wayfaringwordhack: (writing - plot problem)
My last post from almost two months ago mentioned I was going to try to write 750 words today.  Let's just cut straight to the chase and say that has not happened.   I have been writing* but not setting--or achieving--any daily goals for myself.  I have done lots of research into various story-related things; I have polished up my first four chapters because that is the way I write**, and I have been doing quite a bit of art.

I have also been doing the mothering-thing, the living-in-a-new-country-and-making-new-friends-thing, and generally achieving a state of exhaustion helped in part by sick kids and my own seasonal allergies.  Here I sit, one fever blister*** and one sprained ankle later, with a fairly un-itchy mouth, wondering ruefully why I bothered to post a public goal about my hoped-for achievements...

Wondering why I am going to speak of another goal I am setting for myself.  But there you have it because there you have moi.  

Last week a friend, H, came over, who is also into making art.  She asked what my goal/drive for my children's book is (the one I want to illustrate myself).  When I told her, she said, "No wonder you can't finish it; you are putting way too much pressure on the project." 

Because I canNOT undo the way I see this book or just do a "cutting my teeth" version of it (unless I want to do a crap draft and then an overhaul draft, which fills me with fatigue just thinking about it), I have decided to put it aside in favor of some other, less-complex ideas.  I am setting myself a goal of doing art everyday, broken down into three categories:  1) Copy-to-learn; 2) Book specific studies; 3) Just for fun.   I am aiming for two out of three per day, with achieving all three considered icing on the cake.  The "copy-to-learn"  is actually broken down into two types of copying:  continuing to work my way through Peter Han's Dynamic Bible AND copying an illustration from a pinterest board of styles I like created for this purpose.

No sooner had I decided on this new course than I had a dream about a good idea for a new book, so between that one and a story I made up ages ago for Sprout, when she wanted "stories from my mouth," I have a couple of Cut My Teeth projects ready to go.

Wish me better luck on this.  Oh, and of course, I still want to write everyday.
_____________
* I now have 15+K on it.

** I have to keep going over something until I feel like I have nailed the voice and place before I can make headway with something.  The only thing I was able to really write from beginning to end and not do that on was a story for NaNo where the voice pretty much occurred to me right away and the story lent itself to discovery of place and people along the way since the MC was on the move at the end of chapter one.

*** I get fever blisters or shingles attacks whenever I get really tired. 
wayfaringwordhack: (art - the reader)
Here is a reposting of a review I wrote on Goodreads for Lagoonfire written by Francesca Forrest:
 

As per my request, I received an Advanced Reader Copy of Lagoonfire in exchange for my honest review.

Having read and very much enjoyed Francesca Forrest’s The Inconvenient God, I was thrilled to find out there would be a sequel. I am a Whopper-of-a-Tome kind of gal—someone who likes loooooooong stories—so my only gripe, as such, about The Inconvenient God was its short length. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like tales that are wordy for the sake of wordiness, rather ones that enchant me into lives of people I want to be around for a long haul.

I think Francesca* has created such a person in Decommissioner Thirty-Seven. Decommissioner Thirty-Seven is a woman with integrity, sensitivity, and compassion in a country that seems intent on eradicating such useless sentiments. Instead of worshipping gods, people must adhere to Abstractions. This is where I will admit this was not a very easy story for me to read right now because it is hitting too close to home on the political reality in my country of residence, as it is, I think, in many places in the world.

Lagoonfire has a dystopian feel because of the Polity’s oppressive views toward tradition, religion, and personal freedom; however, what makes this story different from most dystopian narratives is that there has been no earth-shattering cataclysm, war, plague, etc. that has resulted in the Polity. This is a place that could exist today. Its birth has been a march of time, policy after policy, complacency, propaganda, media manipulation, “for the common good” brainwashing… so much bending and bending on the part of the people that they no longer have the will to fight a still ever-tightening government, that or they have completely bought into the Institution.

Or so it seems.

Thankfully, there are people like Decomissioner Thirty-Seven, called Sweeting by the gods she has decommissioned, who find ways to fight the inhuman, inhumaneness of the Polity by choosing: they choose to embrace their humanity, to believe in others, to not bend.

I don’t want to go into any kind of spoilers—the book’s blurb does an excellent job of setting up the premise—but I do want to say that Francesca made the Polity feel so pervasive and unbeatable that I was wary of the ending, worried I would be left feeling hopeless at the thought of facing down the behemoth of oppression. Knowing Francesca, I need not have feared. Sweeting finds a way to keep on fighting that is uplifting and within the reach of all.

I can’t wait for the third installment.


