Yat-Yee Chong

Quiet Revolution

2012-01-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

Can't wait to get a hold of this book.

Strength of conviction

2012-01-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

Last year in November, my writing group decided to do our own version of the popular NaNoWriMo. Every one of us was in the middle of a novel and we decided we would use November and December to push for the end.

The experiment was an interesting one for me. (I was forbidden to say I failed. Don't hit me. T.)

You see, I'd never done NaNoWriMo before, and have always been a slow writer who edits (obsessively) as I go. During those two months, I did have a few days when I just wrote without worrying about how well I was writing or how the current chapter fitted in the entire novel. Those days were awesome, awesome, awesome.

Then there were those (many) other days that found me stalled and hesitant and semi-paralyzed or just plain busy. (Yes, we decided afterwards that it was silly to try this during the most holiday-heavy time of the year.)

Now it's a new year and new years tend to fill me with hope again. Call me naive. So here I am, resuming my intention for my novel, which is to move forward so that I have a finished draft to slash, I mean rework.

And I'm finding that it's just as hard in January as it has been in November and December.

Just when I am fidgeting and the butt glue is coming loose, I get an email from my writing friend. And it's about how we need to give up grandiose ideas about ourselves and our writing, and then we can write what we need to write.

I have grandiose and less grandiose ideas about my writing. I have doubts and fears. I have a repertoire of craft principles gleaned from writing professionals. I have the lasting impressions and memories of millions of sentences that have passed through my mind.

But none of it, whether it is a wish to touch someone with my book or a fear that it will not be good enough for anyone or the recognition of brilliant sentence or an assurance I have portrayed a character honestly, is helpful at this writing stage.

What I need is to clear my head of anything extraneous to the story I'm writing.

Easier said than done, obviously, but an excellent reminder for when I'm lamenting my cliche-heavy prose and confusing dialogues and wooden characters and meaningless plot twists and the over-abundance of interiority.

To just keep writing. Humbly and with great conviction that it needs to be written.

One Word

2012-01-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

Irene Latham is going to be fierce this year.

My one word to define the new year?

Bounce

To be more bouncy and less stodgy
To bounce back after discouragement
To let everything negative bounce off

What's yours?

Well, 2011

2011-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

You've been a year of
contemplation and reevaluation
new experiences, welcomed or otherwise
a few not-quites and maybe-laters
letting-go and hanging on, and waiting to see the wisdom of each
surprising new undertakings
growth and stumbles and more growth
unexpected joys.

Thanks.

Now send in 2012, will you?

Well, I never

2011-12-04T16:05:00.001-08:00

Apologies to Vicki Rocho: I signed up to participate in her blogfest, which took place last week, not foreseeing that I'd be off blogosphere during that time. But here I am,ready to share a list of the things that begins with "I never."

I never had the desire to:

smoke
go bungee-jumping
run for political office
ride in a helicopter
dye my hair blonde
gamble in a casino
travel to outer space

I never thought I would:

earn a black belt in martial arts
ride in a Porsche (thanks to my friend, Janet, who gave me a ride to my 40th birthday celebration)
sing in Carnegie Hall, not once, but twice (the perks of attending a graduate school known for its choirs, which are often called upon to perform in New York City with different orchestras.)

see friends from primary and secondary school semi-regularly
be in a group so loud that the hotel manager called repeatedly to the room to inform us of complaints from other guests (I was with the kidlit writers at a writers' conference)

Pondering confidence

2011-11-14T11:00:00.000-08:00

Confidence is a strange thing, isn't it? What exactly is it? Is it a belief in oneself? Is that belief a general one or is it tied to a specific ability? Does it change from day to day? Does it impact the outcome of any given event? If so, how directly and how much? Is confidence something you're born with, like the range of your voice? Or is it dependent on your upbringing? How is confidence different from arrogance? Are they the same thing except on different places in a continuum? Or are they different animals altogether? Is confidence necessary for success? When confidence is not commensurate with ability, does that confidence in fact catapult the person into a higher level of success? Is a person with ability but no confidence doomed to mediocrity? Is this kitty delusional? Or is this what confidence looks like?

Does a truly confident person ever think much about his confidence level? Does the fact that I ponder and analyze it so much say anything about my confidence?

Edited to add: And does the fact that I accidentally wrote "commiserate" instead of "commensurate" say anything at all? Sheesh.

Oh Captain Hook, how you taunt me!

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

How's that for a catchy title?

No, my post has nothing to do with Peter Pan and evil pirates with hooks as hands. I am talking about that wretched hook at the beginning of the book without which nobody will want to read on.

Am I being facetious? Why, yes.

To an extent I agree with the general idea of a hook. What I rebel against is how it seems to have taken on a life of its own in the writing circles, not unlike query-writing. Agents and other gatekeepers are now lamenting that often the manuscripts fall short of the standard set up by the very polished queries.

This isn't the first instance I am dissenting under the yoke of the hook --in my nook of books. (Sorry, being rebellious and frustrated brings out the groaniest of jokes from me.) So why am I ranting right now?

Because I am considering yet another idea about the structure of my YA novel. My original scaffolding had the prologue (oh wait, prologues are no-nos. So I'll just call it the first chapter) showing the inciting incidents. I would introduce my two protagonists (wait again; multiple POV characters are frowned upon) at the moment their lives are changed by the deaths of a loved one. Over the course of the book, we see how the girls deal with their grief, their scenes interspersed with short, flashback chapters (speaking of no-nos...) that show the relationships between each girl and the loved one.

The other night while mulling over a different problem of the novel, an idea occurred to me: that I shouldn't start with the deaths but I should just show these two girls having difficulty navigating their lives. That way, I set up a question, a mystery of sorts: why are the girls acting and thinking this way? I'll keep the flashback chapters to show the relationships. It's only in the middle of the book, after readers have come to know those loved ones that I reveal their deaths. Hopefully the mourning and grief my protagonists feel will be shared by the readers who have come to know them.

But who wants to read a book that starts with two girls starting a school year pretending everything is fine?

Where's the hook?

What if they'd been all air balls

2011-11-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the video that has been making the rounds on Facebook this week, about the young basketball player with autism? Like most people, I was moved to tears, cheering for Jason, the young man, and rejoicing with the people around him.

But while it encouraged and filled me with optimism, I also ached for all those other people who have the same difficulties in life but who don't have a coach caring enough to make him team manager or insightful enough to let him take the court; who don't have parents who make it possible for him to be part of the team; who don't have teammates trusting enough to hand him the ball for his three-pointers; or who may have all of those but miss all his shots.

What then? The video, if there were even one, wouldn't go viral on Facebook. They would get a few hundred less "way to go"s. They don't get to feel the high that comes from such an incredible event.

Hopefully this makes me a bit more aware of people around me struggling, not just with autism. In my circle, it's with the kids who don't understand boundaries, those who feel defeated by every small setbacks. It's the adults with chips on their shoulders carved so deep they can't even notice it, those who are simply worn out by demands on their strength and emotions.

Time to enjoy confrontations

2011-11-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

My two protagonists are about to have a big fight in my YA novel, and I am having enormous trouble writing the scene. All I want is to be as far away from the situation as possible. A lifelong inclination and practice in avoiding confrontation will do that to a person.

Maybe I should just think about the plot and where it needs to go and then steer the fight toward that end in a detached way. Maybe I can even pretend to be someone who welcomes such a challenge (I know such people exist; they just may as well be aliens to me.)

Or maybe, working through the emotions and the thought processes involved in a confrontation can reveal insights and new understanding in ways I won't even anticipate.

October Blogfest

2011-10-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today I am participating in Bish Denham's blogfest to celebrate 4 years of blogging and 300 followers. Yay, Bish!

I will write a 300-word story that has to do with Halloween, trying to incorporate the numbers "4" and "300" in it.

Imagine a mysterious bass voice speaking the following:

This. Is a True Story. It happened one cold and dark night in a small town in Colorado.

The people around thefireplace in the house on this December evening look like any other holiday revelers, munching on cheeseand crackers, sipping cider. But soon the lamps are turned off, leaving thefire the only light source. Plates and glasses are put away, replaced by sheets of paper. The real reason for thegathering is about to begin. And it's not to discuss how consumerism has killedthe holiday spirit. No. These are writers. Writers don't idly complain. Theytake action.

Tonight, the action isto reenact a tradition that celebrates the season with meaning. Tonight, theygather to share ghost stories.

Charles Dickens wouldfeel right at home as one writer after another reads stories about darkforests and empty graves and mysterious fumes in hushed tones. The temperature drops lower with each story. The computer programmer zips up hisjacket. The librarian wraps her cardigan tightly around her. The two goldenretrievers, who have been happily licking faces and wagging their tails, are nowtrying to squeeze in among the people. The shadows thrown by the fire take onmore recognizable shapes: a sickle here, a werewolf there.

The fourth writer startson her story; it's one that her Norwegian grandparents have assured her to betrue. She has everyone hanging on every word, breathing with everycadence.

"Janus heads tothe wharf, where a light shines intermittently. His heart beats in his ears,drowning out the low moan that emits from the dilapidated boat. This is it.Finally, he gets to face down his darkest fear. Only a few more steps, andthen--"

CRASH!!!!!

Everyone in the roomjumps. A few shriek. The host runs to the kitchen and finds that the glass fromthe hurricane lamp on the kitchen counter has shattered into a hundred shinypieces, reflecting the light from the candle.

broken glass by ~zeh235

The lamp has been agift from her daughter, who bought it in an antique store in Norway theprevious summer.

Goon Squads, Book People, and Forgotten Gardens

2011-10-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

With thousands of titles currently available, finding a great read seems like such a gamble sometimes but recently I hit the jack-pot with three fabulous books.

A Visit from the Good Squad by Jennifer Egan

It was many months after I bought the book that I finally read it. Pulitzer Prize winners have been good to me and I was afraid the heightened expectations would mar my reading experience. And when I found out the structure of the book was non-standard--one of the linked stories was told entirely in power point slides--my anti-gimmick-o-meter lit up and made me even more hesitant.

Which just goes to show how external things--covers, synopses, structure, and reviews and, yes, even awards--can fail to show what a book really is. All these worries were unnecessary. The book is like an elegant 3D puzzle. It takes an extremely creative and logical mind as well as authority to pull it off.

I am not sure how a novel without a central protagonist (there are several recurring characters) or a real plot can evoke so much empathy and intrigue. I am not even sure I'd know how to analyze the book to find the secret ingredients, so I'll just recommend that you read it.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
I had been meaning to read Geraldine Brooks for a while. After browsing excerpts from several of her books at the bookstore, I took this one home. The premise of the story is simple: a book-restorer tries to uncover the mystery of an ancient treasure.

We travel to different times and places to where this book had been. The historical and cultural aspects are so richly described that they jump to life. Reading about them made me feel at once aware of my ignorance and hungry for more knowledge.

The book is much more than a history and social studies book, of course. The characters, some of whom appear for only a short time, feel authentic, with palpable struggles and hopes. For me to be able to go along on their journeys, to be privy to how they make moral decisions, difficult and life-changing, was what kept my mind going back to the book long after I"d finished it.

Forgotten Gardens by Kate Morton
When I started the book, the constant moving of the story from one protagonist to the next and one time period to the next pulled me out but I was willing to put up with the intrusion because the writing was engaging I was also very much aware of some of the devices the author had used to enhance the story: repeated themes--losing a child; children being taken and plopped down in foreign environments--and characters with evocative names: the evil landlord named Swindell and the rat-catcher named Rodin.

At some point, however, I realized I no longer paid attention to those things. All I wanted to do was to finish off whatever I was doing: cooking, talking on the phone, chauffeuring children, so that I could get back to the book. It recaptured for me the delights of my childhood reading experiences. It reminded me what a otherworldly joy reading can bring. The book may contain stock characters or cliched phrases, but I didn't notice, nor did I care. My writer-self was convinced early in the book to stay out of the way and just let my reader-self have at it. Smart self, that one.

Read any books lately that have given you the goose bumps or made you laugh or brought your nostalgia?

Compliment

2011-10-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

A critique partner said my latest submission to our group reminded her of at an intersection where threecars all tried to go at once; one to turn right, one to cross the intersection,and one to turn left. And they all crashed

Makes my day when someone gets my work at a level I'm not even consciously aware of.

Keep writing from your naked place.

The sweater of choice

2011-10-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

..for those who do not want to be hugged. Say you're an introverted writer who does signings in cities with exuberant and friendly fans.

I just finished writing a short story that seems better on the page than in my head. (Ask me again tomorrow.)

And that's why I'm looking at fall fashion.

Fighting Spirit

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

My brother gave me a piece of advice when I was 12 and playing competitive ping pong. (Yes, "competitive" and "ping pong" can very much go together, so stop that laughing, right now!) He told me all successful competitors possess something called "fighting spirit." I didn't really ask him what he meant but vaguely understood it as being equivalent to "never give up."

His advice took me through some hairy moments. I didn't always win but have amazed myself many times at how much further I could go with that attitude than without.

I was reminded of this advice this past weekend when I was competing in the same ring as a 2nd degree, a 3rd degree, and a 5th degree black belt. I walked into that ring believing that I had a chance. I didn't win in the form portion of the competition but I gave my best performance ever. When sparring came, my brother's advice continued to urge me on and I won my first match, against a 5th degree.

It can happen, writer friends. Our time frame is long; many of us toil over our craft for years without seeing any tangible rewards but keep that fighting spirit. Something good will come from it. Maybe publication, maybe something else. Like kicking someone much higher rank in the head.

On the other side

2011-09-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, I was at the mufti-school testing for new black belts and current black belts doing their midterms or testing for the next rank. My son was scheduled to do his first-degree midterm and I had some students from the school participating as well. I attended the event prepared to encourage and cheer on the nervous students.

My instructors had other plans for me: I was asked to sit on the panel as a judge.

Gulp.

I was assured that the head instructors would make the final decisions but they would take into account the scores of the lower-rank judges--there were about 8 or 9 of us. I suspect it was more an exercise for me to acquire experience and for my instructors to make sure my judgements were not out of line. While this was not the first judging assignment I'd had, it felt more stressful, because these were not lower ranks.

But an interesting thing happened. Just having the different responsibilities affected the way I viewed the testers' performances. It clarified for me, almost immediately, what the fundamentals are. The things that I had stressed in my own training and those of my students didn't always aligned with what I felt that night.

It was truly eye-opening. It didn't matter if the tester was a child or an adult, a first-degree or a third, the fundamentals remained the same. Proper technique, intention, focus: these must be present in a form for it to look good.

Then there were the intangibles; talent, inherent affinity for martial arts. The qualities were impossible to pin down, but unmistakable when present. Granted, personal tastes came into play but talking with my fellow judges afterwards assured me that we agreed on all the big picture assessments.

Which of course made me wonder if I could get myself to think as if I were on the other side of the publishing process, like a agent or acquiring editors.

What are the fundamentals: clarity of writing? Authenticity? Appropriate use of structure? Balance of story-telling elements?

And what about the intangibles? Obviously it is deadly to try to appear talented and gifted by the way we write, but how would I allow who I am to come through?

Still pondering.

Your thoughts?

What do they think about?

2011-09-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

I am taking a break from my YA novel and writing a short story as a possible entry to The Literary Lab's newest anthology. (It is a most unusual prompt: writers create original stories based on one of two fairy tales. So much more creative-making than Stories From The Coasts, or Stories Inspired By My Precocious Children, or The Color of Money: Green or Red. Discuss.)

Having written so long from the points-of-view of young people, I find I am at a loss at knowing how adults think. (The answer to your question is no, I am not really an adult, more like a 10-14 year old kid trying to fool people in to thinking my wrinkles commensurate with my wisdom.)

