Reading Challenge 2013: Read A Book A Week

While this is a post about a reading challenge, it is also the start of a challenge to write one blog post–besides Capsule Review and Screen Burn announcement–a week. I got side tracked with all my work for both InveterateMediaJunkies.com and for school. Time to get back on track.

I am not a fast reader. I tend to analyze every element of a story as I read, which makes a book most people can read in hours or days take me at least a week. That coupled with a horrible book addiction and I don’t have a “To Be Read” pile, I have a “To Be Read” mountain. And my bookshelves haven’t seen empty spaces in a while. To combat this, I’m going to try to read a book a week. Below is the preliminary list for 2013.

• Hell House – Richard Matheson*
• The Shining – Stephen King*
• Ghost Story – Peter Straub*
• The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson*
• The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold*
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens*
• Grave’s End – Elaine Mercado*
• The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson*
• Bad Monkeys – Matt Ruff
• Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States – Pete Jordan
• The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
• Damned – Chuck Palahniuk
• Rant – same
• Haunted – same
• Lullaby – same
• Choke – same
• Invisible Monsters – same
• Dairy – same
• Downtown Owl – Chuck Klosterman
• The Resurrectionists – Jack O’Connelly
• Feed – Mira Grant
• John Dies At The End – David Wong
• Sandman Slim – Richard Kadrey
• Grailblazers – Tom Holt
• Strange Flesh – Michael Olson
• Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey
• City of Bone – Cassandra Clarke
• Vox – Nicholson Baker
• American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
• The Garden of Beasts – Eric Larson
• A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
• Shotgun Sorceress – Lucy Snyder
• Switchblade Goddess - same
• Tempest Rising – Nicole Peeler
• Tracking the Tempest - same
• Sacré Bleu – Christopher Moore
• Lamb – same
• Practical Demon-Keeping – same
• Gil’s All Fright Diner – A. Lee Martinez
• Monster - same
• The Nymphos of Rocky Flats – Mario Acevedo
• The Atrocity Archives – Charles Stross
• Secret Talents – Olga Tegora
• The Rum Diaries – Hunter S. Thompson
• Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy – John le Carré
• Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D. H. Lawrence
• The Menstruating Mall – Carlton Mellick III
• Deity – Vic Mudd
• The Psycho Ex Game – Merrill Maroke and Andy Prieboy
• Fat White Vampire Blues – Andrew Fox

Some of this will change since I will have three classes in the fall and I don’t know what I’ll be reading. The ones for my upcoming Reading in Genres class–marked (*)–are the only permanent ones. I had planned to use this year to go through Chuck Palahniuk’s books, so those will be the last to get axed. But A Memory of Light is coming out on the 8th, so I may get the urge to try to re-read the whole Wheel of Time series. I’ve also been thinking about going through all my Ramsey Campbell books too. So, we will see how this list evolves over the years.

So what about you all? Do you have any reading challenges or certain books that you getting ready for in 2013?

Update: This isn’t the only thing I’m doing this year. Check out the other plans I have for 2013 on my Facebook Page.

Book Journey: D&D and The Old World of Darkness Games

College was an interesting time. I had officially dropped out of high school to start early. I could have set it up to get my diploma for my college work, but the hassle my entire education in Londonderry was made be despise the thought they should get credit for teaching me. So even now, I have a Masters degree without a high school diploma. It was also the were I finally made the choice to make my writing my career. Even though I had ideas over the years. I never really wrote unless it was a school assignment. Until college, I was more interested in music. My freshman year, I was thinking of either music or Astrophysics as my major.

Then it came: the invite to 2nd edition AD&D game…

I made easy friends with the people that soon became my class’ rpg group. I had heard of D&D, but never exposed to it. The only RPG I was exposed to before that was the Star Wars D6 game one night when I stayed over at my friend, Kevin’s, house in 7^th or 8^th grade.  Most of the guys also lived in the same hall. It was also their R.A. that was the DM of the game that would suck me in for all time.

The setting that we were in was based on the Ravenloft setting. It was perfect for me since I was getting back into my horror literature at the time. That basically meant I re-read my Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe for the nth time. As a good musician and lover or books, I played a bard. Everyone kind of looked at me weird because of that, but when I outlasted half the group after a couple of week, I proved bard’s can kick ass.  But being a bard, I did eventually die. Bards and undead do not mix.

