Tag Archives: reading

“Finished” is a beautiful word.

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Having finished first revisions of The Year of Dan Palace yesterday – retitled Someday April (which refers to Dan Palace’s fantasy of a future relationship with his ex, April) – I am free. FREE!

Until Monday, that is, when job-hunting pressure begins, but the future doesn’t exist, so there’s no point in thinking about that now.

And so, free time – until revisions are needed and/or I start a new writing project – will be spent doing the following:

1. Making hee-lay-ree-ous videos for “Inside the Writers Studio,” a show created by R.J. Keller and me. You can find “Inside the Writers Studio” (a PaperRats production) on its YouTube page, friend us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Watch the first episode. (The second is on the way.)

2. Reading! I get to read! For fun! Without guilt!

3. Writing blog entries here and there, no doubt.

What are you doing with YOUR free time?

What does it say about me that I like the suicidal writers?

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I don’t mean to. And when I say I like the suicidal writers I of course mean I like the writing of suicidal writers. I obviously haven’t met Ernest Hemingway or Dorothy Parker or Sylvia Plath, so I can’t say whether I’d like any of them personally.

Well…

I am reading the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (off and on), and based on what I’ve read so far, it seems safe to say I probably would have liked her. (Then again, can’t we come to find we presently like someone we didn’t get to meet until after they were dead? If a journal represents,  in large part, the essence of a person, and if we can assume the journal was written with honesty, it could be that we like the person inside the pages, that I can say, “I think I like Sylvia Plath” rather than “I would have liked” her. She doesn’t have to be alive for me to like her, does she?)

As to Dorothy Parker, having read her stories and poetry and book reviews collected in The Portable Dorothy Parker, I think I might have been more concerned with whether she liked me. There would have been something at once flattering and scary about being taken into her little Algonquin circle (as if I would have been!), and more unnerving would probably have been the way she would look at a new person, followed by the creative ways she would find to insult them that probably wouldn’t really hurt until two hours later when what she said finally settled in.

All of that is an aside. What struck me when reading Plath’s journals (having never read any of Plath’s other writing) was that I absolutely loved, and was inspired by, her skill and her style, which was a surprise to me because I didn’t expect to enjoy it. In high school, when the teenage girls were going through their “very deep” and emotionally traumatic phase, many of them turned to Sylvia Plath’s writing. It felt to me at the time like they were worshiping Plath’s depression, and envying her suicide. I wanted no part of that, so I stayed away from Plath.

But her journals (and, again, this is the only writing of hers I’ve read) are truly incredible. The skill she displays – and she’s just 18 years old at the journal’s start – is phenomenal.

Just as I enjoy Plath’s style, I enjoy Parker’s style. And Hemingway’s (even though I could do without his endless run-ons). Aside from John Steinbeck and J.D. Salinger (who does have some issues), they’re the only long-gone (excluding Salinger) literary authors I would immediately cite as my “absolute favorites.”

But what I can’t help noticing (naturally) is that they were all suicidal.  (Parker didn’t technically kill herself, but she did try at least three times.)

Is there some truth to the “tortured artist” after all? That the best art comes from the tortured soul? I don’t like to think so, not only because I’m not tortured and would therefore end up at an automatic disadvantage, but because it seems so very dramatic and ridiculous as an idea. While there very well may be actual “tortured artists,” there’s nothing more annoying than someone who identifies him- or herself as one of them. (And it’s probably safe to say anyone who calls her- or himself a tortured artist isn’t one. At least, not one to be taken seriously.)

It used to be that I intentionally stayed away from reading these suicidal writers because it was considered “trendy” to like them, and also because I wasn’t separating their behavior, or their lives, from their writing. But it’s a true thrill to have been introduced to Plath’s journals this past Christmas, when Ian gave it to me as a gift. I’d never mentioned Plath to him, but he saw the book in the store and thought I might like it (I’m nosy and find people’s published journals interesting). I don’t think he could have anticipated just how much, though. Nor could I. I didn’t want to like her. Or Hemingway. Or Parker. But I can’t help it.

Question: What are your thoughts on the “tortured artist”?

(Backword Books author Bonnie Kozek wrote an engrossing article on the subject of the “tortured artist:” UNDER THE INFLUENCE: WRITERS AND DEPRESSION AND CHOICES CHOSEN. Read it here.)

The books not getting Dan Brown coverage…

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…can be tricky to find out about because, well, they’re not getting that coverage.

But there’s a blog site I discovered yesterday that can make finding something to read much, much easier. A number of books you may be interested in, and that are being favorably reviewed, appear in  The New Book Review, blogged by award-winning author Carol Howard-Johnson and named to Online Universities’ 101 Book Blogs You Need to Read.

This review spot is NEW because it embodies the new idea that a book should not be judged by its cover or its press. If a reviewer thinks a book is great, The New Book Review lets readers know about it. – Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of  the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers.

I’ll be interviewing Carolyn for the Self-Publishing Review in the next day or two about her blog and her books, and I’ll post a link when it’s live. What I’m most curious about is what prompted her to start the blog, and whether there are books she discovered and came to love as a result of starting the blog.