So now my poor thirty-something year-old man is having trouble knowing how and what to think while attending a wedding in a garden.

All right. Vented. Now back to Ryan to see if I can think mature, manly thoughts in his grown-up mind.

Fall Resolutions

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a few weeks since my Big Weekend where all of my favorite activities collided. I survived!! Yay! When I figure out how to post videos on this blog, I will show snippets of the weekend.

After the big events, It took me a few days just to recover enough to tackle things that I had put aside. As I dealt with each thing, I realized that I have been more or less living in a put-out-fire mode. More often than not, I have been barely able to ahead of things that need to be done.

Not good.

So I am going to take a step back and look at how to arrange my living space, my ways of taking care of things, my time-management skills to see if I can create a more organized and efficient life.

It means paring down and giving up so that I can spend time doing what I love. This probably sounds like an end-of-year thinking, Fall can do that, give me hope that a new beginning can take place. I am going to take this change of season to make some changes that will hopefully give me a calmer outlook and less distracted mind so I can spend more time doing what I love.

As for this blog? I love being part of this community too much to give it up. I will visit y'all when I can and I hope you will check in once in a while as well.

I hope this change of season brings about good changes in your lives.

It's Bound to Happen

2011-08-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

This Friday, my writing is slotted to be discussed by my critique group. Creative Weapons is on the schedule at my regional Tae Kwon Do tournament. I am performing a solo piano recital. I don't know if the planets are aligned but my activities sure are.

Their times are scattered throughout the day so I toyed with the idea of doing all three. But who was I kidding? I don't change gear that fast and will end up botching everything.

So I switched with a critique group member and submitted last Friday. I will give up Creative Weapons and compete in Traditional Forms, Traditional Weapons, and Sparring on Saturday.On Friday, I will put on my musician hat and concentrate on my performance.

I wasn't going to spin this post into a writing-related one, but an idea just popped into my head. it may be telling, or at least fun, to pile on the responsibilities and events and trouble on your characters, to see what they are made of.

If I were a character in my story, I could potentially:

with great joy, participate in all the events,
shrink away and refuse to do anything
make a decision but second -guess myself constantly.

With each of these decisions could be different outcomes:

fail
scrape by
succeed spectacularly

[I found this picture at Ghost 19's blog]

We can have fun with how I deal with the outcome as well:

become prideful
lose all ability to take risks
rise up to the challenge, and whether I fail or succeed, grow from a timid, overly-cautious person to a confident risk-taker

Another idea just popped into my head. How about this:

You write a scenario for me and I'll choose one that makes me spew coffee, weep, or call you to ask for an appointment for a therapy session.

Cool Prize! Don't know what yet. But Cool, definitely Cool!

Spread the word.

To those of my friends who come over from facebook, who don't post in the comments: you don't need a Blogger account to do so. Would love to hear from you as well!

Carrots are not the opposite of Sticks

2011-08-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Some days I feel so much like a cynic, a hardened soul. But when I was asked, "Does your son work better with sticks or carrots?" recently, my idealism aborts its vow to stay hidden and comes back roaring.

"Carrots and sticks are the same," I retort, trying not to sound too snooty, and stopped the words "bribery" and "manipulation" just before they escaped my mouth. "They come after something has been done and typically from an outside source and have very little to do with the task/lesson itself."

In all my years of teaching, motivation has always been the area that has fascinated (and frustrated) me the most. As a teacher, I want a key to the place where motivation resides in my students, to see what's there. As a parent, that desire is intensified a thousand times.

But this is getting away from what I want to write about today.Today, I want to write about writing and motivation, and about now my heart soared when I read the comments on my last post.

In my post, I lamented the unfortunate situation in which writers are told to polish their opening or nobody would notice their manuscripts. Most of us write because we love to or we need to but publishing is a goal as well. And when we read the same advice everywhere, it's hard not to pay heed. Some days, the heed-paying takes its toll. Like many others, I have to continually peek at my motivation and my direction, to make sure I haven't forgotten my primary responsibility is not to get published but to write what I must write.

So, when I saw in my fellow writers' comments that their concern is all about their stories, and not about how to fit into a mold that conventional wisdom insists is, if not the only one, then the best, I felt like weeping.

Listen to how they talk about their work. Scott Bailey said this about beginnings:

My idea is to take the reader by the hand and say, "Hey, let's go have fun" and establish the reader's trust that I have the technique and the imagination to make good on that promise of fun.

Domey Malasarn's explanation about why he couldn't skim on his middles is simple but speaks to the real reason we write: because we care.

The middle is my favorite parts of a book, so I care about it a lot!

And I'm going to think about my endings the way Tanita Davis does from now on:

...leaving a book is so hard. I want the reader to feel the same reluctance to read the last paragraph.

Not a single comment by anyone about doing something to get published. Instead, the focus was on character and relationships and setting. Nobody mentioned anything about carrots or sticks, only the stories. So there, B. F. Skinner et al!

Go, Take heart. Write.

Bait and Switch

2011-08-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago, I accompanied my husband to a conference in San Francisco. During those pre-kids days, I would typically explore on my own during his meetings and then have dinner together. That time, for some reason, I decided to attend the orientation for families and heard a spiel by a fantastic walking-tour guide. He knew his facts, he presented them in interesting ways, and he was funny. I signed up.

I showed up the next morning, ready to spend a few exciting hours wandering around San Francisco, learning about the secret history and listening to a master story-teller.

But he wasn't there. He had sent someone else. This person mumbled and swallowed the second half of every other sentence and didn't make the walk interesting at all. I felt sorry for her but I also felt cheated. I paid money for a product only to be given something else.

With all the focus on " hooking" agents and editors with the first pages/paragraphs/lines, a lot of writers have polished and re polished the openings till they sparkle. What I wonder is if the rest of our books live up to the expectations set by the opening.

I have overhauled my book so many times that I feel I've given as much scrutiny to my middle and end as I have the beginning. Recently, just as an experiment, I started reading my book in the middle. I was relieved that it didn't feel rushed or meh-worthy. Of course I am not unbiased, despite the objectivity I managed to acquire by having left the book aside for a long time, but to the best of my knowledge and ability, I'm not doing a bait-and-switch.

To my writer friends: how do you overcome the temptation of focusing too much on the beginning and not enough for the rest? Or is it even a temptation?

2011-08-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

In front of me are four much-awaited books:

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett,

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn,

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles,

A Vist from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

Were all life's decisions so delectable.

Because the Bottle Looks Classy

2011-08-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

The heirloom tomatoes are beautiful. The basil leaves are bright and fragrant. I was out of olive oil.

Have you been to the olive oil aisle lately? My eyes started swimming. Or maybe it was my brain that was gasping for air. Faced with rows of choices, I made up some quick basis for elimination. These ones are too expensive. Those have too much extraneous stuff: I don't need citrus-infusion and twigs of thyme in the bottle. Greek olive oils are too strong for this dish. These bottles are too big. Those are too small.

And still there are too many choices.

Pretty soon, I am rejecting bottles for random reasons: the label color is too trendy, the font is trying too hard to be old-world, the description has too many exclamation points.

All I want is a good-quality olive oil. Short of tasting every single bottle, how was I to decide? Are the oils described as" vibrant" the same as those described as "fresh?" What does "harmonious" mean? And how is "distinct" a helpful adjective? Why can't I remember any of the brands that I'd read in Cook's Illustrated or some other olive oil survey done in Simple Magazine?

In the end I bought an unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from Italy. I am sure I chose it in part because of ridiculous reasons: the pleasing shape of the bottle: straight sides, skinny; its plain label in a muted green and well-placed letters in a sans serif font; and descriptions that are devoid of hyperbolic claims and exclamation points.

Publishing is supposedly doing fairly well in the face of all the uncertainties of the industry and the wider economy. Books are still being published, lots of them. But when I browse in a bookstore, not even necessarily a big one, I feel the same way as I did in the olive oil aisle. How do I know?

In the end, I go with award winners and honorees, I go with authors I've read before, I go with recommendations from other readers, bookstore employees, librarians, blogger friends, I go with captivating titles and intriguing subject matters. I am sure book covers play a role in my decisions, unfortunately. I've come across many fine books but I can't help but fee las if I am missing out on some gems because they haven't managed to call themselves to my attention.

My olive oil tasted fine, by the way. Subtle and mild but not bland. But I wonder about that other bottle with the trendy label or the one who surely looks too common to taste good.

Review: The Solitude of Prime Numbers

2011-08-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

The premise/title of this book is one of the most original and promising I've come across in a long time. Prime numbers, as we learned in school, are numbers that are divisible only by themselves and the number one. Some of these are very close together, 41 and 43, for example, but they never touch, they are always separated by at least one other number. Prime numbers are destined for solitude.

What an elegant idea. The aloneness and close-but-not-quite relationships are perfectly captured in this title.

Each of the two protagonists in this novel makes a life-changing decision in their childhood. The tragedies that befall them as the result cast them into an isolation that nothing can break through, not even family, or perhaps, especially not family. The two of them meet up in their youth, drawn to each other without knowing the grief that lies in the other. In their adult life, they are apart, both wondering where and how the other fits.

The author uses a subtle way of telling the story. He doesn't belabor the emotional state of the characters but trusts that readers will deduce from the details he has provided. It works very well for the story.

This subtlety, of not spelling out the intended conclusion for the reader, didn't serve me as well for the ending. In the last quarter of the book, the plot picks up, suggesting a strong possibility of a particular type of resolution. Until that point, I was willing to go with the author, to see where he will take the story. With those events in the plot, I started thinking about an either-or solution. Not only was I disappointed in the direction that took me, but I was also frustrated by how the story actually ended.

I don't always need conclusions to be drawn and themes to be spelled out. I love endings that leave me wondering. But this ending wasn't one of those.

The reason, I believe, is that I don't think the relationship between the two protagonists have been shown convincingly enough for me. Because of that, it fell into a standard will-girl-get-back-with-boy plot rather than will-two-prime-numbers-who-are-misunderstood-by-the-world-find-each-other-and-how-will-their-lives-be-connected-if-at-all.

I got the pain and sorrow and guilt each one of the protagonists feels. I got their feelings of not belonging. I just never got the nature of the tie between them or how strong or unique it was. And that's the reason I didn't feel that the ending worked for me.

A movie is being made/has been made based on the book. And I think it may work better. Chemistry between people can be shown on screen much more effectively than on the page. Wonder if it'll be the case of this story.

This is the first review I've written since my post in which I declare myself no longer a slave to fear. Okay, maybe it's less dramatic than that.But I do want to share more of the things about books that give me pause. If only for the reaction I get from others who have read it.

So my question to you, my friends, is this: which is your reaction?

"Oh, well. I'll probably skip the book."
"Hmm. I wonder if I'll get it more clearly than she did. Let me read it to find out."
"Not sure if I understand her problem with the book."
Other. Please describe.

I'd really love to know.

Small but not Insignificant

2011-08-04T12:18:00.001-07:00

This week I've noticed of a number of the small, the minute in among the Big, the Important.

Small action: a senator casting a vote, inspiring an end of a stalemate and hopefully a start to something better.

Microstyle Writing Contest by Gotham. Expressive economy of words. Miniature messages.

THE PRIZE
The author of the winning entry will receive bragging rights and:
10-week Gotham Writing Workshop
$50 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
One-year Subscription to The Writer (12 issues)
Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little

Description of a Man Booker Prize longlisted book

...concentration on isolating tiny fragments of experience and apprehension makes for an intense and immersive read...

Now This is Promising

2011-07-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

After dwelling on books I feel compelled to put down in the last few posts, I thought I'd switch to the other side.

I started reading People of The Book by Geraldine Brooks this morning and I like everything about it so far: the voice, the characters, the tone, the pace, the subject matter, the book cover. Look. Isn't this gorgeous?

Anyone reading a book they're enjoying very much right now?

Beloved Character With No Soul, Paddington Bears,and Geek Love, or What Happens When You Throw A Question Out On Your Blog

2011-07-27T10:22:00.001-07:00

My follow-up post yesterday to this one brought about some interesting outcomes. First, Domey Malasarn has been dared to write about a character he loves, one that is without a soul.

Second, F. Scott Bailey shares his antidote to reading books that are too grim.

And those are just the outward consequences. In responding to the insightful comments, I have been thinking and re-thinking about how I feel about difficult books. Reading The Solitude of Prime Numbers allowed me to discover a few things and now I am toying with the idea of doing another experiment.

But first, a bit of backstory.

Sometime last year, Jim M cCarthy offered to give book suggestions to readers who told him the last three books they enjoyed. The book he recommended to me was Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. After reading about it, I decided to wait and chose to read some suggestions he offered other readers. I found Purple Hibiscus and This Is Where I Leave You this way.

One of the reason I shied away from Geek Love is its subject matter. From what I've read about it, the book is populated with people who do things that are difficult to understand. One character willingly ingested unsafe chemicals while pregnant in hopes of producing children who will be deformed. Just this bit of information alone gives me chills.

Yet I'd heard good things about Geek Love from different sources. And since I am exploring why I don't want to continue books that are bleak and depressing in which people do nasty things to others for unfathomable reasons, this book seems like a prime candidate to test that premise.

But I am not sure if I really want to.

Have any of you read it? Or if not, what do you think you would do if you were me?

Hope, promise, and tenderness

2011-07-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Thank you, to those of you who commented on my last post. You've brought up a number of ideas that are new to me. Best reason for maintaining a blog, I say, not marketing or platform, but I digress.

To recap, this was the question I asked:

Why are some books difficult to read on?

I am excluding obvious reasons such as poor writing or dull story.

I kept this question front and center as I read The Solitude of Prime Numbers, which I finished over the weekend. I had wanted to put it down after the initial chapters but decided to use this reading experience as an experiment to see if I can figure out possible reasons for why I feel compelled to put down books.

And I did come away with a few observations.

I mentioned in the earlier post that I find it hard to stomach reading about young people suffering, yet that alone doesn't stop me. Room is about a very young, innocent, and vulnerable child, yet I was able to read it to the end.

The difference is this: hope. This young boy and his mother speak of their environment not as their destiny but keep hope alive in their minds about how life can be. In Solitude of Prime Numbers, the young people who are affected and those around them are portrayed as having surrendered to their lot. There is no hint that there may be changes in the future. Their days, their interactions, their outlook: they're all shrouded in despair.

In Okay For Now, Doug doesn't come across as someone who is hopeful for change either. In fact, he seems to be following in exactly the type of behavior--channeling his nasty brother, Lucas-- that will seal his fate in its current manifestation. Yet, Gary Schmidt managed to infuse an uncertainty in Doug's behavior when he acts in -self-destructive ways. We feel that underneath the bravado, he is still holding out hope for a different, a better outcome that he seems destined for.

Hope, that's a big difference in why I will or will not read on.

The second reason I discovered is this: how characters treat one another makes a huge different to me. When people treat another with nastiness and contempt continuously, it gives me a bad taste in my mouth. In Prime Numbers, the moment when I didn't have to push myself to finish the book was when the characters started feeling empathy and treating others with tenderness. In Okay For Now, even when Doug was being mean outwardly, a few key people treated him with respect and understanding. In Room, mom and son loved each other fiercely.

I'm not sure why this issue have such a strong impact on me, People treating one another badly isn't uncommon.Again, I believe it's the sentiment underlying the behavior that affects me. I need a smidgen of suggestion that these people have some respect or understanding or acceptance of the people they mistreat to not make me despair. People being nasty to people just because: it's not something I can handle a lot of.

