The TBR shuffle

Like every other book lover, I have a big To-Re-Read pile. It is pretty fluid, that is to say, I may think I'm going to read The Corrections as soon as I finish my current book, but I may decide to read Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince instead. 

Some of these decisions are totally pragmatic: when a book I put on hold at the library becomes available, I usually read it right away. Sometimes, the decisions are a lot more capricious. Say I planned to read Alice Munro's newest story collection but am feeling sadder or more introspective than usual, then I pick up Nick Hornby or Jonathan Tropper instead. Sometimes several people recommend a YA title but I've just finished 4 YA books,so I may read a few more chapters in my non-fiction pile, about parenting/mindset/fast and slow thinking/happiness. (For some reason, I don't finish a non-fiction book continuously as I do fiction so I always have several that are on-going.)

So lately this is how my TBR shuffle has played out:

• Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley because it recently won two awards, one of which is the Michael L. Prinz, and more importantly, because it became available from the library, with multiple holds after mine.
• Orchards by Holly Thompson. I met Holly last May in Singapore, at the Asian Festival of Children's Content, and have been meaning to read this book ever since. Now that it has won the 2012 APALA Asian/​Pacific Award for Literature (and I was the one who informed her first, by the way. Yes, very proud of my achievement, indeed.) I finally read it.
• Love in the time of Chorela by Gabriel Garcia Marquez because Domey Malasarn said reading it made him smile. I can always do with more smiles. Plus I'd bought it some 15 months ago and was getting tired of dusting it. 
• Next up: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett which I bought when it first came out, because that's what Jim McCarthy over at DGLM recommended to me. 
• Or not. I was walking past the YA shelves in the library and noticed brand new copies of Behemoth and Goliath sitting there innocently. Grabbed them both and ready to re-read my own copy of Leviathan, and have a Scott Westerfield fest! 

What about you? What are you reading now and why are you reading it? How often do you switch your books on your TBR pile?

Typing With My Eyes Closed

In case you think that "typing with my eyes closed" is euphemism for something else, say, writing without passing judgment, or this is something so easy that I exert no effort, you'd be reading too much into the title.

You see, I have to close my eyes frequently when I write these days. I had two cataract surgeries last month. (I know, most people don't need them till they're older, but I'm among the lucky few.) My eyes are healing well, but they are very dry and they tire easily. I also think that the fancy coating on my glasses had been doing their thing because now that I don't wear glasses, except to read up close or to drive, my eyes are more sensitive to light, whether sunlight or the light from my computer screen.


And that is why I have been typing with my eyes closed. And even though this course of action was born of necessity, I find that I am, in fact, writing with less inhibition, and faster, because I have fewer things to pay attention to, namely typos and weird spacing in my words. Thoughts are flowing more smoothly from my mind to the screen.


I wouldn't say that my new way of working has freed up my writing all that significantly, but I am rather enjoying the process. If you will tolerate a bit of pop-psych terminology, I'd even say that I am embracing this unexpected gift. 

Maybe you'd like to try it sometimes and see if helps.

Happy Dance, Part II

The dancing turtle from yesterday's post was cute, but look at what I had originally wanted to use:

My hair never curled like that, but those are pretty much my dance moves. 


These are drawn by the talented Maria Mercado, whose website I found as I searched for a picture for yesterday's post. I hadn't heard back from her with regards to having her permission to use the images and I was impatient to share my good news, which is why I chose the dancing turtle. But now that I've heard back from her, I have to show them to you.


Check out her blog for more wonderful doodles. Someone who can draw like that even when she's sick is definitely living and breathing her art.


Hope you're having a happy dance sort of a day.

Happy news!

I have long been a fan of The Literary Lab and so was doubly excited to find out I won the top prize in their Variations on a Theme contest!

These folks not only organized and judged the contest, they also put up their own money for the winners. It's clear that they love fiction and are doing their part to spread their love. 

This anthology, their third, will be available in March. In the mean time, I hope you'll support their effort to promote good writing by checking out the first two. 

You know what else is cool? That when I look at the names of the other authors whose work will be included, I recognize quite a few  from having interacted with them at the Lit Lab blog. And let me tell ya, the comments section is half the fun over there. Davin, Scott, and Michelle chime in often, and do a great job in creating a fun and welcoming place to discuss and ask questions. It's no wonder they have a loyal following. 


So, while you enjoy reading the diverse works from these anthologies, I will go resume my happy dance!

Juliet, Naked: A Brief Review

Nobody writes insecure and neurotic people as well as Nick Hornby. Okay, there's Woody Allen. But Allen lacks the uniquely-British calm facade that pretends everything is fine; splendid, in fact. I'm not British , but as I was reading this book, I was impressed by how, just from having grown up in an ex-British colony, I have absorbed a lot of that into my psyche. I completely bought into how each of his main characters over-thinks and second-guesses their own actions and how the spoken dialogue is but a fraction of the one that goes on inside the character's head.

The story is about Annie and Duncan, a couple, and Tucker Crowe, the singer-songwriter who is the object if Duncan's obsession. After Annie splits up with Duncan, she makes the acquaintance of Tucker and ends up having him (and his young son) stay at her house. 


An absurd story line, really. But who says absurdity is bad? Especially when the absurdity carries truth in it, such as the way Duncan justifies in his mind to himself that he is superior to the young man who, like him, is standing outside the house of Tucker's old girlfriend; and the way Annie uses algebra to calculate how much of her 15 wasted years with Duncan has caused her.


It was a delicious read for the most part, and a slightly uncomfortable one as well, when I recognized my own neuroses and insecurities. I have to say, though, about three quarters of the way through, I needed a break from all those wounded and fragile egos. Luckily (cunningly?) Nick Hornby inserts a laugh-out-loud scene using a common and totally benign greeting when two of the characters meet. That scene is priceless. Had the novel ended there, several threads would have been left hanging, but it would have worked for me.

Quiet Revolution

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

Strength of conviction

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

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?