NEW WEBSITE!!

HEY, MATTER UNORGANIZED HAS MOVED TO A NEW WEBSITE!!!!
HERE IS THE LINK:

www.matterunorganized.wordpress.com

SEE YOU THERE!

Surrealism

I was riding my bike to school the other day while listening to classical music. This may sound strange but it is quite a soothing experience. In truth, the entire experience affair was surreal. The world seemed to spin around and I felt like it was everything around me that was in motion, not my bicycle. I'm kind of a crazy nerd, but with the wind in my face and the trees dancing around and the birds flying into the blue sky, I couldn't help of think that this is exactly the type of thing that is worthy of being put into words for Matter Unorganized. There are characters I can think of who might experience the same emotions while traveling to unknown - or even too well known - destinations.
The book has become something of a creature of its own at this point. I've been making changes, editing, redeveloping the outline and rethinking the characters in my mind over and over...and finally, it's come to a point where everything is just clicking into motion. The story has a life of its own, it's alive and it needs to be nourished. It has moved on from being a thing that needed to be created to a thing that is tangible and that requires attention and...well, food. I can accomplish that now by just sitting down and taking the time to channel all of my thoughts and emotions into what the story needs, and it will grow.
Ha ha, I sound crazy! But what does this mean? It means that by the end of the summer the manuscript will be finished. That's the goal at least.
I've change the outline of the first book, cutting back on what I've already written and saving some of the material for book two. So book 1 will be shorter than planned, but still in the 450 page range which is pretty substantial. This is better in the long run, because I already have all of the details worked out and just need to fill in the blank spots with more detail, descriptions and character development. I've decided to cut off the story at the head to leave more room for the characters, and so far I think that this is a good choice.
The old prologue is now a chapter of the book and a new prologue has been written. According to my wife, it is much better and not 'boring like the last one was'. Exact quotation, there :). So, if Janell likes it, I like it and that is a good sign that things are moving in the right direction.
Hope to see soon on the blog! Don't forget to check out the book reviews for some good stuff and the side bars for the updated progress bar for the book.

What the...2010?!

So it's the New Year in less than 24 hours and by the time any of you read this post it'll will have become 2010. Holy Shnikey...I can't believe how quickly 2009 has come and gone! And I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's incredible to think of how fast time actually moves, and I believe that all of it has to do with perception.
To think that a year can go so fast but that certain weeks can go so slow just proves that point. And when we think of our lives in the grand scheme of all things, isn't incredible to think of how much we are able to accomplish in the time frame of a single lifetime? Just take this year as an example...think of all the things you have accomplished. Now what about the last decade?
Was 2000 such a long time ago? No. I watch movies, listen to music and read books from the 70's that I think are absolutely incredible and up to date and they are 40 years old.
Think of what you have accomplished in the last 10 years of your life. Go on! I know that I have gone through high school, learned to play an instrument that I love, played at some concerts, read who knows how many hundreds of books, served a mission for my church, gained and strengthened a testimony in my Faith, met-fell in love-dated-waited-married-learned to adore my wife, gone on trips around the world, made countless friends, become an uncle, gone to college, worked several jobs, taken to writing novels, moved from country to country and...the list goes on and on and on, all the while making hundreds of mistakes along the way.
Life is incredible and people are even more so. I know that New Years is commonly known as the time for resolutions, but before you try and decide what needs improvements, why not take a look at what you've already done? Take a minute away from thinking of your new diet plan, or goals for dueling with the economy, and see what it is that has happened in the last year, decade, or dozens of years to bring you were you are now.
I love my life, and though I believe that I have more than is healthy to do in order to improve myself, I look back at and say to myself, "You know what, Peter, not too shabby."
Hope you have all had a Great Holiday season, and if you don't hear from you today than I suppose I just might next year.
Bonne Annee!

PS...be ready for a best of 2009 listing in the next post!
PPS..be ready to hear some actual, exciting news about Matter Unorganized - coming soon.

Things I've discovered this week!

There are quite a few things I have discovered, learned or otherwise realized these past couple of weeks and here are some of them:

1- I'm really not that bad of a bike rider...I was coming home from school on Walnut and there were four teenage boys (15-17) on bikes right in front of me as I passed one of the intersection. Within seconds, I smoked all four of them and left them far behind with an amazing view of my back...tires. It may sound pretty shallow and immature, but to tell you the truth, smoking those kids made my day and I was laughing all the rest of the way.

2- 'The Cure' must be one of the most amazing bands ever to have lived on the face of this planet. I don't know why I never realized this until now, but better late than never! I have been obsessed for a couple of weeks now, and have been listening to albums of theirs that are dated from anywhere between 1983 to 2008...wow. Good stuff.

