Category: Personal Blogs

It has not been my week these past two weeks.

I sent my car to the shop last Monday and it’s been in said shop since then. My gaming computer had its hard drive AND memory fried last Friday. I have a major exam coming up on Tuesday on the heels of several homework assignments which I received grades of less than stellar due to aforementioned events. And today, I got loaned a car on Wednesday by a nice old man and this afternoon, on my way out to take it out to dinner, I saw it parked at a near 60 degree angle to the curb. Someone had come around the corner in my apartment complex and simply blasted it sideways, probably with a trailer. We had to drive out to the police department at 7pm and file a report. Problems keep coming up, one after the other.

What can you do in situations like this? Part of me grimly accepts the reality that, sometimes, you just get crapped on. Part of me frowns at the sky with my hands tossed up and thinks, “Really, asshole?” And still some other part of me wants to turn on some uplifting music and try to see the sunny side.

Needless optimism is a poor trait to have. It prevents you from seeing the reality of situations where there is no optimistic side. It’s important to understand negativity and confront and accept it, rather than ignore it, because in my mind, that’s where the best optimism comes from. You accept what isn’t changeable and try to see the good in what you have. Despite all the crap I’m handling this week, I’ve still got an apartment. I have money in savings, friends, a job, a place to sleep, and food in my fridge. Getting said fridge restocked is a little more of a nuisance, but it’s not an insurmountable wall. I live very close to plenty of amenities. I could even walk to work if I wanted to. I can take Lyft or Uber anywhere I want if I have to get there. I have a working laptop, still. I can shower and have things delivered right to my door. It’s these things that are keeping my chin up in times like this.

Some of these difficulties seem trivial upon inspection. Or, perhaps, first world problems. Why bother whining about not having a car or having your parked car get whacked while you’re at home and the person leaves no insurance or contact? Don’t you know people are dying of syphilis? I think these thoughts are pretty normal. You know we have it good here in my corner of the world but elsewhere things are grim. I don’t think, though, that just because someone else has it bad that it precludes you from acknowledging when you’re suffering as well. It may not be to the same degree as the other guy, thank God, but it’s still frustrating. And what can you do? Not acknowledge it?

These past two weeks have been downright sucky. None of my problems are unfixable, but compounded, they’ve had me in a pretty depressed mood. But I’m trying to keep my head up. I think in situations like these it’s about all you can do.

In order to know what is important, you have to know what is replaceable. Only something that is truly irreplaceable is important. If you had a car, what could you replace and still make it run?

Continue reading “9/9/2022: Ruminations”

https://wlrh.org/WritersCorner/sundial-writers-corner-samuel-knight-2212022

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share my most recent publication. I wrote a piece for NPR about my childhood in the Northwestern United States and it just aired this morning.

The publication process was simple. I queried them about taking a piece for their Writer’s Corner and they liked it so much they asked me to come in and record it for them. You can find the entirety of the text published in the rest of this post and the snippet online at the link above.

Away across the whispy wheat and blackberry bushes, through the thicket trees and down a dirt road, lay a house at the end of a short gravel street. To the left a car port jutted from the bonus room, and to the right a modest tire hanged from the branches of an oak tree. In the back lay a rolling green yard when the summer sang and a slick white icebox when the winters whirled. From the brown back porch where the grill and benches lounged, the tops of dark evergreen trees swayed with a swift, occasional breeze. A boy with a slingshot could hardly get a pellet to the tops, while a father with an expert pull could launch the same several yards above.

In the forest behind the house a small shelter had been made where adventurous boys could sail seas, fly starships, possess psychic powers, or engage mist-shrouded monks from mountain monasteries. Around the ground mucked the mud and branches, leaves and pinecones, all cold with their breath drawn into the earth. A slip and a hands-first break was enough to come home brown and cold, covered in no end of scrapes and sap. If the parents cared they never let on, as young boys were taught well to not come into the house in dirty clothes—to leave them by the door along with their boots or shoes, which may have been destroyed despite being only two months old.

