Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 100
April 18, 2011
Scary truth
"And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth."--May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
How paradoxical that the revelation we fear, and are tempted to self-censor, may be the very thing that lights up our work. It may be the very kernel of truth that nourishes the reader.
How paradoxical that the revelation we fear, and are tempted to self-censor, may be the very thing that lights up our work. It may be the very kernel of truth that nourishes the reader.
Library challenge results
This is the third year I've done the library-loving blog challenge. The first year was an experiment, really; I thought maybe I'd wind up donating $25 to my local library. Instead, a bunch of volunteers came together to raise more than $1600. The second year, I had many more volunteers and people to spread the word, and I was able to put in much more time, and we raised more than $5000.
This year, I didn't have as much time or energy as last year, and I didn't have nearly the number of volunteers. I considered not doing the challenge. Even though I've never officially made it an annual event, for three years it's turned out that way, and I'm really touched when people ask me when I'm going to do it and say they're looking forward to it. But this year I wondered whether I should let it go, given that I'm trying to do less this year, and that I had a smaller network of helpers.
In the end, I decided: what the heck, let's go for it! After all, the first year I did this, I had no expectations. And once I put up this year's first post, I remembered why I love to do this (aside from helping libraries, of course): it's fun. Much more fun than just writing a check. And I reminded myself that any money we raise, and any consciousness-raising we do on behalf of libraries, is worthwhile.
I haven't received final official reports from all this year's participants, but I have from almost everyone, and for the remaining couple I went by the latest stats on their challenge posts. Here is the honor roll of the angelic people who came forward with their own time and money to help libraries, and whose enthusiasm and generosity were immensely inspiring:
Jama Rattigan of Alphabet Soup: $200 worth of wishlist books for Fairfax Library foundation (VA)
Kimberly Sabatini of Jess Free Falcon: $150 for Blodgett Memorial Library
Kathleen Marold joined onto Kimberly Sabatini's challenge, for an additional $82 for Blodgett Memorial Library
Amy Brecount White : $100 for a Pennsylvania library
Janet S. Fox of Through the Wardrobe: $82 for the Bozeman Public Library (MT)
Angela De Groot : $100 for a local bookmobile
Sarah Mullen Gilbert of The Writing Cave: $50 for Barlow Memorial Library, Iowa Falls (IA)
Jessica Shea Spotswood : $75 for Adams County Library
C. Lee McKenzie of The Write Game: $310 for Los Gatos Public Library
Heather of Marine Corps Nomad: $50 for Foothills Library
Jessica Leader : $62 for Louisville Free Public Library
Kimberlee Conway Ireton : $36 for Seattle Public Library
Colleen Rowan Kosinski of Writer Girl: $20 for Cherry Hill Public Library (NJ)
Margo Rowder of Margoblog: $60 for Evanston Public Library Friends (IL)
Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating: $50 to her local public library
and me: $125 to Cheltenham Twp Libraries, $125 to Philadelphia Free Library (PA)
According to my spreadsheet, that's $1677, slightly more than we raised the first year. To everyone who volunteered, donated, commented, and/or spread the word: Thank you.
This year, I didn't have as much time or energy as last year, and I didn't have nearly the number of volunteers. I considered not doing the challenge. Even though I've never officially made it an annual event, for three years it's turned out that way, and I'm really touched when people ask me when I'm going to do it and say they're looking forward to it. But this year I wondered whether I should let it go, given that I'm trying to do less this year, and that I had a smaller network of helpers.
In the end, I decided: what the heck, let's go for it! After all, the first year I did this, I had no expectations. And once I put up this year's first post, I remembered why I love to do this (aside from helping libraries, of course): it's fun. Much more fun than just writing a check. And I reminded myself that any money we raise, and any consciousness-raising we do on behalf of libraries, is worthwhile.
