Alison DeLuca's Blog, page 23

Looking for Mr. GoodBook

I've reached the end of my summertime reads: 1Q84 and The Prospect of My Arrival, The Last Guardian, Sykosa, Losing Beauty, and my final read, Steve Jobs.

This means I need some new books to add to the list, stat. I've hear that Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is excellent, so it goes on the list. I'm going to read The Sons of Roland, a 60's music fictional memoir, and the rest of the Hunger Games Books.

I have heard good things about 11/22/63, and Stephen King is a great fall read. Having one of his huge books on my lap just conjures up images of mulled cider, carved pumpkins, and a crackling fire. Yes, please.

The Age of Miracles sounds pretty cool, and so does Ready Player One, to satisfy my urban fantasy-seeking, sci-fi loving side.

Autumn wouldn't be complete without some steampunk on my list, so I've decided to read The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, by Morris and Ballantine. They are a bit pricy, so I'll add Cypher Lx's Salt Bowl Death to my list as well. At 99 cents, it includes a deadly plague, zombies, action set out west...The sample is terrific.

I love to get my dystopia on, and if I can support an Indie author at the same time, then, yay! Wool looks like a terrific series, so I'm going to read the Omnibus edition.

I am always looking for more books, so please add suggestions in the comments. I love to hear about what you have read and enjoyed!

Blog Flash 2012 - Final thoughts

Here is my final thought - author FAIL. I missed quite a few posts. In my defense, I had some previous commitments to do reviews and such. But still - FAIL.

So, here are the topics I missed, with some thoughts under each:

Different World

There are some books that really bring me into a different place. Fantasies like Harry Potter accomplish this, of course, but it is even more amazing when a realistic book draws me into its little world. For example, Running With Scissors made me feel I lived in that crazy, filthy house with the psychiatrist and his insane family.

A nonfiction piece that pulled me in was Awakenings, by Oliver Sacks. The book became a movie, and it was pretty darn great, but Sacks' clinical imagination is missing. He describes, for example, the wild movements of one patient as being like "Martian cathedrals."


Wild at Heart
Gosh, I'm just so not wild at heart. Some like drama in their lives; I go out of my way to avoid it. For one thing, I'm really bad at drama. Handed a dramatic encounter, I'm certain to make it worse by my conversational flailings. 

No, the lady by the fireplace reading the Oliver Sacks book - that would be me.

Blue
What a strange color. It can be absolutely awful, as that dead blue painted in certain train stations and stairwells. It can be vibrant and shimmering, as the color of the ocean in the southern isles. That sparkling light turquoise - relaxing just to think of it, isn't it?

My daughter loves blue. She was never a pink gal. I think it is part of her constant drive to be different. And bless her, that is awesome at age eight.

Blues that I love: the eyes of one of my very best friends in high school, the dark grey-blue of the Irish sea, the greenish blue of turquoise set in heavy silver, blue veins pulsing under milk-white skin.

History
This was my worst class in high school, and how I regret it now! I WANT to know about the Pelopponesian War, who all the monarchs of England were, the evolution of the Constitution, the opium wars, the Haitian revolution, the rise and fall of the Roman civilization. I need to have a course that gives me an overview of the history of the world, with a fascinating text and an interesting lecturer, please, so I can catch up and be a real person.

Of course I could have accomplished all this in high school, but nooooooo, I was too busy day dreaming. Shame on me.

Masquerade - BlogFlash 2012

Never been to a masquerade, but we used to go to my brother-in-law's Halloween parties every year. This was pre-kid, which meant we actually had time to make costumes. 

One year my boyfriend (now my husband) and I decided to make Potato Head outfits. He would be Mister, and I was Missus.

We began with the actual potato part, which was really easy - just two large beige pieces of felt cut into potato shapes with holes for our heads and hands. Our legs stuck out the bottom.

We decided to make the face pieces removable, so you could actually play with the costumes. So that was the hard part. The nose was the most difficult, and we tackled that first: one styrofoam cone split in half lengthwise was the bridge, and a styro sphere split in half on either side were nostrils. We covered those with skin colored felt and added velcro to the back.

The lips for Missus were more styrofoam. I cut lip shapes out of a styro flat block and covered them with red felt. Mister just needed a mustache, so we glued fun fur to another flat block, cut in half lengthwise. More velcro went on the back.

