Jesse Rice's Blog

   New Star Wars is out. And, as any fan does, I watched a few of the earlier Star Wars films in preparation. As a child of the 90's, I have a particular fondness for the Prequels. So I started with The Phantom Menace. Sadly, it's not as good as I want it to be, or even as I remember it being. I've been mulling over it since, and I decided I need to get my thoughts out rather than allow them to stew in my head. So here I go.

    The plot here is pretty up-and-down. The...

Like most other bookworms, great books make their way onto my "things I'm thankful for" list every year. It's hard to choose favorites, but I went ahead and picked five books I read in 2015 and am thankful for.





The Writer's Art by James J. Kilpatrick. This is a great book for those who wish to learn how to write better, or even just those who want to appreciate writing more.A Little Exercise for Young Theologians by Helmut Thielicke. This is a great introduction to theology, coveri...

 The other day, I watched Dear White People. I loved it. It had a good story, explored a theme, and had characters that I could invest in. After I watched it, I realized this film was quite similar to God's Not Dead. Except good. So, as I thought over the similarities and differences between the two, I picked out a few lessons that Christian writers can take from Dear White People to tell better stories.

   I appreciated th...

   College has started. I said last week it hadn't started yet. Now it has. It's a bit worse and not quite as bad as I thought it would be. However, there is a lot of work required. Lots of writing and reading and pulling out my hair. So, this blog post is late. And I really don't have a lot of time to write stuff, so I'm just going to give a link and hope that I have something more substantive to give for next week. (But that doesn't mean you should leave.)
    With that s...

It has started.
Well, not technically. I still have the weekend until college starts. That means I have a few frantic days to freak out about doing school before I actually start school (time that could be spent getting ahead). Still, I haven't been in 'real' school for over a year. Now I'm jumping into a full-time college schedule, and one of my classes is a 300 class which includes (are you ready?) sentence diagramming.   I am not kidding. This is going to be a long semester. ...

   I've been reading recently. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise: a writer must always be reading in order to keep sharp. But most of the time I'm reading fiction, investigating how others tell stories that I might better tell my own. Though, I must admit, sometimes I read merely as a means of entertaining myself. The difference the current reading holds is that I am reading a book about writing: The Writer's Art by James J. Kilpatrick. It's a wonderful book; humorous and educati...

   Today I have an author interview! I haven't done one of these in a long time and I hope to do more of them in the future. Grace is having a blog tour for her upcoming book Implant and she graciously agreed to an interview to help promote the book.
   First, a bit of background: J. Grace Pennington has been reading stories as long as she can remember, and writing them almost as long. She is also a prolific medical transcriptionist, amateur musician, chocolate ea...

Last week I went to the beach.While there, I did what any self-respecting person does: I read. One of my favorite reads of the week was Dune by Frank Herbert. It felt strangely appropriate. I'd heard lots of good things about it and decided to check it out. The buzz was true. It was like Tolkien in the way it so richly painted the world, yet unlike Tolkien in the way it took such little time to explain the world to the reader. Reading Lord of the Rings recently made me realize...

   Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a fascinating book. It tells the story of a kid inside of a virtual world attempting to win a scavenger hunt. Of course, the world was created by a lover of the 80's and pop culture, so there are references to Star Wars, Back to the Future, and anything else from that time period that you can think of. That stuff didn't draw me in that much (being a child of the late 90's, early 00's), but the story itself is pretty fun.
   That's...

   There's a particular feeling of despair that comes over one when it is Friday night and I have no ideas for a blog post. When I have no idea what to write about, I go for something simple. Which is why I aimed for a writing update.
   See, there's this thing I'm supposed to be: an author. I've even come out with two books (that's what that 'Books' tab at the top of the page means). The issue is this: the second book in my Kitten Mysteries series came out last July....