I really like watching Brat Pack movies. Movies like: The Outsiders, Class, Sixteen Candles, Oxford Blues, The Breakfast Club, St Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, Blue City, About Last Night, Wisdom, Fresh Horses, and Betsy’s Wedding. There are many other movies with similar coming-of-age themes that starred only one core Brat Pack actor with one or more close contributors.
It will be timed writing practices from here on out because I will not be known for writing a memoir. Timed Writing Practice is the answer. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is a great source for breaking out as a writer.
There are two kinds of writers, those that met Norman Mailer and those that never met Norman Mailer. I met Norman Mailer in 1991 at Elliot Bay Book Store in Seattle, Washington. He signed his book, Harlot’s Ghost, for me.
A thought has occurred to me. If goals are important then figuring out what you are aiming at might be a good early step. If one was to aim to win a short story contest then the writing would be of a certain effort and caliber. If one is wanting a much bigger prize, like the Nobel or Pulitzer prize, then a different level of skill and commitment would be in order. I have always recoiled against Genre writing maybe because I only want a big prize for my efforts. Not only learning to write well, but studying the masters of Literature as a life’s goal seems to be in order.
I was born in a college town, Lafayette, Indiana where Purdue University is; I was raised living next to one of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan, in both Glenview and Waukegan, Illinois; I lived in Europe in West Germany before the Berlin Wall came down; I now live on an island surrounded by salt water, Camano Island in Washington State. Starts and stops are easier to remember than the mundane existence of daily life.
Before you can conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful. If the ad nauseam of manic-depressive illness could be acutely and accurately summed up into words, these would be it; I was used to my mind being my best friend; of carrying on endless conversations within my head; of having a built-in source […]
via An Unquiet Mind: a memoir of moods and madness by Kay Redfield — KENDI KARIMI
I have owned about 45 flight simulators. Flight Sims seem to be my favorite program to run on a computer. I have watched aircraft flying around for most of my life. I even read several books by Gordon Baxter about flying. I have looked into flight lessons many times, but one time I actually went flying. There used to be an ad on the back cover of flying magazines for learning to fly with Cessna so I called them and was told they no longer had this service, but recommended a private airfield that did, the Colonel James Jabara airport in Wichita, Kansas. I called, made an appointment, and showed up after work two days later. I was as nervous as a cat. A very young guy was to be my flight instructor and we walked out to a seven-colored Cessna 150. He started doing the walk around inspection and so did I. He asked me what I did in the United States Air Force and I told him Crew Chief of F-16’s, he told me to finish the walk around. He taxied the aircraft, took off and almost immediately gave me control of the yoke. I flew around, without any help, for almost an hour before he took control of the plane and landed it. He then explained that he had never allowed that much flight time during a first flight and said that I was a natural. I went back to flying flight sims with the knowledge that I had the goods to be a pilot.
The best advice I have ever heard is to try and write everyday, and to be reading two books at the same time…one a craft book and the other a book you would like to have written. Start by writing Short Stories.
Covers the broad sweep of European history and provides a foundation in historical theory, trends, and concepts for further study of topical history at the graduate level. Topics include Greek civilization through the 4th century B.C., the fall of the Roman empire, the development of the Ottoman culture, and the Crusades.
Upon successful completion of this concentration, the student will be able to:
HIST 501 Historiography
HIST 500 Historical Research Methods
HIST 531 The Greek Civilization
HIST 532 The Roman Republic and Empire
HIST 533 Late Antiquity and Byzantium
HIST 534 Medieval Europe
HIST 535 Renaissance and Reformation
HIST 597 Graduate Seminar in European History
HIST 611 Ancient Warfare
HIST 643 The Ottoman Empire
HIST 691 Writing a Thesis Proposal
HIST 699 Master of Arts in History – Thesis
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