The eyes were easy - we got four flat ovals and glued on felt shapes, in order: pupils, lids (missus's lids were blue with eyeshadow) and lashes for Missus. Mister needed two smaller versions of his mustache for eyebrows.

Boyfriend cut out ear shapes from another flat styro block and we glued pink felt. Velcro went along the side, and those were the most pain in the butt parts - the ears kept falling off. If I did it again, I'd make the ears flat to the body.

Meanwhile, the opposing strips of Velcro were glued to the felt bodies - the potatoes, as it were. Note how I never picked up a needle during this entire project?

We found two cheapo softie top hats. Missus's was pink; Mister's was black. I cut out holes for our faces and we put them on right over our heads. 

Two pairs of large gardening gloves for our hands and largish shoes, and we were all set. Imagine the joy of all in attendance when they discovered they could PLAY with our costumes.

Damn straight we won the prize. Vive la Masquerade!

Seeing - BlogFlash 2012

I think I was in sixth grade when it suddenly hit me how amazing sight was. I was looking at something very normal, like leaves on a tree, and I thought, "They are green, and the wood is brown. Isn't cool that I can sense that?"

At that point I probably realized I brought the wrong homework or wore two different colored socks. Or whatever. Real life intervened and the wonder of sight drifted away.

Years and years later, I went with my husband to the incredible art museum in Chicago. There was a painting in the Impressionist section of a few boats lying on a pebbly beach near the sea. A few people walked off  in the distance. The sky was a bit dark, and you could just tell a storm was coming.

I don't know why that picture grabbed me so. My husband and friends walked on, and I stayed there, entranced. I could hear the steps of the people as they waked on that stony shore. Their footsteps would crunch on the rocks. There would be a smell of brine and water, and the wind would whip your face with a few drops from the incoming storm.

At that point, sight became more than sight. It was another world.

Sometimes paintings that do that for me. They open a window into an alternate universe and offer something that isn't always pretty - sometimes it is quite ugly - but it is alive. For that moment, it lives, and I experience what the painter saw.

I love that.

In the Weeds - BlogFlash 2012

The actual prompt is supposed to be In the Woods, but alas, I am definitely in the weeds instead. If any of you ever waited tables, then you know that dreaded feeling.
Yeah, she has no clue if this is what you really ordered.
But if you haven't had the pleasure, here's what being in the weeds is like:

You have everything under control. Orders are placed, drinks are served. Out of the blue, a eight top is seated in your section. The crowd is pushy and demanding - they want drinks, then they change their minds. They send back the bread and demand more. They want their appetizers reheated.

At the same time, the other tables still need their orders and drinks, but now it's all starting to wheel out of control. The cook makes a mistake on one plate and it gets sent back. You spill a drink. One person orders hot tea, requiring milk, cup, that fiddly little tea pot, and the huge chest of tea bags.

At that point, it has happened - you are In the Weeds. 

And I fear that is where I am at present, between blogs and edits and books. Believe me, I'd much rather be in the woods.

Dwight Okita, Murakami, and Jellyfish

This summer I've had the pleasure to read both 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and The Prospect of My Arrival by Dwight Okita. The books were very different, and yet there was a similarity to their style - a deceptive simplicity, deepening excitement, addictive prose, and a sense of melancholy and wonder throughout.

1Q84 is a doorstop of a book that originally was published in three volumes in Japan. It is perfect for anyone who is looking for a book for autumn, one that will last through quite a few rainy nights. Murakami writes about a woman, Aomame, and a man, Tengo. They go through separate adventures that interact in Murakami's signature mysterious existentialism.

Aomame gets out of a cab one day and climbs down from the highway into a world that has two moons. There she finds that things are a bit off. The world has shifted. In that  new alternate universe, a beautiful young girl called Fuka-Eri writes about Little People. They appear out of a dead goat's mouth and build an Air Chrysalis. There are two moons, and a Town of Cats.

Meanwhile, Tengo is working to polish and publish the manuscript by Fuka-Eri called Air Chrysalis. There are fascinating minor characters, such as the man who leads a powerful cult, a man that Aomame is contracted to kill. There is Ushikawa, the man hired by the cult to find Aomame.  Each of these characters is more than they appear - they unfold, like origami, into balanced people with depth and emotion. 

