Kevin D. Hendricks's Blog, page 47

Star Wars: Watching the Prequels

In the last two weeks Lexi has watched all three of the Star Wars prequels.

The good news? She didn’t like Episode III (who does?).

The bad news? She liked Jar Jar Binks.

You win, some you lose some. I guess. Lexi became a Star Wars fan last year when she watched the original trilogy with me. It seems the defining question of our generation is in what order will you let your kids watch Star Wars? Though it’s more a question of fandom. I’ve never met a Star Wars fan who wanted their kids to watch...

Genre Shame is a Waste of Time

I made a comment in 137 Books in One Year that genre shame is a waste of time. It’s something I learned through my reading, but I found the sentiment most eloquently expressed by Veronica Roth in her post Shame: The Ultimate Time Vampire. Roth is the author of the young adult dystopian thriller Divergent, which she wrote while studying creative writing at Northwestern University.

Writing that kind of a genre-specific book in that kind of a literary-focused environment, you learn a thing or two...

Ownership vs. Subscription Economy

I’ve realized lately the entertainment industry is undergoing a pretty radical shift.

Duh.

OK, so this isn’t ground-breaking territory. But I’m seeing the implications in my daily life much more than I have before.

So there are a few ways to get entertainment content, which vary slightly depending on medium:

Experience – You go somewhere and you experience your entertainment. This happens primarily with music and movies. You go somewhere and either watch a movie or see a concert. You’re paying fo...

Some of My Favorite Books

While writing my recent book, 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading, I tried to reflect on some of my favorite books of all time, and especially what makes them my favorite books.

These kinds of lists are always hard and weirdly defined and vary greatly from one person to the next. So you’ll have to bear with me. I stuck to fiction and a sense of longevity, which I’ll try to explain next.

It seems that some of my favorites are books I keep coming back to. Either I remember the...

Kid President: Broken But Still Dancing

I’ve been enamored lately with Kid President. Surely you’ve seen or heard about his “Pep Talk” video that’s garnered 12 million views and counting. His whole schtick is encouraging people to be more awesome. And dance.

“It’s like that dude Journey says, ‘Don’t stop believing.’ Unless your dream is stupid. Then you should get a better dream.”

You might as well stop and watch the video now. It’s that awesome:

But the real story behind Kid President is even more awesome. Kid President is 9-year-old...

Stories Can Heal

One of my favorite memories from my grandpa’s funeral is sitting around his kitchen with my cousins telling stories and jokes. That little kitchen filled up with people and laughter again, which my grandpa would have enjoyed. My grandpa was old and it was his time to go, but that act of storytelling helped to heal the wound of losing him.

I finished reading Tell Me a Story by Scott McClellan this week. It’s good stuff (you can read my review for more). Something Scott talks about in the book t...

Connecting a Country: Don’t Slam the Post Office

The United States Postal Service has been an easy target of late. Last year they announced a $15.9 billion loss. This year they announced the coming end of Saturday service. The jokes never seem to end as people bemoan every bad experience they’ve ever had. Everyone thinks they can run it better. Everyone thinks it needs to privatize. Or get with the times. We send email for goodness sake.

It’s kind of annoying. I like the post office. Which is why this Esquire article is worth reading.

Nobody...

Talking About Books: Annotated Bookshelf

In case you can’t tell, I like talking about books. That’s what happens when you write an entire book about how to read more books.

I’ve been writing about some of my favorite books lately, but sometimes it’s more fun to stand in front of your bookshelf and do it. So here’s a shot of one of the bookshelves in our house. Click over to Flicker and mouse over the image to see a whole bunch of ridiculously annotated notes about the books (and other things). It’s kind of fun (and, yes, kind of weir...

Using Scrivener to Write & Publish Books

When I wrote 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading I tried a new writing software. I used to stick with Microsoft Word for everything. But I’ve been increasingly annoyed with it lately and I’ve experimented with some other options. I eventually landed on Scrivener and I’m not going back.

Scrivener is designed for writing book-length projects, whether it’s a novel, script, nonfiction or something else. It allows you to rearrange chunks of text as you go. You can switch to a co...

Lessons from a Reader: Make ‘em Expendable

I love gripping stories. I love reading a book I can’t put down, where I have to know what happens. A good tense story is often better than most movies. That’s something I talk about in 137 Books in One Year—the value of knowing what you love and pursing it as a reader.

So as a writer, one of the things that heightens the tension in a story and makes it so gripping is when you’re willing to make characters expendable.

Yes, killing off characters makes for better stories.

As you can imagine, this...