As an aspiring journalist the world of words tend to fascinate me. I spend countless hours reading various forms of words in print. Outside of the Bible, which I read daily in the mornings and evenings, I read books of all genres from various authors. I also read newspapers from various city's around the country from the campus library. Lacking the discipline in good sleeping habits, another from of media I have picked up on is the mobile news I am able to read on my cell phone before I drift off after my day.
I have never really gotten into the political arena of news due to all the slander and name calling that accompanies it. I also tend to stay away from the violent stories as they seem to knock me back into the shadows of an abusive family life prior to escaping that old life and stepping into a more solid and stable environment. I also tend to stay out of the fiction world when I am reading books, finding that books based on fact are more appealing to me.
Just so we clear up my interpretation of fact verses fiction, fiction to me is 100% make believe. I find fiction to be someones imagination diving into a world yet unexplored and provides entertainment value only. I believe there are many great books written based on fiction that help people escape real life for a moment. I would venture to say that people who live closer to the amercian dream life style enjoy a good fiction story over factual stories. They are solid and comfortable in the lives they live, have great imaginations and enjoy reading stories that can keep their imaginations alive and satisfy the need the wild ride fiction provides them.
I am more of a factual kind of guy. I tend to get into, and understand more, a story based on facts. A story that closely resembles the past I walked through. A past that, although is real, takes more imagination to understand then a fiction story provides. I know these stories, I lived these stories, and I can attest to the facts they provide their readers. As I continue to write stories and publish books I hope I can also continue to help the readers feel the emotions they are not only written in, but the emotions in which they are told.
I am in my third year of college majoring in journalism with a life goal of becoming a writer that can keep actual books in the hands of readers world wide. Clear back in my youth before I could even read a book, my fondest memories in a house of mental, physical and sexual abuse were the times spent sitting on my mom's lap being read stories from children's books. The walks to the Morningside Sioux City Public Library branch in Iowa to pick out books that would be read to me by my mom were also part of those fondest memories. The physical touch of books in my world today provide me with comfort of those lost days gone by. When I pick up a book and open it I feel an immediate connection to the bond they made between my mom and me. The loving memories they made between a boy and his mom, when everything else in their world seems to be lost in a world I wish were fiction but was as factual as the shadows they left in my soul.
I am not saying I have never read a story written as fiction, I have, and I have enjoyed them. They just have never satisfied my hunger to seek out and write stories that show the compassion stories based on fact do. In all honestly, I am working on seeking out the factual stories of tragic proportions that will better assist me in expressing the factual stories of life that I so want the world to reach out to and read. I consider true tragic stories to be those things in life that happen for no good of the earth at all. The stories about gangs and shootings and crime that portray senseless acts of violence to me. I do not want to follow, or write those stories as there are enough of them in the news media. I feel I need to read them in an effort to keep me true to the stories I do want to write.
I want to spread the stories of human nature and the struggles we face. The stories that are great in number but small in being published. The stories of people lives that are sad, yet encouraging to others. The stories that touch our hearts at a higher level of compassion and our minds at a higher level of intelligence. The stories that assists us in our self soul-searching efforts to find out who we are and who we need to become. The stories that allow us to pray for others whether we have met them or not. The stories that show us how fortunate we are when it comes to our own struggles in life. The stories that build upon the faith as we continue our journey to eternal life where our souls will live forever.
Last night I was a bit wound up from my hockey game and sleep was no where in sight. All the other misfits were long asleep before I could even settle back in my bed to begin my nightly ritual of trying to sleep. I picked up my cell phone and pulled up the Yahoo news feed that I have been reading. I do not particularly enjoy this news feed but force myself to read it to better learn about what I DO NOT care to write about. One story caught my attention though, and it was about a helicopter crash in Atlanta that killed to police officers. It was a rather brief, short on facts, story but this Yahoo News feed I follow allows for reader comments which when I read them makes me want to jump through the screen on my cell phone and verbally assault some of the heartless people who write comments. For every one compassionate comment praying for the dead officers and their families, there were three that felt the need to comment about "dead pigs show pigs cannot fly" or "two less crooks in the world" or "they have no business snooping into our back yards". These officers of the law were up in the air searching for a 9 year old boy who had gone missing.
I found this very disturbing, that there is still so much hate in the world that anyone would be happy that two lives have been lost because they were trying to save the life of a child. What this story did for me was confirm my dedication to bringing stories of hope and faith to the world. While the story of Gracie was the hardest story I will ever perhaps write and bring to light to those with human compassion, I would much rather cover stories of her nature where as fellow human beings we can relate and pray for others then the tragic stories of hate and self destruction in today's world.
