L.G. Estrella's Blog, page 63

Don’t Be Afraid To Use A Thesaurus Or A Dictionary

When I was young, I was told by certain people that relying on a dictionary or a thesaurus was a sign of weakness. Particular contempt was heaped upon the thesaurus. It was, I was told, a crutch, something that an intelligent person should not have to consult.

Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that such views are, to put it bluntly, mostly crap.

In my opinion, the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read widely and often. It doesn’t matter if it’s fantasy novels or economics mag...

Dialogue Versus Actual Speech

Dialogue is one of the most important parts of writing good fiction. Good dialogue not only fleshes out the characters but also the world they live in. Consider something like a period romance novel. Exactly how people speak creates a lot of the atmosphere and allows the reader to identify what period the story is set in.

But dialogue is not always the same as actual speech. The next time you talk to someone, listen very closely to what they say. Apart from the words that actually convey what...

A Comment On How I Review Things

When I review a piece of media (e.g., a book or a film), I tend to approach it from two different angles:

From an audience-oriented view
From an author-oriented view

The audience-oriented part of the review should focus on whether or not the media under review provides the audience with a worthwhile experience. Depending on what the audience is looking for, this might mean that the media makes them laugh, think, or even cry.

When looking at media from the point of view of the audience, I think it...

Despair… Thy Names Is Spurs

…

I seriously don’t know what to make of the team at the moment. This game against the Clippers was a big one. We could have moved from the 7th seed all the way up to the 5th seed. Instead, we had the lead and, as usual, blew it in the third quarter. At one point the Spurs were up nine. Seriously…

What was troubling to me was Leonard’s play. The problem has always been that of the four best players on the team (Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, and Leonard), we need at least three playing pretty well....

The Sound…

I was up late one night thanks to another bout of insomnia when I heard the most peculiar sound at my window. It was the sound of something scraping back and forth across the window, and it happened every now and then. At first, I ignored it, but it continued to happen just often enough to make it impossible to ignore.

I got up to check what was making the sound. There is a tree in front of my window, but none of the leaves or branches were touching the window. I thought it might be the wind s...

Video Games As A Form Of Self-Expression

Imagine that you’re playing a fighting game for the very first time. You’re not very familiar with it at all although you have seen a few people play it before. How do you choose which character to play? I suspect that most people would simply choose whichever character seemed the most interesting.

But what makes one character more interesting than the others? The answer is likely to vary from person to person. Some people might pick a character based solely on appearance while others might gr...

Original Fiction Status Update

I’ve received some questions about where I am with regards to myoriginal fiction, so I thought I’d give you guys a quick rundown of what’s been going on lately.

Toward the end of last year, I updatedThe Last Huntress Series, a fantasy series about two women who wander the land dealing with monsters of various kinds. The most recent story in that series is nowThe Lonely Wood(the fourth part of the series). However, I also released a compilation of the first four stories in the series,The Last H...

The Meaning Of A Book

I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do and that’s something I’ll talk about a bit later, but I want to take some time here to relate an interesting anecdote. I grew up around books. In fact, as a child. I can’t actually remember a time when I couldn’t read or didn’t have a book close at hand.

Recently, I was speaking with my father about how his life was growing up. My father did not grow up especially well off, and his parents were not well educated. But he was a smart guy, and he lik...

Lettuce Is Evil

As I mentioned in myprevious post, I am not good at identifying fruits and vegetables. Today, I had to buy some things to make dinner. Amongst those things were lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots.

I thought to myself that surely this couldn’t be too hard. All three were on my list of things that I was fairly sure I could identify. It is, after all, hard to confuse a carrot with anything else, and tomatoes are fairly unique in their appearance too.

Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

I went t...

I Am An Idiot About Fruits, Vegetables, and Flowers

Despite ample evidence to the contrary (see below), most people who meet me seem to quickly come to the conclusion that I’m reasonably intelligent. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I am conversant with a fairly diverse range of topics. I am just as likely to rant about the most recent happenings in the NBA as I am to bluster about economic policy and history.

But there are gaps in my knowledge, gaps big enough to sail an aircraft carrier through. In particular, I am really,...