3- I really do enjoy what I am going to school for. Sometimes it seems like I don't because it seems like the end is sooooooo far away. But really, I look forward to learning new things that apply to my future career. The ones that apply mind you, I still have a hard time going to class and loving every second of a lecture for classes that I will never use ever again in my life, but that is okay I guess...they need money and apparently they think that my time is more valuable sitting in a classroom than out spending time in the workforce, just to accomplish my general education.

4- It is alot more work to write a section of the book when the character whose point of view you are describing is an it and not a he/she. If you're describing the actions and thoughts of a person, than throwing in he or she in a sentence just seems so natural. But when the character is a thing, or an it, than you need to rearrange the structure of your sentences often in order for it all to make sense and not get confusing between which it is the character and which it is just something else in the sentence. Anyway...I'm having some fun with that one.

5- I discovered that my goal of a 1st draft at 160,000 words is too limited. I re-evaluated the sections I need to work on and the outline of the story and it puts me at about 230,000 words for a first draft (that translates to about 450-500 pages). We'll see how that goes.

6- Participating in the creation of a wedding cake can be more stressful than studying for a midterm and probably more painful than having your nails pulled out with hot pliers, but it doesn't make it taste less amazing.

7- Thanksgiving is awesome...You get to remember what you're thankful for and then eat so much food that it's just craziness!!! I'm thankful for Thanksgiving and for turkeys.

8- There's so much more but I need to go to bed. Thanks for being a part of the blog. For those of you who never leave comments because you don't know how, just click on that says '# comments' right below the end of this paragraph and a window will pop up. See you all later.

Cool Stuff

Had an awesome experience yesterday. I've recently heard of a new author by the name of John Brown and have been excited to read his first novel, Servant of a Dark God. I love reading people's first books because it's so exciting to see how people start their careers. So I sent John an email telling him I was excited and looking forward to it all and that I would be writing up a review for the novel on my Dust of Nations page, and other major sites. To my happiness, John wrote me back and we started having a little chat over the Internet about his projects and my projects and all in all, it was a real motivating and fun experience for me. He seems like a real nice guy and I appreciate him taking a bit of time to chat with me, who am nobody in the real world of literature. He's got quite a bit of work on his hands with his upcoming stories it would seem. Best of luck, John.

I've also realized that I don't write on this blog anywhere near enough...I should be flooding this page with all kinds of craziness at all times, with all the random stuff that goes on in my head. It's a new goal and I think it will bring me joy! Hopefully all of you guys too.

And I finished two more chapters in Act II this last week. One about our beloved Prophet Gregor, and the next one on Orrin.

Have I mentioned my naming issue? I really still have no clue what names I really want for these characters. The problem here is that names are such a powerful and crucial element of a story. It's almost like choosing the name for a child. I am starting to grow attached to these characters, and it's important for me to call them by the name that is meant for them. So all that is to say that the names I have been using so far are placeholders. The day I find the true names for these characters, I will change them.

I'll keep you posted on extra news I have from John Brown and his novel.
Here's a link to his web page:
http://www.JohnDBrown.com/

Proud to be a(n)...[dot, dot, dot]

I was at the bike shop the other day to get some fixes done on my GT. It took the guys there a little while to finish what they needed to do, so I took a look around the store while I had the time. There are so many cool things there, really, and I found myself wanting to spend every dime of my money on sweet updates for my bike. Once I got over that urge, however, something else came to my attention about the sudden, extreme reaction that I had: I felt that in all reality I needed to do what I could to take better care for my bike. Since selling my car, the GT is my vehicle and I really do love having it. I spent some good money on it and intend to hold onto it for a long while.
So, as I was having this realization of how much love I had for the thing, I also came to realize how little I really knew about bikes and how they work. I found myself in a store full of cool bike stuff, I wanted to buy all of it and...I don't know anything about bikes :( It was a sad realization, to be honest.
This is the start of what has spawned this post. I should be proud of what I have and the things that make my life what it is today. I'm leaving people out of this post and just focusing on the 'things' of everyday life that make it what it is.
My bike, our car, our home, my drums, the computer, etc... I want to be proud of the fact that I have a nice bike, and that if I learn to take care of it, and update it and spend some time and money on it, it will do everything i need it to do and be that much more important to me.
So, interpret this post however you choose from this point on, but basically here is the punchline:
I'm proud to be a biker and of my bike, proud to be a drummer and musician, an amateur writer, a student of sciences (and of life), and I want to be proud of all the things that I have.
I think it is important to take good care of the things that take care of you.

PS. New book review links to the left...
PPS. One more chapter I was working on is finished. Another 5000 words :)

Merry Christmas...erh...

