Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul by various authors If you haven’t noticed, I could use a little pick-me-up for my writing these days. Or maybe a Phoenix Down or Philosopher’s Stone. We all need some motivation some times. I was hoping that this book could add a little gumption to my typing fingers. But the articles just don’t give much to inspire. In fact, a lot of them did the opposite. They told me just how much more others achieved with so little to start with. The “genius” authors as I call them — the ones whose success and talent cannot be duplicated or learned. It just comes naturally…
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The Books I Read: March – April 2015
The Maze Runner by James Dashner The book succeeds at being entertaining, but not at being satisfying. It’s a “this is the way we’ve always done it” story. You know those? Some new guy comes into a group or society that lives in a closed circle. He throws a spanner in the works, breaks all the rules. The leaders try to punish him and his friends pressure him to stop, but he becomes the hero anyway. Like if White Man’s Burden was a novel. Sword of Truth did it. And it’s a plot that I’m not thrilled with. Too heavy-handed with the Jesus-savior-chosen one having to save everyone from the…
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The Books I Read: January 2015 – February 2015
Joss Whedon: The Biography by Amy Pascale I’d been looking for a book about Joss Whedon since December. There had been a few biographies, but then I saw this one was about to come out. It looked the most official — even having a foreword by Nathan Fillion — so I waited. It becomes little more than an IMDB page after a while. I don’t read many biographies, so maybe this is what they’re like. I wanted to know more about his family life or his writing life, I didn’t need to know what happened with Firefly or The Avengers. I already follow the guy. I already knew that. Except…
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The Top Three and Bottom Three of 2014
When I rate books, I use the “desert island” test: three stars or above means “if I was stuck on a desert island and could bring infinite books with me, I’d put it on the list”. If I decide I wouldn’t bring it with me, it gets two or less. Well, this year didn’t have any one stars for finished books and very few unfinished. But also, not many five star books. I guess it was a middling year for me. That or I’m getting more critical. However, I need to recognize a certain work: “Y: The Last Man“. This, and another, were the only two things that got five…
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Is It Wrong to Review an Unfinished Book?
Peter David mentioned awhile ago on his blog that some of the reviews for his latest novel were confunding him. The one-star reviews had a lot of “didn’t finish it” or “stopped after chapter one”. He says he doesn’t understand how you can make an informed review without reading the whole thing. In light of my recent unfinished readings I thought I might offer an opinion. As much as I feel guilty about leaving classics or critical successes on my nightstand, I never leave reviews unless I’ve read 10-20% of the book. Like I mentioned in that blog post, I feel that’s enough to gain insight to the novel’s essence.…
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Guilt Over Unfinished Books
I stopped reading two books in the past few weeks. Both were well-liked, critical successes, science fiction award winners. But they just didn’t appeal to me. One was Saturn’s Children. It’s supposed to be about a gynoid sexbot. It’s got a sexy android on the cover. But she never has sex — all the humans are dead. So she’s trying to get by in a roboconomy spread across the solar system. It’s full of true science with high speed/time dilation and light side/dark side maglev mega-cities. Very descriptive on the environment, but not so much on the people (especially with no humans). So I end up feeling no attachment to…
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The Books I Read: July – August 2014
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain I would love to see this as a documentary. The book itself gets a little long. But it’s comprehensive, that’s for sure. Like a Beethoven symphony, it covers all the possible ideas. Now for those people who think this book will help with their introversion, well… the best thing the author does is tell you that your introversion is normal. You are not abnormal, you just have a different way of thinking. There are strengths and faults to introversion, just as there are strengths and faults to extroversion. The problem is that some time after…
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Update
Defender Draft 3 has started. I’m working with 94,000 words and it’d be nice to whittle that down to under 90K, but I won’t weep if it doesn’t. What disappoints me is my reading. I used to love reading, but now it feels like I’m reading just to get the books done. Just to diminish the “to-read” list on Goodreads or claim that I’ve read “a classic”. But through the list, I just haven’t found anything that reminds me of why it’s so good to read. The last one I remember is Eleanor & Park, and before that Looking for Alaska. And there are days when I feel like, huh,…
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The Books I Read: January – February 2014
Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer by Jeff VanderMeer This was a fantastic resource for someone like me whose almost in the game but not quite. It’s one of the only books I’ve read that has more to do with the promotion/publishing game than what adverbs to choose. It provides much needed guidance on how to promote, how to plan for your future, how to have an effective public marketing appearance. This book tells you how to do that. The second half talks about how best to set up habits, mental health, and so on. But not so much about the nitty-gritty writing advice, which was just…
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Books Where The Movie Is Better
The post was inspired by someone commenting on my Amazon review of “How to Train Your Dragon” by Cressida Cowell. The person replied (paraphrased from the badly spelled typography) “You recommended to kids that they choose the movie over the book? For shame.” Damn right, for shame. I’ll take my shame all the way to the bank. Do you know how many terrible products are out there for kids? Movies, especially. Because parents will do anything to get their kids to shut up for ninety minutes and kids can’t work the DVD player. Plus they’ve had so little life experience they don’t know how to tell the good from the…
