Tag Archives: reading

August 27, 2012 · 4:38 PM

Sharing without Caring

Well I’m a working woman now!

Ok…so I’m an interning woman.

It’s still fun, though!  I’m not going to say where I’m interning, but I will say that I’m getting to read a lot of query letters and sample manuscripts, and I’ve learned a lot.  One thing I learned I will now share with you here.

A lot of books that come through are nonfiction, though this advice can apply to fiction as well.  What these nonfiction writers often do is provide a lot of information about their life, or the life of someone close to them, without giving the reader a reason to care.  And I understand why this mistake is made.  I mean, you know your life is interesting.  You know that the time you found a cure for skin cancer while rescuing a beached whale is the most important moment of your life.  And you know that this story is very important, and should be shared with the world.

The only problem is that the readers don’t know.  They don’t know what’s happened, and even reading the synopsis on the back of the book isn’t going to captivate them for very long if they’re not given a reason to care.  There are exceptions to every rule of course, but for the most part, even nonfiction stories of whale saving/cancer curing need to have more to them than just that one event.  They have to have good writing, sure, but I like to see a full story.  I wrote before about making a timeline for the various events in a story, and that only works if your book has more than one event to put on the timeline.  What kind of person were you before you saved the whale?  How did you change after the whale was saved?  What’s your whole story?  Give me that, and I’ll care much more about the big events in your life.  I’ll begin to understand for myself why they’re important, instead of having to take your word for it.

I can tell that I’m on to something here, because I have read some really good nonfiction since I started work last Tuesday, and I’ve read some nonfiction with a lot of potential to be good, that really just couldn’t keep my interest.  That’s the difference you want to make.  And, as I said, it applies to fiction, too.  You’ve got to give your reader some context as to why they’re reading.

Because if you saved a whale, but made a habit of drowning kittens in your youth, that’s something I want to know.

Word of the Day: Captivate (v) – to attract and hold the attention or interest of, as by beauty or excellence; enchant

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June 7, 2012 · 4:35 PM

The Leaning Tower of Creativity

Got a few things to share with you.  The first two are videos.

This is courtesy of my best friend, who shared this with me after reading my posts on Fifty Shades of Grey.  It made me laugh, and I think you’ll like it, but I still feel the need to warn you that it will contain sexual content.  It is definitely NSFW.  Ladies and Gentlemen, Gilbert Gottfried reads Fifty Shades of Grey (I’m sorry, but the video won’t embed properly, so you’re going to have to click a link.  I promise it’s safe):

http://www.jest.com/video/174214/gilbert-gottfried-reads-fifty-shades-of-grey

The second video is the trailer for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is on my list of books that I recommend, and I hope that the movie will present an accurate portrayal.  It looks like it’s going to be good.

And finally, I want to share some brief news about my writing.  It’s not really news so much as an update.  That is…I’ve started working on Heavenbound, the sequel to Hellbound, again.  For me it’s always difficult to concentrate on just one book, or even to feel that accomplished when I’ve finished one, and I thought I’d give you a short explanation for why that is.

This is a list of all the books I’m either working on or have worked on or want to work on in the future:

The titles that are in green are the ones that I have finished, as far as I can call a book “finished.”  I will still need to go back and rework them and edit them, and they’re not all ready to be sent to a publisher, but I’m satisfied with their current state.  (I don’t have a title for “Steampunk Book” as of yet.  It’s just kept eluding me.  The file on my computer is “Steampunk Dreambook” since it was inspired by a dream I had.)

The titles in red are ones that need to be completely rewritten.  Think about that for a second.  The “re” in “rewritten” means I already wrote them once.  That’s right, all the books in red have been completed in some capacity, and they all need to be started from scratch.  Oy.

Finally, the titles in blue are books that are in progress in some way, shape, or form.  That might mean that I have a page or two written, or a chapter or two, or none of it written at all (the sequel to Grotesque being one of them).

As you can see…that’s a lot of books.  And I really want to write all of them one day.  So you might be able to understand why this is a bit of a daunting task, and why working on one book doesn’t seem like all that much of an accomplishment.

I don’t know how I manage to keep going, knowing that this list is looming over me, and that I’ve only got one lifetime to finish it.  Not to mention my brain will probably start adding to it long before I’m even close to finishing this first batch.