So hope and understanding between people: these are the ingredients necessary for me to read about people going through horrible circumstances.

Any of these resonate with you?

It's difficult to keep reading

2011-07-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

At the DGLM blog, Jim McCarthy asked if anyone has thrown a book after reading it. The post elicited quite a number of responses. Not surprising, since most of the readers of that blog are likely people passionate about books.

Thinking about readers being frustrated enough to want to throw a book makes me wonder about the reasons. I usually stop reading when I find the stories boring or the writing intentionally coy or pretentious, incoherent, or otherwise not engaging. But the most recent book I wanted to stop reading was extremely well-written by an author whose work I enjoy very much.

When I started Gary Schmidt's Okay For Now, I almost couldn't finish it. Not because I disliked the writing or the story but because what was happening to the protagonist was difficult to read about.

[minor spoiler alert}

This kid, Doug, has a father who's uncaring and cruel. His older brothers take after his father, and his mother stands aside, helpless. As an adult, a parent, and a teacher, I was deeply affected by the ordeals of this young man. But knowing that most juvenile fiction is essentially hopeful and contains ideas of redemption and change, I read on. And by the end, the fate of the protagonist isn't as bleak as the beginning suggests. The solutions are satisfying, though some of it rather rosy, but I was glad it ended the way it did.

I just started another book that I am tempted to stop. I decided to read Paolo Giordano's The Solitude of Prime Numbers because of the title. (Don't tell me you don't pick up books for quirky reasons! Why people read what they read: an interesting topic to explore and one for a future blog post.)

I have only read 5 or 6 chapters of this book and I am again so disturbed by what's happening to the protagonists, both young people, that I don't feel like reading on. The ugliness within human nature that the events in this book touches on is disturbing. I am not disgusted so much as overwhelmed by the darkness that is possible in this world.

Maybe I'm a light weight when it comes to confronting the dark and the horrid. Maybe there's enough sadness in the real world that I don't have the energy to take much more in the fictional world. Maybe I don't have the gumption to read about young people affected by depravity.

But why is it that I have no trouble reading other books in which people face evil? Katniss's fate in Hunger Games is worse than bleak. Several people attempt suicide in A Long Way Down. The narrator in The Lovely Bones is dead. I had no trouble reading any of it.

So I don't know. Your thoughts?

Do you have books you can't read? I know people who won't read books in which children are tortured. Many have a limit for the degree of violence or gore. What are the books that are difficult for you to read?

Edited to add: I just remember another book, Room, in which the small child has to face an unimaginable life. I liked the book and had no trouble reading, even though I was immersed in his world and felt the horror of his life but didn't stop reading. So what is it?

The obvious next step

2011-07-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

A thought has been niggling at me for a very long time with regards to my middle grade novel. And I am finally surrendering to its rightness.

You see, the book takes place in Malaysia. But as I have been primarily targeting American audiences, I've written it using American English instead of the way English would be spoken in Malaysia. I've also made sure that I explained, subtly, of course, cultural etiquettes and norms.

But for a while now, I've been thinking that I need to write a version of it that targets Asian audience. Several things have happened recently, including being shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award and talking to some authors I met at the Asian Festival of Chilldren's Content, that have convinced me that it is an excellent idea.

Except now I am pushing through my YA novel, trying to get a first draft finished before too long and the mere thought of going back to a work I had revised about 1700 times just makes me reach for the closest bar of chocolate.

But I know it has to be done. I just need to prioritize and be more organized about my time. My forte. Right.

*Heads to pantry to secret stash of chocolate*

Or maybe a lox party

2011-07-11T06:26:00.000-07:00

I thought the pox party mentioned in M. T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing book was scary. But that was before I heard about botox parties.

Next spring, you should come to my backyard and look at the flox. They're quite pretty.

[That's right, Yat Yee. Stay silent for weeks, then come back with a fluff post.]

I promise that substantive posts will be forthcoming, right after I get out of the enchanting and at times overwhelming forest filled with intriguing plants, blinding colors, and promising paths that is my life right now.

The YA novel is being revamped, the kids are at home, things are still being unpacked from three back-to-back trips, and thoughts provoked by recent TKD events are swirling around, attempting to become coherent.

But then it's summer. What did I expect, really?

Hang on while I go brandish my sword

2011-06-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

I am fabulous at keeping all the threads of my life going smoothly at all times.

Not.

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting ready to compete at a huge Tae Kwon Do tournament. For a number of reasons, I am much more nervous about this one than any other, one of which is that I will be doing a form I choreograph myself. What was I thinking?!!!

So the preparation has been occupying my time and mind, leaving not much space for blog-writing. I did however, continue to work on my Work In Progress. I wanted to touch base with folks who check in periodically, to let you know what's going on.

Step-spin-hook-kick, here I come. No, maybe I should tweak the moves at the end of the sword form. No, maybe I should...

Michelle Yeoh with a beard? Sure, why not?

2011-06-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Kung Fu Panda II rocks.

I was thoroughly impressed with the art (don't miss the closing credits,) the humor, the kung fu moves (the peacock has some of the coolest ones; wish I had fan-like tail feathers,) the characters, the way 3D is used, the orchestration of the film score (yes, noble french horn sections and exciting timpani parts!) the theme, the excellence, the heart.

[Warning: minor spoiler alert]

I enjoyed all of these so much that it was very easy to overlook the flaws. For example, Po's kung fu prowess seems inconsistent. He vacillates between the overweight panda who doesn't even have the stamina to climb stairs and the mighty Dragon Warrior impervious to any kung fu or weapons. I had to rely primarily on musical cues to know when Po would win and when he would bumble. It would have been better if his degree of mastery is more integral to the story. If I am to believe he can single-handedly, even within the context of a suspended belief system, rescue his heavily bound and guarded fellow warriors, I don[t think I can accept he is so easily defeated by Tigress.

But even typing this makes me feel petty. The movie is so well-made, so entertaining (I laughed out loud several times and found myself grinning often,) and the experience so wholly engaging that these things really didn't matter.

So how can I make my stories so engaging my readers will overlook the flaws? Of course it doesn't mean that I am not going to do everything I can to make sure there are no avoidable flaws. But when is a reader so bought into the story that s/he is willing to follow?

What's your take? Well-developed characters? Technical excellence? Memorable setting?

[In case you're wondering about the title of this post: Michelle Yeoh voices the character of the soothsayer, who is a female ram. With a beard. Yeah.]

Does choreographing a sword form count?

2011-06-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

The Rejectionist has invited her readers to participate in her 30 Days of Creativity adventure. Drawing, hanging curtains, organizing cabinets: anything that takes creativity and makes the doer happy. Some of my things include keeping peace between my children and teaching them to knit.

This is Week 2 and I am bringing in another part of my life, as a martial art practitioner, a part if my life that I allude to every now and then, to my writing sphere.

I am choreographing a broad sword form. It's set to the opening of Jupiter, from The Planes by Gustav Holst. I am not ready yet to post a video of it, or maybe I'm really kinda embarrassed, but I hope I'll be brave enough to do that when it's polished.

What creative thing are you doing that is making you happy?

Do characters have to be relatable*?

2011-06-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

Seems like an unnecessary and controversial question: of course we have to relate to our characters. Otherwise, why would we want to follow their journeys, understand their decisions, or rejoice/mourn with them?

This is certainly true in my own life; books and movies that I like and remember long after are those with characters I can relate to. I latch onto a character--usually the protagonist, and occasionally a secondary one, such as Gogol's' mother in The Namesake--and view the story through their lenses.

I saw a movie recently that challenged this belief.

The movie is Buddha Mountain. Made in China, this is a indie-type film that shows three twenty-something slackers who rent a room from a retired Beijing opera star, who is mourning that death of her son. I can't relate to any of the characters but I found it engaging.

Characters such as those three often turn me off. Their spend their days engaged in irresponsible and inconsiderate behavior. Despite being a more sympathetic character,the landlady wasn't all that relatable either.

This may seem to indicate that I relate only to people who do the "right"--kind, thoughtful, self-sacrificial--things. It's not true. I identify with many flawed characters.

So what is it?

My conclusion is that I don't always have to relate so much as to understand the characters. Relating means I can imagine myself doing some of the same things or thinking the same way as a character. I can insert myself in their shoes and experience the stories just the way they do.

In the movie, the characters steal their landlady's banged-up car for a drive to the mountains, they climb atop a freight train to nowhere, they steal money and replace it with fake bills. I can't relate. I can't imagine doing those things while feeling the way they do: nonchalant, undisturbed. Maybe if they had stolen the car to rescue a wayward younger sister or they climb onto the freight train because they are escaping from some bad guys, I would relate. But they do these things...just because. And I don't get it.

Yet, I watched without any of the annoyance that tend to appear when I find self-centered, indulgent people doing inconsiderate things. Somehow, in this movie, I didn't need to relate. All I needed was to understand. Not so much the reason they chose to travel aimlessly or why they don't feel any remorse, but that they feel untethered, uncertain, and hopeless. I am not sure how any of these actions can soothe or help them deal, but apparently I don't need to.

Or maybe I'm just splitting hairs. What do you think?

*[In case you are wondering if "relatable" is a word, here is an article you may find interesting.]

But he sounds like a girl

2011-06-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking of publicly declaring that half of the world's population isn't my equal but VS Naipaul beat me to it.

Drats.

So then I thought I would challenge him to his claim to supremacy in this quiz devised by The Guardian.

Sadly for me, I only got 70 % correct. (The most interesting result of this? I thought his excerpt was written by a woman.)

Which is your list?

2011-05-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

Gotham Writers complied top ten/must read lists from 14 sources, including Newsweek, Oprah, Christian Science Monitor, and The Atlantic. I am a shoe-lover in Nordstrom, a foodie in Hong Kong, and a indie film enthusiast at Sundance.

I find myself picking and choosing from different lists even though I feel my tastes run closer to some than others.

Take a look and let me know if there is one list that hits all the rights spots for you or if you're like me, choosing from different ones.

Now to find the time to read all of them.

Pragmatism, Honesty, or Back-Scratching

2011-05-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

For a long time now I have been thinking of the idea of publicly sharing opinions on books and have even drafted a number of posts on the subject. But I have never felt as if I have arrived at any kind of a well-defined stance. Domey's post at the Lit Lab the other day made me think about it again, and instead of trying to come up with a solution before writing a post, I have decided to explore the subject here. In writing about it, I hope I can clarify my thinking further and hopefully I can get a conversation going on the subject.

Writers writing public reviews: what are our responsibilities? What is our role? Which considerations matter?

A little while back, there was the loud but thankfully short fury in response to a supposed YA mafia whose members provide glowing reviews for one another and black ball those who dared to say they didn't like certain books. Many writers chimed in to share their decisions with regards to writing negative reviews. Some writers choose not to post negative reviews for fear of creating bad karma for their own work. Others do so because they don't want to hurt the feelings of the authors, Yet others feel that honesty is the best policy and do not shy away from negative comments.

I understand the fear of having my own work being panned because of revenge, and obviously I am aware that behind every work is a person who loves their work.Yet praising something I don't like is not an option either.

My solution so far has been to review mainly books I liked. If I did choose to mention what didn't work, I made sure I provided specific examples to back up my points. Occasionally, I would discuss what I don't like about a book without mentioning its title.

This seemed like a safe thing to do.

But I am not contented with safe anymore. Domey is right; being only nice and quiet all the time isn't a good thing to do. Maybe I have been cowardly. Maybe my basic motivation has been fear.

So. Providing honest, objective reviews that are helpful to readers, without being nasty, without external agendas: surely that is an achievable goal?

And since the reviewer role is now shared by so many grass-roots reviewers, one review isn't going to have as much an effect. My hope is that I can provide helpful reviews to my readers and fair to the authors.

Keep me honest, won't you?

Read this interview and enter the contest!

2011-05-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

If you haven't yet come across this interview Cynthia Leitich-Smith posted, you must go read it. Egmont editor, Elizabeth Law, and author Allen Zadoff provided a candid and in depth look at one editor/author team. Elizabeth Law is also offering a partial critique to one writer chosen randomly from those who comment on the post. Deadline May 31s.

Getting to know my readers: Laurel Garver

2011-05-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

As part of the celebration for reaching 100 public readers I have decided to learn more about them. Scott Bailey, whose work is brilliant, moving and funny, indulged me by answering some questions. My second guest is Laurel Garver, whose blog reached her milestone of 333.

I don't remember how I came across Laurel's blog, but her thoughtfulness and warmth have drawn me back repeatedly. Here is a little bit about her:

Laurel is a writer, magazine editor, professor's wife and mom to an energetic second grader. Indie film enthusiast and incurable Anglophile. She writes young adult novels, literary flash fiction and poetry. She loves smart, sassy characters and stories that delve into the dark places where heart and soul are tested and growing up truly begins.

1. Name the last three books you read.

Invisible by Pete Hautman

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Blue Fire by Janice Hardy

A majority of what I read is contemporary YA, but I do try to mix in other genres.

2. Name one of your favorite authors. The first name that pops into your
mind. Explain. Or not.

Susan Howatch remains a favorite. She’s a British author who writes about incredibly flawed
people of faith who go through the wringer and emerge transformed. I especially recommend
the first two of her St. Benet’s series: The Wonder Worker and The High Flyer.

3. On a typical weekday, what are you doing at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m?

At 10 a.m., I’m at my part-time day job as a magazine editor. I can usually be found trafficking
manuscripts, writing correspondence, copy editing or proofreading. I squeeze in blog
commenting here and there.

At 10 p.m. I might be watching a Netflix DVD with my hubby. We like British TV, SciFi and
foreign and quirky independent films. If he has a lot of grading, I’ll hole up in my home office
to write blog posts, do research or work on shorter pieces (flash fiction or poetry). When I’m
really “on fire,” I’ll work on a novel after dark.

4. Have you ever had breakfast for dinner? Dessert before main course?

We have breakfast for dinner a few times a month—usually waffles or pancakes. Yum! Dessert
first doesn’t appeal that much. Having the salty main course first makes desserts taste sweeter.

5. Kindle, Nook, or iPad?

I’d love to own an iPad. You hear that, Santa? J

Gadget-buying isn’t a priority for me. We live pretty simply so that I can work part-time and be
home when my school-aged daughter is.

6. How do you want your work to be characterized? First three words that pop
into your mind.

Layered. Gripping. Transformative.

7.What have you written today?

Book review assignment letter, four e-mails, some blog comments, and revisions based on crits
from my crit group meeting last night.

8. Name a favorite food/dish that is colorful

Evil Jungle Princess. It’s a veggie-heavy Thai dish flavored with red curry, coconut milk, ginger
and Thai basil. My husband makes this and all kinds of other world cuisines (Chinese, Korean,
Japanese, Indian, Mediterranean, French, British). He’s a very talented cook.

9. Name a vocation, time, and place you'd love to be.

I’d love to edit/publish a literary magazine and live in England in, say, the 1950s. It would be
fun to wear gloves and hats, but have indoor plumbing and electricity. While we’re dreaming,
I’d like a half-timbered house, a small stable with a horse and a music room with a marimba. I’d
play occasional weekend gigs with a jazz combo.

(I didn't know you played marimba! So do my MG novel MC and I!)

Thanks, Laurel and congrats on the milestone for your blog.

May Mayhem

2011-05-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

May! Mother's Day! Spring! Flowers!

Lovely time of the year no? Well,except for some unexpected events. (But really, when are bad things really anticipated?) A couple of weeks ago, my computer crashed. So thankful for a husband who is highly tech-savvy. He set me up with a laptop, retrieved all the important information, and even resurrected the dead beast. Because it is 8-years old however, we decided to buy a new computer.

