Good evening, folks.
I had every intention on tonight’s blog post being something different, but then I got to reading something amazing and, well, it’s not been easy to tear myself away for anything today—including eating. So, I’m doing a revisit instead. To a post I wrote exactly one year ago.
Let’s get started, shall we?
I’m still a fan of that quote! And I remember being so pleased with myself when I made that title image. Though, now I see a few things I would have done differently.
I do love Halloween, and I am still not a social butterfly. I did go to my husband’s company Halloween party last year, though! …and I hid out in the theater room. He works for a tech company, so there was no shortage of fancy anything.
I have not watched a single Halloween movie this year thus far. In fact, my television hasn’t been powered up in four days.
As for spending money to scare ourselves…yeah, I think I get it now. Our every day fears suck and, counter intuitive though it may seem, getting scared by things like horror movies and haunted houses is in a way a relief from the scary stuff we try to avoid daily. (Looking at you, electric bill!)
Honestly, I find the G+ nail a little humorous now.
But it doesn’t change the fact I think there is still merit to this theory that social media is hindering people from enjoying literature. It hasn’t gone anywhere in the year since this post…save for Google+…and it isn’t likely to ever go away.
And the way stories are being told is already changing.
Now 50k words is pretty standard for most novels…as someone who just wrote a novel scratching at twice that length, it gives me reason to pause. I wonder if I could’ve told the same story in half the words just to reach an audience who finds shorter books more appealing.
[Spoiler: I couldn’t have. If anything, I think AR could’ve been longer.]
Beyond the shorter novel, what about those new apps that are basically a pick-your-path story? You’ve seen them. Hell, I even “played” an entire trilogy just to see what it was all about, and it…well…it wasn’t as bad as I would’ve thought. But, then I tried another and it was terrible.
Storytelling is changing, and that app thingadoo is very telling imho.
Oi! These statistics still kill me.
It isn’t hard to see in my little corner of the universe. People always seems surprised to discover someone they know “is a reader.”
I wish it were the opposite. “Oh you don’t like to read? That’s strange but cool, I guess.”
I refuse to believe that 70% of US adults hadn’t been to a bookstore IN FIVE YEARS.
To the doctor, sure. BUT TO A BOOK STORE?
That’s just…how can someone not want to smell freshly printed pages, gaze at the lovely spines, and grab a grande hot pick-your-poison?
As for whether literature could ever truly die? I still cling to hope it can’t. People love stories, and I don’t think true storytellers will ever tire of telling them.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have to get back to my reading. As soon as I’m finished reading the amazing, oh-em-gee, you’d better put this series on your TBR list, ARC for Jewel E. Leonard‘s Prophecy, I’ll be diving right into Vania Rheault‘s newest book, All of Nothing.
Until next time, happy writing…and for crying out loud: HAPPY READING! (Hey, it still works for a sign off. ♥ )
Aila Stephens 