An Idea

So I've been giving some thought as to how to make these one-a-week blog posts we have to do entertaining, not just for me the writer, but for you the reader (assuming there are any of you out there), and I think I've come up with an idea. I want to write a story in parts, one (or maybe more depending on my free time) part a week about a pair of kids surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. I'm not an author, by any means, but I figured that a little creativity might make this whole thing a little less droll. The basic theme of the story is that some time in the future, a power-hungry dictator decides that he doesn't like the world he's controlling. So, like all mad-scientist leaders, he decides to create his own apocalypse. This particular brand of end-times consists of a chaotic world that the leader, Dr. Martin Zion, created based around a book he loved to read as a child, Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. In the first few posts, I'll set up the story and whatnot, and once we actually start reading in our groups, that's when I'll introduce the part of the story where the main character Ian, actually finds a long-lost copy of the book and begins to use it as a sort of survival guide, and eventually, a means to stop Zion from further destroying the world. Before I really get into the story, I'd love to hear what you all think about this idea! Feedback, protests, what have you. I'd really like to get a feel for my audience here so all 4 of you who are unfortunate enough to be following my blog, comment away! You'll get to play a part in a short story, and fulfill your homework requirements all in one go.

A Nice Little Analysis Of The Road

With Cormac Mcarthy's book The Road, life in a post-apocalyptic world is duller and bleaker than ever. Never have I seen a book with a sense of barrenness, isolation, or hopelessness be such a prevalent theme, even in a book about the end of the world. Page for page, the reader is almost consistently bombarded with new ways to feel hopeless for the characters. Usually, books like this instill a hastened sense of survival; they have an almost hurried pace to them as the characters scramble to survive. The Road, however, is far from hurried. Each page seems to drag on as the characters are in no apparent rush as though they have nothing to fear: no one to avoid or flee from.

Even when the pair find themselves in an old grocery store, a place with more than a few places for people to set up traps for scavengers, they take the time to look through each individual isle and shelf, seemingly unaware they they could be in danger (22). After a while of anticipating some kind of surprise attack on the father and son, I finally realized that they weren't too concerned because there were very few, if any, other survivors. This isolation, I think, is a recurring theme throughout the book or at least the portion I've read already. As I continue reading the book, I sincerely hope (but hardly expect) to be presented with a break, even if a brief one, from the isolation and perhaps even the introduction of a new character.