The Color Of Water Ending

I just finished reading it and honestly, I'm surprised I finished it. Although I trudged through it all the way, it had potential to be an incredibly moving story. You hear a lot of people complain about how hard their lives are, especially in the economy today. People complain especially about how hard it is to raise children these days, but then you come across The Color Of Water. Reading through Ruth's story, I felt her anguish in some hard times. She fought to put twelve children through college, and tried her hardest to instill proper values in them. She dealt with a bad situation the best she could. It made me mad though that McBride never asked what made their family special other than his mother being white. He never peels the onion beyond the first thin layer. No questions are asked other than where did his mother come from, but when he finds the "where", there is no follow-up investigation. This entire book would need more in-depth investigation to gain my attention to the fullest. In the end, I have to say my favorite part of the book was the last page because I knew it was almost over!

The Color of Water Chapters 1-8

When I first saw this book on the list, I thought this was going to be my least favorite. I bought it and I thought it was going to be another emotional revolution books for Black Americans that I could only be interested in if it was in a movie. But after the first few chapters it got really interesting and I couldn't put it down. I went through it pretty fast without even realizing it. I had to stop after each chapter and think about some of the connections of James and his mother to completely understand them, however. Ruth isn't exactly the best mother, but it most likes comes from her childhood and life experiences, like her mother having polio and her grandfather dying when she was at a young age. James is respectful and kinda protective of his mother, like when he assumed the Black Panther was going to harm his mother and he punched the Black Panthers son in the face. That was very unexpected. It kinda confused me that James had such curiosity of his family's background and his mother never really gave him a straight answer in the beginning. I thought it was pretty smart that Ruth told James, God was the color of water, meaning like he's no particular color; he doesn't discriminate. That part really caught my attention.

Fahrenheit 451 "The Hearth and the Salamander" Response

Everyone mentions that Fahrenheit 451 is an extremely interesting and exciting book, but reading the first few sentences, I got little confused as to why a fireman was starting a fire instead of putting one out. Eventually I understood why Montag, a fireman, was burning houses and books. Montag lives in a society in the future where no literature is allowed and is almost completely reliant on technology. Their society gives out all their information through technologies and gives only the information it wants the people to know to keep the people from questioning their surroundings. Montag starts to think and question his world after he meets Clarisse. When Clarisse was introduced in the book, I knew she was different just by the way she approached Montag. I felt that Clarisse was a guardian angel of Montag. She was described  in white and suddenly disappeared after she changes the mind of Montag. Shortly after that, Montag's wife, Mildred, overdoses on sleeping pills. The thought of everyone taking sleeping pills just to sleep is a crazy idea. It really shows that they could quite possibly be constantly exhausted or depressed. Montag tries to talk to Mildred about what had happened, but they don't openly talk to each other. they have a loveless marriage much like Ethan Frome's. Captain Beatty was a quite interesting character; he was much more personal. It seems like he has read many books before. If our society today was anything near what theirs is like, I would be very much depressed. Our world and Fahrenheit 451's world are completely different; it would change everything.

Stephen King On Writing Final Essay.

