thewritingtodo

 Thanksgiving break was much too short.  -TWTD

 Hi, I'm still here.  I haven't forgotten about you, blog, but I rarely have a spare moment to write for pleasure. I think you'll understand that I can't keep up with everything. I'm doing well. I wish I was reading more, but I'm assigned pages upon pages every week; it's not surprising that I've lost some of the motivation I enjoyed over the summer. I really am doing well—I love my friends, and I'm finally starting to understand how to cook. I feel myself growing up.  I think I want to study English. Living with two future engineers and a to-be doctor frames that decision as unwise, and it very well might be, but I figure I only have one chance to pursue something I love. Maybe I'll be a journalist or a teacher, or I'll write fiction and strike gold. Who knows?  So, I'm still here, and I'm happy. The road ahead is shrouded in fog, but perhaps it's okay to be walking blind. I'll continue writing on here every so often. I imagi

Chess is the only game, perhaps the only thing, that has held my interest throughout my entire life. But what's so attractive about it? What's the secret ingredient that has captivated thinkers for centuries? And why can't I escape it? Family game night has always frustrated me. We play the classics: your Scrabbles, your Monopolies. But I've never been a great fan of games that hinge on luck. I just can't see the enjoyment in having an outcome dictated by a roll of the dice. That's not fair, I protest, if I had (pulled, rolled, picked up) those (tiles, numbers, cards), I'd be winning! Of course, family game night isn't really about winning, and this might suggest an unhealthy fascination with victory; let's leave that can of worms unopened for now.  My point is that if the purpose of games is a test of skill, those based on luck fail miserably. If the point of games is to derive simple pleasure from an evening playing a game of chance with those you

I live in fear of the horizontal asymptote.  I'd like to end this post here and now, leaving my readers with the image of a man who spends his days checking over his shoulder for a dotted line, but I suppose I must explain.  No, I'm not afraid of calculus. Well, I am , but only superficially. What I want to talk about is much more serious than calculus (that is, if such a thing is possible; my AP calc teacher certainly wouldn't admit as much). I'm terrified of what the asymptote represents when considered in the context of my ambitions.  For the uninitiated, an asymptote is a line that is constantly approached but never crossed by a curve. Here's a picture for reference:  Now imagine that my goal is to be ever-improving, which it is. What if there was a point I could never cross? Oh God, what if I've reached the point already and don't even know it? This is the horizontal asymptote, my great fear. Of course, this concept could also be depicted as a plateau,

I was really excited about this summer. I was going to embark on my first backpacking trip—walk into the wilderness in Utah or Colorado and emerge unscathed, a week older and years wiser. I'd work an editorial internship and make money writing. I would compete, grow, have fun. Live, live, live.    I was, of course, concerned for the well-being of the nation when the first cases of coronavirus appeared in the United States at the beginning of 2020. But I didn't think the virus would impact my life. Thanks to government ineptitude and public apathy we found ourselves contending with a public health crisis in a matter of months. We left school, shut down the economy, and learned how to make sourdough.  Now, this virus has wreaked profound havoc on the country, but disproportionately on those from racial or ethnic minority groups. I do not intend to undermine anyone's trauma or pretend that I've gone through anything similar because I really have b

Although I've been able to catch up on a lot of long-overdue reading (is that a library joke? in the first sentence?) recently, I encountered only two truly incredible works of fiction during this quarantine period. The books were  Stoner  by John Williams and  The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's rare that I'm completely blown away by literature, but these works got the job done. I plan to use this post to discuss each book and compare them a bit. If all goes well, we should reach the end with a better understanding of what these texts can tell us about the human condition. If not, well, at least we had a good time.  It seems unlikely that I'll be able to achieve any sort of analysis of either book without a few spoilers, but I'll do my best to include as few as possible. Consider that a general spoiler warning.  First, we enter the late 19th century with Stoner, opening in rural Missouri.   The book relates the life of William Stoner, who is just a t