In case you don’t know me yet, I’m the newest member of The Nearby Future.

So I just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird and was asking myself why it is considered such great American Liturature. I mean, really, what makes a book award winning anyway? This book definitely had some suspenseful scenes (particularly the end)  and is spectacularly written. But why is it that it is such an amazing book? Why has it sold 31 million copies world wide? But then that leads me to wonder that if a book sells well, is it considered great American Liturature?  Look a Harry Potter. The series sold way more than that. And our own Twilight.

Or maybe its because of the perspective it is written in. Scout (the main character) is a 7 year old child. Growing up in a community so different from ours in a time where prejudice clouded people’s judgement. Is it the way she views things? The things she experiences?

Despite what many said I liked this book. Maybe it was the style or theme or just the overall feeling you got after reading this. Sort of simple, but diverse. I caught myself wondering how I thought when I was a child. I can relate to her adventurous side.

What draws me into books? Something mysterious almost, like it takes place in a different world but not fantasy. Drama and struggle for wealth, pride, and characters finding themselves.

Overall do you think this book deserves the praise its gets? If you haven’t read this book, what makes a book good to you? Is there something you look for or like about certain books? Is there a certain style?

 November is here, and you can be sure that your very own Rika is spending many hours typing out her… interesting plot that includes segway chase scenes, herds of elephants, and a box. A square box.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? NaNoWriMo, of course! Read about it here.

Rika has put together a little toolbox for everyone trying to win National Novel Writing Month, aptly named, “The Nearby Future’s NaNoWriMo Toolbox”

Note: I still have to create pages and find the links for all of the stuff with a strikethrough.

• The desktop calendar. What better motivates you than a witty calendar reminding you that 50,000 words won’t write itself? [Click here for a ton]

• Random Generators Source. Don’t name your supporting characters Bill and Sally. Go to the random name generator and computer will name them for you! Click here for a full list of Rika’s favorite generators! (Plot, characters, conflicts, loglines… there is a generator for everything.)

• Creative search engines. Google is for the non-artistic types. Google Loco is such a great search engine, you don’t even have to know what your searching for! The Mood Swings search engine is great for everyone… convicts with severe emotional problems, people who feel like trespassing on government property, or writers.

• Dictionaries. We all know that writers love words, which means they love dictionaries. Rika has about 10 dictionaries, and is constantly looking through the library’s encyclopedias and other reference books. (Even the online ones!) I don’t give a flying fig newton for those, but I guess writers do. Here are a couple of Rika’s favorite online ones.

• The radio. Not just any radio, but www.pandora.com radio. It’s a free, customizable, no-annoying-DJ ranting about his wedding last weekend and it’s in high quality. And it’s Calister F. Wells approved. (Rika likes it because it’s a good source of ‘inspiration’.)

• Other websites. Rika has this strange love of Yahoo! Answers saying that “It’s the only website where I can put people and their problems into my novel without them knowing!” I think that being a writer is being a borderline stalker.

So there you have it, all of you people who are going to be writing for a whole month (or at least saying you are), now you’re one step closer to ‘winning’ NaNoWriMo.

-Calister F. Wells

Every so often, a culture phenomenon comes around and unites several million people for a cause.

In the future, historians will look back on these years and note the rise in popularity in young adult novels; Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter are the two most prominent. With an increasing amount of children and young adults sitting in front of the TV all day, it is quite an accomplishment by these books to get them away from the screens and pull them into a fictional world of adventure.

All those die-hard fans of Twilight, a vampire romance novel like no other, are probably rereading Breaking Dawn, the fourth installment in this bestselling series that just came out today. I don’t blame them, because as I’m writing this I have my copy sitting on my desk.

Twilight Moms, The Twilight Guy- thousands of fan sites are devoted to this book. It’s a little ironic that the book that’s pulling people away from their computers to read it is bringing them back to read Stephenie Meyer’s website, or another site to get their daily Twilight fix.

My point? Media and literature are playing an increasingly larger role in society. Books are creating ‘fandoms’ that brings different countries and people together over breathtaking stories and relatable characters.

Are these fandoms a good thing? Can an obsession go to far? Yes, and yes. But for now, there’s no harm done in being ‘sucked’ into a vampire love story.

(bad pun intended)

-Rika

Electronic books are a great thing- don’t listen to Rika. Ebook readers are so much more convenient then regular books. Paper can be destroyed easily- I mean, hey! Light a match around a book and there goes your book! (Not that the Sony Reader is fire proof or anything) But over time paper gets torn, mangled, yellowed, you name it! And it’s depleting our tree supply. Electronic books? BAM! No paper. Download a book like you download a song and there you go! Words appear on the screen.

See? Electronic books= more convenient world

-Calister

The worst is here. The books that we know and love that are made out of good ol’ paper may already have some competition from books on screens. Have you heard about Sony’s new device called the “Sony Reader”? If you haven’t, there is good reason. Like the iphone, it is, too, an attempt to innovate the world as we know it.

Unlike the iphone, this ebook reader has no solid chain of products like the ipods. People simply don’t trust Sony’s new attempt at shoving paper books off of the shelves. Do you have opinions? Good! You should. Post them in the comment box.

~Rika