It is my pleasure to inform everybody that revisions for the 1st draft of Act I are now complete! Hurray!!!
So what does this mean? Well, a couple of things.
1 - it means that it is finally time for me to move on to Act II of the story, which takes a completely different direction and is totally intimidating me out of my mind at the moment. But, I'm hoping to have that finished by (realistically) the end of the semester. So on to new worlds!!! Literally.
2 - it means that the pdf of the complete ACT I and Prelude is available for reading and review for those of you who are interested and ask me nicely.
3 - it means it was time for me to enlist the help of a few very lovely and amazing people to proof read the draft for me, seeing as this will not be the final version. Thank you so much for that! If you want a part in this process let me know as well. I would love it.
4 - it means that I've finally hit a significant milestone.

For your information, and to make a long story very short, the pdf versions of the sample chapter are no longer available from this site. If you want the sample of anything that deals with the novel, you will have to ask for it from me directly. Sorry, but it's just easier for me that way.

Also, to the side you will notice links for some new book reviews. Take a look, there are some good ones.

Okay, well, I was going through the revisions and stumbled back onto something I had written a while ago concerning gifts and what to do with them. In a literal sense, when somebody offers you a gift, usually it will carry a certain value to you personally. You will hold it dear either until it has been consumed or until it is outdated. But, most of the time (not always though, I'm generalizing), after a time, that gift just kind of falls to the back of the mind. I have a hard time remembering what I got from Janell for my birthdays more than two years ago, and anything before my mission just never existed.This might not be the same for everybody, and forgive me if I'm wrong. But I believe this is a valid assumption.
So what does this mean in terms of personal gift of a spiritual, physical or mental nature? I was really thinking about this because it crossed my mind that we all have gifts of different caliber. Some of us are great at sports, or school, or business, or just kindhearted, patient, loving, helpful, good friends, motivated, artistic, etc... there are so many things we do that we can do better than others. We call these gifts, and that is what they are. So, in those terms, is there a point were some of our gifts and talents are pushed back and forgotten to leave room for something else?
I love music. I live with an ipod as an extra limb, it's surprising that I don't sleep with it also. I used to only like specific bands and a very targeted type of music. But as I've been listening to it more and been practicing to develop my own music, it turns out that those criteria have changed. It's not that I don't like those bands anymore, but I needed something more because my expectations were developed into something superior. The way I play the drums has changed, and the sensations I want to convey through it are different. It's something that I've practiced and spent time to develop. But in doing so, have I lost track of other gifts that I might have had, and can't really remember?
About the time I got my drums, I used to play video games and my goal in life was to become a computer programmer to design them. I used to try and come up with stories and would draw maps, and would come up with characters and weapons and powers and creatures and settings and everything. You could say that those things helped me get to where I am with Matter Unorganized and writing, but as far as the actual computer design part of it...there's nothing left. The talent shifter.
Sure, if I picked it up now, and dedicated myself to it, then I could probably do it and I might actually be pretty good at it. But then I would need to sacrifice time off of music or writing or studies or relationships to accomplish that.

So here's my topic of the day.
Is it really that if we are dedicated to accomplishing something - anything - that we can, or is it that there are gifts in which we exceed that will allow us to accomplish them? Is there a chance for us to take advantage of all of our gifts or do we prioritize and eventually choose some over others?

Tell me what you think. I'd like to get some feedback on this one.
And stay tuned for other posts to come!

Ignorence is...

Hey,
So I have good news...I'm finished with all of Act I of the book!!! Hooray!! Man, I feel like the story is going somewhere now, and I'm starting to be real happy about where it is going.
You'll see that on the side it says I'm 95% done. The reason for that is that I'm doing a re-read of the entire Act before I move on. Some of the story wrote itself as I was going, so there are inconsistencies that I need to fix here and there. But, I'll let you all know when that is done, after which I will finally move on to Act II. I'm excited for that one. But if you want a copy of all of Act I, you'll have to let me know so I can email it to you. I won't be posting the entire thing on here, only part of it (samples, you could say).

Also, I started a book review section of the blog. I only have one review on there for now, but I'll be adding more as I read more. If you're into that, check it out and leave a comment or two.