The car started to knock. Klonk, klonk, klonkity klonk = ka-ching, ka-ching.

Then, after not needing to go to the doctors' for almost two years for the kiddos, we've ended up going there four times in as many weeks, for weird hives, strange stomach ailments, and a freaky fall into a cellar.

Rains, pours.

Not everything has gone bad, thank goodness. The YA novel I'm working on tight now is moving along smoothly on a path that is working well. I am still over the moon with what's happening to my middle-grade novel. Both kiddos and I found new books to devour. And the sun is shining, after four consecutive rainy/snowy/ overcast days.

May! Spring! Flowers!

Scholastic Asian Book Award

2011-05-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Kumquat Code, my middle grade novel, has been shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award!

It's a good habit not to let the inevitable road bumps and obstacles prevent me from writing, but I am most certainly going to let good news buoy my spirits!

Squee!

Juxtaposition

2011-05-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden's death has resulted in a strange mix of news in my email inbox and status updates on facebook page today: claims of moral victory, condemnation of the war, talks of retribution, mourning over the millions of lives lost and millions more affected, and great deals on mother's day gifts.

Since this is a not a forum to discuss political and moral issues, not directly, anyway, I thought I'd focus on how such surreal juxtapositions of big news and life-as-usual can be applied to writing.

Perhaps, in writing about a funeral, a writer may focus on the highly-polished shoes worn by the widower. Did he, in the midst of making arrangements for the funeral, go out to buy new shoes? Or did he polish them himself, and what might have gone through his mind when he did that? Or maybe someone else polished them for him, someone who quietly made themselves helpful.

Or perhaps in a bridal shower, someone left the TV on to a program showcasing the husbands of Elizabeth Taylor.

Or perhaps rescuers, while looking through a tornado-ravished town, trigger a Tickled-Me-Elmo toy.

Have you read passages that include incongruous details? What about in your own writing: do you use this technique? Maybe some of you would dash off a short vignette in the comments section. Please do.

The Making of a Bookworm

2011-04-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

I became a bookworm because my brother needed a break from his annoying little sister.

I was 9 and he was 18, home from college, jet-lagged and worn out by playing with me. Eventually he handed me a book so he could have some peace and quiet. So of course I pestered him incessantly about the meaning of the words I didn't understand. (To his credit, he remained unfailingly patient.) After a couple of pages, however, I was so caught up I just skipped ahead. There was a story to be discovered, what were a few unknown words?

Peace and quiet for him, a lifelong love of fiction for me.

I need to back up and tell you that my siblings and I were born into a household of reading materials: Chinese classic texts and literature, foreign stories translated into Chinese, issues of National Geographic, a set of encyclopedia. I read mostly Chinese books when I was in grade school. In English, I read captions for National Geographic photographs, jokes from Readers' Digests, and comics from the English daily newspaper. My vocabulary was limited. (And often skewed by my misunderstanding of lyrics in American pop songs.)

Turned out my brothers had a whole collection of Enid Blyton books: on boarding schools, adventures, mysteries, fairies and gnomes and elves. I spent the next years devouring all of them, multiple times. I enjoyed the Famous Five adventures and boarding school stories. I even wrote a story, when I was about 13, that took place in a boarding school in England, with a protagonist named Bronwyn or Beatrice or something else with a strong British flavor. Yes, my characters had midnight feasts and drank ginger beer and routinely turned as red as beetroot. I still remember characters from Mallory Towers and St. Clare's: Darrell and Felicity Rivers, Pat and Isabel, Alicia, Mary Lou, a perfect head-girl named Rita, a teacher named Nosy Parker, and a new girl who was unjustly sent to Coventry. I longed to be allowed to wander around an island with my cousins and solve mysteries, and craved bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of milo and bread with kaya.

Sigh. Memories.

Despite all the criticisms of Enid Blyton's work, I am enormously grateful that she chose to write. These books opened my eyes to lives in foreign places and unfamiliar customs, made me a fluent reader, and laid the foundation for a habit of reading.

What are the first books that hooked you?

Fellow readers who grew up with Enid: which were your favorite books? What are some phrases you remember from her books, besides "red as beetroot?"Did you want to be one or another of her characters?

Getting to know my readers

2011-04-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

To celebrate having 100 avatars adorn the right side of my blog, I decided to interview some of them. Today, we're beginning with the person who bumped my number to three digits, Scott F. Bailey.

Here's his blurb:

Scott Bailey is a writer, musician and art-school dropout. He studied literature and political science at university and his short stories and essays have been published here and there. He's older than he looks, which bothers him a lot. Scott also blogs here and he is awfully fond of jam.

Scott is represented by Weronika Janczuk of D4EO Literary

I "met" Scott at The Literary Lab, one of my favorite blogs. There have been quite a few instances when his observations and insights have made me think and re-think my understanding and beliefs. And the guy is witty. I have not met him in person, but I'll bet he's one who deadpans his punchlines in perfect timing and while everyone around him roars with laughter, he is calmly sipping his beverage of choice.

Here are some questions he answered.

1. Name the last three books you read.

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus
"Possession" by Antonia Byatt
"Malone Dies" by Samuel Beckett

2. Name one of your favorite authors. The first name that pops into your
mind. Explain. Or not.

Ernest Hemingway. I love his use of language, and the line, "It's a nice
bar; they've got a lot of bottles."
William Shakespeare. Nobody's better than Shakespeare. He gave us so much.

3. On a typical weekday, what are you doing at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m?

9 a.m. I'm usually working. 9 p.m. I'm usually reading.

4. Have you ever had breakfast for dinner? Dessert before main course?

I love breakfast food for dinner. Hash browns and eggs Benedict and sausage
et cetera! Dessert comes last.

5. Why not?

Dessert last because it's usually rich and I like to have coffee with it,
but I don't usually have coffee with the entrée.

6. How do you want your work to be characterized? First three words that pop
into your mind.

Brilliant. Moving. Funny.

7.What have you written today? (Email/memo/comments on fb/recommendation
letter/grocery list)

This email. Nothing else.

8. Name a favorite food/dish that is colorful (Tandoori chicken, orange bell
pepper, green eggs and ham.)

Malai kofta.

9. Name a vocation, time, and place you'd love to be. (A general in Kublai
Khan's army; a writer in 1920s Paris; camel trainer when the silk road was at its peak; a journalist when the Berlin Wall came down.)

I like it here, but I wouldn't mind being a violinist in a professional
string quartet in, say, New York just after Prohibition ended.

Thanks, Scott.

Go visit him at The Lit Lab or at Six Words For A Hat.

One, Two, Skip A Few...

2011-04-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

...Ninety nine, a hundred. (That's how my kids like to count to a hundred. They think it's hilarious.)

99 followers: who knew? I certainly didn't expect it when I started blogging. I don't have the hundreds and thousands of followers some other blogs do, but these 99 clicked that "follow" button to my blog.

Thank you.

I love having you visit and comment and getting to know you here as well as at your blogs. I'll mark my hundredth follower with a celebration. A few ideas are brewing in my head. Do you have any that you'd like to share?

50 children's books

2011-04-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you'd run the other way when someone comes to you and says that everyone "should" read this and "should" do that. That was my initial reaction to the list by The Independent, of 50 books every child should read. But my curiosity got the better of me and I checked it out. (Thanks, Kelly Fineman at Writing and Ruminating, for pointing out the link.)

The article is about a list of 50 books compiled by prominent British children's authors and librarians in response to the their Education Secretary's suggestion that every 11-year old child should read a book a week to improve literacy.

I have read only a few on the list and wonder about the inclusion of some others. But rather than to comment on their list, I thought I would come up with my own. I hope you'll indulge me as I share the books that have a special place in my children's reading journeys.

Susan Cooper: The Magician's Boy
This was the perfect book, in terms of the magical quality of the story, the whimsical illustrations, and the length, for my daughter when she first learned how to read and we've worn out You Read To Me I'll Read To You (how I miss those cuddling sessions spent with this series of sweet, funny books.) She felt accomplished having finished reading a book on her own.

E. B. White: Charlotte's Web
We read this together at about the same time as she read The Magician's Boy. We would each read a page. Once again, she felt a sense of achievement after finishing it, especially after I told her this was a famous book.

Tony Abbott: The Secrets of Droon series
These are the books I credit for bringing my daughter from being someone who can read to someone who reads fluently.

Roald Dahl: Matilda
She first read this in first grade and has continued to read it once a year.

J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter
Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson
These books brought her the type of engagement and enjoyment that we bookworms thrive on.

Cressida Cowell: How To Train Your Dragon series
My son liked the Magic Tree House series when he first began to read but lost interest after about three books. I looked for many different alternatives, fiction and non-fiction, that would capture his attention enough to move him from able-to-read to able-to-read-fluently-and-for-enjoyment. These were the ones that did the magic. I knew he was hooked when I heard him chuckling to himself while reading. You can imagine my happiness when he ran to my room just to share a particularly good passage with me. Ah, thank you, Cressida Cowell.

Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black: Spiderwick Chronicles
At the library one day, I checked out all five books at one time, on a hunch. Sure enough, he finished the first book that night and the other four within the next few days. He devoured the Beyond Spiderwick books as well. When are you going to write more, Tony and Holly?

Bruce Coville: Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher
Like Spiderwick, this book combines magic and reality in a way that captured my son's imagination. (The entire Magic Shop series is fabulous.) The other reason he enjoyed this particular book is that he could relate to the character of Jeremy Thatcher.

Jeff Smith: The Bone series (graphic novels)
My son brought home a copy from the school library and told me how funny they were. Again, the chuckling while reading. Priceless.

Tom Sniegoski: Bone novels
I saw the illustration on the cover and assumed this was another installment in the series of graphic novels. Turns out this is a novel written by another author, but with illustrations by Jeff Smith. My son didn't bat an eyelid when he found out this wasn't a graphic novel. In fact, he chose to read this over playing his beloved handheld video game!

There are a number of books that I love but my children don't (yet) such as C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles, and those that I want them to be older before they read, such as Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy.

What about you? What are some of your favorite books for children? What are some of your own beloved books when you were young? Would love to hear your lists.

Note to self: The Hobbit! I bet both of them would love it if we read this together.

Food, Shelter, and Clothing, meet your competitors

2011-04-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

A theme emerges from recent conversations--on topics ranging from career choices to exercise routines to venues of children's birthday parties: people need affirmation. We make decisions and we want others to know the reasons behind them.

When the basic essentials of food, shelter, and clothing are met, we become focused on our other set of basis needs. From my observations, these are:

understanding
acceptance
affirmation

[I didn't put "love" on the list because that's like including "oxygen" in the other list. Also, I used to include "respect" but I think "acceptance" is more fundamental. Also also, these are not mutually exclusive but are intertwined.]

There are degrees to which each person requires these three elements, depending on age, maturity, personality, but I suggest that even the most highly respected, mature, confident person has these needs.

In fiction, when we're not dealing with characters struggling for food and safety: say, in a dystopian society, knowing how our main and secondary characters deal with these needs can make these characters more alive and believable.

What do you think? Do you agree that these are essentials? Have I neglected something else you consider even more fundamental? Do you characters feel the need for one or the others strongly? Do these needs drive their motivation? Drop me a note!

Compassion as antidote

2011-04-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, two events spread through the writing online community like wildfires in Colorado. They have made me think long and hard, not just about the writing life, but life in general.

I haven't come up with anything coherent yet, but Nathan Bransford, ex-agent and current Middle-Grade novelist, wrote a really wise post this morning. I'd highly recommend a read.

(I am rather concerned about some of the comments that follow the post, which exhorts people to react with compassion, but seems to have excited more judgmental attitude, but that may be another story.)

Team Chopped / Team Iron Chef

2011-04-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Last night, my daughter and I watched episodes of Chopped in which famous chefs--heard of Jacques Torres, anyone?-- battle for the title of the All Stars Chopped Grand Champion. Even though the show is like the more famous Iron Chef, I enjoy watching this much more. Why? Because the judges on Chopped are all highly-experienced chefs, unlike the celebrities and actors who perform the judging on the other show.

I have often wondered how the contestants on Iron Chef feel about being judged by people who are not trained in their art. Kinda like Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell being judged by violin students.

Receiving critiques is hard, no matter who gives it, but I imagine it would be a little easier to hear commentaries from someone who have had much training and experience in the field.

Seems like Chopped provides a better way of judgment, no? I watched Chopped, but I would squirm and lose interest if I had to watch Iron Chef.

But.

In real life, chefs cook for patrons, who, unlike food critiques, may not care about how difficult it is to produce souffles that rise just so, or how much acid is needed to balance a particularly oily fish. They just want to eat good food.

You know exactly how I am going to relate this to writing, don't you? Every published work is judged. Some works are loved by those in the know and some are loved by the masses and some by people from both camps. (I resisted the urge to use parenthesis around the two groups of people, but by golly, I really need you to know that I am aware of how unnuanced I am to put people into two neat groups like that. And isn't this the perfect example of how we want to appeal to those who do the same thing as we do, a certain understanding, or maybe even affirmation?)

As a writer, do you have a preference for which group of people you wish would value your work? Assuming there is a show like Chopped and another like Iron Chef for writers and you can only be a contestant in one or the other, which would you choose?

Flash Burnout

2011-03-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

[Back to regularly-scheduled program, and regularly-sized font.]

I didn't read Flash Burnout for all the wrong reasons.

For a while there, It seemed to be everywhere on blogosphere. My inner rebellious teen decided that something that popular didn't need me. When I eventually picked it up, I found the style of the flap-jacket difficult to read: too choppy. A few months later, I picked it up again and read a few pages. I liked the writing a lot but got an (incomplete) impression of the protagonist's girlfriend, and it made me hesitant to spend time in the head of a guy who would be in love with someone like that. I think I was tired of manipulative and self-absorbed girls portrayed as attractive and desirable.

Yeah. Not good reasons.

I finally read it. It is an excellent book.

Motivation and relationships: there are elements that draw me in the most. In this book, the characters possess distinctive and recognizable traits who don't fall easily within the black/white good guy/bad guy spectrum. They do things out of a variety of considerations, not always carefully thought out. The relationships are multi-faceted and -layered.

The premise, at its simplest version, is a boy whose loyalties and affections are torn between a girl-friend and a friend who is a girl. (And that was another reason I didn't read it for a while: the premise sounded cliched.) But the book is no cliche. Far from it. The author explored dilemmas, some of the everyday-variety, and some of the much larger ones, with honesty. At no point did I get a sense that she had it all figure out on how the characters would deal with their situations, and by hook or by crook, she was going to steer the plot that way.

This is not to say that I think having a goal and knowing where a story ends is necessarily a bad thing. What I am saying is that she didn't force characters into certain traits or actions for the sake of a neat ending. These characters struggle with problems and deal with situations in ways that are sometimes messy and unfinished. And we, as readers, get drawn into these struggles and decision-making processes.

Some readers find the ending unfinished. I, on the other had, thought it was perfect. It is not a standard they-go-back-together/they-were-never-meant-to-be-together or he-saw-the-error-of-his-ways-and-changed-his-life-around type ending. If it were, in my opinion, it would have been a letdown, after how the book has done such a great job of constantly engaging the reader into an authentic exploration of why people do things, how they deal with what life gives them.

I am sure you have heard that the author, L. K. Madigan, has passed away. I didn't know her personally, but like many others, I have felt a connection through her books. If you would like to find out how to help out her family, you may start here at her agent's blogpost.

