The Number Fifty

Can you believe it? I've been blogging for 50 years! Oh wait, that's not right. This is my 50th blog post!

If you include my past three personal blogs, I've probably written at least 80 blog posts. But as I've mentioned before, my past blogs have all been deleted by stupid hosts. This current blog is the one that I am the most proud of, and that I've done the most with. Compared to when I started blogging, I have gotten at least three times as good at writing.

So what has happened recently in my life? A lot. For those who don't know, I was home-schooled through 8th grade and now attend a private high school. When I was twelve or thirteen I wrote a story, One Weird Gas Station, which made me (and other people who have read it) realize that I don't suck at writing anymore, and I believe it was that fact that eventually convinced me to start a blog.

Just recently I helped found a group on Facebook called "Authors for Elyon". It was and is a Christian writing group (has grown up to just over 80 members at present) for people who have been inspired by many authors, and especially Ted Dekker (the name of the group was inspired by his Circle Series). This has changed my life and added many friends to it. I'm now excited for reading and reviewing books again, and for possibly trying to write my own books once more. If anyone is interested, I run a public page for AfE on Facebook, though there is not much activity there, compared to the actual community itself.

One of the friends I met through Facebook, Evan Morgan, of whom I'm planning on writing a novel with, also introduced me to a website called BookSneeze, which is run by the Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson. What this website does is it lets people who sign up for it receive free books to review on their blogs. My first book from this website was The Lightkeeper's Ball by Colleen Coble, the review of which was the last post made on this blog before this one. There are specific guidelines for reviews of BookSneeze books, so you may be able to tell if books I review are from them or not.

I see lots of things happening in my blogging future. I'm currently reading the novel The Priest's Graveyard by Ted Dekker, and when I'm done with it I'll be sure to review it. I accidentally discovered a major plot twist in it while I was browsing forums on Facebook today, and that will ruin part of the book for me, though it's still a great read.

I also just recently picked up six books by James Patterson for a very cheap price. Secular fiction isn't usually as good as what I usually read, but it's still pretty good. But anyway, it adds even more books to my ever-growing list of books to read.

I also plan on conducting more interviews in the future. I've always dreamed of interviewing Ted Dekker, but that is going to be very hard to do. It's not as if I can just email him or send him a message on Facebook, like I can do with others. I think I need to actually go through his publisher. But anyway, other people I've considered interviewing are Charlie Dominici, Tosca Lee, Randy Alcorn, Aleena Korell, Kevin Kaiser, Matt Smith, and Casper Smit. I doubt I'll ever get to interview even half of them, but I can still try!

So yes, that was an overview of my past, future, and beyond. Okay, not really, but that sounded cool.

Now I can't wait for the 100th blog post!

~Reuben/Arkatox~