I haven't received final official reports from all this year's participants, but I have from almost everyone, and for the remaining couple I went by the latest stats on their challenge posts. Here is the honor roll of the angelic people who came forward with their own time and money to help libraries, and whose enthusiasm and generosity were immensely inspiring:
Jama Rattigan of Alphabet Soup: $200 worth of wishlist books for Fairfax Library foundation (VA)
Kimberly Sabatini of Jess Free Falcon: $150 for Blodgett Memorial Library
Kathleen Marold joined onto Kimberly Sabatini's challenge, for an additional $82 for Blodgett Memorial Library
Amy Brecount White : $100 for a Pennsylvania library
Janet S. Fox of Through the Wardrobe: $82 for the Bozeman Public Library (MT)
Angela De Groot : $100 for a local bookmobile
Sarah Mullen Gilbert of The Writing Cave: $50 for Barlow Memorial Library, Iowa Falls (IA)
Jessica Shea Spotswood : $75 for Adams County Library
C. Lee McKenzie of The Write Game: $310 for Los Gatos Public Library
Heather of Marine Corps Nomad: $50 for Foothills Library
Jessica Leader : $62 for Louisville Free Public Library
Kimberlee Conway Ireton : $36 for Seattle Public Library
Colleen Rowan Kosinski of Writer Girl: $20 for Cherry Hill Public Library (NJ)
Margo Rowder of Margoblog: $60 for Evanston Public Library Friends (IL)
Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating: $50 to her local public library
and me: $125 to Cheltenham Twp Libraries, $125 to Philadelphia Free Library (PA)
According to my spreadsheet, that's $1677, slightly more than we raised the first year. To everyone who volunteered, donated, commented, and/or spread the word: Thank you.
April 17, 2011
Success and failure
I've been thinking about the definition of "success" and "failure."
We tend to talk about failed careers, failed relationships, failed manuscripts, failed projects. The half-knitted scarf that is three inches wide in some places and six inches wide in others. The apartment we fled before the lease was up, despite the cost. The manuscripts that never sold. The manuscripts we never finished.
I have a hard time calling those experiences "failures." Certainly they didn't work out as intended; certainly the time came to put them aside. And yet, maybe they worked for a while. Or their flaws taught us something that made the next experience much better.
Behind every story I've published is a stack of stories, and attempts at stories, that never made it. But I don't think the published stories would exist if it weren't for the thousands of unpublished words that came before them.
One of my mini-obsessions is armchair mountaineering. I've read dozens of accounts of expeditions, and the interesting thing is that the mountaineers didn't always have to make the summit for the expedition story to be riveting, and absolutely worth reading.
There are days when the summit can't be reached, but still the climb is worth something.
We tend to talk about failed careers, failed relationships, failed manuscripts, failed projects. The half-knitted scarf that is three inches wide in some places and six inches wide in others. The apartment we fled before the lease was up, despite the cost. The manuscripts that never sold. The manuscripts we never finished.
I have a hard time calling those experiences "failures." Certainly they didn't work out as intended; certainly the time came to put them aside. And yet, maybe they worked for a while. Or their flaws taught us something that made the next experience much better.
Behind every story I've published is a stack of stories, and attempts at stories, that never made it. But I don't think the published stories would exist if it weren't for the thousands of unpublished words that came before them.
One of my mini-obsessions is armchair mountaineering. I've read dozens of accounts of expeditions, and the interesting thing is that the mountaineers didn't always have to make the summit for the expedition story to be riveting, and absolutely worth reading.
There are days when the summit can't be reached, but still the climb is worth something.
April 15, 2011
But I don't find my microwave all that attractive
On April 12, there was a guest on the Colbert Report, Ray Kurzweil, talking about how people will be merging with machines in the future. (According to Kurzweil, we will merge by 2045, to be more specific.) As he pointed out, this kind of technology is already being used on people with neurological damage, so that nervous impulses can be used to direct digital equipment. Kurzweil also talked about how we'll have nanobots roaming through our bodies, keeping us healthy.
