Luke Alistar's Blog, page 5

A quick update and a coupon code

I’m running a random sale on my illustrated children’s novel Velvet’s Wings, in anticipation of a much bigger promotional event later in December. Follow THIS LINK to buy Velvet’s Wings directly from CreateSpace and use the code DTFZB4S2 atcheckout to get $3.00 off. This would be a great gift for a middle-grade/pre-teen relative who loves [...]

In which Matt is crammed into a very small concert hall seat…

Three days have passed since I turned twenty-one. I have not had alcohol yet. A couple years ago, at a piano store in Portland, Oregon, I attended a free concert by Margaret Fingerhut, a somewhat famous pianist from London. Just before it began, I jokingly said to my mother that I would really like to [...]

Book Promotion and Giveaway

One of my self-published friends is promoting her new book with a blog scavenger hunt and a giveaway. She is a good friend of mine, adopted as a big sister after we met on my cousin’s writing forum. We met in person at the 2012 OYAN Summer Workshop, where I interviewed her. (See the interview [...]

The 100-MPH Cramp

I started writing this about 50 minutes ago, in a 45-minute word war with a friend. Took me about 46 minutes to complete (it was almost done when the word war timer ran out.) ————————————— My wife and I, a few months into our marriage, were in a financial position to get a second car. [...]

A new short story that needs a title – ideas?

This is about the first 20% of my new short story that will actually be pretty long, so more like a long story. I’m not posting the whole thing on my blog since I’ll be trying to sell it, so this is all you get. I am looking for a great title. Any suggestions could [...]

Geeks^2 + ♥

It started out slow, Like the infinite curve of an exponential function. Jack came to me and said don’t you know? That girl’s heart is divided like a fraction. She wants to love you but she’s not sure If you’re interested at all in her. I told him to tell me stuff later, I was [...]

Nom de plume

Let’s assume for a moment that you are a new author about to be published (as incredible as that might sound, I’m sure you can pretend it’s true.) There is so much to do—tell your family and friends, eat cheesecake, read and sign the contract, celebrate, and decide what name to publish under. For some [...]

Romance of the Mind: The Psychology of Entertainment, Creativity, and Boredom

I started writing when I was fifteen, but the history of my creativity goes back much farther than that. Growing up in the country, the oldest of (eventually) nine homeschooled children, I never had access to much modern entertainment. We watched maybe a movie or two every week, we had no television, and the only [...]

Emo Matt Visits the Art Museum

It is Saturday. I dress like the reclusive emo kid I am, with black jeans, a black silver-studded belt, black converse, a Batman shirt, a loose black button-up linen shirt, and a black bandana. Hair over my left eye, I snap an angled picture in the mirror that hangs on the back of my white [...]

Learning From Failure: Why Students of Modern Public Education Aren’t Ready for Real Life

Modern public education makes it difficult for students to learn from their failure. Through the standardized test, the classroom setting with dozens of students to a teacher, objective fact-based teaching, and the merit-based reward system, public education separates success from the heart of learning. Those students who really are interested in learning, if they don’t [...]