_________

* I met Francesca online many, many moons ago and have struck up a friendship with her because of her enchanting way of looking at the world and ability to conjure that enchantment through her words; her passion for volunteer work, justice, and helping others; and her ability to convey hope and resiliency even in tough times; it would, therefore, be just plain weird for me to refer to her as Ms/Mrs/Forrest.
wayfaringwordhack: (art - the reader)
 ...on a book that fails to capture your interest, that is. I  am reading something now that is really Meh. I only read when I am brushing my hair or teeth or flossing, which means I don't spend a lot of time at it, but usually, I dawdle a bit over my tasks if the reading matter interests me. In  this case, I just stop wherever I am on the page, even in the middle of a sentence.

I am contemplating moving on to something else, but another part of me thinks I should just keep going with it because it isn't like it is awful, I am just not that into the subject matter and am perhaps a bit criticial of it (the story is set in France, and Carcassonne, my husband's birthplace, figures quite heavily in it, which should make it interesting) but the mystical elements and the religious wars part of....yeah, just don"t feel like something I want to invest in now.

I have been reading ( the umpteenth time for me) The Chronicles of Narnia to Sprout (her first time, and she loves thme as much as I hoped she would), and I think the direct style (some would say "telling") and elegant simplicity of C.S. Lewis' prose really makes what this other author is doing feel overblown and melodramtic. I know styles have changed and the subject matter is not at all the same, but class is classy and doesn't age.

C.S. Lewis is one of those writers who makes me want to write and yet intimidates the socks off me.
wayfaringwordhack: (writing - plot problem)
I have been thinking lately of how my handle here doesn't really reflect my life at the moment. I still have stories in me, I am sure. I just don't spend a lot of time with that part of myself these days.

Expandherein lies some rambling rambles )
wayfaringwordhack: (art: the reader - fragonard)
I read books in French.

You like to suggest other books I might like to read.

However, it is not helpful when the books you suggest are in German.

To the best of my knowledge, a French speaker does not a German reader make.

While I find it flattering you think that if I can read one "foreign" language I can read them all, 'tis not the case.

Please work on your algorithm.  S'il vous plaît, travaillez votre algorithme. Bitte an Ihrem Algorithmus arbeiten.

Thanks,
A Reader
wayfaringwordhack: (art: woman reading)
Has anyone on my flist read anything by Wendell Berry?  I want to order a book or two of his but don't really know where to start... I'll probably get a book of poems, but I'm unsure whether or not I want to get a novel, too, or an essay anthology.

And while we're talking books, anyone have a good read they feel like recommending?  I'm open to anything. 
wayfaringwordhack: (Sprout: !!!)
Tonight, I was reading some books with Sprout that we picked up at the library. One of them was a Baby Einstein book entitled, Van Gogh's World of Color.

On the first page, she listened to and answered the questions, but on the second page, she pointed to the goat (Vincent Van Goat) and asked, "Why does that goat have a bandage on its ear?"

What do you tell your 3-year-old in response to that? I know why. Is she too young to know or understand why?  Maybe, but a) I want model honesty and helpfulness to my children; b) I don't believe in fielding a child's "why" questions with variations of "just because." "I don't know" is a valid answer, but as I said, in this case, I did know why.

So I gave a very general answer about the painter being a person who wasn't always happy and how he hurt his ear during the one of his very sad times. And she kept asking, "Why does he have a bandage; why was he sad?"

We ended up talking about how some people need to have help when they feel very bad, about how it is important to try to understand and help those who seem to be going through a rough time, about the existence of mental illness, about how her father and I will always be there for her to help her when she needs us. Still she asked about the bandage. I finally pointed out that yes, he has a bandage, but he seems to have found his smile again and is apparently happy now. That satisfied her. She needed it articulated that there could be a happy outcome.

And she was thrilled to discuss doing her birthday painting on Tuesday after looking at the artwork in the book. :D

2nd yr painting
Last year's fun
wayfaringwordhack: (art: the reader - fragonard)
I usually state the title and author/illustrator names of the books I read to S.

Yesterday, we settled down with one of the books she got for Christmas.

Me:  Puppy Too Small by--
S: Cinderella!
Me: Huh?
S: By Cinderella.
Me: um...
S: Puppy Too Mall by Cinderella.
Me, eyeing the cover: OH! Not Cinderella, my love; Cyndy Szekeres.

:P
wayfaringwordhack: (art: the reader - fragonard)
Interested in donating books to a worthy cause? Check out this post by [livejournal.com profile] sartorias.
wayfaringwordhack: (Brio)
First, brekkie by the sea.  Then J lovingly and obliging took S to run some errands so I could stay and write.  Got lots of scene cards written before someone mistakenly told me the wrong time and sent me home in a rush, fearing J was stuck at home with a starving baby.