As with every technological advance, I can see both the wonder and the horror. The upside is obvious--new weapons in the struggle against diseases and injuries that alter our nervous system, our immune system, etc. Ways to enhance our memory, and perhaps keep from losing it.
But as to the downside--well, I've always said that I will never have to write a dystopian or futuristic novel, because M. T. Anderson already perfectly articulated my expectations in a novel called Feed . In Anderson's world, computers have been implanted in people's heads, but their primary use is to sell stuff to their hosts. Also, while the main characters have these fancy computer implants, and flying cars of a sort, there are hints that not everyone in the world lives this way. Somewhere, others are living darker, poorer, strife-torn lives, far from the glamor of shopping-on-demand and casual jaunts to the moon.
I can't help thinking that when Kurzweil says we'll have nanobots in our bloodstream, he means that some of us will have nanobots. I can't imagine everyone having nanobots in a world where not everyone can even afford basic medicines--where not everyone can even afford basic food. Nanobots sound expensive!
One thing that books do is express our hopes and fears about the future--usually based on our hopes and fears about the present. What futuristic or dystopian novel best lines up with your vision of the future, or with your most extreme hopes and fears? Or are you writing something like that now?
source of recommended read: library
As with every technological advance, I can see both the wonder and the horror. The upside is obvious--new weapons in the struggle against diseases and injuries that alter our nervous system, our immune system, etc. Ways to enhance our memory, and perhaps keep from losing it.
But as to the downside--well, I've always said that I will never have to write a dystopian or futuristic novel, because M. T. Anderson already perfectly articulated my expectations in a novel called Feed . In Anderson's world, computers have been implanted in people's heads, but their primary use is to sell stuff to their hosts. Also, while the main characters have these fancy computer implants, and flying cars of a sort, there are hints that not everyone in the world lives this way. Somewhere, others are living darker, poorer, strife-torn lives, far from the glamor of shopping-on-demand and casual jaunts to the moon.
I can't help thinking that when Kurzweil says we'll have nanobots in our bloodstream, he means that some of us will have nanobots. I can't imagine everyone having nanobots in a world where not everyone can even afford basic medicines--where not everyone can even afford basic food. Nanobots sound expensive!
One thing that books do is express our hopes and fears about the future--usually based on our hopes and fears about the present. What futuristic or dystopian novel best lines up with your vision of the future, or with your most extreme hopes and fears? Or are you writing something like that now?
source of recommended read: library
April 13, 2011
Of highwaymen, floods, and spectacles
Today's guest author is Kelly Fineman: poet, novelist, picture-book author, and all-around lovely person. She usually blogs at
Writing and Ruminating.
I was pleased and surprised when Jenn asked me to write a guest post – and she asked me to write about research, knowing I did some interesting digging for the Jane project, the biography I wrote of Austen's life. (In verse. Using period forms. Moving on . . . ) Researching a person such as Austen, about whom much has been written and not all that much is known, could have been easy: grab a handful of the better biographies and run with it, right?
Well, maybe. It's not what I did, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there who have done just that. I read no fewer than a dozen general biographies (e.g., Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin) and at least two dozen specialized ones (e.g., Jane Austen & Crime by Susannah Fullerton). And of course I read all six of her completed novels, her uncompleted novels, her novella (Lady Susan), and her Juvenilia, plus her letters. And I read some of the books that I knew she'd read and loved, including poetry, novels and plays. Plus I read books on Georgian and Regency England: customs, housing, manners, travel, costs, servants, etc.
The trouble with biographies is that they don't always provide factual support for their assertions. In fact, in the case of at least one biography that I read (David Nokes's Jane Austen: a life), scenes were manufactured wholesale for which there is no factual corroboration at all. It made me leery of accepting statements made in biographies on their face without further investigation. Also, I found that sometimes biographers leave things out – things they didn't find all that interesting, perhaps, or that fall outside the particular slant of their narrative.