I am already a huge Murakami fan; Kafka on the Shore is one of my very favorite books. To be able to spend a summer reading a long novel by him was a real gift. And he didn't disappoint - 1Q84 satisfied my delight in urban fantasy, science fiction, action, and wonderful writing.

The Prospect of My Arrival was a different kind of read. It is much shorter, for one thing. I read the book in a few evenings, although in part that was because I simply could not put it down. Okita uses dreamy prose that is reminiscent of Murakami. He pumps up the volume on the science fiction, as the book is about a scientific and moral experiment.

Prospect is a foetus, a baby about to be born. He is given enhanced intelligence and a twenty-year-old body and sent out into the world to see if he wants to be born.

To help him in his decision, he is sent to visit Referrals. The book is the story of those visits on one level, but there is a thread of other plots connecting those stories. There are people who are against the Pre-Born Project and who want to stop it at all costs. There is also a love story between Prospect and Lito, his second referral. Okita manages both deftly, making the first exciting and the second lovely and touching.

I have read some reviews on Amazon about The Prospect of My Arrival that complain about the spare prose. Okita uses short sentences and simple description, but to my mind it is done very artistically. The book is like a Mondrian painting. It seems very straightforward at first glance, but there is a complex structure and design behind the simple sentences. And those short phrases echo the soul of Prospect who is, after all, a foetus. 

In one scene, Prospect meets his mother in the Shedd Aquarium. They talk about his sister, Joyce, in front of one of the tanks of jellyfish. "As they leave this place, jellyfish descend in slow motion like parachutes onto the bright coral reefs below them." This image is echoed in another Referral's home. "Sheer pink curtains flutter from the open windows of the living room. They move like jellyfish in the summer breeze."

The jellyfish encapsulated the book, to my mind. The words move lazily, dreamily, like underwater creatures, and yet they are mesmerizing. The plot and the prose seem so simple, and at the same time they are lovely and complex.

Can you get excited about the story of a foetus who may or may not decide to be born? Oh, yes indeed you can. As I said, I could not put it down, and I had a very sad feeling when the book ended. Luckily, Okita has other books coming out, such as The Hope Store, and I will certainly be purchasing everything by him.

I read Prospect as a Kindle book. Formatting is an art unto itself, and Okita's format is breathtaking. He includes images and chapter headings that make this a joy to read. However, the story was so amazing that I need to get the print version and beg the author to sign it for me. Okita is a name to be watched on the Indie front.

This review also appears on The Dark Side Book Reviews blog.

Cooking - BlogFlash 2012

It is time to dig up the EZ Bake and start cooking by lightbulb again. My daughter loves the miniscule cakes and tiny cookies.

You can find recipes for the EZ Bake on the web. I mean, you can actually cook from scratch by a lightbulb. We've made cheese quesadillas and pizza, as well as Pink Velvet Cake and other desserts with real flour and butter, not mix from a bag.

I'm fascinated with alternate ways to cook food. My husband and I once went to aKorean restaurant. One dish was served in a hat stone bowl; the food continued to cook in the bowl as he ate. He said it was one of his best meals ever.

I found one recipe for Bidimbap, which is stone pot food, courtesy of the Food Network. You can see it here.

Of course, you can always cook a hotdog or make toast by a lamp, but there are cool ways of alternate cooking. There are fire pits for clambakes and huge iron pits for roast pig. 

I want to try them all.

Night - BlogFlash 2012

Night, and the people who prefer the dark come out of hiding. Musicians wake up, stretch, shower, and prepare to go to a gig. Clubbers put  on their glitziest clothes and head to the city. 
Late night workers arrive at their jobs. Cleaners come into buildings deserted hours  ago and get rid of trash, scrub away the filth of the day. They dust shelves, swipe at desks ... maybe they read the note that one worker left by mistake in the corner of her desk. 

Others emerge as well, from hidden corners and secret attics. They climb onto gutters and pipes, steady themselves for a moment, and launch their dark bodies from rooftops.
Perhaps they fly to spay on the Others, the ones who live by day. The dark ones, the night-dwellers, cling to windowsills and peer in at the sleepers. They wonder what the Day People dream about.
Maybe they have a regret or two, or else they accept it as the way things are. The night dwellers watch a bit longer until the Day People stir and turn over. 
At that, the Dark Ones rise, and fly away again, until dawn's streaky bacon chases them back to their hiding holes, their prisons.

