REBOOT

Well hello there. My name is Jackson Jayson Porter, and I've been a writer nearly my whole life.

I've decided to reboot this blog for two reasons: one, some serious crap is about to go down, and two, I have failed at blogging lately, and I feel if I give this place a proper reboot and begin to get back into blogging, it'll gain more popularity.

Alright, for the next few weeks I'm going to be super busy. I'm pushing to finish my novel GLITCH, which we're beginning to submit in the next couple of weeks. The other project I'm working on is titled THERENWOOD, and really, really wish I could talk about these two, but for right now, they're pretty top secret.

Anyway, one of the reason I've been so bad about blogging lately is because I've been running Teenacious Writers. It's a blog run by four aspiring teenage writers where we give advice. Probably doesn't sound too legit, but this thing was being planned for a year before we launched it. That's gotta give you some comfort. ;)

Writing advice posts and book reviews will be getting more frequent after I finish up GLITCH and THERENWOOD.

I don't have much else to say.

Until next time,

-Jackson

Here's How It's Going

Hey there. I don't know how regularly I'm going to be posting on this blog from now on. School's taking up a big majority of my time, actually, most all my time, and I've also set a goal to write 365,000 words this year, which is only 1,000 words a day. Still, I'm behind. 

Here's how it's going though - Teenacious Writers.

It's a blog that's run by five teenage aspiring writers, and we launched on Monday. We're on top of this. It's been in planning for almost a year. 

Yep, that's where it's happening. So check it out! 

Until next time,

-Jackson 

Teenacious Writers

Guys, I haven't posted in over two months...

I apologize fervently. 

If you see this post, I thank you for sticking with me for so long. 

So, my excuses for not posting: School, homework, depression, lack of writing, first-time failure at NaNoWriMo, and lack of reading. Honestly, I've been out of it for awhile. But I'm back on track with my life. 

After not writing for over three months, I sat down and pumped out 25,000 words in less than a week, I also read my first John Green novel Paper Towns. Yes, it was incredible. I recommend it to everyone. 

Alright, here's a very, very, very big announcement:

In February at LTUE this year, David Powers King told Matt Hayes and I that he appreciates our blogs because it gives him insight to the current teenage world. 

An idea clicked with me then. Matt and I discussed it later. Eventually we involved Morgan Ramsey, Jared Peterson, and Nick Hight. 

Here it is: It's a joint blog called Teenacious Writers that all five of us (me, Matt, Jared, Morgan, and Nick) will be writing. The main focus for this blog is to provide insight to all of you adult writers to the teenage world of today, it's other purpose is to provide writing advice from the surprisingly plentiful writing experiences we have had. 

Now, this blog has technically been in the works for ten months, and I've finally had the privilege to announce it tonight! 

The launch date for the blog is set in stone for December 31, 2012. Yes, this month. Here's the weekly schedule: 

Monday: me. 

Tuesday: Morgan.

Wednesday: Nick.

Thursday: Matt.

Friday: Jared. 

And on Saturday, we will either have a guest post by another blogger, or an author interview. 

The website is not yet up, and it will not be for a couple more weeks, but the Facebook page is! Go check it out, and please "Like" it! Teenacious Writers.

So, I should get back to posting on this blog regularly. Sorry to take the longest hiatus in blogging history ever.

Until next time,

-Jackson

On Writing - True Love (Doctor Who)

I must say, I’d heard before that Doctor Who is a pretty good TV show, but I didn’t really believe anybody until I actually sat down one night about six months ago and started the first episode. From living plastic to Bad Wolf, from re-grown limbs to the End of Time, from fish fingers and custard to...well...I don’t know, actually. I haven’t seen the Ponds’ Farewell yet. 

After David Tennant left the show, I wasn’t sure the show would be as good. Let’s face it, David Tennant is freaking incredible. But it didn’t take me long to like Matt Smith. It did actually take me till series 7 episode 2, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship to find him equal in incredibility. 

But this isn’t about Tennant and Smith, this is mainly for Rory. Rory Williams Pond, the fictional character I’ve connected with most. Rory, in my opinion, is one of the most genius written characters on Doctor Who. All the characters are genius, but Rory, in my opinion, aside from The Doctor, is the most genius-written character since Moffat took over. 

He’s a guy who knows how to love. He was in love with Amy his whole life, and as she dated other guys he just waited by the side. He also didn’t only wait for her for more than twenty years, he waited for her for two-thousand. The Last Centurion. 

Anyway, I’m gonna watch the episode in about twelve minutes, so I’ll finish this blog post once his character has left the show. :(

The episode’s over, the Ponds are gone, I’m crying. 

I cannot begin to explain to you how brilliant Steven Moffat (current showrunner and head writer of Doctor Who) is. He’s my favorite writer of all time, and he’s a genius. Pure genius. The way he handled, the way he wrote the ending of the Ponds couldn’t have been done any better. 

So I was originally going to write this blog post for Rory, but it’s also for Amy, but I guess it’s really not for either, it’s for love. 

Rory: The Last Centurion. Amy: The Girl Who Waited. 

I don’t really know what to say except that this is the first time I’ve ever seen true love displayed correctly. You’re probably thinking, ‘Well this kid is sixteen, how can he say Amy and Rory are the definition of true love? 