Speaking of the Self-Publishing Review (SPR), the website has been revamped and looks outstanding. Check it out. What used to be an online publication is now a combination online publication and community for readers and writers. Like the oringal SPR, the site can still be  accessed by people who simply wish to read the articles and opinion pieces, but those who want to be part of the reader/writer community may also create a membership and participate in the new chat forums.

And in more updated website news, Waiting for Spring author RJ Keller has a beautiful new site just waiting for a domain transfer. Here’s  her blog. I’m sure she’ll post an update when the site is ready for bookmarking. She sent me a link to the site in progress, and I couldn’t help it; I was so impressed by it that I used the same web design creation site (wix.com) to create a new homepage, myself. ‘Tis the season!

The worst-read writer

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It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the time to sit around and read. In high school I always had a book. Always. I would read while I walked, while I ate, while a teacher lectured, and any time waiting was involved (for the bank teller, for the train, for an awkward moment to pass, etc.).

In college, I read what was assigned. Afterward, I was busy doing other things. Writing, I think. Working. Playing. Whatever.

More recently, I’ve been fiddling with The Year of Dan Palace, and during that time I’ve stayed away from reading (and I’m not done with DP, yet, but I’m hoping to finish in very, very early 2010). When I finish, I’m reading. Reading, reading, reading. I’ve decided to dedicate two weeks to a reading binge, and after that, when I’m doing something else (like looking for a job), I’ll continue reading. Yes. And so far, these are the books I can’t wait to get to (whether or not they fall into my two-week reading binge, and in no particular order):

A novel by my friend Rob C.

April Fool’s Day by Josip Novakovich

Undiscovered Country by Lin Enger

Threshold by Bonnie Kozek

The Splendor of Antiquity by Cheryl Anne Gardner (and others by Gardner)

Do the Math by Philip Persinger

In the Time of Man by James C. Moore

The American Book of the Dead by Henry Baum

Recollections: A Baby Boomer’s Memories of the Fabulous Fifties by Jim Chambers

600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Hemingway books I ordered from eBay

(A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Hemingway Reader)

What’s on your to-be-read list?

Thank you, readers of books.

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During this almost-abstention from the internet during a writing/revising period, it only makes sense to post a heartfelt thank you to those who have bought (or found) and read Homefront, Carol’s Aquarium, or anything else I’ve ever written. I’m not one of those writers who would be content to put in the work just to stick the pages in a drawer – I crave, love, and value readers. Dare I say I need them? Yes. Yes! I dare.

So, to you readers, thank you, thank you. I see the Amazon.com rankings for Homefront holding steady, and Carol’s Aquarium seems to have a few readers, too. And while Amazon rankings mean little in the grand scheme of things (numbers change drastically based on sales or clicks or…I don’t even know), where they do mean a lot is in the motivation they offer to someone in the middle of editing many many pages. Rankings may be an elusive thing to figure out in terms of sales, but there’s no question they indicate a readership.

And it’s impossible to not be energized when there’s evidence of reader support given, sometimes inadvertently, through the simple purchase of a book.  So, thank you, thank you.

And keep reading. So many good books out there. So many! I’m very much looking forward to my own two-week reading binge after this editing/revising period. I have a HUGE stack of books waiting.

More dangerous to authors: reviewers, or themselves?

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An exciting debate sparked by a negative book review has been taking place over at the Self-Publishing Review.

In short:

Reviewer doesn’t like book.

Supporters of said book read the review and then leave comments questioning the reviewer’s authority and/or credentials and/or ability to write a review, period. They follow their questions with high praise for the author and his book.

In a subsequent thread of comments (these, too, defending the author and criticizing the reviewer) that follow an interview with one reviewer who liked the book in question and the other reviewer who didn’t, commenter “Christa” quotes part of Alain de Botton’s earlier (and highly publicized) defense of himself, another negatively-reviewed-author, thusly:

“Authors should not always turn the other cheek. . .Authors are totally powerless in the face of reviewers. Someone can go into print and say ‘This person has published the worst book on Earth’ and basically the author can’t do anything about it. . . .There’s an onus on the reviewer to be halfway fair. Essentially, give the reader a sense of what’s going on, try and give its merits and demerits.”

(A link to the full article on de Botton’s response to reviewer Caleb Crain, which quotes him as saying to the NYT reviewer, “I will hate you until I die,” can be found here.)

This was my response to Christa:

Christa quotes Alain de Botton as having written, “Authors should not always turn the other cheek. . .Authors are totally powerless in the face of reviewers. Someone can go into print and say ‘This person has published the worst book on Earth’ and basically the author can’t do anything about it. . . .There’s an onus on the reviewer to be halfway fair. Essentially, give the reader a sense of what’s going on, try and give its merits and demerits.”

Yes. Someone can go into print and say “This person has published the worst book on Earth” and the author can’t do anything about it. The review is out there and people have read it.

I truly, truly understand how upsetting that can be. But, on the other hand, “Authors are totally powerless in the face of reviewers”?