From the beginning of life, everyone always tells you "Practice makes perfect" and you're worked and pushed as hard as possible until you think you just can't work anymore. In baseball, the more balls you hit, the farther they'll go; In track, the more you run, the longer you'll withstand; and to Steven King, the more you write, the better writer you'll become. King believes the more your write the more successful you'll likely be. At only 6, King wrote his first story while sick, looking for anything to entertain himself. He wrote first of a story partially copied from Combat Casey, and presented it to his mother. She was delighted, but encouraged him to write his own. About 6 years later, he wrote a story called Happy Stamps. He eventually sent the story off to a magazine and received his first rejection letter (King 27). The rejection letter had a note; a note that bore, "Loose pages plus paperclip equal correct way to submit copy." King thought it was cold advice, but never once stapled a manuscript since. After receiving that rejection letter, he labeled it "Happy Stamps" and poked it onto a nail he hung himself on the wall. By age 14, the nail could no longer support the weight of his rejection slips, and by 16, King began receiving rejection letters with hand written notes revealing much needed advice. The first of which was on a story called "The Night of a Tiger" who's inspiration came from an episode of The Fugitive (King 29). During his freshman year in high school, King acquired an idea; rewrite a story of a movie. This movie was The Pit and the Pendulum. This book turned out to be his first best seller around school, until the end of the day. King was called to the principals office where he was told he could not turn the school into his personal marketplace. As soon as summer vacation came along, he printed four-dozen copies of an original called The Invasion of the Star-Creatures and sold all but four. On to his sophomore year at Lisbon High School, he was appointed editor of the school newspaper, The Drum. The Drum never prospered and only published one issue between 1963 and 1964. This encouraged King to produce a school newspaper of his own which he called The Village Vomit. The Village Vomit led to a great deal more trouble in the principles office after a teacher confiscated the the newspaper collection. He was almost completely shut off of The Drum, but then was informed, the Lisbon Weekly Enterprise had offered him an interview for a job, while still in high school (King 45.) He was appointed the sports section and was told “You'll learn if you try.” King took his share of English Literature classes, but his boss, Gould, taught him more than any of them. Just two months after his senior class trip, a magazine bought his story “Graveyard Shift” for $200 (King 50.) He had only sold two other stories for just $65 shortly before. In the late winter of 1973 at age 26, King started Carrie, and was sent off to Doubleday. By 1973, Carrie was accepted as a Doubleday book, but publication didn't start until spring of 1974 (King 75.) By this time, King had already started another called Second Coming when he received information that the paperback rights were sold for four hundred thousand dollars, leading King to the highlight of his writing career (King 78.) Following the climax of King's success, King continues to better himself by reading and writing anything he can everyday in order to maintain his writing modern and impressive. Today, King has written and published 49 novels. Just goes to show you, Practice truly does make perfect.

Response to C.V

So as a response to the C.V. in On writing by Steven King, This book really surprised me. You know, everyone says he drops the F-bomb A LOT, and this section will make you laugh-out-loud. But I really don't thing he cursed that much and yes, indeed it was amusing at times, but not enough to make me laugh out loud or be tingling inside with the details he gives. So with the very first page in the C.V. it starts speaking of his hard childhood. But to me, it sounds as if he has blocked some of it out of his mind and so he only remembers bits and pieces. So then it goes on to #4. This is when he asks his mother if she has ever seen anyone die, and she says yes. When she goes on to tell him of it, she is very blunt and straight-forward. It really surprised me because most parents try not to be explicit when talking to/near their children. So next, we go on to #7. This is when his mother notices his talent. Because of him being sick and staying out of school so often, being forced to lay in bed and read comic books all day, he really probably could have never recognized his true passion. When his mother tells him to write a story of his own, he chooses to write about four magically animals driving an old car, and then i realized at age 6 we all had that type of imagination and he's really no different from other person. Next, we go on to #8 where we find out his mother really does enjoy his stories, and trying to make her proud is what really got him started. After his first story, she starts paying him a quarter a story and she tells all of her sisters of Stephen's stories. I believe he was very proud of himself that she loved his stories so much and showed them off to everyone. She was really proud of her son, herself. Through life, more and more bad situations pass him by, but he's learned to make the best of it with him humor and his stories. In #14, we find out his family is going through tough times financially; they made do with whatever they could. His aunts send money for groceries and old clothes in boxes. By #15, he gets the idea of "Happy Stamps", and automatically you notice how grown up and mature his stories have become. When he started sending his storied into magazines and such, he used the advice give to him as an advantage regardless if it was good or bad. When he became 16, he started sending his stories into editors, and by 26, he started understanding just what this industry was all about and how the people in it work. In 1958-1966 King's biggest interest was movies. But to him, everything seemed predictable. Most of his inspiration came from seeing movies as the Rits. After seeing The Pit and the Pendulum, King gets the bright idea of turning it into a book. King then starts to learn the business side of writing when he takes his work to school. After his brother's newspaper Dave's Rag goes under, King starts moving forward in his career starting out in the school newspaper. Soon, he gets his first real job as a sports reporter. His boss gave him advice most would take cruelly and offensively, but King, King just saw it as another outlook to take into consideration when writing, to better yourself. He found inspiration in pretty much anything. Remembering old stories that were told ended up making him some good money unexpectedly.By #25, his writing slows down dramatically and his wife talks him into getting a back up degree in teaching. For awhile, he was forced to work an old nasty motel job while she worked a Dunkin' Donuts. He starts thinking of the life his mother has and comparing it with his own and starts rethinking some things. King never gave up. He was very good with describing things with humor, writes with good detail, has a wonderful sense of imagination, and his details can really make you imagine what he's saying. King was never afraid to pursue his passion