Since I couldn't afford to travel to England to do research using primary sources (to which access might, in some cases, be exceedingly difficult or impossible, in any case), I found myself quite fond of books drawn from primary sources – Jane Austen's Letters and Chronology of Austen, both edited by Deirdre Le Faye – proved to be a boon, as did The Austen Papers, a collection of family documents that I copied pages from on a field trip to Baltimore.
Le Faye's Chronology was put together using more than just Austen family sources, relying also on diary entries from friends who lived in the same neighborhood as the Austens. The Chronology allowed me to write a poem about the summer that the entire Steventon neighborhood was on alert because of a highwayman in the area, and another about spring flooding that encroached into the Austen's home enough that they had to spend several days abovestairs. It confirmed that Jane's and Cassandra's bedroom in Steventon was blue, based on sales records related to refurbishing the room.
But my favorite bit of research may be the emails that I exchanged with people who had done research or had access to certain of Jane's items. Such as Austen's spectacles, over which I engaged in correspondence with a lovely curator at the British Museum. Turns out nobody had thought to ask (before I did) what sort of prescription was in those eyeglasses. It also turns out that the question cannot be answered without a really expensive investigation, due to insurance issues and such, which the museum can't afford to spring for at the present time. So I couldn't write a poem about her spectacles, and whether they were only reading glasses or were needed all the time due to nearsightedness. I suspect the former, and so do most biographers, who have asserted that they are her reading glasses, but there's no documentation to prove it, so I've left that poem unwritten. And yes, I see the irony here – that my favorite bit of research is one for which I came up empty. But research is sometimes about the journey, and not the destination. And sometimes that journey turns up things you never realized might be possible – like highwaymen. Or floods.
I was pleased and surprised when Jenn asked me to write a guest post – and she asked me to write about research, knowing I did some interesting digging for the Jane project, the biography I wrote of Austen's life. (In verse. Using period forms. Moving on . . . ) Researching a person such as Austen, about whom much has been written and not all that much is known, could have been easy: grab a handful of the better biographies and run with it, right?
Well, maybe. It's not what I did, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there who have done just that. I read no fewer than a dozen general biographies (e.g., Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin) and at least two dozen specialized ones (e.g., Jane Austen & Crime by Susannah Fullerton). And of course I read all six of her completed novels, her uncompleted novels, her novella (Lady Susan), and her Juvenilia, plus her letters. And I read some of the books that I knew she'd read and loved, including poetry, novels and plays. Plus I read books on Georgian and Regency England: customs, housing, manners, travel, costs, servants, etc.
The trouble with biographies is that they don't always provide factual support for their assertions. In fact, in the case of at least one biography that I read (David Nokes's Jane Austen: a life), scenes were manufactured wholesale for which there is no factual corroboration at all. It made me leery of accepting statements made in biographies on their face without further investigation. Also, I found that sometimes biographers leave things out – things they didn't find all that interesting, perhaps, or that fall outside the particular slant of their narrative.
Since I couldn't afford to travel to England to do research using primary sources (to which access might, in some cases, be exceedingly difficult or impossible, in any case), I found myself quite fond of books drawn from primary sources – Jane Austen's Letters and Chronology of Austen, both edited by Deirdre Le Faye – proved to be a boon, as did The Austen Papers, a collection of family documents that I copied pages from on a field trip to Baltimore.
Le Faye's Chronology was put together using more than just Austen family sources, relying also on diary entries from friends who lived in the same neighborhood as the Austens. The Chronology allowed me to write a poem about the summer that the entire Steventon neighborhood was on alert because of a highwayman in the area, and another about spring flooding that encroached into the Austen's home enough that they had to spend several days abovestairs. It confirmed that Jane's and Cassandra's bedroom in Steventon was blue, based on sales records related to refurbishing the room.