Around beside the car port was a moss-covered grove with branches just short enough to climb on and up, but not too high, for coming down was scary. Here adventurous boys could dream of massive pirate ships gleaming with emeralds and gold or think of foraging into the wilderness and reconnecting with the land like a sage in the woods. A young boy’s imagination ran wild in that grove and he would come home and think about them at night, after reading or being read to, and he would ponder what next great adventure to dream of. The thoughts stayed constant in his mind, occurring often over several weeks or even months until replacement by other new fancies was inevitable.

The seasons came and went. The shelter sagged and it, too, went cold as its breath was drawn into the earth. One day the boy left the house that was down a dirt road, through thicket trees and blackberry bushes, at the end of a short gravel street, but inside him it still lived, away across the whispy wheat.

Oh my, it’s been a year since my last blog post. I use Facebook a lot these days and in fact almost used it to write this post, but it started to get more complicated and personal, so I figured I’d move it to my trusty and rusty blog where, at the very least, it’s covered behind a link that someone has to click on to read. Therefore, only the dedicated are here reading this, so hello, and thanks for checking this out.

I think a person’s writing tells a lot about who they are and how they view the world. More importantly, the evolution of a person’s writing can help you understand their growth as a person. I say this because, as I plan to finish Triumph of Heroes book three soon and move on to a new project I’m starting to get excited about, part of me is thinking over what I’ve written in the past and wondering what state of mind I was in when I wrote those things. I suppose in that sense, this blog will only make sense to readers of that series and to me, but I feel it’s important that I share these things now because if I don’t, I feel like I’ll be preventing myself from feeling something important that I need to feel right now. So, let’s start at the beginning. Maybe you’ll learn something about me while you’re reading this!

Advent: Triumph of Heroes book 1 was an ambitious, magical adventure that had so much energy and detail. It was a little amateur (as all first books are), but I genuinely feel like when I read through that book that I’m transported to a time of classical magic, wizards, swords, powers, monsters, and heroism. I wrote Advent when I was in high school, so in a way I think that this book was me looking forward with excitement and joy at the world before me and the opportunities that were just over the horizon in college and in life in general. The book’s end is foreboding and dim, and that was me just trying to keep the stakes high so things remained interesting for Convergence, book 2. However, I think that ending was me venting my nervousness at the prospects of what awaited me in college (namely, a NROTC unit and a lot of responsibilities and duties).

Convergence: Triumph of Heroes book 2 was lengthy, windy, complicated, and tense. I’ll be the first to say there is a LOT of fluff between books 1 and 2 that could be cut out or at least cut down, but book 2 in particular is an offender for its size. However, what really takes me back in book 2 is the tone shift from enjoyable light-fantasy to sudden serious, adult tones and darker themes. Even some of the comedy disappeared for several chapters as the responsibility and weight of the plot settled in. I think this was me adjusting to the difficulty of leaving my scholarship, having to move back home after striking out on my own, and falling in and out of love with people. I wanted people to understand the feelings I felt and a lot of it got channeled into the book, some of it correctly and some of it poorly. Ultimately I feel like book 2 was the answer to book 1’s question about the brightness of life: it is there, but so is the darkness.

I should note that I was partially through writing book 2 before book 1 was published, so it came out relatively fast compared to what book 3’s release schedule has been like. Book 3 deals with more adult themes but in less of a dark or dismal way, and more of a serious manner peppered with the original comedy of book 1. Since Convergence, I’ve been in a few relationships, grown up a lot, had a real job, missed opportunities, and seen people fail spectacularly for no reason other than they thought they were invincible. I think book 3 is my personal answer to book 2: as an adult, you understand the world is not lollipops and rainbows, but that doesn’t mean you can’t draw a few on the pavement now and then.

I think what I really wanted to get out of this was a sense of closure from a sadness I felt tonight that I can’t describe other than the vague sense of watching someone you love walk away from you and knowing you can’t stop them because their life will be the sum of their choices, choices you can’t make for them. I think it’s important to feel great emotion from time to time and to respect and acknowledge it as a deeply personal, human thing. It’s something that gives me meaning for writing, and on nights like these, I like to stay up late and work hard on my series, feeling my character’s emotions and entrenching myself in the world I created. I think that’s something everyone should experience.

They say everyone should write a book once. I agree, and though not everyone should publish it, everyone should write a book once. I think the article above explains why.

Until next time.

~Samuel Knight