New blogs and contests

2011-03-28T13:25:00.001-07:00

So I've been back on kidlitosphere, poking around, and found a couple of interesting blogs that are new to me. (Thanks, Laurel!) Vicki Rocho at Rambles and Randomness and Janet Sumner Johnson have partnered to bring a Brawl and Haul Contest, with a grand prize of either a 10-page critique by Sarah LaPolla at Curtis Brown or a basket of writing-related loot. Here are the details. Have fun visiting them!

My time-regulator machine malfunctioned

2011-03-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

The sky outside looks exactly the same but apparently three weeks have gone by since I wrote the post. I am positive it has only been a day. Darn that time-regulator machine. It hasn't been working right since the new year. First, I found out that it had made January and February move much too slowly, and when it came to March, it suddenly zoomed forward. And of course, it's no longer under warranty.

I'll have to get myself a new one. These refurbished machines are useless.

Take That, Gloomy Monday!

2011-03-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

It's Monday. I can't get warm despite layers of fleece and wool. The sun is hidden from my beloved Colorado sky. My inner thermostat is approaching Grumpy.

But I shall not give in. I shall make this a productive day. I will finish up critiques! I will vacuum! I will do taxes! I will dig wells and harvest rice and build barns!

So There.

Why oh why oh why or Domey Malasarn is turning blue

2011-03-04T07:45:00.000-08:00

Call it coincidence if you will, but on the same day I posted my post But Why (incidentally, I wrote it a few months ago and only decided to post it the night before), Jules Watson's post at Writer Unboxed, titled Why, oh Why?, was also on the topic of character motivation.

But wait, there is more.

Yesterday, my friend (hello, fellow Dreamer of 13A!) Cheryl Reifsnyder told me that she read my post and then one by Jane Friedman at There Are No Rules, 6 Common Plot Fixes, and there at No. 5 was, you guessed it, Beware of Unmotivated Actions.

Okay, maybe these coincidences aren't remarkable, but the posts are worth a read.

In other news, fearing strange ideas that float in the air that writers breathe, Domey Malasarn has decided to hold his breath. Domey, are you blue yet?

Happy weekend, everyone

New and Unique

2011-03-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

A new anthology is released today, Note From Underground. And I dare say there is nothing else like it.

I like hanging out at The Literary Lab, where the three fabulous bloggers have gathered a great group of people around their posts and discussions. Well, these three fabulous people didn't think that was awesome enough and decided to publish anthologies and donate the proceeds to a charity chosen by their readers.

Three fabulous people with generous hearts.

Last year, it was Genre Wars. This year, they have come up with an even more fantastic, and totally unique, way of finding authors.

They put out a call for submissions and those whose work is selected is invited to submit anything, yes anything they want, to be included in the anthology.

Three fabulous people with generous hearts and trusting souls.

The result? New From Underground. Available today. Get it.

But why?

2011-02-28T06:43:00.000-08:00

I finished a thriller/suspense novel a little while ago and am not sure what to make of it. I enjoyed the first third, but by the middle of the book, I had lost interest. I finished the book just to see if the ending would capture my attention again. It didn't.

The writing is good and the plot interesting, but the characters' motivations remained unaddressed. I followed along, despite not knowing why this character would go there and that character would turn up here, but I felt like a small child being told to stay quiet and not ask any questions on a long and complicated journey using multiple modes of transportation. It went from being frustrating to infuriating to numbing.

This experience made me think about the importance of motivation in a story. Why do characters do what they do? Are they confined by their personalities: a loving person cannot help but choose the loving thing and a curious person cannot help but seek out answers? Are they succumbing to circumstances? Sophie had to choose one child or the other. Are their actions solely dictated by plot?

I don't mean that we need to know at every point why a character would something. Keeping it hidden for a while keeps the readers intrigued. Keeping some motivations hidden the entire time makes the reader ponders even after the book ends. But keeping almost all the motivations hidden most of the time makes a story just a series of arbitrary events. Why would any reader care?

How much tolerance do you have for not knowing why characters do things in a book? Have you read a book that frustrated you this way?

Not too weird as dreams go

2011-02-25T05:42:00.000-08:00

But it was weird how vividly I remembered it after I woke up. Here is the dream:

I am about to leave a place, a cross between a hotel and a dorm. I don't have much time and I haven't packed yet but I am not concerned. (Strange thing #1: I am usually aware of time and like to be ready.) Instead of packing, I am walking up and down some stairs.

when I finally decide to pack, I realize I brought too many pairs of shoes (strange thing #2, I usually pack only one pair of shoes for my trips.) Not only that, but they are strewn everywhere, not just in my room. And I can't find matching pairs.

Why is my blog post about a dream? Because it's Friday and my brain is ready for some quirk.

Also, some of you may have good ideas about how to interpret the dream. Have a go at it.

Happy Friday.

Review of Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

2011-02-23T08:20:00.000-08:00

Nocturnes
by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nocturnes is a collection of short stories that revolve around musicians: crooners, jazz musicians, has-beens, not-yet-beens, guitarists, cellists. This collection made me realize anew how much I love short stories.

I have always thought Ishiguro writes with a certain musicality and I knew this was a book I had to read. I was not disappointed. The musical details are real—so grating to find inauthentic descriptions of a musician’s world—and the thought processes and struggles familiar. There are heartbreaking events, but the author treats them, and the characters: despondent, clueless, or disappointed, with sensitivity and care.

What struck me the most about this collection was the choice of the narrator. Except for Nocturne, the most substantial story of the collection, the others are told by a bystander, like Nick Carraway telling the story of Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The first story, Crooner, the narrator helps the major players of the story complete a task without knowing his role. In the last story, Cellists, the narrator has but a passing acquaintance with one half of the main characters and no relation at all to the other half. The narrators in the other two stories, Come Rain Or Shine, Malvern Hills, while steeped in their own concerns, unwittingly play a part in the reunion / breakup for another couple.

The choice of narrator, the choice of point-of-view, is one that usually doesn’t call attention to itself to a reader. Yet as a writer, I know how important it is. It sets the tone of the story, gives the story the certain bias, highlights some details while deliberately excluding others.

Ishiguro’s choice in this collection results in a balance between intimacy and distance that works perfectly. Obviously, using an observer to tell a story isn’t a magic pill. In lesser hands, this would probably be as ineffective and self-conscious as harvesting a crop with safety scissors.

And that’s the thing about reading a consummate writer. We can dissect and analyze and come up with principles all we like. But unless we keep writing, incorporating these new ideas or throwing them out, all the analysis and studying is still not going to make any difference in our own work.

I've been tagged!

2011-02-21T10:17:00.001-08:00

Tim Riley from Life of Riles tagged me today. These are interesting questions which I'll attempt to answer succinctly.

1) If you have pets, do you see them as animals, or are they members of the family?

Members of the family. We had a dog that was attacked by two pit bulls, a breed that scares me to death. I went between them and kicked the attackers even though I would not have thought I'd be brave enough to do something like that. That situation showed me my protective instincts would kick in with our four-legged family member when a situation demanded it.

2) If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?

I would be wise and calm and motivated by compassion.

3) What is the one thing most hated by you?

How easily people get offended or outraged about something and start treating the other side as if those people were not only stupid but immoral.

4) What would you do with a billion dollars?

Like Tim, I would like to make sure those I love have a secure future. Then the rest would be managed wisely by the best money manager so that the money can go the farthest in helping out worthy causes.

5) What helps to pull you out of a bad mood?

Doing something I hate doing so that at the end of that, I'll feel better. Bach string music. Hugs. Chocolates are good too.

6) Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?

This is a tough one. I'd like to say it's more blessed to love but when I am reminded of how much I'm loved, it's an unbelievable feeling.

7) What is your bedtime routine?

I take a shower, brush and floss my teeth, check the doors, cuddle with the kids, read, think about the day.

8) If you are currently in a relationship, how did you meet your partner?

In college. I met my husband my first day on campus.

9) If you could watch a creative person in the act of the creative process, who would it be?

A choreographer or a movie maker.

10) What kinds of books do you read?

Lots of fiction: literary, middle grade, YA. Some memoirs.

11) How would you see yourself in ten years time?

On the outside, not many changes. I do hope that inside, I will be closer to my dream of being a much calmer and wiser and more compassionate person.

12) What's your fear?

That I will wreck my children's lives by either being ignorant or not disciplined enough to do the right thing by them.

13) Would you give up all the junk food for the rest of your life for the opportunity to visit space?

Okay, what do you mean by junk food. Define visit space.

14) Would you rather be single and rich, or married and poor?

Our first years of marriage we were poor, not homeless poor, but under-poverty- line poor. We were lucky in that we knew the situation was temporary. Once we finished grad school, we knew we'd get stable jobs so it's not fair to compare our situation to those who are poor and can see no way out. Those years hold some wonderful memories.

15) What's the first thing you do when you wake up?

I swallow my thyroid pill, wake up the kids, and have breakfast with them.

16) If you could change one thing about your spouse/partner, what would it be?

I learned early on this is not something to even consider.

17) If you could pick a new name for yourself, what would it be?

I did try to pick a new name, a name that doesn't require me to spell over the phone to the pizza delivery guy. I still haven't come up with anything.

18) Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?

Forgiving is something I will decide to do, over and over for a single thing if necessary. Forgetting is not something within my control.

19) If you could only eat one thing for the next six months, what would it be?

This question came up over the weekend and the word that came out of my mouth was "nuts!" I thought I'd say chocolates.

The rule about being tagged is that I have to tag four other people. I have decided to tag my newest followers. Thank you for checking out my blog. Hope this will help me get to know you better!

Golden Eagle
J. B. Chicoine
Paul C
Jennifer Hillier

Is that why they brought in Robert DeNiro?

2011-02-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Some works set such a high standard that sequels often come with unreasonable expectations. Take Godfather: can you imagine the pressure Coppola had when he began Godfather II?

The success of Hunger Games made Catching Fire and Mockingjay tough standards to live up to. (For the record, I thought both of them were done superbly.) Harper Lee stopped after To Kill a Mockingbird. Star Wars...never mind.

[The only redeeming factor]

Writers jump through hoop after hoop after hoop to get published. It's easy to think that once there is a contract, things will get easier. (Here I pause for my published friends to interject and tell me it ain't so.)

I believe them. When you write a book that is loved, you feel your readers' expectations. Authors who keep besting their efforts are amazing. I am reading Tana French's third book, Faithful Place, right now.

A friend loaned me The Likeness and I read it without being aware of the buzz it had garnered. It was a wonderful reading experience. I then picked up In The Woods and enjoyed it just as much. When I found out last year that she had come up with a third book, I was thrilled but apprehensive. Can she live up to the first two books or will I have to watch Sofia Coppola act?

I finally picked it up this week and I am two thirds of the way through and I have to say I am relieved to find the writing just as impressive and the story just as captivating. Actually, I'll go even further to say I think this is the best of the three.

Do you do that? Worried about your expectations being too high for a beloved author or filmmaker? Do you have favorite sequels?

Picky, picky, picky

2011-02-16T08:13:00.000-08:00

My daughter is in a community children's choral group and recently, all four choirs in the group presented a concert together. On the program was music composed by their guest conductor, Jim Papoulis.

As usual, there were extra rehearsals. Many, many extra rehearsals. I could tell she was getting exhausted. After one particularly long weekend, however, she said to me, " Mom, I think you're going to really enjoy this concert."

"I always do."

"No, no. This one you will REALLY like. Mr. Papoulis is v-e-r-y picky."

Joy. The child understands the road to excellence is paved with pickiness. AND she can tell good enough is not good enough.

Go, pickiness! My mantra for revision today.

(Just to clarify that I think pickiness per se doesn't necessarily lead to excellence. I am sure you can think of many examples of unnecessary, compulsive pickiness that leads to nothing but hair-pulling.)

(And yes, I did enjoy the concert very much.)

Love, glorious, multifaceted love

2011-02-14T09:30:00.000-08:00

A day to celebrate the loves of our lives: it's...nice.

Consider my attitude Bah-Humbuggish if you wish, but even the most ardent celebrators of this holiday know that what we do on one day of the year is nothing compared to how we listen, serve, care for our loved ones in non-red-non-chocolate-non-roses ways the rest of the time.

In writing circles, we are reminded often to write what we love. And it's indeed true. If we didn't love what we did, many of us would have given up a long time ago.

But what are we talking about, this love of writing? Do we look forward every day to spending time with our words, our stories? Do we daydream of it? Do we get the heart palpitations and the delicious anticipation? Does tenderness fill our hearts?

Not often. Not for me anyway.

Sometimes I dread writing. Sometimes I get so uncomfortable I can't be still. I grumble. I cry. I long to do something else.

But I write. There is something deep and essential within me that can be accessed only when I write.

Not exactly romantic, reducing love to necessity.

But maybe romance isn't everything when it comes to love.

I don't fling my arms around my husband when I see him after work every day. The butterflies in my stomach have grown arthritic over the last twenty some years. We don't gaze into each other's eyes over dinner and forget about the food on the table. But there is no question that what I have is love. It's strong, it is deep, it has weathered much more than the fluttering hearts of our early romance could handle.

I love writing. And there isn't a chubby winged toddler with arrows in sight.

Just what kind of critiques do we need?

2011-02-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months, my critique group has been focusing on how we give and receive critiques. As we have been together for a a few years (some of the members have known one another even longer) we could be open and honest about the fact that we might have fallen short of our potential as critique-givers.

One of the things we have agreed to try, is to ask the person who submits just what type of critique she is hoping for. This has helped guide our discussions so we are not all going at 5 different directions. While it could become restrictive in that a critiquer may not bring up a glaring problem just because the writer didn't ask for it, I am happy to report that it hasn't happened. The group is experienced enough that important issues are brought up, whether or not the writer is aware of them.

For example, in my last submission, I asked my group to focus on two issues--character differentiation between the two main protagonists and the relationship between a character and her father--but as the critique chat progressed, it was clear that two other issues were more pressing--authorial intrusion and unnecessary descriptions--and we were able to discuss those as well.

Over at The Literary Lab today, Domey Malasarn is doing an experiment by offering to critique three samples in one manner, and three other samples in a different manner.

It is interesting to me that most of the readers opted to receive what Domey calls his Tiger Mother critique. (I really hate to give this more publicity but there you are.)

My take? Regular readers there "know" Domey enough to know that his critique, no matter how critical, will never be malicious, and will be truthful and helpful.

His experiment so far has made me think about what most writers need. And here is my conclusion. We need feedback from someone who is:

Capable and experienced, so that the areas brought up are in fact worthwhile and not some unimportant side issues or the issue-du-jour of a novice.
Truthful and willing to bring light to something that the writer may feel insecure about. Glossing over a problem because the writer is known to love his _______ merely helps the writer cover up blind spots.
Kind, with the intention to help rather than to use this as an opportunity to show off or to subtly put someone else in her place.

What do you think?

I'd be rich otherwise

2011-02-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

[imagine mismatched socks instead of heels]

I am emerging a bit to let you know that a couple of unexpected events in my family's life have been all-consuming these past two weeks. I apologize for not updating this blog, especially since I was in the middle of a contest and especially, especially since I had a guest writer.

I hope to get my head back together and work on the unfinished business here.

And yes, I still want to write about my experiences at the martial arts tournament.

Thanks for your patience.

Pretend you're an agent

2011-01-20T04:59:00.000-08:00

Miss Snark's First Victim is holding her January Secret Agent Contest. If you have some time and are interested in reading 250-beginnings of the 50 entries, as well as the comments, go check it out.

But before you do!!!!!

Read what Alex has to say on the post below. And then leave a comment. And then go tell it on the mountains.