Second, a delicious lunch of fresh mackerel, common whelks, homemade mayo, sauteed aubergines (eggplant), and mashed sweet potatoes, most of it prepared by the aforementioned loving, obliging man.

I then read a charming little book called Oracle Gretel,* sent to me by the generous [livejournal.com profile] asakiyume.**

After which, I did a couple of sketches. I've now sketched consistently for a week. Don't want to jinx myself, but the habit feels like it is back. :)

When S woke up from her nap, we went for a walk in Saint Jean de Luz and had supper together before J had to catch his train back to Bordeaux.

S went to sleep of-so-easily, and I shall now do the same. Who knows, I might actually make it to bed before 11 if I hurry off now. 

Bonne nuit, LJ!

_____________
* by Julia Rios, aka [livejournal.com profile] skogkatt, illustrated by Erik Amundsen, aka [livejournal.com profile] cucumberseed.

** Thank you, thank you, thank you for sending this little gem to me. J and S haven't read it, one being busy with Egypt stuff and the other too young, but they both greatly appreciated the pictures. :D
wayfaringwordhack: (art: woman reading)
...had I been born in France in a past century.  From The Prospect Before Her:  A History of Women in Western Europe 1500-1800, which I'm currently reading:

French policemen, for example, were notoriously underpaid, so their wives topped up their income by running taverns. Ironically, the tavern, if perhaps not the one run by a policeman's wife, was usually the place where thieves disposed of the loot and the products of poaching. The  police were supposed to see that licensing laws were respected, and they could protect their wives' businesses by harsher regulation of any competitors.

I'm having a tough time imagining J putting the squeeze on my competition, but times were hard, so who knows. :P
wayfaringwordhack: (art: the reader - fragonard)
I'm treating myself to a book for Christmas because my favorite book-buying site,* BetterWorldBooks, is having a Black Friday sale (going on now through this weekend) where the purchase of three or more books gets a reduction of 15% (with the code BLACKFRIDAY).

The book? Wildwood, by Colin Meloy, singer for The Decembrists. Review here on the NYTimes to give you an idea what it is about and what a critic thought. (Disclaimer: I didn't read the review. I hardly ever do. :P )

I follow a blog called Design*Sponge (full of nifty posts on diverse topics), and that is where I first heard of Wildwood. I clicked through on the links not so much because of the blurb but because of the illustrations done by Meloy's wife, Carson Ellis.  The images tickled my sense of whimsy and I'm in the mood for a book with illustrations. I still remember being told that I was "too old for books with pictures" and the hurt I felt at that. It took me years to want to read again as voraciously as before. Oddly, I was not drawn to comics, then or now, but I do love illustrated stories.

I don't know if it will arrive before I leave for Albania, but here's hoping!

_________
* "free shipping" to France?  Oh, yeah, I'm there. Yes, I know the higher prices cover the shipping, but BWB is a site with a literacy-funding mission I can get behind. And they don't have a minimum amount to qualify for free shipping.
wayfaringwordhack: (art journal)
We went to Bayonne today, where I am happy to report, there are a plethora of bookstores.  And in the window of one, I saw a leather-bound tome with three little skulls poking out from the cover.  A convex book, no???
wayfaringwordhack: (art: the reader - fragonard)
I want to give my family ideas for Christmas* gifts (actually, I'm carefully planting the seed in Julien's ear), and BOOKS are in position number one.  Does anyone have a Must Read to recommend?  I am usually a genre reader--fantasy, especially epic--but I'm willing--nay, wanting--to read other things.

So, can anyone help a reader out in time for the holidays?


_____________
* Before you pelt me with Halloween candy and declare it is too early to think about Christmas, remember that I'm in France and since any books for me will need to be ordered online from English speaking sellers, my in-laws need more time.
wayfaringwordhack: (!!!)

 From the book I'm currently reading, Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia:

Many other genres and uses of magico-religious rituals were available to the ancient Mesopotamians, such as the generic incantation for "reconciling a man's god or goddess with him" or incantations for calming a baby (emphasis mine)--"Let Mother Get Her Chores Done." The baby incantations revealed the themes and style of earlier lullabies.  pg. 211


But then they don't share the incantation.  I need it, especially if I want to get my outfit finished in time for the wedding! :P
 
 
wayfaringwordhack: (woman reading)
 If you are considering pursuing the indie e-publishing route, Lindsay Buroker has a very informative blog where she details her foray into to the world of e-books. And I do mean details. She shares great, in-depth info on the business/marketing side of indie publishing.  Check it out.