But my favorite bit of research may be the emails that I exchanged with people who had done research or had access to certain of Jane's items. Such as Austen's spectacles, over which I engaged in correspondence with a lovely curator at the British Museum. Turns out nobody had thought to ask (before I did) what sort of prescription was in those eyeglasses. It also turns out that the question cannot be answered without a really expensive investigation, due to insurance issues and such, which the museum can't afford to spring for at the present time. So I couldn't write a poem about her spectacles, and whether they were only reading glasses or were needed all the time due to nearsightedness. I suspect the former, and so do most biographers, who have asserted that they are her reading glasses, but there's no documentation to prove it, so I've left that poem unwritten. And yes, I see the irony here – that my favorite bit of research is one for which I came up empty. But research is sometimes about the journey, and not the destination. And sometimes that journey turns up things you never realized might be possible – like highwaymen. Or floods.
April 12, 2011
What's hot, what's not, and what day is it?
When I first started up my online presence, the Place to Be was Myspace. Authors, especially, swore by it. But suddenly, Myspace participation plummeted. Practically overnight, everyone seemed to migrate to Facebook and Twitter.
I really wonder what made Myspace so hot for a while, and then not. I don't think the service changed much during that time--if anything, it probably improved somewhat, as services tend to do over time. Instead, the mass migration onto it and then off again looked to me a lot like other fads--like Rubik's cube, or the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s. It happens in clothing all the time: everyone's wearing pants with skinny legs. No, flared legs. No, cropped legs. No, skinny legs again ...
Sometimes I hear rumblings about Tumblr and wonder if that is going to be the Next Big Thing online, but mostly I wonder why we even need a Next Big Thing. I wonder if we are going to be jumping endlessly from social network to social network, each time uploading all that information all over again, and rearranging our profiles and reassembling our network of friends/followers and scrolling through yet another new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
I stick with blogging because I like it. It's versatile: I can post pictures, video, or polls; I can post text of any length. I'm on Twitter because I found it very easy to jump into, it doesn't take a lot of time, and it's a great way to keep track of breaking news. But The Next Big Thing doesn't interest me. The problem with that sort of sudden raging popularity is that it tends to be short-lived, and now the time from "hot" to "not" seems to be getting ever shorter.* I've even given up in the fashion department, where I now have clothes with and without shoulder pads, and pants with all kinds of legs, and I just wear whatever I want to wear. (So if you see me at an author appearance and wonder why I'm dressed that way--mystery solved!)
What does interest me is the signal that turns a given population toward an object or an activity, and then away from it. Who gives that signal, and how does it spread? Is it our love of novelty that keeps the trends coming ... and going? Who has the energy? Who is it that says, "Let's all buy hula hoops now," and who decides when it's time to roller-blade instead?
Somewhere, a grad student has a thesis on this, I'm sure.
*On March 24, The Onion had a satiric "article" on this: "Time Between Thing Being Amusing, Extremely Irritating Down to 4 Minutes." Excerpt: '"We predict that by 2018, the gap between liking something new and wishing yourself dead rather than hearing it again will be down to 60 seconds ...'"
I really wonder what made Myspace so hot for a while, and then not. I don't think the service changed much during that time--if anything, it probably improved somewhat, as services tend to do over time. Instead, the mass migration onto it and then off again looked to me a lot like other fads--like Rubik's cube, or the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600s. It happens in clothing all the time: everyone's wearing pants with skinny legs. No, flared legs. No, cropped legs. No, skinny legs again ...
Sometimes I hear rumblings about Tumblr and wonder if that is going to be the Next Big Thing online, but mostly I wonder why we even need a Next Big Thing. I wonder if we are going to be jumping endlessly from social network to social network, each time uploading all that information all over again, and rearranging our profiles and reassembling our network of friends/followers and scrolling through yet another new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
I stick with blogging because I like it. It's versatile: I can post pictures, video, or polls; I can post text of any length. I'm on Twitter because I found it very easy to jump into, it doesn't take a lot of time, and it's a great way to keep track of breaking news. But The Next Big Thing doesn't interest me. The problem with that sort of sudden raging popularity is that it tends to be short-lived, and now the time from "hot" to "not" seems to be getting ever shorter.* I've even given up in the fashion department, where I now have clothes with and without shoulder pads, and pants with all kinds of legs, and I just wear whatever I want to wear. (So if you see me at an author appearance and wonder why I'm dressed that way--mystery solved!)
