I guess I should describe what social anxiety disorder is since not everybody is familiar with the term. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as social anxiety disorder until I was in college, despite the fact that I’d been suffering from the condition for my entire life. Continue reading
One of the most common pieces of writing advice is to write what you know. That idea can be misconstrued if taken too literally, (you don’t have to be an astronaut to write about space) but it’s generally good advice. However, sometimes simply writing what you know is not enough to stand out in today’s world of mass media with millions of books and blogs and Youtube videos. Continue reading
I didn’t have a full idea of what my blog would be about when I launched it, other than it would be about me— that’s why the domain is my name. I figured mostly I’d be writing about my writing. (meta, I know) My first post was a short story that I wrote a couple of years ago. I’ve written about my health, my writing influences, and random topics like television, and sports. The subjects have varied, but the common theme is me. My only real goal with the blog was to be open and honest, in the hope that it could help somebody else. Continue reading
I started playing fantasy sports about six years ago, and I was instantly hooked. I’ve played in at least one fantasy baseball, basketball, and football league every year since then. Fantasy sports renewed and deepened my interest in each sport to the extent that I now know the names and stats of just about every player in each league. Over the years, I’ve started to care less about my actual favorite sports teams and their inept owners and general managers, and I’ve started to care more about my fantasy sports teams, where I have full control over the players I pick and cheer for. Continue reading
Last week, I went through the honorable and dishonorable mentions, and so without further adieu, here are my top ten favorite television shows of 2014. (And as before, there are no spoilers.) Continue reading
With 2014 winding down, it’s about that time that every blog on the internet is required to do best of the year lists. Why fight it? People love lists. There are still way too many movies I need to see before doing a top ten films list, so I’ll start with television. I obviously haven’t seen every TV show that aired this past year, but I have seen quite a few— probably too many. This isn’t so much a list of the “best” TV shows of the 2014, as my “favorite” TV shows that I’ve watched this year. And if you haven’t seen any of the following shows yet, don’t worry, there are no spoilers. Continue reading
Last week, trailers were released for both a new Jurassic Park movie and a new Star Wars movie, two of my favorite franchises of all time. It wasn’t always that way, however. A lot of writers and filmmakers cite seeing Star Wars as a kid as being the number-one inspiration for their work as an adult, but I didn’t become a Star Wars fan until later in life. The original trilogy was released before I was born, and I had a weird aversion to old movies, so I avoided watching Star Wars. There was something about those 1970s hairdos that turned me off. I remember renting Return of the Jedi on VHS from Blockbuster because it was the newest of the three Star Wars films, but for whatever reason, it didn’t really capture my imagination at the time. Continue reading
Bastards of Bond is a short film script I wrote a couple of years ago. It’s a comedy about what happens when all the illegitimate children that James Bond abandoned at the end of his movies meet at an absent father support group. Continue reading
For as long as I can remember— basically since I was physically able to feed myself— I have been a vegetarian. People always used to ask why I refused to eat meat, but I never really had a good answer. It wasn’t for health reasons— I ate horribly. It wasn’t because I was an animal lover— I never had any pets and was afraid of dogs. It wasn’t because I was emulating someone else— no one in my family was vegetarian and neither were any of my friends. Continue reading
With the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, I thought I’d look back at the filmmaker’s career— and mine. Ever since The Prestige, a new Nolan film is an event in my life. He is the single-most influential writer/director on my own writing, and the film of his that has had the greatest impact on me is Inception. Continue reading
T.Z. Barry 