She has made a couple of her books available already, and I have had the privilege of reading Encrypted.  I typically fall into the reader-of-doorstop-fantasy-tomes category, but Lindsay never fails to entice me with her fun, fast reads.  She knows how to write pacey spec fiction that still hits the sweet spot with character and world-building.  And humor.  Can't forget the humor.

Depressed

5 Mar 2010 05:09 pm
wayfaringwordhack: (sunflower - closed)
 I'm so depressed.

For one moment, I was on top of the world, thinking that in Singapore, when we pass back through in a couple of days, I'd be able to get my hands on some books.

Knowing that Borders might not have them in stock, a few days ago, I contacted them and asked them to get The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin, Hammer of God by Karen Miller, and Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb for me.

They wrote back. Bad news.  It will take 6-8 weeks!  Not fair!

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope; there are other bookstores in Singapore.

*Gets set to Google*

ETA:  I seem to have found all three on Books Kinokuniya. I'm asking to reserve them now. *crosses fingers*
wayfaringwordhack: (the reader - fragonard)
How forgiving are you when you come across a continuity error in a published book/series of books? I'm not talking about changing eye/hair color, a forgotten knife suddenly in the hero's hands. Those things are annoying, yes, but I'm talking about plotty things. Like X doesn't know who did harmful Y but intends to find out, then in book 2, suddenly it is X who did Y to serve his own purposes. o.O (And no, there was no explanation. It is apparent that the author forgot what she had said in book 1 because a) X doing so makes no sense despite the author's reasoning, b) there is NO explanation, c) harmful Y was too full of plotty goodness as it was presented in bk 1. X doing Y takes out alllllllll of the tension.)

How about when an author, again in bk 2, seemingly decides they no longer like the way they set up a certain aspect in book 1 and continues to repeat the "new" fact over and over again, either trying to convince you or themselves that that's really the way things happened in the first volume? Yeah, annoys me, too.

As an aspiring author, I've written my share of slips, but why doesn't someone catch these things? Beta readers, an agent, an editor, a copy editor?

Are these mistakes enough to keep you from reading an author, or do you forgive them as well?
wayfaringwordhack: (paper flames)
1) A few days ago, I followed a link trail to this post. Since POV and characterization are not among my strong points as a writer, I decided to fill out the little chart at the bottom and try my hand at transforming telling sentences into "involuntary character reactions." When I got to the fourth one, I realized that a whopping three of my examples had semicolons. I forced myself to edit at least one of them, but when I got to the fifth, my natural impulse was to divide my sentences with a semicolon. Yes, I am a fan of this punctuation mark.

2) I recently finished a book chock-full of beautiful prose. Although it was a short book compared to my standard fare, it took me ages to finish it. As gorgeous and lush as the writing was,  as surprising, dark, and fanciful as the writer's imagination and world were, I just couldn't get into it.  Because I didn't care about the characters. I would see the book lying by my bed and think, "Oh, I should read that." Never a, "I must sneak away to read this book!"

Upon finishing it, I turned to one of my favorite reads--a trilogy--in search of that sucked-in feeling I crave from my fiction. And I am finding the prose to be rather mediocre. That, however, has not kept me from staying up until 2 a.m. twice in a row to read about the characters that I've already visited a whopping seven times.

Still, upon occasion, I find myself rewriting sentences, taking out repetitions, thinking about how flashbacks are handled, the balance of telling and showing; I find myself wishing for prose that sings more often. (I still get teary eyes in places, so despite my minor quibbles, the story still has its power over me.)

I'm deeply interested in words--the way they sound, how they look on a page, where they come from, how they can be strung together to express and explore thoughts, emotions, or heretofore unknown-to-me ideas and concepts. Nevertheless, I don't like when a story is just about the words. I like when a tale speaks of people, relationships, challenges, and adventures.

But I have an easier way with words than with people, and too often in my writing, the prose shines modestly while the characters jerk about like puppets.

Is it too much to want to be a writer whose prose is both serviceable and beautiful, whose characters capture a reader's imagination and heartstrings and never let them go? If it is, I fear I shall be a wanting woman for the rest of my life. 
 
3) Rereading this old favorite has made me itch to start writing again. I have determined to make some time for it, crafts and expos and trips or no.
wayfaringwordhack: (woman reading)

I had planned on getting some writing done today. I very much wanted to as it has been a while since I've allowed myself to even think about my stories.  However, pouring rain and constant thunder dictated the wisdom of shutting down the pc.

My consolation prize?

Lying in the hammock on the balcony, listening to the pounding storm and enjoying the coolness while immersing myself in The Etched City by K. J. Bishop.

I can think of worse ways to spend a slice of my day.

But now that the rain has ended, the blank pages call, hoping I'll at last unleash a little of my imagination on to them.

 

They may regret it later. >:)

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