What does interest me is the signal that turns a given population toward an object or an activity, and then away from it. Who gives that signal, and how does it spread? Is it our love of novelty that keeps the trends coming ... and going? Who has the energy? Who is it that says, "Let's all buy hula hoops now," and who decides when it's time to roller-blade instead?
Somewhere, a grad student has a thesis on this, I'm sure.
*On March 24, The Onion had a satiric "article" on this: "Time Between Thing Being Amusing, Extremely Irritating Down to 4 Minutes." Excerpt: '"We predict that by 2018, the gap between liking something new and wishing yourself dead rather than hearing it again will be down to 60 seconds ...'"
April 10, 2011
At times like this, the future looks a little brighter
As a writer and reader of young-adult literature, I get impatient when I hear the stereotype that high-school and college-age people are self-centered, impulsive, short-sighted, and believe they're immortal. As a teen, I was anything but impulsive, nor was I confident that I would live forever. I cared very much about the world's problems, the world's future. And I know there are many, many young people today who do also.
We do see this a little in today's YA literature, though I'd love to see more. The books of Carrie Jones and Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich contain YA characters who volunteer for others. I wrote a book in which one of the main characters worked for several different causes. Sadly, that book had some big flaws that rendered it unpublishable, but I wouldn't be surprised if that character shows up in one of my future books.
What got me thinking about this today was this article from SCA (the Student Conservation Association) about a young man who, while still a college student, began doing conservation work in Yosemite National Park. Appalled by the trash he found there, he formulated a "'crazy idea. I would walk across America and pick up trash. And, I would get other people, 20-something people, to volunteer and help. I wanted to start a big youth movement, really grassroots.'" That "crazy idea" became Pick Up America, where people have been banding together to clean up litter.
For years, SCA has been providing high-school and college-age people with hands-on conservation service opportunities. And all over the world, young people are giving to other causes they care about. For example, Trevor's Campaign for the Homeless came about because an 11-year-old boy was worried about people sleeping on the streets.
We do see this a little in today's YA literature, though I'd love to see more. The books of Carrie Jones and Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich contain YA characters who volunteer for others. I wrote a book in which one of the main characters worked for several different causes. Sadly, that book had some big flaws that rendered it unpublishable, but I wouldn't be surprised if that character shows up in one of my future books.
What got me thinking about this today was this article from SCA (the Student Conservation Association) about a young man who, while still a college student, began doing conservation work in Yosemite National Park. Appalled by the trash he found there, he formulated a "'crazy idea. I would walk across America and pick up trash. And, I would get other people, 20-something people, to volunteer and help. I wanted to start a big youth movement, really grassroots.'" That "crazy idea" became Pick Up America, where people have been banding together to clean up litter.
For years, SCA has been providing high-school and college-age people with hands-on conservation service opportunities. And all over the world, young people are giving to other causes they care about. For example, Trevor's Campaign for the Homeless came about because an 11-year-old boy was worried about people sleeping on the streets.
April 9, 2011
Moments of rest
"I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything ... The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever."--May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Actually, this hasn't been one of those "empty days" for me, writing-wise. I accomplished a fair amount and hope to do more before bedtime.
It was one of those days when the persistent rain made my house seem cozy rather than gloomy, made my daily walk seem refreshing rather than dismal.
It was one of those days where certain upheavals occurred in my personal life, and yet I was able to keep some emotional detachment.
But I like Sarton's reminder that time to breathe is always an option. And if I haven't had such a day, I've had "breather" moments within this day.
Actually, this hasn't been one of those "empty days" for me, writing-wise. I accomplished a fair amount and hope to do more before bedtime.
It was one of those days when the persistent rain made my house seem cozy rather than gloomy, made my daily walk seem refreshing rather than dismal.
It was one of those days where certain upheavals occurred in my personal life, and yet I was able to keep some emotional detachment.