I have never really gotten into the political arena of news due to all the slander and name calling that accompanies it. I also tend to stay away from the violent stories as they seem to knock me back into the shadows of an abusive family life prior to escaping that old life and stepping into a more solid and stable environment. I also tend to stay out of the fiction world when I am reading books, finding that books based on fact are more appealing to me.
Just so we clear up my interpretation of fact verses fiction, fiction to me is 100% make believe. I find fiction to be someones imagination diving into a world yet unexplored and provides entertainment value only. I believe there are many great books written based on fiction that help people escape real life for a moment. I would venture to say that people who live closer to the amercian dream life style enjoy a good fiction story over factual stories. They are solid and comfortable in the lives they live, have great imaginations and enjoy reading stories that can keep their imaginations alive and satisfy the need the wild ride fiction provides them.
I am more of a factual kind of guy. I tend to get into, and understand more, a story based on facts. A story that closely resembles the past I walked through. A past that, although is real, takes more imagination to understand then a fiction story provides. I know these stories, I lived these stories, and I can attest to the facts they provide their readers. As I continue to write stories and publish books I hope I can also continue to help the readers feel the emotions they are not only written in, but the emotions in which they are told.
I am in my third year of college majoring in journalism with a life goal of becoming a writer that can keep actual books in the hands of readers world wide. Clear back in my youth before I could even read a book, my fondest memories in a house of mental, physical and sexual abuse were the times spent sitting on my mom's lap being read stories from children's books. The walks to the Morningside Sioux City Public Library branch in Iowa to pick out books that would be read to me by my mom were also part of those fondest memories. The physical touch of books in my world today provide me with comfort of those lost days gone by. When I pick up a book and open it I feel an immediate connection to the bond they made between my mom and me. The loving memories they made between a boy and his mom, when everything else in their world seems to be lost in a world I wish were fiction but was as factual as the shadows they left in my soul.
I am not saying I have never read a story written as fiction, I have, and I have enjoyed them. They just have never satisfied my hunger to seek out and write stories that show the compassion stories based on fact do. In all honestly, I am working on seeking out the factual stories of tragic proportions that will better assist me in expressing the factual stories of life that I so want the world to reach out to and read. I consider true tragic stories to be those things in life that happen for no good of the earth at all. The stories about gangs and shootings and crime that portray senseless acts of violence to me. I do not want to follow, or write those stories as there are enough of them in the news media. I feel I need to read them in an effort to keep me true to the stories I do want to write.
I want to spread the stories of human nature and the struggles we face. The stories that are great in number but small in being published. The stories of people lives that are sad, yet encouraging to others. The stories that touch our hearts at a higher level of compassion and our minds at a higher level of intelligence. The stories that assists us in our self soul-searching efforts to find out who we are and who we need to become. The stories that allow us to pray for others whether we have met them or not. The stories that show us how fortunate we are when it comes to our own struggles in life. The stories that build upon the faith as we continue our journey to eternal life where our souls will live forever.
Last night I was a bit wound up from my hockey game and sleep was no where in sight. All the other misfits were long asleep before I could even settle back in my bed to begin my nightly ritual of trying to sleep. I picked up my cell phone and pulled up the Yahoo news feed that I have been reading. I do not particularly enjoy this news feed but force myself to read it to better learn about what I DO NOT care to write about. One story caught my attention though, and it was about a helicopter crash in Atlanta that killed to police officers. It was a rather brief, short on facts, story but this Yahoo News feed I follow allows for reader comments which when I read them makes me want to jump through the screen on my cell phone and verbally assault some of the heartless people who write comments. For every one compassionate comment praying for the dead officers and their families, there were three that felt the need to comment about "dead pigs show pigs cannot fly" or "two less crooks in the world" or "they have no business snooping into our back yards". These officers of the law were up in the air searching for a 9 year old boy who had gone missing.
I found this very disturbing, that there is still so much hate in the world that anyone would be happy that two lives have been lost because they were trying to save the life of a child. What this story did for me was confirm my dedication to bringing stories of hope and faith to the world. While the story of Gracie was the hardest story I will ever perhaps write and bring to light to those with human compassion, I would much rather cover stories of her nature where as fellow human beings we can relate and pray for others then the tragic stories of hate and self destruction in today's world.