Sports - BlogFlash 2012, Day "I'm confused and behind on my posts"

I'm blogging this month with Terri Long and a group of bloggers. 

(Prepare for whining disclaimer here)

I have missed a few days because I am preparing to get THREE books up on Amazon. So, yeah. I'm behind.

And, coincidentally, that's the perfect position for me in a blog about sports. I'm a really bad athlete, so when I was forced to play sports in the past, or when I do athletic stuff now, I'm waaaayyy behind everyone else. 

Fistbump to my readers who picked up on what I just did there.

For example, when I went on my honeymoon my new husband and I met three other couples. We hung out and did couple stuff, like mini golf. And guess who came in dead last in that golf game?

However, when the resort threw a song-writing competition, I was able to contribute. Writing? Lyrics? On a set topic? Yup, I could do that. And win. Ha!

I've been thinking that it would be really cool if there were sports teams for people like me - hopelessly bad athletes who would still like to learn the game. We'd need a patient coach, someone who would teach slow, clueless adults how to play softball and soccer. 

And, coach, it would be sweet if you give us a chance to write about it. We'll rock that part.

Hootsuite and Tweetdeck - Those Damn Birds

Yesterday I read a post from a publishing blogger that I really admire. In her blog, she talked about how tired she was of reading a stream of spam, especially in a place she had created on Twitter for writers to meet and greet and help each other.

She really was upset about tweets sent via TweetDeck and Hootsuite. If you don't know these apps, these are services that let you schedule tweets in advance, for weeks at a time, to go out over the waves.

Writers, myself included, are guilty of sending out loads of prepackaged tweets, hoping to garner new readers with our perfects composed tweets.

Now, this blogger, who I completely admire, said that doing this is like stating, "I am going to send you content, but I don't care what your response is. Because I am not here at this time; a bot is sending out my tweets."

And she's right. If you hop on Twitter, there are tweets after tweets that are nothing by links to where to buy a book.

Does that mean, though, that Tweetdeck is completely useless?

For one thing, the service can help me read my tweets. I can sort incoming messages by subjects I'm interested in (books, publishing, parenthood, steampunk) so I can read what people have to say. 

But I also believe that there is a way to schedule tweets and do so without losing our personalities in the process.

Don't hate me just yet - read on.

First, I schedule tweets for readers who are in different time zones than I am. My tweet to someone in Australia might not get picked up if I send it now, but if I schedule it for 2AM there's a better chance they'll see it. 

Heck, I can contact regular people this way too. They say the best time to send stuff is from 10 pm - 11 pm. Guess what? I'm hormonal - I'm asleep by then. I need to schedule.

HOWEVER, my blogger mentor / muse is right. If I simply schedule spam for those times, then I am guilty of being a bot. 
Don't be that guy.
I think that as I schedule posts, I need to include humanity. Instead of a mere link to my book, I need to have a question or a quote - something that includes my Twitter followers and starts a conversation.

And guess what? If they answer my question, I NEED TO RESPOND.  I must do this to prove that I'm not a bot, to make a friend, to be human, for crying out loud.

As well, I must go and read the main stream on Twitter. I've had a lot of people tell me that they have too many Twitter followers to look at the stream. They only look at the interactions page (tweets specifically directed to them.)

I was doing this for a while too, and while I did so, my head jammed in my inbox, my spammy pigheaded bot self send out tweets to the general public with book links. (Confession is good for the soul.)

Well, if we all did this, no one would read our tweets. We'd all be sending out links and checking our own mail, not heeding what other people were saying to the Twitterverse.

So I decided to jump back into the main stream. Now, I read general tweets again. I laugh at some, retweet others, and guess what? There are some tweets out there from writers that make me buy books.

This said, there are those (such as my wonderful publishing mentor) who have specifically requested not to receive book links on their group hashtags. I must, as a human and not a bot, honor that request and only send out links to those who actually want to see them.

My tweets in the past have garnered me readers. I've had responses of, "Thanks so much for telling me about your book! I'm reading it now."

Still, as I said before, my muse has a great point. I must shed the bot and up my humanity game, if I want to hoot my deck, that is.