Hello Again, from the Excuse Corner, Back with New Plans

New horizons.
KC Trae Becker

After a long hiatus (2 years is far too long) from writing this blog to work on my story writings, I'm finally back. No groaning, please. I've been working on both a picture book and a Young Adult Fantasy series.

The picture book is done, except for the last third of the pictures. I've also made good progress on the YA Fantasy series but have rediscovered that learning how to write with a series is a hard way to figure it all out. I keep restarting because I've learned something new about how to make my story better and need to work it in. Now, I feel like I finally have a solid beginning and decent transition into the middle of my first book. But that still leaves a lot of story left.

Movie review - Wonder Woman (better late than never)

(PG – 13) (2hrs 21 mins) I went into this movie not expecting much because after all, it's DC. If you read my last post, you'd know that I find almost all DC comics to take themselves too seriously. Many of the parodies of DC heroes, Lego Batman, How It Should Have Ended You Tube parodies, etc, are hilarious because it's so easy to poke fun at DC heroes' overly dramatic and pompous lines. This movie, though, knocked it out of the park. The director, Patty Jenkins, did a fabulous job. The star, Gal Gadot, playing Diana / Wonder Woman, was amazing! I had never seen her before. How she managed to look so young, fresh and innocent, I'll never know. She had me buying that she was a young immigrant from an Amazonian Island and had never seen modern civilization before she went with Steve Trevor, played by Chris Pine, to England to stop the war. Chris Pine who played Captain James Kirk in the Star Trek reboot makes a far better Steve Trevor than he did Captain Kirk, but I'm bias having loved William Shatner's Captatin Kirk way more than Lyle Wagggoner's Steve Trevor. While I'm on the TV series The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1975-9), having loved Lynda Carter's Diana, I was dubious whether her

Animal #1 - Horse - Science

The first talking animal I'm going to be writing is a horse. Since I am currently working on a horse scene.

Animal – Horse

Classifaction Scientific name – Equus caballus

Genus – Equus (One toed hoofed animals - Horses, zebras, asses)

Family – Equidae (Odd toed hoofed animals - Horses, tapirs, Rhinos)

Order – Perissodactyla (hoofed animals)

Starting a New Series from research for Talking Animals

 I'm writing my first post about animals. I'm planning to have some talking faery animals in my series. I know talking animals sounds childish, to some people, but they are a frequent part of faery tales and folklore about faery. Also, I really like animals. Since I'm a biology teacher I want my talking animals to feel like they are real animals given the ability to talk. That requires a deep understanding of the animals and a bit of research, which is where my blog comes into the picture since this is supposes to be research overflow.

Mythic Humanoids – Serpent People and Dragons – Part 3 (Survey of Dragons and dragon literature)

Here's Part 3 (Survey of Dragons and dragon literature) of my blog on serpent people and dragons. For Part 1 (Research Deluge) and Part 2 (Symbolism)

There are many ways to organize the numerous varieties of dragons.

Categorizing dragons by :

1. Color [like shoes in a closet or crayons in a box, not based on mythological research.]
2. Sea serpent v flier
3. Old v New
4. North v South
5. East vs West [Does respect for dragons affect the interpretation of their myths?]

Star Wars Review: The Force Awakens

Dun,
da, da, dun,
dun dun dun,
dun,
da, da, dun,
dun, da, dun

The Force Awakens

After
more than
thirty-two years, a
new hope has awakened from
the ten year hiatus of attacks of prequels
of past wars and stories of sith and revenge. What

once thrilled millions enough to line up down the block 

and around the corners and has sold billions in toys 

and memorabilia has returned with new characters, aliens, unusual hair styles, vehicles, jedi and long lines to strike back against evil empires because the saga continues...

The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies - Movie Review

Let me start by prefacing this with the fact that the end is my least favorite part of The Hobbit book. The slow degradation of the Thorin character, that I was barely able to like anyway, into a greedy tyrant was always uncomfortable for me.

Also, I don't like battles or war. [Oddly enough I find the series I'm writing demanding a war. Does all fighting have to end in war?] A battle where people are destitute yet fighting over gold and no one is being reasonable is even more uncomfortable for me.

Water - Part 3 – Book Review – Young Adult - Bloody Jackie series, by L.A. Meyer

[I won't use characters from my series for this review. I can't add anything to this act.]

The coming-of-age series that I highly recommend is by L.A. Meyer. It starts with Bloody Jack, a story about an orphaned street girl, Mary Faber, that gets herself taken on board a British Naval ship as a cabin boy just before the French Revolution. She signs on as Jacky Faber and by pluck, fast thinking and hard work, elevates her station in life, if under false pretenses. I'm sure you can imagine some of the difficulties she faces. After a series of wild adventures, stemming from the extremes of fortune that she rides through by the skin of her teeth, Jacky propels forth like an unstoppable cannon ball.

Change and Mythological Species of Humanoid # 23 – Werewolves

[Sorry for the delayed posting, my son's high school graduation party was this past weekend. I decorated the picnic tables with daisies from my garden, because daisies are a symbol of friendship. My best friend in high school gave me daisies seeds in a card to say we'll always be friends. I used the quote from the card for my son's party: He has power who gains wisdom from a flower. - author unknown. ]

Father's Day - Super Dad and Mythological Species # 22 - Mewlips

Super Dad

I had a couple of fun paragraphs I wrote in my high school English journal for Father's Day. It was called Super Dad. I've turned my house upside down looking for it, but have failed to locate it. I'll have to save it for next year.

Father's Day

Sunday is Father's Day. This is a holiday that has always been a source of sadness for me growing up, since like many children around the world,

New Muse

I have a new muse, a baby dragon, that's only just hatched a little while ago. It's green and doesn't know how to fly, yet.

In fact, its wings are still quite small. But even just hatched, it is the size of a large dog. It speaks when it is in the mood and has many wise things to say. It says I need help with my antagonists. It promises that it can help me. [How does it know so much since it is so young?] [Where is its mother?] What is the whole offspring rearing model for dragons, now that I think about it?