The Name of the Wind

Sat, Jan 26, 2013 4-minute read

I listened to a guy on a podcast today talking about how he blogged every single day. He said that he planned it out because he knew he could make a great blog post everyday if he had determined he would need something to talk about ahead of time. He always tried to do a better post than if he had just sat down and tried to do one out of nowhere. I thought about this for a minute since I’m trying to blog everyday as well, then I decided that I don’t care about readers :P. No offense to those who are reading this blog. It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just that I primarily write in this for myself. I want to be able to look back and see what my opinions were, how I wrote, what I thought about, and just enjoy seeing what “past Stephen” did with the youth he wasted. It’s kind of cool to think about it like a letter to your future self. We used to have to write this stuff down in books and keep track of it, but  now we just type it all out and the internet saves it forever for us. Not too bad.

I’ve been trying to read more lately. I feel like reading can actually do a lot to help one’s own writing. I haven’t written anything whimsical or fun at all since I left high school. I did write a short story about a knight named Oliver, which actually was a great read. But that was when I was in my freshman  year of college, so it doesn’t really count. I was still fresh from the adult factory and had all my wits still in me. I think I’ve still found ways to be creative since then, they’ve just manifested in different ways. I’ve made movies, written skits, done audio plays, and other cool stuff. None of it really that great, but I always have fun doing it, which I feel is pretty important.

That last paragraph was a total tangent. I wanted to talk about this book that I’m reading call The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s a fantastic read! I had just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I needed something new, so I wandered back to the Fantasy section of Barnes & Noble, and I found this. I had heard the author before on NSFW show and he seemed really cool. I figured that recognizing the name of the author was enough to warrant me picking up his book, but I read the back of it anyway. I was instantly intrigued. I picked it up without hesitation and now I’m enjoying the crap out of it. It’s about this guy named Kvothe (pronounced like Quothe), and his telling of is life story. I haven’t progressed far enough in it to really tell you much more than that. But I can say that Rothfuss’ writing style is terrific! He writes so naturally and he doesn’t fill it all with so many fantasy words that you need a glossary. It’s very much plain English. It’s sort of in that feel that you get form reading a Joe Abercrombie novel, but without all the swearing, blood, and dudes peeing on things. It’s more classic in tone.

I’m having a blast reading that, and Steph and I are also doing much better at keeping up with our devotions together in the evening. We got this couple’s devotional Bible that we’ve been reading together and it’s actually been really great for us. I feel like it’s been bringing us together more because they have these great “Talk about it” sections. It all sounds lame, but it’s really been good at building our relationship to be even stronger. We’re having a great time.

This was a generally positive blog post, and I’m pretty happy about that. We’ll top it off with the good news that I was able to work from home for half the day today because it was snowing a bit. I thought it was a joke that they let us go early, but then I tried to go out later on and there was a half inch of ice on my car 0_o. The roads were ridiculous too. It’s been a long time since I lived in a place that got snow with no way to really treat it. Salt makes a huge difference in roadway safety for sure. I was really taking that for granted in WV. Doesn’t bother me too much though. I did get half a day off! Woohoo!