So, what is funny about writing is the fact that there's almost no way of writing an interesting story without being faced with having to explain your point of view on different subjects, like politics, ethics, religion, etc. At several instances in the story already, I have had to make myself really think about what it was I wanted to convey. There is no way of making a story purely entertaining. And I wouldn't want it to be that way. If all the book is going to do is entertain and no one will remember a thing about it after a week, then I would feel like I would have failed.
But then what do you put in there?
Well, for me the first challenge was during a conversation between two of my characters on the subject of blind obedience. That's not what they are really talking about in the story, but the subject came up. And I think it's interesting to think about it in relation to the idea of living a satisfied life. Let me explain.
It came to me that, in certain aspects of life, people who are satisfied with the way things are going have a tendency not to care about how things could be different or better. There's a political term for this but I don't remember it and I'm feeling a little lazy in looking it up. But essentially, the point here is that somebody who feels like he's got it as good as he wants it isn't necessarily going to do anything more...'Why should I work more than I have to?' or 'Who cares about what others are going through? They just need to work harder and it'll work out.'
In the same sense, somebody who thinks this way, in my opinion, might not necessarily know what he or she could have. That's one of the things that we learn from the gospel. People who don't know what they could get out of it have no problem living there life without it. It's only once the knowledge of potential blessings come that it is worth striving for. And even then, you need to have faith that those blessings will come before you're likely to put much effort into it. (Not always, obviously. Sometimes it is by obeying that faith comes) But how is everyday life any different?
Janell and I could very well decide that we are just going to stretch out school for 6 more years and wait that entire time before having children. We'll just work part time and make enough to buy what we need and a few things we want, and there it is. We live a good life right now, why not just keep it the way it is? The thing is that Janell and I could never be happy the way we live now for more than a certain amount of time because we know what we want, and we know how and how soon we could have it.
Knowledge changes everything. One cannot blindly fall into the traps of laziness or contentment if he or she has not only a knowledge of something better but also an opportunity for it. 'Ignorance is bliss," they say. Well, ignorance allows an excuse for not doing your best, is all. Ignorance keeps you from potential, and from a chance to have what is really out there for you.

PDF available and Other Updates!!!

I got sick this week! It really wasn't very much fun. I have some catching up to do with school, and missed out on some work. But besides that, things are going quite alright. ... ... ... Well, I guess that's my life update for the week.
As far as writing goes, I got quite a bit of stuff done in the last couple of weeks. Here's a rundown:
1 - I was able to add the pdf files of the Prologue and Chapter One to the blog. So up at the top right, you'll notice two links. These are the 1st Drafts of what I was hoping to update, edit and eventually send out with my proposal. Take a look and let me know what you think. This is the start of what i will be putting together for you all to read in the future. Anyway, enjoy.
2 - The progress bar is ABOVE 50%. Holy cow! I've reached what I believe is the point of not return here. No turning back! This sucker is going to be finished, edited and sent out no matter what, now. Sweet, but scary.
3 - I finally found some ways to bring in some concepts that where yet unfounded in my mind into the book. For example, I knew that in the second book there were events I wanted - needed - to take place, but I had no idea how to get them set up through book one. Well, now I do. I won't give out spoilers, but I'll tell you I am dang excited. A HUGE chunk of these ideas will revolve around Orrin, one of the characters you can already read about in Chapter One. He'll be much more important than I had originally planned.
4 - Theological and Ethical concepts came up during writing as well, this week. To be discussed in the next post (I want to finish the involved chapter before I bring it out to you).

Hope you are all having a good week, talk to you later.

New and Improved

Hey there Everybody,

It's been a while since I have written anything on this blog...things have been really busy. But I have lots of news, so stick with me for a little bit.

First off, if you look to the sidebar, you'll notice that I have completed the first draft to the prologue of the book. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out so far, though I know I'll need to edit it quite a bit before I am completely satisfied. The prologue (Overture) and Chapter One are available for sample right now. I've enlisted a few people to read through them and give me some feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Though I'm far from being completely finished, I like the idea of getting all the suggestions right now so I can sort through it all and decide which ones I want to take to heart in the following chapters.
I'm hoping to get this section re-drafted and an outline finished by the end of the summer. I think that it is a reasonable time frame for me to judge where I am at, how things are progressing, and whether or not I am feeling courageous enough to send out a proposal or two. It's going to be a pretty involved summer, as far as the writing goes. I believe I will need to average about 4000 words a week this summer in order to feel good about what I've been accomplishing. 4000 may not sound like very much, but considering my only time to write is after 10 pm, it can be.
If anybody is interested in the sample first 10,000 words, let me know and you can read over it. I would appreciate feedback if you do decide you want to take a peak.
Also, I am probably going to wind off of my other blog, little by little, and eventually replace it with this one. What does that mean? It means that not only will I be posting here a lot more often, but I will be bringing up more topics and have more updates for you every week.
I ordered some business cards for the purpose of exposing my writing and the Matter Unorganized stories, and have put the blog address on them. So, who knows? Maybe someday, somebody important in the book world will take a glance at this blog! I wouldn't want it only to have 3 posts and no updates at that point...could look unworthy! So there are definitely goals, and I hope to accomplish them with flying colors.

Thanks for the support. Log on once a week for updates!