A Guest and A Contest

2011-01-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

As promised, today I have a guest poster. I "met" Alex at The Literary Lab in December when she wrote a fabulous paragraph using only words with one syllable, alluding to many of the information about the three Labbers. She very generously agreed to write a post on my blog. Here's a little bit about her:

Alexandra ("Alex") MacKenzie is an author and illustrator from
Seattle, WA. She illustrated "In My Nature: A Birder's Year at the
Montlake Fill" (www.constancypress.com), published in November 2009,
and she wrote the fantasy novel "Immortal Quest: The Trouble with
Mages" (www.edgewebsite.com), published by Edge SF (Canada) in
September 2010. She supports herself as an academic counselor at the
University of Washington, where she works down the hall from her
friend Scott Bailey of The Literary Lab
(http://literarylab.blogspot.com/).

Kids These Days

I love children’s fiction, especially middle-grade. I’d love to write
a MG novel. Yet I feel out of touch with today’s youth, being a bit
of a middle-aged fuddy-duddy who grew up at a time when kids could be
out playing all day (and away from the home) without adult
supervision, when the TV had three channels, and “extracurricular
activities” meant whacking a baseball around the front yard while the
“outfielders” stood in the street watching for cars.

My reading in the MG arena tends towards fantasy, mystery, or
historical – I think because books set in contemporary times have
themes and situations to which I can’t relate. When I try to write
something in the MG line, it veers away from Here and Now. I did try
it once, but had trouble coming up with a believable protagonist.
It’s been a long time since I was ten, and I do vaguely remember what
the world was like then, but is it anything like the worldview of a
ten-year-old today? How does one tap into a contemporary child’s
experience? (I don’t have kids or grandkids, and there aren’t even
any in my neighborhood!) Or should a writer simply assume that the
things one worried about the most as a child haven’t changed all that
much? Peer pressure, fitting in socially, awkward moments, sports,
girls/boys, good teachers, bad teachers, family trips, sibling
rivalry…perhaps these are standards that transcend time?

Those of you out there who are writing (or reading) a lot of
children’s fiction these days, what attracts you about your favorite
books, your favorite protagonists? As a reader, do you prefer works
that reflect contemporary reality and issues, or do you favor books
that take you away to a land of fantasy? If you’re writing, do you
have problems figuring out what Kids These Days are feeling and doing
and wanting?

I think one author who has handled this well, combining a sense of
today’s kids with a sense of the old-fashioned, is Jeanne Birdsall in
her books “The Penderwicks” and “The Penderwicks on Gardam Street”.
Agree? Disagree? Do tell!

And now the CONTEST part of this post: leave a comment about who your favorite young protagonist is. You may do so till next Wednesday at which time I will pick a winner for one of the following books of the winner's choice:

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
Solving Zoe / This is Me From Now On by Barbara Dee
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z / Sugar and Ice by Kate Messner
The Higher Power of Lucky / Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron
How to Survive Middle School by Donna Gephart
Bobby vs Girls (Accidentally) by Lisa Yee
Hoot/Scat by Carl Hiaasaen
Room by Emma Donoghue,

Drop us a comment!

Added later: Alex is guest-posting over at the Lit Lab today! Go read what she has to say about being a two trick pony.

Also, I am adding another book to the list: Room by Emma Donoghue, which is not a kidlit but the protagonist is a 5-year old with an amazing story to tell.

Guest blogger tomorrow

2011-01-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

While I organize my thoughts about my experiences this past weekend, I have scheduled a wonderful post from a guest.

Come back tomorrow! Contest!

A brief note

2011-01-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

I just came back from a big national martial arts tournament and my husband just returned from a 3-week business trip and so my attention is currently focused on non-blog related things.

Not surprisingly, experiences from the tournament have sparked off my thinking about writing and publishing. Stay tuned.

Musicspeak: recurring nightmares

2011-01-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

Recurring nightmares: do you have them? Here are some of mine that are music-related:

I am waiting behind the curtain on stage, getting ready to perform to a full house and someone hands me a violin. (I am a pianist.)

I am seated at the piano on stage and suddenly realize I am to perform a Beethoven sonata that I learned 10 years ago and don't remember any more.

During a performance of a Mozart concerto, I suddenly realize I have jumped from the 1st to the 3rd movement.

Wait.That last one actually happened.

(Pause for you to feel the horror of it.)

The good thing, if there was any good about this sad situation, was that I was only a first year conservatory student, and while the recital was a public one, not many people were there. Also, I wasn't accompanied by an orchestra, but by my piano teacher playing the orchestral reduction on another piano. We fixed that problem quickly and I finished the rest of the recital without further problems (I think; I was on automatic gear after that and don't remember anything very well.)

I knew that piece backwards and forwards, maybe even upside down. How could that have happened?

The audience, that's what.

Practicing alone in a practice room, playing to my teacher in his studio, or even playing the piano on a empty stage were significantly different phenomena than performing on stage to an audience.

I was an inexperienced performer and did not know how to handle my heart beating a mile a minute, my hands frozen and sweating at the same time, my thoughts wandering all over the place. It was a miracle, really, that I didn't have more memory lapses.

My mother, if you remember from a previous post, was (and still is) a writer and while talking about this incident, remarked that the main difference between our chosen art forms was this: that a writer did not have to be present when her work was read whereas a musician performed to a live audience.

At the time, still smarting from this humiliating experience, I wished I was a writer, safely cocooned in my private writing world. No falling flat on my face in public, no fumbling with trouble passages for all the world to see, no having my work determined by one incident. I wondered why my mother seemed wistful.

As I grew as a performer, I understood my mother's envy. There is nothing quite like the energy in a room when you have a receptive audience. It is supremely gratifying to give something of yourself and feel the vibes of the audience who accepts it. There are very few things in life that compare to how alive I feel during those moments.

Now that I am spending more time writing than performing, I appreciate the more forgiving nature of writing. I don't have to produce great sentences on the spot. I can spend time with my words, polishing them before I present them to my audience. By the same token, I do miss the immediate feedback from my audience.

I am not sure where I stand in the spectrum of whether art is a form of communication and isn't quite complete until it's received, or it is a form of expression that stands on its own. Some days, playing a piece privately is enough; it is my very private expression, of gratitude, of sorrow, of joy, and I don't need nor want anyone around. Other days, I enjoy playing for people. Some of my writing remains my prayer and will never be seen but I can't wait to see what reaction some other stories will be met with.

Where do you stand? How do you view your art or the art of others? Did Picasso create only for himself? What if Glenn Gould never released his two versions of Goldberg Variations? What if Schumann performed all the songs he wrote the year he got married only for his beloved Clara? Are you curious about all the works of Dostoevsky or King we never get to read?

[Yes, I do realize that writing, in many ways, has become a much more public endeavor. A writer known only by her works is no longer the overwhelming norm. These days, we can, if we choose, to put our work out there for something like immediate feedback by the public. But I am staying clear of this tangent for now.]

Book Reivew: Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham

2011-01-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

Specimen Days
by Michael Cunningham

The information on jacketflap made no sense but I read it anyway, because I loved Michael Cunningham's writing. Now that I've finished, I understand how difficult it is to describe the book. This is a book for which an elevator pitch will be, at best, strange.

Even the designation of the book, a novel, is not exactly right. The book contains three stories, each independent, yet linked. The links seem rather tenuous: each story stars a man, a woman, and a boy, each time with the same name, or a recognizable variation of it. Walt Whitman's poetry plays a large role in every story. And in each is a character who can't help him/herself with words that issue from within them. These is also a bowl, and disfigurement.

Yeah. Strange, right?

The first story takes place right after the Industrial Revolution and is a steam-punkish ghost story. The second is contemporary police thriller. The third is a dystopian that takes place some 100 years into the future.

So what's the book about? You ask. These links are interesting, but surely there is a larger theme that goes through the book?

This question gnawed on me for at least a day and a half before I eventually realized that the overall theme of Specimen Days is about choosing selflessness. No. More than that. Choosing selflessness still implied a degree of thinking about oneself. These stories are about people making decisions to sacrifice whatever necessary based purely on what is needed by another.

I started reading reviews as I prepared to write this post and the ideas are varied and very interesting. Here's the NY Times review, and here's a review from across the pond, The Guardian. If any of you who have read it have other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

All is not lost: Resolutions part two

2011-01-07T18:03:00.001-08:00

How did I do in my pre-resolutions? Why, thanks for asking. I failed probably half of them.

Writing every weekday at 10
Did it for a few days, then had to juggle the times. I did, however, get much better at sneaking in sentences here and paragraphs there in between opening presents and making crepes and playing Clue.

Practicing every weekday at 2:30
I kept having to change the time for appointments and volunteer schedule

TKD and exercise
Lots of work before my midterm and then there was baking and there were parties and...

Housework
When I reviewed my pre-resolutions mid-month, I realized this was the most neglected aspect and scrambled to make up for the neglect. But like brushing teeth, housework is something that has to be done consistently instead of in bouts of mad activities spaced too far apart.

And here I thought I was choosing things I could succeed in, but I misjudged my ability to not to stick to a plan. Sure I can blame it on December and festivities and having two kids underfoot, but no amount of blaming can change the fact that I didn't do what I thought I would.

What does this tell me? Well, that new habits are monstrous things and that I have an infinitely creative mind when it comes to procrastinating.

But all is not lost. I found a pattern with my procrastinating. And knowing my enemy is the first step at conquering it I say. Here is my weapon:

Every day, I will do something that I really do not want to do.

I am also going to steal Story Queen's resolution, which is

to laugh more.

And, one more, that I started doing for the past few years:

Cut 'em some slack

What do you think? Do you think I'll succeed?

Recipes ain't everything

2010-12-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

The pastry shops I love keep going out of business.

The week before Maggie McCullough's closed some seven years ago, I bought all their brioche to put in my freezer. About three years ago, I brought my daughter to Babette's Feast to celebrate with her favorite pear tart as was our tradition, only to find a note taped onto the door. Not long ago, I stopped by the Belgian bakery in town and noticed it was now a bagel store. At least my daughter wasn't with me when I walked into the store.

The store looked more or less the same. The only difference is the food in the display cases. One was filled with bagels and the one that usually tested my willpower the most, the one showcasing beautiful cakes and tarts, was sparse and sad.

I asked for pear tarts, they had none. I looked at my other favorites: the almond croissants didn't have sliced almonds on the outside. The palmiers were thick and not of the right color.

(Rather then posting pictures of sad foods, I thought I'd post ones that reminded me of what used to be.)

"So, how long have you guys been here?" I asked, as nonchalantly and as non-accusingly as possible.

The woman behind the counter regarded me with suspicious eyes. "It's been a while."

I should have come more often, bought more pear tarts, helped them stay in business!

"We bought their business and all their recipes."

I looked up at her. There is hope yet. So what if the baked goods don't look the same. All I need is for them to taste the same. They have the recipes, so all is not lost!

I bought an almond croissant and a palmier and got into the car with my little baggie of hope. It was a while before I took my first bite because I knew my hopes would either be buoyed or shattered by it.

Recipes ain't everything.

The croissant was limp and unflaky and the inside undercooked. The almond paste was the only thing that tasted the same. The palmiers tasted the way they looked: inexperienced.

All those writing rules out there, they can't promise success. All the shows-don't-tells and three-act-arcs and what-the-character-wants will not give us the products that thrill and haunt and satisfy.

What will?

Recipes + experience + well-honed taste buds + desire + working at dawn everyday.

Oh, and maybe consumers who won't practice self-control when encountering our work.

Most memorable books I read in 2010

2010-12-21T05:40:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, when we look back on the year and take stock, noting the highlights and milestones, and of course, my year-end contemplation is incomplete without remembering the books I've read. Here are some that have touched me in some way:

Loveliest book to read aloud with children:

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Authors new to me whose work I must check out:

Nick Hornby
Aimee Bender

A book in which plot, character, language share equal weight, marrying genre and literary seamlessly:

In The Woods by Tana French

A middle grade series featuring two young adventurers, a boy and a girl, a trait that characterizes several other series, but manages to feel fresh and captivating:

Leviathan by Scott Westerfield

A book that rewarded careful, slowed-down reading

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson

A book that is much less gimmicky and much more pleasurable to read than at first glance:

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

An irreverent book that made me think about important stuff:

Lamb by Christopher Moore

Two favorite books that captured me, stayed with me, and completely baffled me as to how the authors managed to come up with what they did:

Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Let me know which of these book you've read and share some of your favs this year.

Is this writing?

2010-12-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Reading critiques of my work by my writing group
Reading their works-in-progress to offer my critique
Figuring out why a book I'm reading works so well
Figuring out what makes another book not work as well
Reading advice from screen writers about dialogue and exposition
Reading writers' and agents' responses to different loglines and opening paragraphs
Identifying elements of story in movies and other art forms
Daydreaming of what-if situations for my characters
Writing down new story ideas
Writing blog posts

These are all things I do n my quest to become a better writer. They are all important, some perhaps even necessary.

But none of them takes the place of actual writing.

Trial run, dress rehearsal, resolution

2010-12-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

I chose not to do NaNoWriMo because I wanted to celebrate my birthday and my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, without having the word count over my head. I also needed to concentrate on my WIP, a YA novel I had started three times without being able to go past a particular point.

November is now over. Its December 1st and I don't have that much to show for it. No planning, no specific goals: that was my problem.

When The Rejectionist invited her readers to do a Pre-Resolution, a mini one before embarking an a full-blown I will exercise an hour everyday and eat only raw fruits and will treat everyone with the utmost respect and work for world peace type thing on New Year's Eve, I answered the call.

Small is good. One month is doable. I am in. Here are my pre-resolutions:

Every weekday at 10 a.m. I will be working on my YA novel. Actual writing, no research, no brainless switching sentences and words around or other busy but useless work.

Every weekday at 2:30 p.m. I will be practicing piano. My solo gig in August doesn't seem that far away anymore.

In Tae Kwon Do, I have a midterm coming up in less than a week and a national tournament in 6 1/2 weeks and I have specific training plans I've drawn up that I will stick to.

I will stick to my (more reasonable, less ambitious) house cleaning plan.

You are welcome to nudge or remind or ask me questions.

Separating the darlings from the voice

2010-11-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

I made some decisions in my writing this week. They had to do with sentences that have either struck me or my critique group members as being too much.

Kill those darlings.

or

Don't get rid of the very distinctiveness that is your voice.

How do I make such decisions?

By following my gut, that's how.

I ended up keeping one of the sentences and deleting a few others. The one that I kept occupies an important position. It is the second sentence of the opening chapter. To me, its over-the-top sentiment sets the tone for the protagonist. It tells us not only about the character of this 12-year old girl, but also the things that matter to her.

The ones that I took out fall into the category of being "too clever by half." No matter how much I try to convince myself of things that I don't really buy, there is always that honest, stable part of me that will call b.s. every time. Learning to pay attention and recognize that call has been one of the most valuable things I have learned over the last few years of writing.

Who knows. Maybe my deleted darlings should see the light of day, and the sentence I've kept will turn away readers. But until I find a more fool-proof way of making these decisions, my gut is all I got.

What about you/ Does your gut call the shots as well? And how long does it call before your hear?

Follow up to the hiatus

2010-11-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the good wishes for my blog hiatus. I thought I'd provide an update.

I finally completed the revision of my MG novel and sent it off. There was so much energy from the high of having completed an important task, I thought it would carry me to my new task, which was to work on my WIP, a YA novel.

But I couldn't write. There were too many thoughts, all going at high speeds heading toward different directions, in my mind. Scattered, cluttered, over-energized. The only way to calm down, I found, was to read.

I picked up three books, all different from one another, and from what I tend to write: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Frazen, and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood.

When I went back to my WIP a few days ago, my mind was relaxed and refreshed, and I was able to see how I needed to proceed.

