Graham Sedam Writes

I'll admit that when I first started reading J. Thomas Richard's noir-style novel, The Black River Players , my brain was a little resistant. That notion sounds worse than it was, but that seems to be the best way for me to describe it. With a little more explanation, maybe you'll understand. It's a great book, so don't stop reading here, and please, buy a copy and support a talented writer who is self-published. What you must first understand is that I was coming out of reading an entirely different book in every sense of the word “entirely.” The book I had finished reading, Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe , is a text based upon gathered information that is then laid out and explained in a comprehensive way. I enjoyed that book for the knowledge that I gained, and I wrote a post about my experience with it . That book contributed to an even greater understanding I now have of the human race’s historical background. The text in Jus...

Arrested, Again In TNSDD #8 , I featured the show, Arrested Development . I wrote up a very small bit about my feelings on Season 4. I included a video, of course. In this issue, I’ve decided to bring this show up again as my wife and I watched Season 5 in the latter half of this past summer. To start off with, in general, I liked Season 5 more than I liked 4. It felt more akin to the first three seasons. I know that there were issues getting the whole cast together to film during Season 4, and that seemed to have had a greater affect on how the show turned out, greater than they probably expected. Maybe it was in part due to writing that didn’t live up to prior seasons. I’m sure it’s an all-of-the-above type of explanation. Season 4 was still good but as in the same way that there’s no such thing as bad pizza, as the saying goes. Having Arrested Development is better than NOT having it, mostly. I would’ve liked to have watched Season 5 more binge-fully. Now that most people, i...

Welcome to another edition of The R&D Workshop. I wish I could say that the type of post I'm going to put out each week is more planned, for the newly published ones that is, but lately it has been a game of which one is done first? Which one seems the most relevant this particular week? What’s on my mind? If you haven't been following my blog by way of social media, in particular Facebook or Twitter, then you might not be privy to the fact that I've been re-posting older posts every other week. I call them “refurbished” because that's what I basically do to them. I have been moving sequentially with those, going from when I restarted my blog to the present day. I don’t plan on sharing any Electric Feast posts, so that’s an archive search for you, reader, if you’re up for it. (I do make it easy in the menu...) More on my refurbishing in the last section of this post. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it has been getting particularly tough to move forwar...

Trollhunters Last year, my family and I got into a show called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia . It's a Netflix show by Guillermo del Toro. I have gotten the impression that his name means something, so maybe that alone would sway you into checking it out? (Among many others, he did write, direct, and produce Pan’s Labyrinth —a great movie, if you ask me.) If you don't have kids, I could certainly see this NOT being on your bucket list. Maybe I'm wrong. If you have kids, I think this is a fun show to watch together; it was a great way for my wife and I to connect/share an interest with the kids. We watched season three shortly after it came out this past spring/summer, and it didn't disappoint. However, with the way the story was progressing, it did leave me wondering what fuel they would have left for the story afterward. I got my answer after finding out there would be only three seasons—makes sense. It made me wonder how much of the show's length was intended...

Here we are again, taking another stab at a new approach to this part of my blog called The R&D Workshop. As I stated in the last update, No.7 , I don't plan on doing this weekly, though it would be nice to do so. I have plenty that I want to write beyond these Workshop updates, and sometimes time and consequence determine what we humans work on. That's not always bad, as there ARE other interests of mine. Plus, having a young family creates its own balance of rewards and challenges. Make lemonade with tomatoes, I say. This post focuses on some upgrades, improvements, and whatnot related to my writing and beyond. First! I started a Facebook page dedicated to my writing. You can find me at Facebook.com/Graham.Sedam.Writes —come join me! Second! Yes, I did change up this place a little. The new site is "responsive," much more mobile friendly, and I think it looks so fetch. Plus, it's nice to change things up. Here's a picture I took on a recent, e...

For what now seems like a long time ago, I had the opportunity to receive a digital copy of Draze Force’s new EP, III , along with its accompanying cover art. Nick Morris, Draze Force's sole mastermind, graciously sent it to me back in May before its June 8th release. I've been mulling over a write-up on the blog ever since, taking stabs at a post along the way. It hasn't been until recently that I was able to start tightening things up to publish this post. As I wrote, Nick humored me by answering some questions. I could make the attempt of breaking down each song descriptively and relaying that to you readers here, but this is not that type of post. I feel that music is a far too personal experience; it’s an art to be heard, not read. What I do here is merely a supplement to what YOUR ears tell YOU. If I had to give you a simple description, how would I describe the music of Draze Force? The first word that pops into my mind is electronic. Realizing that descripti...

A Renewed Sense Of Purpose? In a larger, macro sense, I DO understand what I'm trying to accomplish with The R&D Workshop, but in a smaller, micro sense, it's been tough for me to find a groove that seems fitting to me. When I say “smaller, micro sense,” I essentially mean the content that makes up each Workshop update. I like the overarching concept, which is basically updates on my works of passion and their related business, but it has felt like I've been missing something that I could never really wrap my mind around. Everything is a work in progress—some more than others. I do like the progress I've made from No.1 to No.6, however. One thing that has inspired me lately to take another look at how I approach The R&D Workshop is the concept of weeknotes. For those of you more hip to the vibrations flowing through the internet, this is not a new concept as I have read that this idea, or way of blogging, has been around since 2009. Many bloggers/newsletter...