But I like Sarton's reminder that time to breathe is always an option. And if I haven't had such a day, I've had "breather" moments within this day.
April 8, 2011
Not your average love story
This is one of those books that reminds me why I love reading. I fell for this book early on, and held my breath that it would keep delivering all the way to the end. It did.
Emily Horner's YA novel, A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend, is about a girl whose best friend dies suddenly. (I'll note here, just to acknowledge it and get it out of the way, one of the weird coincidences that writers find all the time: there's a girl in the book named Julia who dies in a car accident--elements it has in common with The Secret Year, but that's not why I liked this book). Anyway, the main character decides to bicycle from Chicago to California, the way she'd planned to do with her friend, but her trip doesn't go as intended. Meanwhile, her once-upon-a-time worst enemy is back in her life, and she's trying to find her place among a group of friends who were closer to her late friend than they were to her.
Also, there is a high-school musical called Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad.
Emily Horner handles this story so beautifully: the painful moments and the joyful ones, the scenes in which people hurt one another and the scenes in which they come through for one another. There's a subtlety and a depth in the prose. The dynamic between Cassie (the main character) and Oliver (Julia's boyfriend) is especially interesting, and it's a relationship I haven't seen much in books: two people bonded by love and grief for the same person, yet also rough-edged and competitive at times because of that very love and grief. I also liked that the enemy who becomes something else, Heather, doesn't do an unbelievable about-face into saccharine goodness. Finally, I liked that so many turns of the plot caught me by surprise, and deviated from the well-worn paths of storytelling. Horner uses a pattern that will be familiar to readers of Jennifer Bradbury's Shift: chapters alternating between the present and the near past. But as Bradbury did, she manages to keep both plotlines taut.
And did I mention there's a musical in it called Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad?
source of recommended read: borrowed author's ARC, but now I seriously want to buy my own copy
April 7, 2011
Why publish?
Whenever I read May Sarton's journals, I always end up marking passages that strike a special chord with me, or spark a train of thought. With every reading, the books end up bristling with tiny bookmarks.
Today's quotable quote is this: "Sometimes I long to spend the rest of my life ... making things for people I love--and never to publish again." (from Journal of a Solitude)
This gets to the heart of why many of us write: to make a special connection, to share an idea or observation or experience. Writing for a small community can be very rewarding. Not all writers need to seek wider publication; they find that connection without going through a publisher or venturing into the marketplace.
I do seek wider publication, however. Because unlike May Sarton, I don't have many people in my daily life who are passionate about my kind of writing (in my case, YA contemporary, realistic literature). My husband prefers science fiction, and reads that almost exclusively. My family and most of my friends just have different interests. We do share many interests--politics, hiking, music--but there is this huge part of my life where I must look beyond my inner circle for that connection. In the past few years, I've gotten to know some writers well enough that I now count them as IRL friends. Yet there are dozens of writers and readers I've never met, but with whom I share a special connection through books.
However we find that connection, that's what it's about--for me, anyway.
Today's quotable quote is this: "Sometimes I long to spend the rest of my life ... making things for people I love--and never to publish again." (from Journal of a Solitude)
This gets to the heart of why many of us write: to make a special connection, to share an idea or observation or experience. Writing for a small community can be very rewarding. Not all writers need to seek wider publication; they find that connection without going through a publisher or venturing into the marketplace.
I do seek wider publication, however. Because unlike May Sarton, I don't have many people in my daily life who are passionate about my kind of writing (in my case, YA contemporary, realistic literature). My husband prefers science fiction, and reads that almost exclusively. My family and most of my friends just have different interests. We do share many interests--politics, hiking, music--but there is this huge part of my life where I must look beyond my inner circle for that connection. In the past few years, I've gotten to know some writers well enough that I now count them as IRL friends. Yet there are dozens of writers and readers I've never met, but with whom I share a special connection through books.
However we find that connection, that's what it's about--for me, anyway.