And now, I seem to have found a flow for working on this book that I don't want to let go. Blogging has to take a back seat yet again.

I wish I could write and blog and live as a member of my family in a balanced way but I am apparently wired to focus on only very few things at a time.

I will see you all, if you're still around, when I next surface from my writing.

Blog Hiatus

2010-10-25T08:00:00.001-07:00

I will be unplugging from blogosphere to prepare my ms to send out.

Good week, everyone.

Get Thee Behind Me, Oh Gimmicks!

2010-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

I was at a piano teachers' workshop many years ago, eagerly absorbing the wisdom and advice from a master piano teacher I admired greatly. My notebook was filling fast, my mind was challenged, and my coffee was ignored and cooling in the flask.

Teaching piano, like writing, can be a solitary occupation, despite the fact that the job itself requires at least two people to be present. It's solitary in that a teacher has very few opportunities to discuss and argue and share their aha moments.

I felt that aloneness most acutely when I started my own piano studio after spending three years teaching and apprenticing at a community music school. I missed the camaraderie I'd had with my colleagues who were always ready to talk music or teaching or music and teaching and life. I learned as much from our discussions in the kitchen over ramen noodles (kitchen pedagogy sessions as we affectionately call those times) as I did in formal classes.

Back to this particular workshop. The last event on the program was this teacher- extraordinaire teaching a group of children from the piano preparatory department of the music school that hosted the workshop. He engaged the students on stage and the piano teachers in the audience the entire time, and helped the performers make changes to their pieces that immediately made the music better and the children more confident. I was spellbound and so blown away that I was almost in tears.

"Do you have any questions?" He asked as the students left the stage. Hands shot up. He nodded at one person.

"I was wondering about the cardboard boxes that these students had?" Many other teachers nodded enthusiastically. More questions and comments arose about those boxes, about how they would motivate students to practice (huh?) and where they could be ordered.

Anyone who could read my mind at the time would decide I was a total snob. But I was dismayed and almost crushed by what I was hearing. Here was a brilliant person offering us thoughts that he had distilled over years of teaching, and they were interested in the cardboard box? Sure, the boxes were nifty but how, how, how could anyone possibly be more interested in a gimmick than the real thing? *

That was probably the beginning of my intolerance for gimmicks. And now that radar is being trained on fiction.

It's inevitable, I supposed, that any time a lot of people clamor for attention, somebody will resort to gimmicks. And of course, what qualifies as a gimmick is up for interpretation and depends on execution. I wouldn't be surprised if someone calls my work gimmicky (and stabs me in the gushy bit within my chest in the process.) In other words, I am totally aware of the subjectivity of it all.

Even so, I'd like to know: what do you consider the most intolerable gimmick in fiction?

*The more mellow (and hopefully more humble) me now realize that just because most of the comments were on the box didn't mean that it was the thing that made the most impact on the teachers in attendance. Getting older does have its benefits.

A Long Way Down: A Review

2010-10-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

A book about four people who went up to a rooftop on New Year's Eve to commit suicide but abandoned the idea and formed an unlikely alliance: Who wants to read a book like that? Wouldn't being in the heads of not one, but four, suicidal people be depressing? And if there is any light-heartedness or humor or cleverness, wouldn't it get old or annoying after a few pages?

That Nick Hornby can avoid these and other pitfalls of a book with this premise makes him a hero-author to me.

I was engaged throughout the book. The writing is authoritative (a novel told in four first-persons point-of-view had better exude authority) without being arrogant. Morality was something that was touched on often, but never with a heavy hand.

When people contemplate suicide and life, they are bound to have many moments of reflection and rumination, yet none of it in the book is announced and treated as Deep Thought Moments. The characters wondered about things, observed the newest unexpected turn of events, and came to certain conclusions, but these moments never felt contrived or overwrought. And while some of the events seemed bizarre, they didn't feel forced.

At the Lit Lab yesterday, the topic was on novel structure and the reinvention of the form. (They are much more articulate over there and you should read the post and the comments.)

I am not convinced that A Long Way Down qualifies as a novel that broke the mold but its form was most definitely the outcome of the story. Because it didn't follow any formula that I recognized, my reading experience was an adventure. I was never quite sure what the next chapter would bring but I didn't care. I did not miss having any idea about where the story would lead; I just wanted to follow it as it unfolded. The anticipation and fulfillment were often very satisfying.

I am going to check out more Hornby books. I don't know what to expect, but I secretly hope each one will dictate the structure and I will continue to be drawn to pursue what comes next.

Any other Hornby fans out there? Detractors?

Why is falling asleep like writing?

2010-10-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Because it has to happen every day, or I am cranky.
Because it is a miracle every time it happens.
Because I don't remember exactly how it happened the night before, but I know it'll happen again, somehow, tonight.
Because I can't force it; I just need to be ready, with my teeth brushed and flossed / mind attentive and butt in chair.
Because it's a gift.

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, part IIc

2010-10-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

The original post of this series segued from a discussion of one person's definition of art music to whether the definition worked for fiction.

The second post examined the assumptions and provided examples of how labels might be useful.

In the third post, I asked for your responses to different genres.

In this, the last post of the series, I am revisiting the question of whether the definition given by John Steinmetz to art music--art music is the type of music that rewards knowledge, experience, and attention. (again, paraphrase mine)--works for fiction.

I don't think it works as well.

The reason is that the language of music is not something we use regularly. I don't argue with my husband in arias. I don't play the piano to my friends over the phone to invite them over
for dinner. (Hmm, but doesn't that sound like a cool premise for a story?)

But English is something I use all the time. I do argue with my husband in English, and I do invite people to come to dinner by speaking English. People, with the exception of musical geniuses, have a stronger grasp of their primary language than they do the language of music. Therefore it is easier to read books that carry deep messages than it is to comprehend musical compositions that do the same thing.

I've read books that are easy to read that have touched me deeply. I have read many that rewarded me only after many hours of mindful reading. Then there are those books that are easy to read and easy to forget, as well as those that are difficult to read but offer no reward. This is probably true of most readers' experiences.

I will say, however, a large majority of the books that made me work hard have been worth the time and effort.

I suspect that this is the case with me because the "difficult" books that I didn't give up on had something that drew me in, even when I preferred to be lazy and give up on them. With whatever little bit that I'd read, I became aware of something deeper, something worthwhile; and I became convinced that a more engaged reading would allow me discover it. And so I was willing to pay my dues. By reading with a great deal more attention, these experiences became much richer.

Some books don't require much attention at all, and not being a brain scientist (Livia, if you are reading this, I'd love to hear you chime in) I can't say if this type of fast, almost skimming type of reading, in fact, doesn't engage as much of the brain, and therefore can leave only minimal impact.

Now before you start protesting, I want to state here that I am fully aware that some writing is smooth and is easy to read because of the skill and talent of the authors. I am *not* making a stand that says all difficult books are good and all easy books are fluff.

Anyway, I am approaching brain-fatigue point for this discussion. I hope you aren't. But if you are, I'd like to make it up to you by sharing these clips of music.

This first one is an example of how musical groups previously considered unrelated can in fact, share a lot of commonality: (Thanks, John, for sharing this link.)
Vivaldi and At Vance

If you've taken piano lessons, you may have played this piece, but I'll bet you've not heard it performed like this:
CPE Bach's Solfegietto

A classically trained violinist and a metal guitarist exhibiting high levels of technique:
Violinist and metal guitarist

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, part IIb

2010-10-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

Imagine, if you will, that someone I just met finds out I am a writer and asks, "What do you write?"

Some answers:
"I write fiction."
Reaction:

"I write middle-grade and young adult fiction."
Reaction:

"I write research papers on mid-twentieth century analytical philosophers."
Reaction:

"I write romance."
Reaction:

"I write novels based on the characters from Star Wars and Star Trek: Next Generation."
Reaction:

"I write literary novels and short stories."
Reaction:

"I write about people who routinely experience strong premonitions of disasters before they occur."
Reaction:

How did you react? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but I'd love to have a sampling of what people think in reaction to these answers.

Some labels are benign: "fiction" for example. But some others carry heavier implications.

But here is the thing, just because I am not interested in reading about people who may be able to predict disasters with their psychic or other powers tells me nothing about the quality of the writing. In my old critique group was a writer whose writing I admired. He prefaced one of his new works sheepishly by telling us it was fan fiction. I didn't know what fan fiction meant at the time, and I didn't understand his attitude. In the same way, another member was always apologetic about her book being a romance. But these writers are good, no matter the genre, I enjoyed their stories.

So, back to the question of why use labels. I hope this is one answer: labels and categories help define what we do and help us make decisions. And it may even open the channel for further discussion. Say you like philosophy but don't care much for writing that characterizes Continental philosophy, you'd jump all over yourself to talk to this person about analytical philosophy. I wouldn't, but you may.

So what am I trying to say?

I am trying to say that labels are necessary, not adequate, but necessary, and that the main reason they fall short is the people hold many different kinds of opinions and prejudices, carefully examined or otherwise.

I am also trying to say that even though I focused on art music in my original post, I am not making a statement about its worth compared to other types of music. I focused on it because it is the kind of music that gives me joy, engages me mind and soul, and allows me to feel deeply. It expresses something I can relate to; it expresses something bigger than me; it expresses the emotions and lives of people who lived hundreds of years ago. And one reason I am able to reap such wonderful rewards, besides being given an innate attraction to it, is that I've had the privilege of being exposed to outstanding performances and of studying the music. Would I feel this way about this music had I not been given these gifts? Probably not.

I hope you'll tell me what you think, and come back for the next, and last installment of this exploration.

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, Part IIa

2010-10-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

My musicspeak post last week provoked a lively conversation that has made me think all week. Some of the reactions seem to indicate that the topic has touched on something more than just the discussion of art music.

Here are the unspoken assumptions that underlie the post:

that there are different groups of art;
that it is meaningful to separate those groups.

One assumption not present in my post:

that some art forms are better than others.

Let me examine these assumptions. The assertion that there are different types of art is not disputed. How we group different types of art is where the disagreement starts. This is when
we look at established labels and exclaim: what do Rembrandt and Kandinsky, or a Vivaldi concerto and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra have in common?

Here was when I found John Steinmetz's definition helpful. Unfortunately, I left out an important part. And it's this:

Art music requires the listener to pay attention

Experience and knowledge, yes, but paying attention is an even more important aspect.

Let me back up a little and address the question of why it is meaningful to have labels. Why not just say: here is a whole slew of music, enjoy? My take is that there is simply too much available, and without some sort of a classification system, we'd feel lost. Sure labels can lead us astray, but they are a convenient and often helpful way for us to navigate our lives.

And maybe it's not possible for humans not to label. Just think for a moment all the ways we categorize things and people in our lives. These categories are likely inexact or inadequate in some ways, and they can result in all sorts of meaningless and even harmful generalities. But is it really possible that we don't mentally separate foods into healthy/unhealthy, or people as those you trust your children with and those you don't?

Here is another example of why I use labels. When someone asks me what kind of musician I am, I tell them I am a pianist and an orchestral percussionist. In their minds, they know that by percussion, I mean instruments such as these:

this:

and yes, this:

and am likely to perform in a venue like this:

standing around with these fellow percussionists:

They would probably not conjure up this image:

or ask me where I usually gig, which they may if I had just said I was a percussionist. (Nope, can't play the drum set at all. Maybe I'll take lessons one day. But it will have to come after lessons in jazz singing and bass guitar.)

I am sure you already some responses to what I've written so far and I'd love to hear them. And please come back for the continuation of this exploration. Tomorrow, I'd like to invite you to imagine some scenarios with me, to discover the responses you may have to different answers to this question:

"So, what do you write?"

It's Alive!

2010-10-07T14:08:00.001-07:00

I started writing a post to follow up on my musicspeak post last week. It took me quite a bit longer than I expected, but it was a good exercise that made me think harder about and dig deeper into the subject of genres and labels and assumptions. I'm letting that post mull for a bit.

In place of a follow-up to last week's post, this is a follow-up to Monday's post, in which I wondered if writing had killed reading for me.

I am happy to report that reading is still very much alive!

Yesterday at the library while I was checking out books for my kidlets (Sid Fleishman and Gary Paulsen and Linda Sue Park, delish;) I picked up A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby on a whim.

So far, I find myself at times delighted and at other times, thoughtful and somber. It's a story about the New Year's eve when four people meet on a rooftop, each intending to jump to their deaths. Not the most uplifting topic, but Hornby manages to, so far at least, make me smile even as I am confronted with the cruel things in life that cause people pain and despair enough to make them consider suicide.

I have never read any of his other books but have heard good things about them. I find Hornby's writing is so unforced, and his observations so acute that I am convinced that underneath the humor and the seemingly casual treatment of people and their lives, is a thoughtful author who carefully scrutinizes his surroundings and ideas. And that, is a good draw for me.

Oh great, I meant this as a light-hearted post. Don't know why my thoughts keep wandering around unlight-hearted things. But I will rectify that. Here is a sentence from the book I hope you find as cool as I did:

If she hadn't tried to kill me, I'd be dead, no question.

Aqua fortis and Domey Malasarn both mentioned in the comments section last week about how, when they come across a book that captures them, they pause and study, to find out how the author did it. I, however, am feeling rather like I've just found a beautiful feast and just want to eat and leave the thinking about the recipes till later.

My offering to you today: food analogies, a surprising sentence, and a promise I will have that post up, soon.

Addendum: I realize I highlighted a book about suicide in a post titled "It's Alive!" Hmmm.

Did writing kill reading for me?

2010-10-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

I finished reading two books that have been published recently. They were both well-written and I can't really find fault with much. But the entire time I was reading, I was very aware of writerly things the authors did. For example, in both these books, each adventure follows at the heel of another, probably because of the oft-given advice to keep the tension high, don't let the story sag! In fact, increase the stakes with each obstacle! And sure enough, in both books, not only do the troubles come one after another, the stakes are increased each time.

Then there is another advice: show, don't tell, the emotions and motivations of the protagonists. And in these books, I watch characters break out in sweat or clench their teeth; and hear about their hearts in their throats or their muscles screaming in agony, with slight variations about how the pain or fear feels.

The problem isn't with the writing advice. I like an unrelenting adventure story as much as my 9-year old daughter. I have nothing against being shown and not told a person's emotions (but only to an extent; Brian's post yesterday hit the nail on the head for me.) And I most definitely am interested in what the characters are thinking and how they make decisions.

So then, why have these recent reading experiences been so much more about noticing what the authors are trying to do then absorbing the stories they want to share?

My question, to those of you who write, are these:

Does the awareness of craft take you out of a story?
If so, does it happen in every book?
And if it happens only sometimes, can you determine what factor causes this type of reading?

Musicspeak: Real art and popular art*

2010-09-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Commercial. Literary.

Designations of fiction: what do you think of them? What are you reactions to authors Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel protesting the labels given to their novels? No, seriously, without the snickering and the eye-rolling?

Publishing professionals talk about the sweet spot where commercial and literary intersect. Authors try to figure out where their work fits. Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner respond to the publicity surround Jonathan Frazen's new book.

This age-old dichotomy between art and popularity rears its head in many art forms. In music, the words "classical" and "pop" seem to do a decent job defining particular types of music. Yet doesn't it seem questionable to put Bach and Debussy in the same lot, and Iron Maiden and Lionel Ritchie in another? And where does jazz go? Straight-ahead jazz, Latin jazz, fusion jazz?