But I’ll keep chugging along, because this is what I do.  And maybe I’ll be more motivated to do it once someone actually starts paying me to make books happen.  Who knows?

That’s all I wanted to say.

Oh, no Mini Bexes were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Word of the Day: Daunt (v) – To overcome with fear; intimidate.

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May 30, 2012 · 7:00 PM

Fifty Shades of WTF

*DISCLAIMER* This blog post will contain mild spoilers and sexual content (written, not visual).  *END DISCLAIMER*

So a couple days ago, I heard about this trashy romance novel that was sweeping the nation called Fifty Shades of Grey.  It just suddenly popped up everywhere I went.  My relatives talked about it, one of my favorite comic strips, Girls With Slingshots, did a bit on it, etc.  Then yesterday, I was in Barnes & Noble buying books I actually care about – the next Sookie Stackhouse novel, the next Alpha and Omega novel by Patricia Briggs – when I see this book on the shelf.  My curiosity got to me.  I bought it.  I have not made it through the entire book.  I am only at chapter nine.  But here are some things I’ve observed about it.

1. It is uncomfortably close to Twilight in many ways.  Here is the list.  If you haven’t read Twilight, take my word for it that these things are contained within it:

  • The male love interest is described as an “Adonis.”
  • The main character, Anastasia, has a harebrained mother who has recently remarried.
  • Anastasia sees herself as awkward and ugly when apparently everyone else sees her as beautiful.
  • Anastasia has multiple male suitors (two so far) that are interested in her, attractive, and friendly, but she is not interested in them.  The only one who catches her eye is the perfectly handsome Christian Grey.
  • Anastasia blushes a lot, and her biggest flaw seems to be that she is clumsy.  Worse, it seems her klutziness is supposed to be endearing.  Why oh why is this a thing all of a sudden?  I get that the female is supposed to be all meek and need Mr. Sculpted McChiseledJaw to keep her safe, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.

50Shades

The list goes on.  Anastasia doesn’t believe she is worthy of Mr. Perfect-Ass WashboardAbs because he is so much better looking than she is.  She dreams about him every night after meeting him, yadda yadda.

Here are some other things.

2. Anastasia’s last name is Steele.  And the male love interest’s last name is not WashboardAbs, it’s Grey.  So we have Steele and Grey.  Steel Grey.  This is too perfectly constructed to have been an accident.  (Just like it was no accident that the main character of Twilight was named “Beautiful Swan.”) On top of that, Christian Grey has gray eyes, and his hair is supposedly “copper,” though to be fair, Edward’s was “bronze.”

3. The author, E L James, is English.  I knew this after reading the second sentence in the novel (“…damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill…”), and then I checked the About the Author to see if I was right.  I was.  I knew because she kept saying things like “My roommate is ill,” and “I must not do this,” and “I looked smart” (As in she was dressed well).  I have nothing against the English, but it took me until she mentioned driving from Oregon to Washington to realize that the narrator is, in fact, supposed to be American.  The problem is, no editor stopped Ms. James for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, but American people don’t talk like this.  We might need to change a few things.”  It takes me out of the book entirely every time she says an Englishism, and I’m afraid I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough.

4. I haven’t even gotten to the sex.  (Here’s where the spoiler comes in) Mr. Christian Grey tries to stay away from Bella, er, Anastasia as much as he can, but he just can’t because he is so in love with her clumsiness.  So he gives in and takes her back to his place and shows her his big, dark secret: He’s a vampire.  No just kidding.  It’s worse.  He’s really into kink.  He has an entire room dedicated to the most extreme forms of S&M.  He tells Anastasia that if she wants to be with him, she will have to be his Sub while he is the Dom.  And she’s like, “Well, you’re hot, and I really want to have sex with you, so okie dokie!”  Or rather, “Well, you’re a fine-looking fellow, and I must say I cannot resist you any further.”  Something like that.

So obviously I don’t really like this book so far.  This post was long, and I’m sorry.  I’ll probably give a full review of the book once I finish it.

Word of the Day: Sadomasochism (n) – interaction, especially sexual activity, in which one person enjoys inflicting physical or mental suffering on another person, who derives pleasure from experiencing pain.

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