Much of what I do would be considered blue-collar, manual labor. And I kind of like it. You can see what you have accomplished each day. I care what other’s think of my work and ethic, but mostly, I care what I think about it.
“People call this blue-collar. I don’t care what color your shirt is. You bring pride to the job, people notice. Even if they don’t, you notice.”
– NCIS S12E17 “The Artful Dodger”
I’ve been really liking The Last Kingdom, the BBC production of Bernard Cornwell’s “The Saxon Stories“. This line from episode four really grabbed me.
King Alfred: “Why do you not pray to God?”
Uhtred: “God… created everything that surrounds me… the fields, rivers, the forests. The land is my church. And I pray each day, Lord. In silence.”
The Last Kingdom – S01E04
poem © Jeffrey Beaty
November 5 rewrite of a “first draft” written November 4, 2015
8 lines
Looking at the original version of this poem that I wrote and published yesterday, an idea occurred to me about its arrangement that I wish I had thought of earlier. So I edited it to this version which I like a LOT better. Read the Poem
poem © Jeffrey Beaty
November 4, 2015 — 10pm
8 lines
[UPDATE: check out the much better final version of this poem.]
Listening to a brief autumn thunderstorm move through tonight had me feeling a bit maudlin and inspired me to write this very short bit of poetry. Read the Poem
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn series #3
View book info on GoodReads
My Rating: 
3 out of 5 stars
First Published: October 14th, 2008
Read from: Sept. 17, 2015 to Oct. 30, 2015
My reaction to The Hero of Ages, the last book in the Mistborn trilogy, is VERY mixed. A LOT of stuff takes place in this novel. Plot-wise what Sanderson did with the entire series is fully revealed in this book, and it is an amazing piece of work. There is some pretty good action, some characters evolve in interesting and ultimately exciting ways, and it has an awesome climax… BUT it just didn’t grab me like the previous books in the series.
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I like this quote. It rings true for me.
“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”
It is commonly attributed to Buddha. In fact I most recently saw it and a bunch of other powerful quotes on this Buddha Quotes page that a friend happened to like or comment about on social media. But as this page on a “Fake Buddha Quotes” website shows the phrasing of this quote makes that very unlikely. In fact the Fake Quotes site has an entire page dedicated to the veracity the the first Quotes Page, showing that many of the quotes were not “from” Buddha. Continue reading Anger punishes
Another writing exercise turned short story. This one was to somehow incorporate the Halloween-like concept described in a recent viral news item about a midieval skeleton found dangling from the roots of a fallen tree.
I’ve always been fascinated in Scottish and Irish history. Exploring the time period this Irish skeleton was believed to be from, I became interested in the Battle of Clontarf, a large battle that brought an end to the reign of Ireland’s first High King. Read the Short Story
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn series #2
View book info on GoodReads
My Rating: 
4 out of 5 stars
First Published: July 25th, 2006
Read from: Sept. 3, 2015 to Sept. 17, 2015
Another very short story inspired by a writing exercise for an upcoming writer’s workshop I attend. This time the group picked three random elements that we were to incorporate in some manner into a 500-“ish” word story. The three elements picked were a boat, a racist, and a Shakespeare quote. The group organizer named this exercise “The Not-Love Boat”. 🙂
Read the Short Story
Here’s the first short story I have written in a long time.
I joined a writing workshop recently. One meeting’s optional exercise was to be a short 500-“ish” word snippet written from the point of view of “The Other” — trying to see something through “someone else’s eyes”. It was intended to explore how a person’s personal perspective changes the way they perceive a situation. An exercise in trying to put yourself in the mind of “a fictional someone you don’t understand or agree with”.
Read the Short Story