Years ago, I heard a definition of art music that has made me think. It was given by the keynote speaker at a piano pedagogy conference. Speaking to a ballroom full of conservatively dressed piano teachers, this pony-tailed, jean-clad, soft-spoken man described his journey of coming up with a way to think about art music. And this is his conclusion (my paraphrase):

Art music is music that requires knowledge and experience to appreciate.

That works really well for me; even if it may place Iron Maiden next to Bach. And this is not to say music outside this realm has no place. It just means that some music requires work and study to be understood and enjoyed fully.

I am still thinking about whether this definition works as well in fiction. What do you think?

*Please don't shoot me for seemingly denigrating popular art. This is an attempt at speaking with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. See that bulge on my left cheek?

Web presence, blog tours and social sites for authors

2010-09-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Two of my favorite blogs seem to be taking two sides of an argument, with regards to authors promoting their books:

Sarah Prineas, author of The Magic Thief, was the guest on Shrinking Violets Promotions yesterday, and she doesn't care for authors using social sites to promote their books. She doesn't think blog tours work.

Over at Writers Unboxed, Crystal Patriarche, publicist for BookSparksPR outlines the ways an author should approach blog tours. She doesn't specifically mention the effectiveness of blog tours, but the post assume that they are.

I find myself in an unusual situation: I don't really disagree, not too much anyway, with either of their positions. What about you?

Be sure to read the comments on the SVP blog. A lively conversation has sprung up primarily between Greg Pincus, a book marketing guru, and Sarah. A few other book people turned up with their contributions: agent Jennifer Laughran, authors Tanita Davis and Cynthia Leitich Smith.

Putting aside the question of social sites, at least the internet enables online communities in which thoughtful people who care can engage in meaningful discussions.

Musicspeak: walking into love

2010-09-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

One of my most trying times at the conservatory was the semester we studied 20th Century music. Lectures and tutorials weren't the problem; it was the Weekly Tape. You see, for every period in history we studied, we had to listen to a cassette tape (yes, it was that long ago) containing music from that time. Listening to music as an assignment was usually my favorite part; it was like reading To Kill A Mockingbird for school.

But that was before I was required to listen to 120 minutes of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, followed by Steve Reich and other avant garde composers every week. (John Cage's 4'33'' was especially uncomfortable. Was I supposed to sit with the earphones in my head, listening to silence for exactly 4'33"? At least White On White doesn't demand its viewer to be still for a specific length of time.)

Did you follow the links? Did you listen to the music? What do you think?

I felt tortured.

But a strange thing happened after I listened to each tape multiple times; some of the music began to make sense. I started to enjoy, and later, love some of what was initially meaningless noise, such as Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht

This didn't happen to every piece of music. I remained unmoved by some of the compositions, despite acquiring familiarity and knowledge about them. I understood the purpose of their composers, appreciate their ideas, and maybe even admire the results at an intellectual manner, but I never sought out those pieces after that semester.

The many hours spent listening and re-listening to all that music was necessary. To be a musician, I had to know how the story of music has continued in the 20th Century.

Writers read. We do it because that's probably the reason we became writers. We do it because we love it. We do it to learn about other writers.

And we do it because we need to know the traditions on which our art is based.

I have a number of books I feel I need to read but find it difficult / intimidating. This post is primarily a pep-talk to myself, that I should put in the extra effort and time to read these not-super-accessible books.

Falling in love is exhilarating. Within a heart beat we completely embrace the object of our affection. Sometimes the feeling can even turn into something less exciting but longer lasting. Sometimes it doesn't.

Walking into love: taking slow, occasionally painful, steps, isn't as exciting. But it can lead to something deep and stable, something that makes us better writers, richer people.

Do you have books that are on the TBR, but also SI (Somewhat Intimidating) list? Have you had the experience of falling in love with a book that your originally could not get through? I would love to hear your stories.

Black Belts and Food Trucks

2010-09-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

So I got my black belt.

The next morning, Saturday, I competed as a black belt for the first time--in a ring with 2nd- and 3rd-degrees who were mostly teenagers with a few state champions thrown in. Nothing quite like jumping into new challenges with both feet!

On Sunday, all adrenalin and energy deserted me all at once, it seemed, at 2:08 p.m., and I collapsed on the couch. Yes, you may watch TV, I told the kids. They chose the Food Network, which was running a marathon of the Great Food Truck Race as a lead up to their grand finale. And wouldn't you know it, several episodes later, I came away with some lessons learned that apply to writing and publishing.

A bit about the show. 7 teams set up their trucks for two days in different cities across the country. The team with the least sales amount in each city is eliminated. As with other reality shows, the producers throw in twists and turns in the forms of different challenges.

One team, the Nom-Nom truck, won in every single city. The reason was clear: they played smart. For example, before arriving at their first city, they called ahead to place an ad and had lines waiting for them before their competitors could even set up shop. In another city, every team was given a frozen quarter of beef as a challenge and many of those teams knew nothing about butchering. Some of them simply did the best they could, wasting precious time and not doing a good job. But the Nom-Nom team knew their limitations, and asked/hired a butcher to cut it all to specs.

After a few cities, a number of the other teams started to figure out their strategies and stepped their own game up. One team, Grill 'Em All, in particular tried to beat the Nom-Nom team at their own game. In one challenge, Grill 'Em All and Nom-Nom had to prepare each other's food: Vietnamese Bahn mi sandwich and hamburgers. The GEL guys hunted down a Bahn mi shop and bought all the ingredients: marinated beef, sauces, veggies, already cut up. Unfortunately, they still lost that challenge.

Every team had a good product. Each was given the same information and seed money. Why did the teams fare so differently?

Many unpublished writers have the message and the craft, why do some succeed, and others not? Some of the reasons are out of our control. The leader of the Nom-Nom team had probably the most photogenic face. And much as we like to pretend beauty makes no difference, it does. But no one on the other teams begrudged (out loud, at least) her good genes. They did their thing as best as they knew how, work hard, tried to be open to new ideas.

Then there was the Ragin' Cajun incident. This team parked at a horrible spot in one of the cities and had no customers. The leader freaked out and tried to drum up sales by using his megaphone and calling out to passers-by, but to no avail. The next morning, he started at it again, but he was much more successful, primarily because he quit being the crazy guy on the street yelling at you to go eat his food. He became the charmingly wacky guy doing his best to persuade you.

I could so relate to that poor, desperate man going red in the face on that first evening, Please, gentle readers, if you sense a whiff of my going insane in public, please stop me.

What this show reaffirms to me is that, to be successful, I have to:

have an excellent product
not bury my head in only creating this product
get the message out there
learn about my customers
realize that strategies and careful planning can have a lot of impact
be willing to adapt

But this is not the end of the story.

The Nom-Nom truck had been the clear favorite. But in the end, they lost the final challenge to Grill 'Em All, a team that makes hamburgers.

This team was almost always at the bottom in every city, yet they scrounged up new enthusiasm after every setback. Nobody on their team would make it to the cover of GQ magazine, and the one time they felt super confident about winning a challenge--by getting the ingredients for making Bahn Mi ready made--they didn't. They were definitely the underdogs. And I love it when underdogs win.

To all my fellow pursuers of a seemingly unattainable goal, to all my fellow underdogs, to all my fellow dreamers: here's to a rich journey and a satisfying end.

Stay tuned for the next installment of musicspeak

2010-09-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

...which will air in its regular time next Thursday. Right now, I can't focus very well on anything besides Tae Kwon Do. You see, I am testing for my first degree black belt tomorrow.

[Hopefully I will be able to post a picture of me wearing the black belt soon]

I just completed a paper as part of its requirement, and passed the most nerve-wrecking segment of the test: the all-or-nothing test. As the name suggests, if I don't do everything completely well, I lose all the stripes that I had been gradually collecting over the last few months. Tomorrow evening, I will test in front of all my fellow candidates, family and friends. There will be three Masters among the panel and assorted other high-rank black belts.

So, yes. Efforts to point my mind towards music and writing have lost dismally to the self-preservation mode of preparing mentally and physically for TKD.

If you're interested, here's an older post I wrote when I first got my brown belt and the challenges that followed.

Wish me lots of stamina and balance and speed and power and no creaky joints!

Banned Books Week: my list

2010-09-13T18:27:00.001-07:00

After looking through several lists that described the reasons for specific books being banned (and getting mildly depressed each time), I have decided on this list for my participation this year:

Classics
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm by George Orwell

Young Adult
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Middle Grade
Alice books by Phyllis Naylor

Musicspeak: our audience

2010-09-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

After my first public recital at college, I wrote home to say how disappointed I was. The audience had been small and it seemed almost meaningless to have spent all those hours in the practice room just to perform to a few people.

In her reply to me, my very wise mother said something that has stayed with me till today.

If even one person has enjoyed or understood my performance, I would have succeeded.

The Chinese has a term for such a person: zhiyin. The first character, "zhi" means "know" and the second, "yin "means "music" or "sound." Someone who is a zhiyin, in its literal sense, is someone who knows your voice, your sound, your music.

As a performer, It is not possible to know how a performance affects anyone. I don't know if, in all my years of performing, I have found any zhiyin, but the notion that such a person could exist has definitely given me a much better attitude toward performing.

An elderly gentleman used to frequent the lunch-time recitals of my conservatory. I didn't know him, but he was almost always at my recitals. As part of my psyche-myself-up-to-perform routine, I would imagine him as a zhiyin.

Initially, the thought helped focus my intentions. As the years went on, as I became increasingly frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary judging by the professors based on obstinate ideas about how certain pieces should be performed--Bach should never be played with the damper pedal, there should be no rubato in Mozart, and the only way to achieve the effect Debussy wanted was by using the sostenuto pedal (the one in the middle on a grand piano) and no other way--that I eventually gave up being the compliant and correct student because, first of all, I couldn't keep straight which professor held which opinion, and I really didn't want to perform within such narrow parameters.

So in my last year at the conservatory, when I employed subtle rubato in Mozart or used the damper pedal in Bach, I would direct the performance toward the gentleman, and imagined that he understood what I was trying to do musically.

Maybe a person should only write for herself. But I have to admit that one of the purposes of my writing is to share something of myself with others. Otherwise I would not seek publication and I would not need this blog. I may never reach a large audience with my writing, but the notion that a zhiyin could exist out there, who will "get" my writing, is a strong motivator.

Banned Books week

2010-09-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, The Grapes of Wrath, The Handmaid's Tale, Speak: these are but some of the books that have opened my mind, affected my soul, made me ponder the wonders and abominations of life. To think that I might not have had the opportunity to read them makes me sad. I can only imagine how much poorer I would have been had not been for these books.

The people who want to ban books have one thing right: they know the power of ideas. But they also fear. What do they fear? On a day when I feel charitable, I think they fear the susceptibility of the naive. On a day when I am less so, I think they fear that their own belief system will be challenged.

Harsh? Perhaps. But in a democracy, where some of the most important decisions are made by by individual votes, why are we not given the same courtesy to choose the ideas we want to explore?

As a parent, I am acutely aware of ideas that are not (yet) appropriate for the absorbent and young minds of my children. And I do censor: books, TV shows, movies. But those decisions are borne out of my responsibility as a parent and based not just on the principles/beliefs our family adheres to, but also on my knowledge of my children. The fact that I choose for my children while they are still young doesn't mean I will tell other parents what their children should or should not read.

September 25th till October 2nd is designated Banned Books Week. Here is the American LIbrary Association's page with helpful information and links. Librarians and bloggers everywhere highlighting banned books in the next few weeks and I am going to participate in the Banned Books Challenge hosted by Steph Su Read s. For this challenge, I will read at least one banned book for general audience, and one for children's/YA and post my reviews here between now and October 15th.

Join me, if you're so inclined, and let me know after you sign up at Steph's. And even if you're not participating, do tell me which, among the banned books you have read, is one that you can't imagine not reading.

It's September and I'm back

2010-08-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

My sabbatical from blogging has been a good one. It has allowed me distance and given me time to consider some questions about the blog and its place in my writing life. I have not made new discoveries, just affirmed earlier thoughts, such as:

There are more blogs I want to read than there is time to do so;
I have not been using my experiences as a musician much; and
I really appreciate the my blogging community.

Making choices is the hardest when the options are not clearly right/wrong, but I have made mine. To pursue a huge online presence, to gain large numbers of followers, to comment on every blog I enjoy: these are no longer top priority.

Not only did these activities take massive amounts of time, they exerted a pressure on my psyche as well. I am not a person who can process all the information and share in all the emotional highs and lows and then be able to put all that aside to focus on writing. I am now choosing to limit how much my mind has to process and my emotions be affected so that I can participate fully in each experience and still have what I need to be a writer.

On a more upbeat note, I realize that I have not focused much on my other love, music. After ignoring my piano for a long while, I am practicing regularly again. There are so many parallels between the writing life and the musical life that I can't believe how little of that has been highlighted in this blog.

The practical outcome of these thoughts?
I will post twice a week, one to focus on music and how it relates to writing, and the other will be on whatever is on my mind. I will still, as I have been during my blogging pause, visit and comment on the blogs in my community, only less frequently as before. I still love you guys!

Oh, and btw, like my new look?

In which the frog jumps out of the pot, or see you in September

2010-05-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about taking a sabbatical from my blog for a while now, and it seems I'm not the only one who is stepping back. Lady Glamis is closing down her blog, Innocent Flower, Miss Rumphius is stepping out for a little while, Lotus girl is going through a purge-a-palooza, and Corey at Thing 1 and Thing 2 has lost her mojo for her blog.

My reasons? Several. First, summer is a time to be with my children, to do spontaneous things like make crepes or go for a bike ride or hang out with the neighbors. It is a time when fresh vegetables and fruits abound, and this year especially, I am looking forward to making wonderful meals from the produce I will receive from a local farm through an CSA program. It is also a time when, if I don't pay attention to the backyard for a few days, it will be overrun by weeds and over-exuberant ground covers.

Here is another reason, one which I'm not even sure I can articulate properly. The best I can do is with the metaphor of the frog in the pot of boiling water.

In my version of the story, I somehow become aware of the water getting hotter than I can handle and I jump out (hopefully not into the fire, but that's another metaphor, isn't it?) before I boil into a lovely frog broth.

Let me explain. I love interacting with writers and people who love the arts on blogosphere. I enjoy participating in different activities: commenting, following, joining Ning groups, entering contests. But without realizing it, I've gone too far.

It's not just that I am spending too much time or energy, it's also that I am doing some things I am not entirely sure about.(This is the part that may get me some flak, but I hope you understand I am describing my struggles, not passing judgment.)

Take contests, for instance. Most of them now offer a point system to reward readers for publicizing the event. This has made me wonder: is this for me? If something is done by the majority and I choose not to do it, does it mean I am intentionally leaving myself/my book behind? When will the saturation point hit, i.e. if and when I do decide to engage in publicity this way, how can I be sure that people will not have become sick of them/blase/overwhelmed by too many people doing the same thing?

I guess the underlying reason, for me at least, is that there is something about those actions that is one step removed from the real motivation--following or blogging because I want to qualify for a contest, or requiring people to follow to qualify for my contest--that makes me ever so slightly squirmy. Lots of things in life are done for extraneous reasons, I realize that. But I still wonder.

Other issues relate to how this blog fits into my writing life. I know many bloggers re-evaluate their decisions periodically and I'll be joining them. Thoughts and arguments will brew in my mind as I fly kites and weed and grill. When I see you again, I hope to have a clearer mind, whether or not I resolve all my questions. I already have an idea of what I can do about my blog when I return.

Hope you'll join me on my journey again. I may even throw in a couple of contests and devise a new point system.

Enjoy your summer, if you're in my hemisphere, or winter, or monsoon season, and see you in September. (Anyone else thinks of this song when they hear this phrase?)