The Scribner's Hovel

 A problem that many aspiring writers deal with is eliminating distractions. This does not only amount to noise, but also other problems like trying to get your mind straight to focus on the task at hand. It is not an easy task; I go through it myself. But I also know that there are tips and techniques that can help a struggling writer get through this. While distractions are not necessarily the same as writer's block, they are one of the key problems a writer has to deal with in the creative process, along with writer's block itself and a lack of motivation.  The first thing to know is that distractions are intermittent problems. They are solvable and easy to overcome with persistence, though the longer-term issue of establishing a regimen is a longer-term commitment.  Distractions are always easy to address. The first thing you need to do is find the sources of distraction. Obviously, the noise problem is omnipresent, but that can  be manageable when you adjust to ...

 Recently, I heard the news that Disney will be investing a billion dollars into OpenAI. This deal will enable for Sora 2 to provide access to 200 Disney characters for users to use in their videos however they like. Let's see, that amounts to Pixar, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Marvel, Star Wars, what else? To some animation pundits bullish about the potential prospects of utilizing this technology, this sounds like a cure for the American animation industry's current creativity crisis.  Jerry Beck, co-founder of Cartoon Brew and a longtime animation affecionado and historian, thinks so. He argues that it is something that Walt Disney, a known tech and art pioneer, would support.  Yet a very quick look at a few samples of what people have made with Sora 2 proves otherwise. As a word of warning, there's a lot of these videos out there. Be prepared to see some truly wild clips in one of these many compilation videos: Let's see: Fat people breaking through floors, anima...

  Sword and Scimitar by Raymond Ibrahim is a fast read, but it is very light on the research that backs the text. It does make use of legitimate secondary scholastic sources, such as Islam and Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or (good book, for those who want to know more about specific aspects of Islamic society), but it suffers from the very modern tendency to reduce the on-again, off-again struggle between Christendom and the Dar-al Islam (Realm of Islam) as one singular, endless war equivalent to the Cold War (which in fact is/was much closer to being a struggle between two powerful states and their supranational spheres of influence), and makes some glaring, if not intentional, fallacies in the general story of Christian-Muslim interactions.  A good enough map, but the parts conquered by Islamic polities in Eastern Europe are not totally accurate. For one thing, the Crimea and the Caucasus should be light gray, being territories once controlled by Islam but later seized by Christi...

  Fairy Tale  by Stephen King isn't a bad book, but it's certainly the weakest book by Stephen King I have read thus far. The literary novel plot at the beginning with Charlie taking care of a dog and an old man is interesting, but it feels so out of place in a book like this. The cover promises a "dark fantasy" kind of fantasy where a child goes into a magical fantasy land, but it just takes too long to get to the interesting part, the gist of the novel promised by the cover. It is a shame because having a darker version of a classic fantasy book like L. Frank Baum's  The Wizard of Oz , but with a German Shepherd in the Toto role, is one of the most interesting ideas. The fact that the German Shepherd kind of disappears after a while, when Charlie gets captured by the Night Soldiers, is a symptom of wasted narrative potential. The actual fantasy part itself isn't that bad--after all, it is traditional weird, marvelous Stephen King manifest as what should have...

  “People hate …. Everyone hates” is the mantra of the new, Godless world man has invented for itself from years of prosperity. The hard work of many millions only gets wasted on the empty goods that spoil every subsequent generation. I once belonged to that generation, firmly following the cancerous way of life that Generation Z and the Millennials before them and Generation Alpha are being poisoned by. For one thing, what we call “art” is never so—Bland art that follows the tritest cookie-cutter formula to make the most money possible. This is where the “franchise” comes in—a borrowing from the fast-food world that our movies, television, and books are now forceto conform to. Instead of enjoying a story by itself, it now has to be part of some big sprawling universe that is meant to sell product. It is called “art” because the masses of loyal consumers these days have never understood what true human passion is like. To them, only the big entertainment oligopolies and the famous ...

  This article was originally written on November 8, 2025, so it will certainly be dated only in regards to when it was written. Otherwise, it's not dated. At the Hanover Book Expo on today November 8, 2025, I sold things for the first time. My trove of Legos, with some pieces dating back over 16 years, was a secluded and largely underutilized sideshow for the authors selling books. I shared the same spot in the VFW where Linda Lyles ran a face painting table. Initially, I had intended to run a Lego building contest for children ages 6 to 12, only to realize that not many of them who had come were interested in building along what sparse rules I had set, or were too young to safely play with Legos (choking hazard, you know). Their parents were also uninterested in whatever I had planned. They were more interested in taking a look at all the shiny, highly varied pieces and whatever miscellaneous knickknacks could be found.          ...