First, and at the risk of sounding mean, that’s just whining. Stop it.

Second, the author isn’t powerless. The work is out there to defend (or destroy) itself.

The author has written the work. The author should know that once it’s out there, it’s open to criticism. Or praise.

As to the onus being on the reviewer to be “fair”…

If a reviewer praises something in an author’s work but does it as a result of a misunderstanding – “The way Mr. Rugshow uses an electrical cord as a metaphor for love is absolutely genius” even though Mr. Rugshow didn’t intend to do that at all, for example – do you think the author, Mr. Rugshow, will write a note saying, “Uhh…actually, your review is stupid because I didn’t mean to use any such metaphor”?

Maybe, but it’s doubtful.

The author has his or her chance to present a case: that’s the work itself.

The reviewer then presents his or her case: that’s the review.

It is what it is. Some will like it, some won’t.

And while some reviewers are probably really, really bad at reviewing (they’ll post a synopsis of the book, essentially, and leave it at that), the last person who should criticize the reviewer is the person being reviewed (or their family and friends).

I’m scared for today’s authors.

Our access to the internet and immediate gratification is dangerous.

Questions:

1. Do you think authors are powerless against reviewers?

2. Should authors (not) always turn the other cheek?

3. Does an author’s arguing with the reviewer help or hurt the author?

Discuss.

(And don’t forget to enter the Backword Books contest – win 7 free paperbacks! Deadline is September 30.)

Operation eBook Drop

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Author Edward Patterson, whose books are available on Kindle, had the fantastic idea to provide free ebooks to deployed service members.

So far, this many authors have signed up and are donating their books:

Maria E Schneider
Kristen Tsetsi
L.K. Campbell
Elmore Haimes
E.J. Ruek
Leslie Nicholl
Jim Chambers
Kelly Abbell
Chuck Austen (Illustrator)
Willam Woodell (Bluearkasascowboy)
Lloyd Lofthouse
L C. Evans
R. J. Keller
Laura Eno
Moriah Jovan
Andrew Kent
Marva Dasef
Al Past
E. Patrick Dorris
Trish Lamoree
Stanley Morriss
K. Raven Rozier
Sharon Cathcart
Alan Baxter
Susan Helene Gottfried
Brandan Carroll
Lisa Pietsch
Joshua T. Calkins-Treworgy
Eugene Docema
S.A. Rule
&
Edward C. Patterson

ADDITIONALLY: Smashwords has joined in! Read their blog about it here. Clicking the link will provide instructions for publishers, authors, and deployed service members who would like to be involved.

Authors with ebooks, or authors who can make their books available that way, this is an incredible and easy way to offer some troop support. I know my husband would have loved having such endless, and free, reading material during his down time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What are you doing tonight?

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Because there promises to be some good conversation at Stacey Cochran’s BookChatter at, say, 9PM EDT.

You can watch the show live over the internet here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bookchatter

Or, too, you can call in to the show’s line if you just want to listen. The phone # to call in is: (914) 803-4571

But you are of course invited – nay, encouraged! – to call in with questions or comments during the hour.

Also, check out Backword Books’ new video/trailer and tell us what you think. We love it, but we’re biased:

Tough one.

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The signings I’ve done in the past have always included moments of sadness–unavoidable, considering Homefront‘s topic. The last time I did a signing at Books-a-Million, one woman told me her friend had lost her husband to an IED. Another woman had a husband suffering from PTSD. I tried not to imagine what they were going through. One deployment was enough for me, thanks.

Today, a mother in-law and her daughter in-law stopped by the signing table as I was getting ready to leave. The mother in-law picked up the book and read the back. The daughter in-law said, “Is this fiction or non-fiction?”

I explained that it was fiction, but based on personal experience.

“So you’ve been through it,” she said.

I think I said, “Oh, yeah.”

She eyed the book like she was afraid of it. The mother in-law said her son, the girl’s husband, was on his third deployment. I looked at the girl and my stomach felt the way it did when Ian was in Iraq. In her, I saw the way I must have looked when Ian was gone. She looked like a hug would have destroyed her. Like she’d just been crying, or like any second the right word or look could break her.

Her eyes were in my head the whole way home, and I wished I were a different kind of person. The kind of person who would, without thinking, hug someone who looked like they needed it. The kind of person who would have said to her, “Everything’s going to be okay. He’ll be fine.” Because nothing feels better than hearing that, whether or not you’re truly able to believe it. You want to believe it and you have to believe it, and if someone else is so sure everything will be okay, then it must be possible that it’s true.

In all likelihood, everything will be okay. The percentages are good.

That doesn’t change the fear, though. The constant worry. Because “in all likelihood” isn’t good enough and won’t offer that single, normal day free of a lingering, sickening fear that no matter how great the likelihood of survival, there could be a fluke, bad timing, or some unplanned…something.

I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about her for some time.

The mother in-law bought two copies. I don’t know if one of them is for her daughter in-law.

Even if she never reads it, she is why I wrote Homefront.