Answer: because they are the definition of true love obviously. They grew up together, they struggled in their relationship, there were times where Rory discovered shockingly that Amy loves him as much as he loves her, there came times where Amy realized how much Rory truly loves her, and there came times where I, the viewer, realized what love should be. 

In every romance the author has to tell you that the characters love each other, I’ve never seen it handled the way Moffat handled it. The writers didn’t tell you how much Amy and Rory love each other, it was the characters that did that. It wasn’t through their words, it never, ever was, it was through their actions. 

If I had to write a definition of love, it’d be this. “Love: the reason you smile.” Yes, you may smile over jokes, or happy endings, or some cute little baby who giggles often, but love is the reason you truly smile. Truly, legitimately smile. Love is the reason I keep pushing through life. Love is the reason I look forward to the future. Love is the reason I continue to breathe.

I know this sounds silly and dramatic coming from a sixteen year old, but just trust me on this. 

I can’t tell you when I first clicked with Rory, it just happened. But as I watched the show, and as he did these incredible things for Amy,  I asked myself, “Would I do that for my girl/my best friend?” 

And the answer always was yes. 

I really found it inspiring, and quite...yes, genius...of Moffat to put Amy in Rory’s shoes. This was the first time Amy really showed us how much she loves Rory. And she did it twice! In one episode!

I clap for you Mr. Moffat, and for you too Karen and Arthur, and of course for you too Doctor Smith and Professor Kingston, you were ever so wonderful. Your performances were fantastic, at their best, and your writing, Steven, was better than it’s ever been.

So I guess I clicked with Rory so well because I understand why he’d do those things for Amy. 

And I guess this episode is my favorite story ever told because I understand why every character made the choice they did.

And I’m not going to write an ending to this blog post because I, along with The Doctor, hate endings. 

Life Update

Kitchen is being redone, Doctor Who kept me captivated for a while, they just added season 3 of Vampire Diaries on Netflix, school sucks up all the time in the day, and believe it or not I've been reading. o_O

Anyway. I haven't had time to post. Literally. My life is just so chaotic now that I don't have time to write. I haven't written since mid-August, which plays a huge hand in my teenage depression. *sigh*

So, after homecoming I'm pretty sure things will start calming down. Yes, I'm going, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do. But my friend said we could wear bow ties, so I jumped right on the opportunity. Bow ties are cool. 

Until some other time,

-Jackson

Schedule

Three things.

1. Every Monday, because obviously Matt is doing something right.

2. Doctor Who is possibly the greatest thing ever created.

3. Writing, reading, writing, reading, writing, reading my guts out.

Until next time,

-Jackson

Revolution

It's not about the TV show Revolution, though I will be watching that. This post is going to be about how I'm completely revolutionizing my life. 

1. I recently attended an event that made me realize I've been wasting a lot of time in my life. Like, I've wasted a LOT of time just by texting and sitting on the computer, waiting for inspiration to befall me. 

So I downloaded this eBook called iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession With Technology and How to Overcome Its Hold On Us. It's going to help me get over my anxiety of being away from my precious internet for too long. 

2. I made a list of things to do. Yep. That really helps. No lie. I wrote down thirteen books (now twelve) that I need to finish before I can start any other books. 

2a. Albrek's Tomb by M. L. Forman.

2b. The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. 

2c. The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan.

2d. Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card.

2e. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

2f. The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan.

2g. Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner.

2h. The Kill Order by James Dashner.

2i. Michael Vey: Rise of the Elgen by Richard Paul Evans. 

2j. The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore.

I also wrote down the books I have to write before I start any other novels. 

2a. Key of Kings

2b. Dennis Porter: A Biography

2c. Vampire Dreams

And a list of movie scripts to write before I can write any other scripts. 

2a. The Batman Legacy Trilogy:

1. Shadows of the Bat (finished today, roughly 40 pages)

2. Broken Heroes 

3. Dark Legacy

Real quick: The Batman Legacy Trilogy is three short films I'm going to write, direct, and produce. Filming for Shadows of the Bat begin tomorrow. It's going to take one to two weeks to film, and a few months to edit. The release date is scheduled for December 1, 2012. (It's a parody of Batman.)

2b. Infiltration

3. The third thing I'm going to do is to get a job. Yep. :P Don't really want to do that, but the parents are making me. They filled up one tank of gas for me and said that's the last one they'll fill up. I have half the tank left, so when that runs out I'm gonna need a good fifty bucks. 

4. New blog. That new blog I've been talking about for like, almost a year. Yeah, it's finally happening. My Facebook messages prove it. It'll happen by the end of the summer. 

So yes. I'm revolutionizing my life by giving it order, giving it a schedule, giving it drive. I need some of that. 

I don't have a quote for the post, but I have a statistic! Those who sleep with their phones within arms length have a sixty percent more chance to wake up during the night and check their phone than those who keep their phone away from their bed while they sleep. 

Makes you rethink everything, doesn't it? Starting last night, I sleep with my phone far away from my bed.

I also just recently finished Everneath by Brodi Ashton. Wow. It was incredible. Go read it. :)

Until next time,

-Jackson