But it was also very important because it taught me just how much you need to put into a character before using him or her. Bale, my bard, was nothing more than numbers and lists, but for the game–the story–to work, he had to be more. I was lucky to have a good DM that made me come up with a backstory and who later used elements of that back story in the game. It also shaped my opinions on first person POV stories, because this is as first person as you can get, you are the character, so the limits I have in the game, a character should have in the book, as well as the the writer.

Once I and few others died, there was almost a waiting list for the game cause so many wanted to try it out, so we thought we’d let everyone have a chance while my friend Dustin introduced me to White Wolf and what is now call the Old World of Darkness. It was a Vampire: the Masquerade game. I played a Gangrel named Max. That has been the best game I have yet to play. It was intensely character driven and it was a character that I created. Bale was a lot like me, which a lot of people do for there first game. Max was someone had very few similarities to me, but I was able to get into the mind of that character. That was the first time I was able to ever do that.

My sophomore year was the year the year that I started do the DMing. Dustin didn’t comeback that year and there was a lack of RPG leadership. So, with the guys that  I lived with I started a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game. It was a huge frame work that I set up and I wish I still had the outline I made for it cause it was one of the most intricate plots I’ve yet to  make. And while it was a shared universe, it really reminded me how much I loved crafting stories of my own. It was also an important discovery at an important time, as I had to pick what majors I was going to concentrate on if I chose to stay after my A.A.. As, I didn’t make friends with half of both math and physic departments (2 teachers in each at the time), astrophysics was out if I stayed. I could have transferred out, but to be honest, Simon’s Rock felt like home to me. I knew I wouldn’t have the same feeling anywhere else. And thus, I chose Creative Writing along with Music Theory and Composition. And I’m glad I did that, because, while it was a more of a literary creative writing course, it did teach me the basics and my thesis advisor was the one that told me about the Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction program.

Without RPGs, I really don’t know if I would be here right now as a writer.

Book Journey – Scary Stories

I recently reorganized my library. When you have over a thousand books, it is very easy to forget books that you have. As I was going through them I got flashbacks for a select few. They were all books that weren’t just entertainment for me, but affected me and led me down the path to being a writer. So I thought I would highlight those special few books amongst the horde that is still causing back and shoulder pans from our last encounter.

As an aside: That reorganization effort did make me see why some people would enjoy e-books more. But I then thought I, personally, still can’t go all ebook cause I would not have had that moment of recollection and remembrance looking at a cover on my iPad.

To this day, I still wish for Stephen Gammell to illustrate one of my stories.

Title: Scary Stories Treasury
Author: Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell
Genre: Children’s, Horror, Folklore
Publisher: HarperCollins

I can’t remember exactly which grade it was, but I would say somewhere around 2nd or 3rd, that I was introduced to the Scary Stories books by my elementary school librarians. In October, they always had readings for the different classes of all kinds of Halloween stories. One of those years they read selections from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and its sequel. I was hooked on them. Not sure why, but even back then I had a hankerin’ for the macabre.

My parents took me to the only Barnes and Noble at the time; in Nashua, NH; where a scoured the kid’s section for them. I could only find the third and finale book of the series. While I wanted the other books to re-read the stories that were told to me, I thought this could be just as fun reading all new stories.

As soon as I got home I just started reading. While I wanted the books to re read the stories that were told to me, I thought this could be just as fun reading all new stories. I’m not sure if I read it in one go or if it took more nights to finish it. What do remember is that the night I did finish it was the night that I had my first nightmare caused by a story. It’s pretty embarrassing which one freaked me out too. It wasn’t the one about the girl with the spider egg sack in her skin or anything like that. It was a story called “T-H-U-P-P-P-P-P.” For those that know it, please feel free to laugh at me. For those that don’t, the idea is that a little girl is haunted by a ghost for three nights. Each night she calls her parents and turn on the light and see nothing and tell her she is just having bad dreams or seeing things. When they leave the final time, the ghost is sitting next to the girl and she asks it why it’s doing this to her. The ghost responds by sticking its tongue out and giving her a raspberry (the title was supposed to be the spelling of the sound of a raspberry).

Probably the calmest story in the book and for some reason it freaked me out. I remember reading that story last and feeling disturbed by it. Sure enough, I had a nightmare about that story. I can’t remember all of it but it was pretty much the same as the story except that the ghost flew around my room and as it passed by me, making that sound, I remember it had a huge tongue that it used to attack me. Scared the pooh out of me.

Luckily, I was always good at recovering from nightmares. Not matter how real it seemed, I knew they were fake when I woke up. After that one, though, I got a thrill from it. And that was the start of my drive to be terrified.