin. Milton was also influenced by the Protestant Reformation, and he wrote several religious pamphlets along with his political works. Milton’s legacy lives on as a result of the scope and breadth of his work due to its universal and timeless themes as he experienced them in his own life.

Jokinen, Anniina. "Life of John Milton." Luminarium. 21 June 2006. 30 October 2014. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/miltonbio.htm
Petri Liukkonen. Pegasos. n.p., 2008. Web. 31 October 2014. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jmilton.htm
Ruth Rushworth. “Milton’s language”. darkness visible. Christ’s College. n.p., n.d. 30 October, 2014 http://darknessvisible.christs.cam.ac.uk/language.html



-Using a format from the textbook, this is an author profile I wrote for my British Literature course. It's only the second time I've used citations, so I'm still working on that. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Brainstorming. With a period.

Guess what? Cool Irish Writer (NOT Irish Girl) inspired me to write part of my Emily! I haven't written (like that) in ages, and it feels so good to have 2 hours simply set aside for writing something! And I also realized the hard part was thinking about stuff like logistics, or whatever you want to call it, of particulars in the story/background line. Well no longer! I wrote part of the middle, one of my favorite scenes in the whole thing, like the whole thing, like my absolute favorite scene and it's not good. At all. Not at all what I want. At all. Like it doesn't have enough... Stuff in the middle of key moments, but it's so good to just be able to write, and write what you want without pressure!  I don't do enough anymore, but I think I will, because it was pretty cool. 

Anyway, to post it, I'd have to write some of the middle. 

What I COULD do is make videos. See Emily started as a bedtime story, so it's been pretty hard to a) recall details and b) articulate stuff that was pretty ambiguous, and just kind of understood. But I could write myself a plot and make videos of myself telling the story, in the voice it's comfortable in, but odd to read, semi passive.  ( It's been a pretty hard trying to voice it in an easy to read way.) 

So anyway, I might try that. Or, on the other hand, I might not. 

OR I could make the videos, then get my little helpers and write it all down. That would be good. Actually, really good. So then I could post a raw, originally intended version, along with a cut, edited, readable version.

So, maybe expect some updates on that. If you see me on a regular basis please hold me accountable to this... and offer to help. Haha. I'm pretty shy in asking for feedback, but I sorely need it. 

Okay then, I think that's it. 

Toodles!

-Bookworm

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Yes, I've been a slacker. A big one.

Happy 2014! It's crazy because it still feels like 2013 is new!! I guess not :)

I've been feeling rather sheepish to post anymore, but I've  read a lot of authors' advice, and decided I'm not up to the task of writing a whole book yet. It's one thing to come up with a story and another to sort through it, and I'm a very particular writer, and it's too hard to try to think of anything the way I want to to actually get it done. So the rest of that story is postponed, for now. 

So, if I ever get any writing assignments again, I'll post them, but right now I haven't been getting any. (Hint hint, mom.) Thank you for your patience. Although I don't know, maybe whoever out there hasn't been patient at all. In that case, well too bad. 


Bookworm Roni